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Ontario History

A Farmer's Alliance The Joint Stock Companies of the Home District and the Economic Roots of Deliberative Democracy in Albert Schrauwers

Volume 99, Number 2, Fall 2007 Article abstract This article addresses the economic roots of the fight for democratic reform in URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1065739ar Upper Canada, and the role of a small religious sect, , in DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1065739ar particular. The Children of Peace were critical players in a number of “joint stock companies” such as the Farmers’ Store House (a co-operative farm See table of contents produce marketing company) and the . Joint stock companies lacked a charter or limited liability for their shareholders, and this made them models of “responsible government.” These companies, and their Publisher(s) directors, helped found the democratic reform political union, the Canadian Alliance Society, and build its meeting place “Shepard’s Hall.” The Historical Society

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Cite this article Schrauwers, A. (2007). A Farmer's Alliance: The Joint Stock Companies of the Home District and the Economic Roots of Deliberative Democracy in Upper Canada. Ontario History, 99(2), 190–219. https://doi.org/10.7202/1065739ar

Copyright © The Ontario Historical Society, 2007 This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/

This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ 190 ONTARIO HISTORY Farmer’s Alliance The Joint Stock Companies of A the Home District and the Economic Roots of Deliberative Democracy in Upper Canada by Albert Schrauwers

thin ribbon of unsurfaced road, ing, sixty feet square, and seventy-five Yonge Street, stretched between feet high, was “calculated to inspire the “Muddy York,” Upper Canada’s beholder with astonishment; its dimen- Acapital, and the shores of Lake Simcoe sions – its architecture – its situation – and the village of Hope. Hope was set- are all so extraordinary.”1 The Children of tled by followers of a Quaker schismatic, Peace were economic and political inno- , who had formed a group, vators as well, and helped form Canada’s the Children of Peace, in the midst of the first farmers’ cooperative and credit un-

Photo by Mark Fram ©1993 Fram Mark by Photo . Called by a vision to “orna- ion. The primary purpose of the temple ment the Christian Church with all the was not as a place of worship. The Chil- glory of Israel,” the Children of Peace re- dren of Peace gathered there just once a built Solomon’s temple, the seat of their month to collect alms for the poor. The “New Jerusalem.” This three-tiered build- Children of Peace, having fled a cruel and

1 Colonial Advocate, 18 September 1828.

Ontario History / Volume XCIX No. 2 / Autumn 2007 191 Abstract uncaring pharaoh, This article addresses the economic roots of the fight for democratic reform viewed themselves in Upper Canada, and the role of a small religious sect, the Children of as the new Israelites Peace, in particular. The Children of Peace were critical players in a number lost in the wilder- of “joint stock companies” such as the Farmers’ Store House (a co-operative farm produce marketing company) and the Bank of the People. Joint stock ness of Upper Can- companies lacked a charter or limited liability for their shareholders, and ada. And yet they this made them models of “responsible government.” These companies, and remained tethered their directors, helped found the democratic reform political union, the to the old order by Canadian Alliance Society, and build its meeting place “Shepard’s Hall.” Yonge Street, a mili- Résumé: Des raisons économiques sont aussi à��������������������������� l’origine de la lutte pour tary road, and the l’introduction de réformes démocratiques dans le Haut-Canada. C’est 2 à ces raisons que nous nous attachons dans cet article, notamment en road to market. étudiant l’influence d’une petite secte religieuse, « Les Enfants de la This article is Paix ». Cette secte jouait un rôle important dans de nombreuses ‘so- about the political ciétés par actions’, telles que la Farmers’ Store House (une compagnie implications of their responsable de la vente des produits provenant de fermes coopératives), ou la Bank of the People. Dans la mesure où dans les statuts de ce type egalitarian econom- de compagnies, il n’y avait pas de provisions limitant la responsabilité ic vision. The Chil- des actionnaires en cas de dettes, ces sociétés se voulaient des modèles de dren of Peace played « gouvernement responsable ». Elles, et leurs administrateurs, ont no- a critical, though tamment contribué à la formation de la Canadian Alliance Society, unrecognized role in société ayant pour but la promotion de réformes démocratiques en po- litique, et à la construction de son lieu de réunion, Shepard’s Hall. the organization of both the democratic reform and an allied cooperative move- meetings for worship. There, according ment in Upper Canada. David Willson to the Tories, Willson preached of “the was a radical democrat who sought to injustice practised towards the world by protect the weak. The temple was built all those who possess an abundant share four square, symmetrical on each side, of the good things of life. That they are to symbolize the equality of all people all usurpers and tyrants; that there ought who entered. The Children of Peace neither to be masters nor servants; that were avid supporters of newspaper pub- all mankind are equal; and that it is the lisher and reform leader William Lyon duty of the poor to pull down the rich.”3 Mackenzie. Willson, and other members Given the general absence of effective such as , were key organ- democratic institutions in the colony, it is izers of the Canadian Alliance Society, important to ask how democratic skills and the reform political organization. They values were fostered such that the reform were also central to the building of “radi- movement could plausibly enlist public cal hall,” a meeting place for reformers support in the face of widespread violent in where they frequently held opposition. Why should more democ-

