Dave Golden, who lived most of his life in the village and who has completed extensive research over the years about Churchville's history, contributed most of the historical information provided in this article. I sat down with him in March, 2026 at his home in Bath, Ontario. Dave's extensive collection of historical pictures and items, and his own writing, was wonderful to see and learn about and a huge debt of gratitude must be extended to him for his commitment to preserving Churchville's history.

April 26th, 2026
D. Rollings and David Golden

During its earliest years, Churchville was served by two general stores: Erastus Wiman’s store, which was built next to Church’s Mills and is still standing at 7772 Churchville Road, and Howland’s Store, which was owned by Peleg and William P. Howland. The location of Howland’s store remains open to debate. The Howland brothers also owned a store in Cooksville, and William P. was eventually knighted and climbed to the very pinnacle of Upper Canadian politics, becoming Ontario’s second Lieutenant Governor from 1868-1873. Although a number of sources indicate that they had a store in the early settlement, there is no record of them owning land in Churchville. 

Various general store owners operated in the tiny village throughout the 19th century, with three being open simultaneously at several points.  When Eli and Sophia Hymen purchased 7772 Churchville Road in 1875, Eli’s mental health troubles made it very difficult to maintain the store and the community soon lost an important resource. Other businesses along the main street stepped in to fill the void, including Thomas & John Maines, Thomas Clifford and Matthias Ingram, who also owned Church’s Mills. On December 20th, 1872, Ingram’s “large general store” in the village burned down in a suspicious manner, following the fate of his mills eight years before. 

Thomas Aymer and Susan Street Fogarty, grand daughter of Timothy Street, purchased Lot 36 (7736 Churchville Road) on May 5th, 1859 from George Leslie for $400. The shop on the lot was used for building and repairing wagons and wagon wheels, and was situated right next to the village’s blacksmith shop. Later, when Eli Hymen’s store closed permanently and fire had destroyed Ingram’s store, Fogarty decided to convert the wagon shop into a store in order to provide a much-needed service to the greater community. 

It is unclear what year the addition was added to the front of the wagon shop, but this marked the building’s transition to a general store. It may have been just prior to 1880, as records of other store owners in the community seem to end at this time and T.A. Fogarty was named Post Master. The Post Office, which opened in 1836 and moved between various business buildings along the main street, remained in Fogarty’s store until the service was discontinued in 1919.

In 1897 local barrister George Murray, who built the home at 7895 Creditview Road, filed a complaint to the Postmaster Inspectors’ Office in Toronto about the poor repair of the store and Fogarty’s general behaviour. An investigation found that the store was in good shape, though obviously prone to flooding. The report did not comment on Fogarty’s behaviour.

T.A. and Susan Fogarty ultimately owned several properties in the village in their lifetimes. In their first years they lived in the store building, but eventually they purchased a lovely home situated at 7646 Creditview Road, where the Riccio house now stands. They lived there, raising eight children while still operating the store across the river.

T.A. Fogarty also owned land on the south side of the river, opposite the store property, and seems to have owned the land on the east side of Creditview, which he called The Meadow, as well. This is a bit confusing to sort out, as his will appears to be describing the land that Richard Pointer’s tannery stood on. He died on August 16th, 1909. In his will he granted Lot 36, the store and the its contents to his daughter:

“To my daughter Charlotte Fogarty I give my shop, store and all its contents. Also the land on

which the building stands. The lot is on the South Corner of Lot 15 in the third Concession West of Hurontario Street, Toronto Township.”

Charlotte, or Lottie Fogarty, then ran the store for many years. During her time owning the store, she changed the sign out front to C.L. Fogarty Groceries, Churchville.  Lottie was a modest and religious woman who lived alone for most of her life. She ran the store for 35 years and the gas pump was installed during this time. 

On September 5th, 1945, between 1:00 and 2:00 in the morning, two men robbed the store. They cut the telephone line behind the building and began cutting the screen in the door when Lottie was awoken. She went downstairs to see what was the matter and spoke to the two men through the door. At first they asked her to sell them gasoline, but she refused. They began demanding to be let in and then appeared to leave. Lottie tried to call the police, but found the line dead. She was abruptly grabbed from behind and forced to take the men around the home, giving them cash that she had stowed away. Once they had $200 in cash and $8000 in non-negotiable bonds, they tied her up and left her in the store, grabbing the store’s cigarette supply on the way out. The trauma of this event convinced Lottie that it was time to give up the store and retire. 

