October 9th, 2024
D. Rollings

“The village of Churchville, named after Mr. Orange Church, one of the first settlers, is also situated on the Credit River which is here an excellent stream. The village had 150 inhabitants. Two grist mills, with four run of stones in each, and a saw mill. There is also a tannery, a temperance hall and a Methodist Church”

        In  1850 Mr. James McLaughlin sent the above letter  to Mrs. A. McColl in Inglewood, Caledon, describing the state of the village as it approached its 30th year. The first generation of settlers was mostly long gone by then, but the economy was booming and the future still seemed very bright for Churchville. Mr. McLaughlin listed several of the more important features of the village, including the Temperance Hall, but omits the two hotels, stores, school and distillery. What exactly was the Temperance Hall, and why did Mr. McLaughlin feel the need to mention it?

          Throughout the 19th century, Churchville actually boasted a number of temperance societies. These organisations typically consisted of like-minded men who gathered to push back against the influence of alcoholism in the community. In Churchville, as elsewhere in Upper Canada, the societies were closely tied to the local Methodist churches, who already promoted abstinence from drink. An import from the U.S., the first Sons of Temperance lodges in (what would become) Canada were established in Nova Scotia and Montreal in 1828, but by 1832 there were over 100 in Upper Canada alone.  By 1843 there were 386 lodges with over 60,000 members in Upper Canada.

          Churchville, as a relatively isolated community situated near the edge of society, surrounded by forest and inhabited by seasonal labourers who were mostly employed by the mills, would have been a place where the social ills of alcoholism were on regular display. In 1830 the Miner family, who came from the same part of Vermont as the Church family, set up a distillery on the grounds of Church’s grist mill. The Miners sold their whiskey for 20 cents a gallon, and it was reported to be especially good. Orange Church’s hotel at 7767 Churchville Road featured a tavern right up until it closed during WW1, and would have likely provided a convenient place to sell the locally-sourced spirits (Indeed, Orange married Harriet Miner when his first wife died. Together they built and lived in 7573 Creditview Road). When the Howlands set up their large general store in the village in 1852 they introduced a second distillery into the community, which at that time only boasted a permanent population of around 250 people. 

        Whiskey was blamed for drunken, disorderly behaviour in the devoutly Methodist village. Violence, unemployment and the abandonment of societal and parental responsibilities were a major concern, especially during the idle, isolated winter months.  Beer and wine, when consumed in moderation, were not seen as problematic in the manner that spirits were, which may seem strange to our modern perspective. Alcohol abuse was enough of a problem in the first decade of the village’s existence that the leaders from Churchville’s Methodist Episcopal church established their own Temperance Society on February 3rd, 1830, under the leadership of Hall family patriarch and brother-in-law to Amaziah Church, Asa Hall.

As reported in The Christian Guardian, the new Society consisted of:

President: Asa Hall Sr.

Vice-President: Elijah Knox

Secretary: Francis House

Treasurer: Theodore Turley

Executive Committee:
Wesley Hall
Robert Jayne
Eliphalet Bailey
John Allison
Stewart Grafton

        The group likely met either at the Hall homestead (their brick home on Hallstone Rd wouldn’t be built for another 20 years, however) or at the Wesleyan church. They planned to hold their annual general meeting each year on the first Thursday in February.

       Generally speaking, early Temperance Societies were not intended to help alcoholics kick their habit, as it were, but to serve a place where like-minded non-drinkers could gather socially. They may have organised picnics, concerts, suppers and fun, alcohol-free social events, or served to educate young people on whiskey’s negative impact on the community. The Sons of Temperance Book of Laws explains this by stating: “We have found it far easier and far more effectual to throw safeguards around the innocent than to extricate men who have once fallen into the pitfall of intemperance, or to preserve them afterwards from a relapse.”

        The Churchville Society must have proven a success in the village, as an annual report for the Society was again published six years later. 

“State of the Society, February 4th, 1836:

Strength: 71
Removed: 12
Withdrawn: 1
Expelled: 2

Joined: 10
Total remaining: 66”

        The report was written by Casper H. Hooker, who may have replaced Francis House as secretary. Though it is unclear what his profession was, Hooker was literate, which would have been relatively unusual in an isolated community like Churchville. he may have been a clerk for a store, or for one of the mills. Rhoda Stoyell-Church left him land in her will. He and his young family left the village for New York City in 1840. 

         At some point in the early 1840s, the locally-developed Churchville Temperance Society was replaced by a much more structured and regular Sons of Temperance lodge. The Sons of Temperance were a friendly society, organised in a very similar manner to Freemasonry. Although it was not explicitly a fraternity, there are only a few recorded examples of lodges initiating females as members in its early years, and no mention of it happening in Churchville. Founded in New York State, the society was introduced to Upper Canada by Scottish-Canadian Baptist preacher Robert Dick, who joined while attending seminary in the US. Dick and his brother founded 60 lodges in the Toronto area. 

       Meadowvale, with two taverns, also had a unit. Churchville’s unit was noted several times throughout the 1850s as having an especially large and active membership. On May 14th, 1851, a subset of the Sons of Temperance, called the Cadets of Temperance, was created in the village for local youths. Granted the name Churchville Section No. 65, it initially claimed 25 members in good standing, though the organisers reported facing “much opposition” in its early days.

