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Updated: July 28, 2026
D. Rollings
Samuel Church, Jr. (Dec 18, 1737- Feb 25, 1804) and Rhoda Bush (Dec 15, 1741- Dec 30 1819) were both born in Sheffield, Berkshire Co., Massachusetts Bay Colony. They were married on August 6th, 1761, and had their first child, Orpha Church, in 1763. Samuel was 26 and Rhoda was 20. In all, they had eleven children: Orpha, Amaziah, Ephraim, Sarah, Olive, Daniel, Mary ("Polly"), Rhoda Ann, Huldah, John and Lucinda. Huldah and John were twins. The 1790 Census lists the family in Milton, Vermont, with two “Free White Males” over 16 years old (Samuel and Amaziah), one “Free White Male” under 16 (Ephraim) and six Free White Females (likely Azubah, Sarah, Olive, Huldah, Rhody and Mary. You can read an explanation of the terminology used in the 1790 US Census here.
Samuel may have owned the first paper mill in Sheffield, in an area called South Lee. Samuel served as a Private in the militia in the Revolutionary War, alongside his 15 year old son Amaziah and Ephraim Blackman, whose son married Samuel’s first daughter Orpha. They all served in Lemuel Hyde’s Company of Militia, in Colonel Webster’s Regiment. Lemuel Hyde’s son Heman married Samuel’s daughter Mary ("Polly"), and they migrated to Streetsville Ontario, where they became wealthy running the Reciprocity Hotel and the Ontario Mills. Heman and Mary’s property in Streetsville was located near the corner of Mississauga Road and Ontario Street. The Reciprocity Hotel was a meeting place for Reformers in the 1830s. Later in life, Mary was known affectionately in the Streetsville community as Mother Hyde.
During the War for Independence Samuel and Rhody moved their family from Sheffield Massachusetts to Milton, in the new territory / state of Vermont. Amaziah married Azubah (Zuba) Nichols, from Williamstown, Berkshire County, Massachusetts Colony, around 1790. It is believed that they operated a mill on Mallet's Creek. This new home on Lake Champlain was only a short journey south of the border with Lower Canada (Quebec).
Around 1796, several of Samuel and Rhoda’s offspring and neighbors migrated north to seek their fortunes in the vicinity of Hawkesbury, LaChute, St. Andre de Argentuile and Carillon. Amaziah and his brother-in-law, Dr. Abner (or Aner) Matthews, under the leadership of Colonel William Fortune, swore an oath of allegiance to the Queen in 1798 along with a group of American immigrants, and received a grant of 200 acres in Hawkesbury (on the south side of the Ottawa River).
Amaziah and Zuba lived in and around the Ottawa River for about fifteen years, and all five of their children were born by the time that they left Hawkesbury. Amaziah is next noted as living on the flats of the Credit River, operating a rudimentary saw mill in the near wilderness. His wife Zuba is never mentioned in any historical documents beyond records of their marriage, and her fate is unknown. Amaziah may have moved out to settle in the wilderness because of the predominant anti-American sentiment that was commonly directed at Late Loyalists in the early 19th Century. It is likely that he traveled to Port Credit, where he must have set out along ancient indigenous trails north along the banks of the river. The stories of he and his sons forging a path up the Credit while dragging their millstones until he reached the flats feel like the stuff of colonial-era legends.
What we do know for certain is that in summer 1820 his son, Orange Church, leased a Clergy Reserve lot at Lot 12, 5th Concession West of Hurontario. In the image to the right, you can see Orange's 200 acres highlighted in the bottom centre, and the site of Church's Mills highlighted near the top. Interestingly, Orange listed a John Church as a reference in his application to the Crown.
The New Survey was conducted by Timothy Street & Richard Bristol in 1819. The surveying team's logs relating to that area do not contain any references to human habitation in the Churchville area, which casts doubt on the commonly accepted theory that the community was founded in 1815. This particular belief might be traced to Timothy Street who, in his 1822 testimony to the government’s Select Committee on Dams, mentioned that Church’s Mills had been established “four or five” years before. If accurate, that would have made them the oldest on the Credit River in the New Survey. You can read more about this matter in this article, about the 1819 survey of Toronto Township.