2 Albert Schrauwers, Awaiting the Millennium: The Children of Peace and the Village of Hope 1812- 1889 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), 108-129. 3 D. Wilkie, Sketches of a Summer Trip to New York and the Canadas (Edinburgh, 1837), 203-205. 192 ONTARIO HISTORY

racy seem the answer to the colony’s woes McNairn has little to say, however, to men like David Willson and Samuel about the role of voluntary economic Hughes? In his sweeping study of deliber- associations, thereby implicitly agreeing ative democracy in Upper Canada, Jeffrey with Colin Read’s assertion that “histo- McNairn has drawn our attention to the rians argue that shifts in Upper Canada’s role of voluntary associations of all types political culture stemmed from a deep in the creation of a viable public sphere structural change, the development of – the sphere of public discussion required capitalism. Oddly, none really explore for democratic debate and the formation that key notion.”5 This article, in con- of ‘public opinion’: “They brought people trast, looks specifically at the role of one together to pursue common projects, in- economic institution, the Farmers’ Store- structing them in the public use of their house – and the religious group, the Chil- reason.” He points to the role of voluntary dren of Peace, that helped organize it – in associations as “experiments in democratic fostering deliberative democracy in Up- sociability” in which per Canada. The transition to a capitalist Upper grew accustomed to com- market economy in North America is too ing together to further common goals; to frequently viewed as the product of the working with others of different social, occu- entrepreneurial action of individuals. The pational, religious or national backgrounds; to devising and abiding by mutually agreed corporate aspect of the economy remains upon rules; to discussing topics of common relatively undocumented. But some com- concern; to speaking in front of others; to panies, as collectivities of shareholders, listening to others with opposing views; and were equally “experiments in democratic to disagreeing without attacking the speaker, offending others, or trying to mandate uni- sociability.” Joint stock companies like formity. In voluntary associations people the Farmers’ Storehouse played a critical learned and practised the norms of reasoned role in fomenting the reform movement discussion and mutual respect vital to sus- in the Home District of Upper Canada 4 tained public deliberation. and in giving it its populist and co-opera- McNairn carefully documents the roles tivist character. of a variety of these voluntary associa- In 1833, Patrick Shirreff, a Scots tions in the formation of a culture of “de- farmer, set out on a tour of North Ameri- liberative democracy”, including literary ca with the aim of evaluating its prospects clubs, reading rooms, Freemason lodges, for emigrants, and more particularly, for Mechanics Institutes, agricultural socie- his younger brother. He traveled widely ties, and benevolent associations. within Upper Canada, including taking

4 Jeffrey L. McNairnThe Capacity to Judge: Public Opinion and Deliberative Democracy in Upper Canada 1791-1854 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 63. 5 Colin Read, cited McNairn, Capacity to Judge, 16n; see also Jeffrey McNairn, “Why we need but don’t have an Intellectial History of the British North American Economy,” in Bélanger, Damien-Claude, Sophie Coupal and Michel Ducharme, eds. Les idées en mouvement: perspectives en histoire intellectuelle et culturelle du Canada (Quebec: Presses de l’Université Laval, 2004), 145-73. A Farmer’s alliance 193