Lottie asked her nephew Lloyd Golden and his wife Billie Hammond Golden to move in with her  and take over the store. The family, with young son David in tow, made the move from a brand new home in Weston out to Churchville and settled in. It wasn’t an easy transition. Lloyd had been promoted to foreman on a production floor at Viceroy Rubber Manufacturing on Dupont Street in Toronto and decided to keep this job while Billie took responsibility for the daily operation of the store. The commute was difficult; especially at first, as the Goldens didn’t have a car. Lloyd initially hitched a ride with a neighbor, but eventually an older friend sold them his 1930 Ford Model A. Each day, Lloyd would drive down Creditview to Derry, then over to Highway Ten, south to Dundas in Cooksville and then straight east into Toronto.

Lloyd’s drive home usually involved making stops to pick up items for the store, including at Presswood Brothers pork processing plant and at the Cooksville Dairy. Eventually the dairy would begin delivering directly to the store twice a week. 

York Trading Company, based at 75 Sherbourne Street in Toronto, was another business that visited the store each week. Their salesman typically arriving on Tuesday or Wednesday. He would often have a coffee with Billie to discuss the weeks’ order, which he delivered on Fridays. Billie’s mother Maria Hammond, who lived in the home that stood between the Burtons and the firehall, would join her daughter to assist with unpacking all of the groceries that the York Trading Company delivered each week. The York Trading Company was a cooperative designed to provide reasonably-priced wholesale goods to small, independant grocers around Southern Ontario at that time. 

During Hurricane Hazel in the Autumn of 1954, the truck that delivered meat to the store became trapped trying to climb Raine’s Hill. The driver offered free meat to everyone who helped him to escape the predicament.

The store featured a gas pump for much of its 20th century existence, located at first in front of the building, then eventually relocated to the north side of the property, by the garage. Many of our older readers may remember the prominent Esso sign that hung for a while at the store. Customers looking for fuel would tap on the window of the store to request that the pump be turned on, then they  would serve themselves.

Once the firehall was established in Ollie Burton’s old garage, the store was one of the three homes in the village to be granted an Emergency Fire Telephone. A siren was located atop the store, which Lloyd would turn on to announce to the volunteer firefighters in the village that they were needed at the hall. 

The store maintained an interesting relationship with the Pengilley’s farm. A significant amount of labour was required to pick the Pengilley’s apples and strawberries each year, so they would arrange to hire people from the Six Nations near Brantford. The Pengilley’s paid their employees with tags. The workers would walk down to the store in the village to buy their groceries with the amount on the tags. The Pengilleys would buy the tags back from the store later. 

Lloyd and Billie had a number of employees over the years who helped keep the store. Lois Wilson, daughter of Ken and Audrey, worked on Fridays after school and some Saturdays. Lottie and Bob Richardson (depicted in the picture above) lived in the little cottage next store, which had been built on the site of the village’s former blacksmith shop. The Richardsons immigrated from Scotland to work on the Hall family’s farm on Hallstone Road. When their tenure at the farm was completed, Lloyd and Billie had rented them the Golden family’s cottage down across from the Rea’s home. 

       Lloyd and Billie decided to close the store in 1967. The Brampton Mall, on Main Street South, had opened in 1960, anchored by a Steinberg’s grocery store and Shopper’s World, located even closer to the village, was only two years away from opening. It was becoming increasingly difficult to serve the needs of Churchville with shopping malls providing locals with a much larger selection of groceries and items for their homes. They chose July 1st, the date of Canada’s Centennial celebration, as their final day of operations. 

After Lloyd and Billie closed the store, they undertook a large number of renovations in order to repurpose the store for residential purposes and to update the structure. The front porch was eventually enclosed. It was discovered that there was no insulation across the front of the building on the second floor. During this process the family discovered a piece of wood hidden in the wall, likely a part of a box, that was used to deliver goods to the store for T.A. Fogarty, many years before.

Years later, a teacher who had written a book about the histories of Churchville and Meadowvale visited the store to look at the many historic collectibles that the family had accumulated over the years. The teacher was involved in planning a local history display at the Peel Archives and Museum in downtown Brampton. One of the historic items that the Golden family lent to the display was the Churchville Post Office cancellation stamp. Sadly, this was stolen from the display, never to be seen again. This incident was very upsetting for Lloyd, Billie and David, particularly as they felt that very little effort was made on behalf of the museum to recover the priceless item. You can see the stamp  below. The use of UC (Upper Canada) indicates that it predates confederation, and so survived the three or four times that the post office moved locations and possibly the 1864 fire, when J & J Maines’ General Store and Post Office burned down in the village.