126 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



this difficulty was avoided by holding the meeting in an open glade 

 of the forest. In 1804 the Baptists formed themselves into a congre- 

 tion, and about six years later erected a commodious church. Many 

 of the young people of the community joined this denomination. 

 Mr. French also settled in Norfolk County, his chapel being 

 known as the "Woodhouse Methodist Church." This chapel and 

 another of the same denomination were erected before the Presby- 

 terian church was built. By the year 1800 the number of inhabitants 

 had so increased in Charlotteville that it became the center of popu- 

 lation of the London District, and during the next two years the Court 

 of Quarter Sessions convened here in the two-storey frame house of 

 Lieutenant James Munro. It was, therefore, in Charlotteville that 

 all matters of ^dispute arising in Elgin, Middlesex, Oxford, Norfolk, 

 and parts of Brant and Haldimand counties were brought for adjudi- 

 cation, and from this place that tavern licenses and orders for road 

 improvements for the vast territory indicated were issued.^ 



In all this development Captain Ryerse played an important 

 part. By 1798 he had completed his two mills, and although his 



1 Papers and Records, Ont. Hist. Soc, II, 61, 62, 82, 95, 96-100, passim; Owen, 

 Pioneer Sketches of Long Point Settlement, 65, 68, 69, 120, 154, 207, 247, 257, 277, 

 passim; Ryerson, Loyalists of America and Their Times, II, 239, 242. 



The arrivals for the years 1798, 1799, and 1800 were (1798) in Woodhouse, 

 Sergeant Albert Berdan of the New Jersey Volunteers and family from New Bruns- 

 wick, and Israel Wood and family, also from New Brunswick; in Walsingham, 

 William Cope from Niagara, where he had lived since 1794, and Captain William 

 Hutchinson of the New Jersey Volunteers and family from New Brunswick; and in 

 Charlotteville Elder Titus Finch from Nova Scotia, whither he had gone in 1784, 

 Lot Tisdale from New Brunswick, and Daniel Freeman, a Methodist minister from 

 New Jersey: (1799) in Woodhouse, James Matthews of the New Jersey Volunteers 

 from the Niagara District, Corporal Daniel Millard of the 85th Regiment and wife 

 from Niagara, where he had settled in 1786, Josiah Gilbert of New Jersey, a corporal 

 in the King's American Regiment, from New Brunswick; in Charlotteville, Lieutenant 

 Joseph Ryerson of the Prince of Wales Regiment and family from Maujerville, New 

 Brunswick, Captain Walter Anderson of the New Jersey Volunteers and family 

 from Lincoln County in the Niagara District, Andrew McCleish and family, Levy, 

 Silas, and Peter Montross and their three sisters from New Brunswick, Lawrence 

 Johnson of Pennsylvania from Nova Scotia; and in Windham, Abraham Powell 

 from New Brunswick: (1800) in Woodhouse, Captain Jonathan Williams of the Loyal 

 Rangers and his son Titus; in Walsingham, Elias Foster of the Royal Regiment and 

 family from New Brunswick, where he had lived since 1783; in Windham, Mathias, 

 Henr}^ John, and Martin Buckner (Boughner), who travelled 500 miles or more 

 on foot along the military highway by Lake Champlain, Fort Ticonderoga, Platts- 

 burg, and northward to Cornwall, thence along the north shore of Lake Ontario 

 and Simcoe's new road to Lyon's Creek in the Niagara District, whence they went 

 to Long Point; and in Charlotteville, William Spurgin of North Carolina and Samuel 

 Brown and family from Stamford in the Niagara District, but originally from New 

 Jersey. (See Papers and Records, Ont. Hist. Soc, II, and Owen's Pioneer Sketches 

 of Long Point Settlement.) 