A Quacker Schismatic, David Willson wheat; they have formed themselves into (1778-1866) formed the Children of an association, and have built a very Peace in 1812 and led them through large storage at York, on the margin much of the nineteenth century. of the lake, where they store it in the winter, while the roads are good, and transport it down a side trip to Lake Simcoe, in the Spring, – thus securing and the village of Hope to themselves the best prices. where he visited the just They have their secretary in completed temple of York to see to the storage, and the Children of Peace.6 keep the account of deposits, &c7 Many early first hand ac- counts of the Children The Children of Peace of Peace like his mention were shareholders and their cooperative market- directors in this coopera- ing of wheat. In touring tive venture, the Farmers’ the temple with Willson, Storehouse Company. The Shirreff showed him a copy Farmers’ Storehouse was one of Canada as it is in which the of those means by which the village was described. The book’s au- farmers of the Home District crea- thor, George Henry, had written, “David tively sought to evade the problem of keeps the store: the general produce of debt to merchants which deprived them the community is deposited with him, of their economic and political freedoms. and is conveyed to York, for sale, regu- Although Willson made regular trips larly twice a-week; and he accounts to to York to deliver loads of wheat – and the different members for the amount to preach – it was an elder in the group, of produce sent to market.” What Henry Samuel Hughes, who was most active in and Shirreff took to be a distinctive as- the organization of the Farmer’s Store- pect of the sect which set it off from its house. neighbours – cooperative marketing – The joint stock cooperative ven- was instead, part of a much wider coop- tures that elders in the sect like Hughes erative movement in which the Children developed were a means of helping new of Peace participated. In York, Henry had farmers avoid dependence on the market himself approvingly noted that: so they could participate in community A large body of the farmers in Yonge-street, projects, such as the construction of the and in the townships in the vicinity of York, temple and the sect’s meeting houses; have adopted the plan of storing their own the temple, in particular, then became a

6 Patrick Shirreff,A tour through North America: together with a comprehensive view of the Canadas and United States, as adapted for agricultural emigration (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1835), 106-16. 7 George Henry, The emigrant’s guide; or, Canada as it is; comprising details relating to the domestic pol- icy, commerce and agriculture, of the Upper and Lower Provinces, comprising matter of general information and interest, especially intended for the use of settlers and emigrants (New York: Stodart, 1832), 103, 121-25. 194 ONTARIO HISTORY

symbol of “charity,” the means by which tive in Canada, a creative, and so far un- they could resist the market, and the documented example of the kinds of re- merchant’s control. Due to the instabil- sistance farmers offered to the economic ity of the British market for wheat, young and political exploitation of their day. farmers could never be sure how much of This joint stock company was an “experi- a surplus would be needed to pay their ment in democratic sociability.” It was a debts. These young farmers were “poor voluntary association organized accord- community members” in two senses; ing to democratic principles, and thus they had the highest debts and were fostered the cultural and political values most in need of relief. And, since they critical to the development of a viable emphasized their farm productivity, they democratic movement. participated less in “community build- Here then, we trace the interconnec- ing.” The Children of Peace responded tions between the Farmers Storehouse as a community to their debt crisis by and the reform movement in the 1830s prioritizing subsistence production on in the Home District. These interconnec- the one hand, and subsidizing the farm tions are people, men like David Willson, production of their younger members on Joseph Shepard, and Samuel Hughes, who the other. Their system of mutual aid was served on overlapping boards of manage- based on labour exchanges (work bees), ment in economic, political and religious cooperative marketing, a credit union, joint stock endeavors. They served as the and for a short time, a land-sharing agree- glue for a widely disparate movement of ment. For those in immediate crisis, alms religious dissenters, farmers, urban pro- and a shelter for the homeless served as a fessionals and “mechanics.” Hughes, for stopgap. So successful was this coopera- example, was an elder in the Children tive regime of mutual aid, that by 1851, of Peace, the chairman of the Farmers’ Hope was the most prosperous agricul- Storehouse, and the chair of most of the tural community in the province.8 reform meetings in the northern half Lest we interpret this “moral econo- of the Home District. Joseph Shepard my” as the product of a communal sect, served much the same role in York town- a radical departure from the cultural and ship just north of Toronto. It is their economic norm, I would like to under- overlapping participation in these multi- score how their cooperative marketing ple economic and political spheres which was part of a larger social movement in- created a social movement, a wide cross volving farmers from across the Home section of society which came to tolerate District as Shirreff had noted. The prob- differences in culture, religion and- lan lem of debt was not just that of the Chil- guage in pursuit of common goals. dren of Peace. The Farmers’ Storehouse The leading figures in the Farmers’ Company was the first farmers’ coopera- Storehouse were Joseph Shepard and the 8 Albert Schrauwers, “The Spirit of Capitalism and the Collapse of Community: The Children of Peace in the Mid-Nineteenth Century” Canadian Quaker History Journal 63 (1998), 54-66. A Farmer’s alliance 195

