570 CANADIAN LOCAL HISTORY : 



From being endowed with great energy of character, and having also a familiar knowledge of 

 the native dialects, Mr. Borland had great influence with the Indian tribes frequenting the 

 coasts of Lakes Huron and Simcoe. Mr. Roe likewise, in his dealings with the aborigines, had 

 acquired a considerable facility in speaking the Chippewa dialect, and had much influence 

 among tlie natives. 



Let us not omit to record, too, that at Newmarket, not very many years since, was success- 

 fully practising a grandson of Sir "William Blaekstone, the commentator on the Laws of 

 England — Mr. Henry Blaekstone, whose conspicuous talents gave promise of an eminence irk 

 his profession not unworthy of the name he bore. But his career was cut short by death. 



The varied character of colonial society, especially in its early crude state, the living elements 

 mixed up in it, and the curious changes and interchanges that take place in the course of its 

 development and consolidation, receive illustrations fr:im ecclesiastical as well as civil annals. 

 We ourselves remember the church-edifice of the Anglican communion at Newmarket when it 

 was an unplastered, unlathed clap-board shell, having repeatedly officiated in it while in that 

 stage of its existence. Smce then the congregation represented by this clap-board shell have 

 had as jiastors men like the following : a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, not undistin- 

 guished in his university, a protege of tlie famous Archbishop Magee, a co-worker for a time 

 of the distinguished Dr. Walter Parquhar Hook of Leeds, and minister of one of the modern 

 churches there — the Rev. Robert Taylor, afterwards of Peterborough here in Canada. And 

 since his incumbency, they have been ministered to by a former vicar of a prominent church in 

 London, St. Michael's, Burleigh Street, a dependency of St. Martin's in Trafalgar Square— the 

 Rev. Septimus Ramsay, who was also long the chief secretary and manager of a well known. 

 Colonial Missionary Society which had its headquarters in London. While, on the other hand, 

 an intervening pastor of the same congregation, educated for the ministiy here in Canada and 

 admitted to Holy Orders here, was transferred from Newmarket first to the vicarage of Somer- 

 ton in Somersetshire, England, and, secondly, to the rectory of Clenchwardeu in the county of 

 Norfolk in England — the Rev. R. Athill. And another intervening incumbent was, after having 

 been also trained for the ministry and admitted to orders here in Canada, called subsequently 

 to clerical work in the United States, being finally appointed one of the canons of the cathedral 

 church at Chicago, by Bishop Whitehouse of Illinois : this was the Rev. G. C. Street, a near 

 relative of the distinguished English architect of that name, designer and builder of the New 

 Law Courts in London. 



As to the name " Newmarket " — in its adoption thei'e was no desire to setup in Canada a. 

 memorial of the famous English Cambridgeshire racing town. The title chosen for the place 

 was an announcement to this effect: "Here is an additional mart for the convenience of an 

 Increased population : a place where farmers and others may purchase and exchange commodi- 

 ties without being at the trouble of a journey to York or elsewhere." The name of the Canadian 

 Newmarket, in fact, arose as probably that of the English Newmarket itself arose, when first 

 established as a newly-opened place of trade for the pi-imitive farmers and others of East 

 Anglia and Mercia in the Anglo-Saxon period. 



It deserves to be added that the English church at Nswmarket was, a few years back, to some 

 extent endowed by a generous gift of valuable land made by Dr. Beswick, a bachelor medical 

 man, whose large white house on a knoll by the wayside was always noted by the traveller from 

 York as he turned aside from Yonge Street for Newmarket. 



Proceeding onwai-ds now from Newmarket, we speedily come to the village of Sharon (or Hope 

 as it was once named), situated also oflf the direct northern route of Yonge Sti-eet. 



David Willson, the great notability and founder of the place, had been in his younger days a 

 sailor, and, as such, had visited the Chinese ports. After joining the Quakers, he taught for a 

 time amongst them as a schoolmaster. For some proceeding of his, or for some peculiarity of 

 religious opinion, difficult to define, he was cut off from the Hieksite sub-division of the Qualcer 

 body. He then began the formation of a denomination of his own. In the bold j)olicy of 

 giving to his personal ideas an outward embodiment in the form of a conspicuous Temple, he 

 anticipated the shrewd prophets of the Mormons, Joseph and Hiram Smith. Willson's building 

 was erected about 1S25. Nauvoo was not commenced until the spring of 1840. 



In a little pamphlet published at Philadelphia in 1815, Willson gives the following account 

 of himself: "I, the writer," he says, "was born of Presbyterian parents in the county of 

 Duchess, state of New York, in North America. In 1801 1 removed with my family into this 