The Crown granted the northern section of what would become Churchville (Lot 15, 3rd Concession West of Hurontario) to Mr. Andrew Scott, a member of the Beatty Caravan of Wesleyan Methodist settlers. You can see a copy of his original grant in the image to the right. If Amaziah was already living on the lot, they may have found common ground through their shared devotion to Methodism. Scott only held the land for three months before selling it to the leader of the Beatty Caravan (and founder of both Meadowvale village and Victoria University), Rev. John Beatty. He then sold it to Dr. Thomas Stoyell. As the two sales occurred on the same day (Oct 12, 1822), it may be that Andrew Scott was not living in the vicinity and that Beatty was acting as an intermediary on his behalf. Stoyell had married widow Rhoda Church Mathews, Amaziah's younger sister, only nine days earlier. These land transactions were not officially reported to the government until February 12, 1831.
Dr. Thomas Stoyell and his wife Rhody Church Matthews Stoyell played significant roles in the establishment of the community of Church's Mills, later called Churchville when the first Post Office opened on November 9th, 1836.
Dr. Stoyell (sometimes called Stolly and Stoyles) was born in Genessee County, New York in 1760. He was trained as a medical doctor, but never practiced. He moved to York / Toronto in 1799. Stoyell was a widower and prominent citizen, and became very involved in the politics of the small town. He owned and operated one of the first breweries and a hotel in York. Because it was illegal for Methodists to conduct marriages, Bishop Strachan himself married he and Rhoda Ann (Church) Matthews in St. James Cathedral on October 3rd, 1822. Rhoda Ann's first husband, Dr. Aner Mathews, had died in 1817, leaving her with their seven children.
Records are unclear about how much time Thomas and Rhoda Ann actually spent in Churchville, as they seem to have continued being active in Methodist Episcopalian church life in Toronto / York after their marriage. Thomas also owned land in Richmond Hill. It is likely that they built Whitehall, the home which is still overlooks the village at 7825 Churchville Road. They may have been drawn to the isolated area of northwestern Toronto Township by a desire to reunite with family, land speculation and the increasing anti-American sentiment that permeated Upper Canada following American invasion of the town in April 1813. Stoyell, who had publicly vowed never to take up arms against his fellow Americans, had become persona non grata in Toronto / York.
Rhoda's nephew Orange Church was already leasing a Clergy Reserve lot west of Meadowvale, and her sisters Orpha Blackman and Mary (Polly) Hyde settled in Streetsville around the same time.
Whitehall, which still stands today at 7825 Churchville Rd.
7767 Churchville Road, originally a tavern / hotel built and operated by Orange Church and his wife Susan (nee Ferand)
Thomas and Rhoda Ann subdivided their new land, creating the basic streetscape that still exists in downtown Churchville. Reserving 95 acres (including the mill) for themselves, they sold off 5 acres worth of properties between the bridge and the bottom of Raine's Hill. These lots were developed by Casper H. Hooker, Erastus Wiman Sr., who built a home and general store at 7772 Churchville Road (still standing), nephew Orange Church, who built the hotel / tavern at 7767 Churchville Rd and is known to have built and operated the large grist mill on the river, Isaiah Bennett, a blacksmith who lived at 7777 Churchville Road (still standing), Henry Trickey, and Rhoda's sons Cassius Matthews and Aner Matthews Jr.
We have definiteive proof that Amaziah Church was operating a mill in the village in 1827, as he petitioned the government intervene in a conflict betwee he and his neighbors the Densmores regarding rights to the land on the flats north of Steeles Avenue. In the petition he complained that he could not feasibly run his mill unless he could lease and flood that land. The government refused to intervene in the situation.
In April 1830, Dr. Stoyell published an ad in the Christian Guardian, giving us special insight into Churchville's progress over the previous eight years. About 40 of the Stoyell's 95 acres had been cleared. Their property contained nearly-new grist and saw mills. There were five cottages and a large shed on the property, as well as a stable and outhouses. In the community down in the valley, between the bottom of the hill and the bridge, there was a carding machine, a fulling mill, a schoolhouse, a site for a meeting house (church) and a "number of other buildings."