Children of Peace. Shepard had a long on the joint stock (non-denominational) and distinguished political history in model. John Willson, “a person of con- York township. He had run for election siderable reading and somewhat demo- in 1812, on a platform against the repeal cratic ideas,”9 and Joseph Shepard, candi- of Habeas Corpus, which Lieut. Gover- date in 1812 for the “democratic faction,” nor Brock had proposed to help deal with ensured the Children of Peace had access “disloyal” settlers during the war. He had to this church built by the people of the sat on the four-member “central commit- neighbourhood “as a place of worship tee of the inhabitants of Upper Canada” [for] preachers of various denomina- tions of Christians.” This church was built in 1817 on a joint stock plan. It was a non-denomination- al neighbourhood place of worship owned and man- aged by its elected trus- tees, not the clergy of any particular denomination. Members need not share a creed. It was no doubt used by the Children of Peace soon thereafter, since a church built in Richmond Hill four years The first meeting house of the Children of Peace. later on the same non-de- nominational joint stock that sent Robert Randall to London in plan specifically excluded the Roman April 1827, to convey their petitions Catholics and the Children of Peace.10 against the Alien Bill, which would have recorded his stripped many of the American-born set- impressions of Willson preaching there tlers of their citizenship. The Children in 1829 to an audience of two to three of Peace had a long-standing connection hundred.11 The Rev. com- with Shepard. He, with Seneca Ketchum plained in contrast, that he preached in and John Willson (the stepfather of the the same building “once a month to their sect’s founder, David Willson) were the great annoyance.”12 Shepard’s connec- trustees of a church built at York Mills tion with the Children of Peace was later

9 M. Audry Graham, 150 Years at St. John’s, York Mills (Toronto: General Publishing Co., 1966), 31. 10 F.R. Berchem, The Yonge Street Story (1793-1860) (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1977), 119. 11 Colonial Advocate, 3 September 1829. 12 Graham, York Mills, 30. 196 ONTARIO HISTORY Temple of the Chil- dren of Peace seen here in 1861. This unique building expressed Willson’s ideas through such architectural elements as its tiers, lighting, symmetry and pinna- cles. Canadian Yearly Meeting Archives.

