The Town of York Historical Society

Home >>> Model >>> 10. THE METHODIST CHURCH

Model Map Navigation: Previous Site <<< Legend >>> Next Site

10. THE METHODIST CHURCH

Methodism came to Canada on horseback. American ministers, once trained, would ride along a circuit of scattered farming settlements, bringing with them lessons on religion and education(1). They spoke fervently in all types of settings from barns to makeshift meetinghouses.

Through the efforts of Robert Petch, Methodism came to York in 1818 in the form of a small wooden church on the southwest corner of King and Jordan Streets(2). It was a perfect example of the Methodist preference for the Greek temple shape (a long rectangular block with pedimented gable ends at the main entrance)(3).

The fledgling congregation met with many challenges in early York. Politically, British settlers were suspicious of the American Methodist ministers who might have been tempted to preach the virtues of Republicanism. In the midst of this the Canadian Methodists attempted to find their voice in what was already a foreign defined institution. With three such strong branches of the same religion, American, British and Canadian, a split over church government and jurisdiction was inevitable.

In 1820 the American and British Methodists divided the mission field, with the former receiving Upper Canada and the latter Lower(4). Subsequently, sometime between the years 1824 and 1828, the Canadian Conference became autonomous from the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States(5).

Within one generation a completely Canadian form of an international body had successfully emerged. In celebration, and also to accommodate a growing congregation, Robert Petch designed a larger brick version of his 1818 church for the southeast corner of Toronto and Newgate (now Adelaide) Streets in 1832(6). The church was demolished in 1870(7).

Notes

Marion MacRae and Anthony Adamson, Hallowed Walls; Church Architecture of Upper Canada, (Toronto: Clarke, Irwin and Company Ltd., 1975), p.29.
Dendy, Lost Toronto, p.112.
MacRae and Adamson, Hallowed Walls, p.210.
Firth, p.lv.
Gerald M. Craig, Upper Canada; The Formative Years 1784-1841, (Toronto: James Lorimer and Company and the National Museums of Canada, 1984), p.167.
Dendy, Lost Toronto, p.112.
Eric Arthur, Toronto, No Mean City, 3rd ed., ed. Stephen A. Otto (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986), p.113.

Model Map Navigation: Previous Site <<< Legend >>> Next Site