568 CANADIAN LOCAL HISTORY.' 



countenances are iriarked with the strongest lines of dejection and melancholy; and their 

 habitations and liousehold furniture are such as are only fitted to answer the demands of mer? 

 necessity. " We shall not enlarge," Mosheim adds, " upon the circumstances of their ritual, bu* 

 only observe that they prevent all attempts to alter or modify their religious discipline, by 

 preserving their people from everything tliat bears the remotest aspect of learning and science ; 

 from whatever, in a word, may have a tendency to enlighten their devout ignorance." 



The sjanpathies of our primitive Tunkers beyond the Ridges were, as we may suppose, with 

 this section of the fatherland Mennonists. 



Thus, to get the clue to social phenomena which we see around us here in Canada, we have 

 to concern ourselves occasionally with uninviting pages, not only of Irish, Scottish and 

 English religious history, but of German and Netherlandish religious history likewise. Pity 

 'tis, in some respects, that on a new continent our immigrants could not have made a tabula 

 o'asa of the past, and taken a start de novo on another level — a higher one ; on a new guage — a 

 widened one. 



Though only a minute fraction of our population, an exception was early made by the local 

 parliament in favour of the Mennonists or Tunkers, allowing them to make affirmations in the 

 Courts, lilve the Quakers, and to compound for military service. — Like Lollard, Quaker and 

 some other similar terms, Tunker, i.e. Dipper, was probably at first used in a spirit of ridicule. 



LV.— TO NGE STREET: DIGRESSION TO NEWMARKET AND SHARON. 



When Newmarket came in view off to the right, a large portion of the traffic of the street 

 turned aside for a certain distance out of the straight route to the north, in that direction. 



Aboi\t tliis point the ancient dwellers at York used to take note of signs that they had passed 

 into a higher latitude. Half a degree to the , south of their homes — at Niagara, for example — 

 they were in the land, if not of the citron and myrtle, certainly of the tulip-tree and pawpaw — 

 where the edible chestnut grew plentifully in the natural woods, and the peach luxuriantly 

 flourished. 



Now, half a degree the other way, in the tramontane region north of the Ridges, they found 

 themselves in the presence of a vegetation that spoke of an advance, however miniite, towards 

 the pole. Here, all along the wayside, beautiful specimens of the spruce-pine and balsam-flr, 

 strangers in the forest about York, were encountered. Sweeping the sward with their drooping 

 branches and sending up their dark green spires high in the air, these trees were always 

 regarded witli interest, and desired as graceful objects worthy to be transferred to the lawn or 

 ornamental shrubbery. 



A little way off the road, on the left, just before the turn leading to Newmarket, was the 

 great Quaker meeting-house of this region — the "Friends' Meeting-house" — a building of the 

 usual plain cast, generally seen with its solid shutters closed up. This was the successor of the 

 first Quaker meeting-lionse in Upper Canada. Here Mr. Joseph John Gurney, the eminent 

 English Quaker, who travelled on this continent in 1837-40, delivered several addi-esses, with a 

 view especially to the re-uniting, if possible, of the Orthodox and the Hicksites. 



Gourlay, in his "Statistical Account of Upper Canada," took note that this Quaker meeting- 

 house and a wooden chapel at Hogg's Hollow, belonging to the Church of England, were the 

 only two places of public worship to be seen on Yonge Street between York and the Holland 

 Landing — a distance, he says, of nearly forty miles. This was in 1817. 



Following now the wheel-marks of clearly the' majority of vehicles travelling on the street, 

 we turn aside to Newmarket. 



Newmarket had for its germ or nucleus the mills and stores of Mr. Elisha Beaman, who 

 emigrated hither from the State of New York in 1806. Here also, on the branch of the Holland 

 river, mills at an eai-ly date were established by Mr. Mordecai MiUard, and tanneries by Mr. 

 Joseph HQl. Mr Seaman's mills became subsequently the property of Mr. Peter Robinson, 

 who was Commissioner of Crown Lands in 1827, and one of the representatives of the united 

 counties of York and Simcoe ; and afterwards, the property of his brother, Mr, W. B. Robinson, 

 who for a time resided here, and for a number of years represented the County of Simcoe in 

 the provincial parliament. Most gentlemen travelling north or to the north-west brought with 

 them, from friends in York, a note of commendation to Mr. Robinson, whose friendly and 

 hospitable disposition were well known : 