       In November 1852, Mr. Richard Pointer, local tanner, church elder,postmaster and Trustee of the Churchville Cemetery is listed as being a local agent for the Canada Temperance Advocate magazine.

      The Sons of Temperance practised a ritual which will seem very familiar to any Freemasons reading this article. With three degrees of membership (more, if a member was willing to travel to special lodges in the U.S.), it incorporated biblical references, obligations and secret modes of recognition (i.e., grips, words and tokens). The Sons of Temperance was heavily influenced by the Craft. Officers wore regalia, including collars and sometimes aprons. The room was set up in a similar manner to a Masonic Lodge, as you can see in the photo below, depicting a Sons of Temperance room in Maine:

      The master of the lodge was titled Worthy Patron and the secretary was given the title Worthy Scribe. Officers who served at the level of Grand Lodge were given the title Grand, as in Grand Worthy Patron, or Grand Worthy Scribe. Membership required a $2 initiation fee, which was prohibitive for many people, being as much as many people made over a period of several days. A portion of the fee was put towards a life insurance system (hence the “friendly society” title) that paid $30 on the death of a member. Dues worked out to about six cents a week. In order to be considered for membership, a candidate would apply, be investigated, recommended balloted upon and then initiated. Members could be expelled from the order for displaying character that contradicts the tenets of the society. The lodge would typically meet once a month except in July and August.

        The ritual associated with the new organisation made it preferable to have a purpose-built building. In Churchville the Temperance Hall was initially situated almost exactly where the white frame church (Churchville United Church) stands today, on Lot 6. It may have replaced the original frame school building located there, or taken over the school building when Churchville Public School moved out to its ultimate location along Baseline / Steeles Avenue. The Temperance Hall served as a sort of town hall, used for local meetings and celebrations. 

       An example of the building serving as a makeshift community centre was recorded there in March, 1878, when Thomas Reeve, an eleven-year old student at the village school who lived in Whitehall, was presented with a Bible by his teacher at the Sons of Temperance Hall for running into the Credit River to save a young child from the Ingram family who had fallen in. He was lauded that night as a hero by the Churchville community. 

      Local blacksmith and church elder William Hardy came into possession of this land in the 1870s and sold it to the Trustees of the Church for $100 “in trust for the use of the Temperance Society, and for the use of a Sabbath school and for Public Meetings of a moral and social character”. In 1912, after the unification of the Methodist congregations it was decided to relocate the white frame church from its original location across the road to the spot where the Temperance Hall stood. The Temperance Hall was moved further back onto the property and became a “church shed”. 

      In October, 1883, another Temperance society was established in Churchville: The International Order of Good Templars lodge. The Churchville unit, called Polar Star Lodge No. 620 was registered, with Mr. H. Baskerville as Worshipful Master, but I haven’t been able to locate much information about how this new group was established in the village. A similar group existed in Snelgrove at that time and there was some interaction between the two lodges. The IOGT lodge may have also met at the Temperance Hall in the village, or perhaps replaced the Sons of Temperance altogether, as the two groups were closely connected. We know that the Temperance Hall in Churchville was still active in 1900, as the Dominion Cattle, Sheep and Swine Breeders’ Association met there on January 15th; likely at the invitation of the Smith brothers, who had purchased the tannery and converted it into a dairy and beef farm (on the land now occupied by Creditview Stables).

         Temperance groups in Canada were powerful advocates and in 1916 the Ontario government passed the Ontario Temperance Act; enacted on September 16th of that year. This was justified as being a war measure and coincided closely with the final closure of the last hotel and tavern in the village. The ultimate fate of the Churchville lodges is still unknown, and the actual Temperance Hall building was likely finally demolished when the brick United Church was demolished in 1950. Adding the Sunday School to the rear of the frame church would have required the removal of the “Church Shed”.

       So what did the Sons of Temperance actually do at their meetings?

         In a manner similar to Masonic meetings, the Sons of Temperance met in private, opened lodge, conducted business, received reports from committees etc. and balloted on candidates. There may have been an educational program delivered, or perhaps a disciplinary proceeding against a member. They likely conducted initiations and degrees at every meeting. New officers may have been installed each year at a special ceremony. 

There were three degrees that could be achieved in a regular lodge, although it was possible to receive higher degrees from associated bodies in New York. The secrets of each degree were kept separate and secret, and each consisted of the candidate reciting an obligation which included swearing not to “make, buy, sell, nor use, as a beverage,any spirituous, or malt liquors, wine or cider. You will not only abstain from their use, as a  beverage, yourself, but you will at all proper times and places discourage their use by another, or the traffic therein.” 
In the second degree it is added that the member will use every lawful means in his power to banish them forever from society.

The three degrees were:

1: The Initiation or “Love Degree”, which taught about the bonds of love and mutual support that unite members of the lodge.

2.  The “Purity Degree”, which taught about the moral conduct expected of members, including abstaining from vices (including use of foul language) and refraining from interacting with those whose conduct would be considered impure by the lodge. 

3.  The “Fidelity Degree” taught the necessity of loyalty to the lodge and greater temperance movement. It taught that it is only through united efforts that the evils of intemperance can be overcome.