gious groups such as the Children of Peace. It is this overlap of politi- cal, economic, and strengthened by their mutual participa- religious activities which both marks the tion in the Farmers’ Storehouse. creativity, but also the complexity, of this In this article, I examine the relation- tale of the emergence of a culture of dem- ship between Joseph Shepard and Samuel ocratic deliberation in a variety of joint Hughes, the leaders of this farmers’ co-op- stock companies in the decade before the erative, and the emergent radical reform rebellion. movement as it came to be organized as the Canadian Alliance Society. As re- The Farmers’ Store House formers were faced with mounting politi- he Farmers’ Storehouse was organ- cal violence after Mackenzie’s expulsion Tized just outside Toronto as an un- from the Assembly, they sought to cre- incorporated joint stock company on ate a safe haven, “Shepard’s Hall,” where 7 February 1824. In many ways it was they could meet and organize in safety. similar to a large number of consumer- The Children of Peace also preached in owned community flour and bread soci- this hall on a regular basis. Their “preach- eties which flourished in England from ing” however, had political overtones, 1759 to the 1820s. Like these English and their economic experiment, a “credit exemples, the Farmers’ Storehouse was union” created in 1832, served as a model organized on a joint stock basis to en- emulated more broadly in the Canadian gage in trade on behalf of the poor; they Alliance Society’s first petition movement were early co-operatives. The Farmer’s for a “provincial Loan Office.” Shepard’s Storehouse was organized during one Hall itself moved on a number of occa- of the periodic downturns in the wheat sions; from the Old Court House to the trade, when colonial exports were barred new Market Buildings, to its final home from English markets. These coopera- in Turton’s Building. Turton’s building tives are an example of the developing was lastly, also home to Mackenzie’s news- “moral economies” which came to frui- paper, the Constitution, as well as to reli- tion in the Owenite socialist movement A Farmer’s alliance 197

in the 1830s.13 Whereas most “social And without incorporation, sharehold- and economic historians have tended to ers were personally responsible for the emphasize the role of riot and protest in debts to the company to the full extent asserting the older values of the ‘moral of their personal property; shareholders economy’ against the capitalist market” were not protected by limited liability. these joint stock companies represent There were, then, significant legal - hur “non-conflict based approaches [that] dles that made the joint stock company would not necessarily, of course, have an unwieldy form of partnership.15 It is been reported.”14 These consumer co- important, however, to underscore the operatives offered the poor unadulter- broad definition of the ways in which ated bread at reduced prices. They were joint stock companies were “economic”; able do so through their large scale and although some like the Farmers’ Store- technically advanced milling operations. house were formed for the purpose of Although the Farmers’ Storehouse was for-profit trade, others were simply a way similar in many ways to these consumer of controlling access to forms of common co-operatives, it also differed by serving property such as a school or church. as a producers’ co-operative. It ensured The Farmers’ Storehouse was also po- that farmers obtained the best price for litical in a number of senses. As its con- their wheat and offered them merchan- stitution shows, it was a formal “mini- dise at a reduced rate in return. parliament,” with elected representatives Joint stock companies were little who themselves took decisions by major- more than extensive partnerships under ity vote. But the Farmers’ Storehouse was common law, although English legisla- also political in a larger sense, intimately tion had limited these to a maximum of connected with the first. To achieve it six partners. Without incorporation, the ends it also had to engage in the process of company was not considered a “separate petitioning both administration and the personality.” It could not hold property. elected assembly for the land on which to The property was held by trustees, who build their storehouse. Petitioning was usually had to provide a bond or security. the dominant form of popular political Without incorporation, the company activity of the period.16 This petitioning could neither sue nor be sued at law. inevitably involved the organizers of the

13 R.G. Garnett, Co-operation and the Owenite socialist communities in Britain, 1825-45, (Manches- ter: Manchester University Press, 1972), 41-64; John Harrison, Quest for the New Moral World: Robert Owen and the Owenites in Britain and America (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1969), 197-216. 14 Joshua Bamfield, “Consumer-Owned Community Flour and Bread Societies in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries” Business History 40:4 (1998), 22. 15 See Frederick H. Armstrong, Handbook of Upper Canadian Chronology, rev. ed. (Toronto: Dun- durn Press, 1985), Part VII, for a list of the joint stock companies incorporated during this period in Up- per Canada. 16 Carol Wilton, Popular politics and political culture in Upper Canada, 1800-1850 (Kingston/Mon- treal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2000), 3-20. 198 ONTARIO HISTORY