Amaziah Church died on September 7th 1831 at 66 years of age. The cause of death is unknown. His memorial states that “friends and physicians could not save my mortal body from the grave”, a popular inscription for grave markers at the time. The grave was made from white pine and was carefully preserved for well over 175 years, having been replaced only a handful of times. In recent years the Churchville Cemetery had it replaced with a granite marker, carefully modeled after the original.
Dr. Stoyell died in 1832 and Rhoda Ann died in 1835. All are buried in the cemetery which is located near the northern boundary of the property and the Township. Thomas left all of his personal wealth to the Methodist Episcopalian church, triggering unexpected legal issues with the government in Toronto. These weren't resolved for a number of years.
Like his aunt Mary and Uncle Heman Hyde downriver in Streetsville, Orange Church was very connected to the Reform movement, and in the summer of 1836 he invited William Lyon Mackenzie to speak before a political rally on the second floor of Church’s Mills. A famous riot broke out that night as the meeting was crashed by local armed Orangemen and Torys, leading to Mackenzie’s flight across the river to safety. You can read about this incident, known as the Churchville Affray, here. A similar incident had taken place at Hyde’s Mill and hotel in Streetsville earlier that summer. You can read more about that in this article.
Intriguingly, when Rhoda Ann died she granted the 95 acres on which the mills and Whitehall stood to William Law and his wife Jane (nee Silverthorn). They were the local leaders of the new Mormon congregation. Despite being a devout Methodist her entire life, Rhoda Ann may have been a member of the new congregation. Before he left to join the rest of the LDS population in the U.S., Law was known as a miller and early postmaster for Churchville, so it is unclear what formal connection Orange Church had to the mills that he was known to be operating in 1837. Perhaps Orange leased them, or operated them on Law's behalf. Regardless, the business that was known at one point as Church’s Mills passed through several hands until they were purchased by Mathias Ingram who closed them permanently in early 1864. They burned down later that year, and news articles from the time insinuate that foul play was suspected. Today no sign of the large three-story grist mill or its accompanying saw mill and distillery are visible on the banks of the Credit.
The creation of the Lower Road (the western branch of Creditview Road that turns off from the South side of the bridge) in 1912 meant that traffic no longer passed the mill while entering and exiting the village from the North. By the time that the Credit River was realigned by the Credit Valley Conservation Authority post-Hurricane Hazel in 1954, any remaining signs of the existence of the mills and associated distillery had been destroyed by annual flooding or were long buried under the flats. In the 1980s, access to the former Mill Street, which lead from the bottom of Raines Hill West, to the site of the Mill and distillery, was closed off by construction of the flood berm and Mill Pond Street, which led from Whitehall down to the Mill seat, was transferred to private ownership.
Strangely, a number of online sources note that Amaziah Church was working at an inn in Market Square, near St. Lawrence Market in Toronto near the end of his life. While possible, it is difficult to imagine the 64 year-old Amaziah leaving the community in northwest Toronto Township to take up work in the heart of the growing town. This may be a case of mistaken identity. Amaziah's grandson, also named Amaziah Church, was born in Churchville in 1826.
Many members of the Church family (particularly in the Mathews branch) left Ontario to travel south with the Mormons after Joseph Smith Jr’s visit to the village in August 1837. Other branches of the family moved to Streetsville and Milton and continued there. Orange Church lived out his life in the community. When his wife Susan (nee Ferrand) died in 1847 he married Harriet Calder. Harriet's first husband, Joseph Miner, had operated the distillery in the community. The two purchased the property at 7573 Creditview Road and lived out the rest of their lives there together.
Throughout the first half of 19th century a large percentage of the people who settled in Churchville were connected by blood, marriage or history to the Church family. Interestingly, both Amaziah's nephew, John Church Hyde (Mary and Heman's son) and his grandson, Orange R. Church, each twice served as Reeve of Streetsville. Orange R. Church was owner and editor of the Streetsville Review, was a Trustee for the Churchville Cemetery Board and served as Warden of Peel County in 1924.
Orange R. Church married Lena Matilda May Watson and had three daughters: Pearle, Lillian and Beatrice. Orange, Lena and Beatrice are all buried in the Churchville Cemetery. With no heirs to continue it, this appears to have marked the end of the Church family name in Peel County.
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