company in evolving political alliances. Here, we examine how these same pro- The company soon became one of the grams and values motivated the farmers crucibles within which the political re- of the Home district to organize, eco- form movement took shape. The com- nomically as the Farmers’ Storehouse, pany, in fact, became a critical means by and politically as the Canadian Alliance which aspiring politicians achieved local Society, Upper Canada reformers’ first prominence, and it reinforced the demo- attempt to form a political party. cratic skills of those politicians needed The constitution of the Farmers’ to operate such a concern. The reform Storehouse established the share price movement’s local leadership, including at £2 10s. and limited the number of men like Joseph Shepard, and Samuel shares of any one partner to a maximum Hughes, were drawn from the company, of twenty, ensuring a broad and equitable and, in turn, they introduced the eco- ownership of the concern.18 These share- nomic concerns of the company and of holders were to elect annually a board farmers in general into reform politics in of directors of five or more to manage the House of Assembly – a formative in- the company. The board, in turn, was to fluence not generally recognized. hire a storekeeper who was to provide The Farmers’ Storehouse stood at the a bond equal to the value of the prop- centre of a broad economic and political erty entrusted to him. This storekeeper movement which, in its essentials, was was to conduct the general business of not greatly different from much later co- the company, taking the farmers’ wheat, operative movements such as the United transporting it to Montreal, and purchas- Farmers of Alberta in the early twentieth ing goods for sale at the company store. century. The United Farmers transformed It was in many ways a retail concern like the political landscape of the prairies: so many others in York. Importantly, the Alberta radicals, drawing on British and members of the company were allowed North American radical traditions, casti- to take goods and cash to the value of gated monopolies and opposed ‘special privi- their stock from the store (much like the leges’ for corporations. Following the labour theory of value – that labour creates and shareholders of the Bank of Upper Can- should retain all value – they saw themselves ada could borrow against the security of and workers as fellow producers. This belief their stock). The company thus became led them to call for a farmer-labour political a loan office of first resort for the farm- alliance to implement their program of radi- cal monetary reform and state ownership to ers of the district who needed to borrow redistribute wealth.17 small sums. It is this telling innovation

17 Bradford James Rennie, The Rise of Agrarian Democracy: The United Farmers and Farm Women of Alberta 1909-1921 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 10. 18 John Ross Robertson, Robertson’s Landmarks of Toronto: a collection of historical sketches of the old town of York from 1792 until 1833, and of Toronto from 1834 to 1908 : also, three hundred and thirty engravings of places and scenes in Toronto or in connection with the city. Vol. 1, (Toronto: J.R. Robertson, 1908), 218-19. A Farmer’s alliance 199

which in large part explains the draw of were substantial farmers from the north the company. Not only did members of end of the district, in Whitchurch and the concern earn their own profits from townships. They were the wheat trade, circumventing the York all from among the earliest of immigrant merchants to whom they would other- families from across the settled areas wise fall in debt, but they also, in fact, of York’s hinterland. None came from established a bank of their own without York itself. Significantly, they were all in- encountering the monopolistic risks of volved to some extent in reform politics. the Bank of Upper Canada. This aspect Shepard, for example, had unsuccessfully of the concern became much more pro- contested the same seat as Playter several nounced as the company developed over sessions before, in 1812, representing the the next decade. “democratic faction.”21 Silas Fletcher was The first board of directors, elect- to be one of the principle organizers of ed in June 1824, were Ely and George the 1837 Rebellion. Playter, Joseph Pearson, Silas Fletcher, Ely and George Playter were ap- Jacob Wintersteen, and Joseph Shepard. pointed to petition the Lieut. Governor In January, 1825, they added Abraham for a “water lot” on the beach on which Stouffer, James Farr and George W. to build the storehouse. They received Port.19 Ely Playter, the chair, had been the lot where the St. Lawrence market elected a member of the House of As- building now stands (and immediately sembly for York-Simcoe in 1824. His south of the original market buildings). brother George was the sheriff ’s deputy. This land had been declared public They were Loyalists, from one of the old- beachfront in 1818, but the Farmers’ est families in Toronto. By 1824, Ely was Storehouse was specifically exempted operating George’s sawmill on Yonge “this being for a public purpose.”22 There Street just north of Finch Ave.20 Joseph they built a warehouse 100 feet long by Shepard also operated a saw and grist mill 20 ft. wide, and 20 ft. high. However, on Yonge, just north of Sheppard Avenue. Ely Playter fled the country after being James Farr leased the government mill on charged with forgery in the beginning of the west side of the Humber at Weston. 1826, and the early, quick start was lost. Abraham Stouffer operated a grist mill The Farmers’ Store did not really seem to in the community now named after him take off until 1827, when they hired John on the border of Markham and Whitch- Goessman as their clerk. Goessman was urch townships. Pearson and Fletcher a problematic candidate for the job, and

19 Ibid. 20 Patricia Hart, Pioneering in North York: A history of the Borough (Toronto: General Publishing Co., 1968), 68. 21 Dictionary of Canadian Biography (hereafter cited asDCB ), “Joseph Shepard,” quoting the winning candidate, Thomas Ridout. 22 Archives of Ontario (herearfter cited as AO), Upper Canada Land Petitions, P14/39 20 October, 1824. 200 ONTARIO HISTORY

quickly at odds with the political leanings seen “a hustings in my life, either as Can- of the company’s new president, Joseph didate, Voter, or Spectator.” He resigned Shepard. Goessman was born in 1786 in on the second day of polling, after re- Hanover, Germany, through which he ceiving only two votes to Playter’s 126. It claimed British citizenship; King George seems clear that Playter’s early role in the IV being monarch of both kingdoms. Farmer’s Storehouse was key to his elec- After studying surveying and drafting at toral victory. After Playter fled in 1826, the military academy there, he immigrat- Goessman sought to repeat his formula ed to Upper Canada in 1819, and after for electoral success in 1828.24 Goessman a probationary period, was licensed as a again proposed himself a candidate, cit- deputy surveyor in 1821. He conducted ing his role in the Farmer’s Store: “When surveys for both the government and the I received the books of the Farmers Store Canada Company thereafter. In 1824, House that institution was at the brink of he was appointed the superintendent of dissolution, and now after one year cur- highways of the Home District, a job he rent its prospects are undoubtedly favora- lost less than a year later due to chronic ble.” Significantly, Goessman’s questiona- alcoholism. He was also appointed an ble candidacy did not gain the support of emigration agent for German-speaking Joseph Shepard, who nominated William settlers around 1828.23 Although Goess- Lyon Mackenzie instead.25 Mackenzie’s man had no business experience, his role subsequent win (and Goessman’s bitter as German Agent made him a natural in- loss) resulted in a long-term tension be- termediary with the largely German set- tween the board of the Farmers’ Store, tlers of Markham township. The actual and Goessman, which ultimately led to business of the Farmer’s Store was left in his ouster, and the transfer of manage- Goessman’s hands. ment to the Children of Peace in the vil- The way in which the company served lage of Hope. as an incubator for aspiring politicans can After the 1828 election, the board of be clearly seen in the political activity of the Farmers Storehouse decided to peti- John Goessman, who sought to trans- tion the House of Assembly for incor- form this intermediary role as manager of poration in December “to enable them the company into a political one. His as- to apply for and receive His Majesty’s pirations had begun before he became the Patent for the Water Lot depending ther- company’s clerk, in March 1824, when he eon.26 They called a shareholder’s meet- declared himself a candidate for the riding ing on 2 February 1829, and a week later of York-Simcoe, against Ely Playter (the Charles Fothergill presented the petition eventual winner), despite never having of “Joseph Shepard and 36 others” to

23 DCB, “John Goessman.” 24 Upper Canada Gazette & Weekly Register, 25 March, 15 July 1824; Colonial Advocate, 3 April 1828. 25 Constitution, 4 January 1837. 26 Colonial Advocate, 11 December 1828. A Farmer’s alliance 201 the Assembly.27 With at least thirty-six no means can obstruct the steady progress of shareholders, the Farmer’s Store was of your concern, since you are sure of the espe- 30 the same size as the Bank of Upper Can- cial protection of the Lieutenant Governor. ada. A select committee of the House Goessman’s faith in the Lieut. Gover- was formed and reported a bill on the nor’s intervention was misfounded; the third of March. It did not receive second bill was never read. reading in that session, and Fothergill re- Their third attempt at incorporation introduced the bill in the next session on stymied, the board of directors adopted 11 January 1830. It passed third reading a new tack, advertizing in July 1831 (for on 26 January, and was named “An Act a full year) that in the next session, they to incorporate certain persons by the would petition for “a charter for a Farm- 31 style and title of the ‘Associated Farmers’ er’s Store House Bank, &c.” This appar- Company of the Home District and Parts ently incongruous change reflects both Adjacent.” The bill was then referred to the original purpose of the Farmers’ Store, the Legislative Council, where it was dis- as well as the radically different nature of allowed with no reason given.28 banking in that era. By allowing its mem- Undaunted, Goessman petitioned bers to borrow against their stock in the again in the next session of the Assembly. same way as the Bank of Upper Canada, The petition was again referred to a select the Farmers’ Store served as the creditor committee, this time chaired by William of choice for farmers precisely because it B. Jarvis, Home District Sheriff, and new- loaned money or goods against payment ly elected member for the town of York.29 in flour, for which they received a higher Although Jarvis claimed on 20 January price. And as made clear by the Select 1831 that he had a bill similar to the one Committee on the State of the Currency passed in the previous session ready for chaired by Mackenzie (and whose report the House to consider, by the middle of he published in the Colonial Advocate), February Goessman advertized, the “Scottish System” of joint stock bank- ing offered many advantages over limited The bill of incorporation of the Farmers’ liability chartered monopolies on the Store House Company probably will not English model such as the Bank of Up- pass the Lower House this session. The rea- 32 son is such, that I hesitate not to describe per Canada. Joint stock banks were not it here. The Chairman, a Town member, of protected by limited liability, and their course for the merchants, has not yet pre- shareholder’s property could be taken to sented the Bill. But these circumstances by pay bank debts. These banks therefore

27 Journal, 1829, 32-33, 46. 28 Journal, 1830, 13, 25, 27; Christian Guardian, 13 March 1830. 29 Journal, 1831, 4, 9, 16. 30 Canadian Freeman, 17 February 1831. 31 Canadian Freeman, 18 July 1831. 32 Colonial Advocate, 20, 27 May, 3 June 1830. 202 ONTARIO HISTORY

tended to follow hard currency policies, settlers, reminding them they were and ensured they had capital reserves to Free and Independent – a term under which back up their bank notes. It was, then, a you have so often been addressed by gentle- relatively small step for the Farmers’ Store men learned at least to confound, if not to expound that which they call law, and where- to recast itself as a bank. with they have so often flagellated you by However, no petition was ever pre- merchants, who sell you every article at an sented, due to the expulsion of Macken- extravagant price, and tell you it is cheap.35 zie from the Assembly on 12 December. He again offered his candidacy on the A new election was called for York Coun- basis of the Farmers’ Store house, which ty on 2 January 1832. The annual meeting had “cost [him] an enormous trouble and of the Farmers’ Store had been scheduled expense,” and his post as German Agent. for 3 January.33 The shareholders’ meeting He received the endorsement of Francis was thus postponed until 7 February – af- Collins, of the Canadian Freeman, who ter that session of the House was over. Al- was “glad to see him coming forward as though Mackenzie was overwhelmingly a sort of mediator to save the character re-elected, the Tory dominated Assembly of the Dutch farmers of this County, again ejected him and called for the third who have never meddled in politics until by-election of that seat on 30 January. On dragged into it by little McKenzie’s du- the 19th, a large public meeting was held plicity.” Goessman had little other sup- in York, at which Joseph Shepard was ap- port, however, and did not even show pointed chair of an eighty-five member up at the hustings. Mackenzie was again committee to organize a provincial peti- nominated by Joseph Shepard, and again tion to the British House of Commons. won handily, despite his ongoing prepa- Shepard also penned the draft address rations to travel to London. and petition. The meeting appointed An irrevocable gulf had now opened Mackenzie their agent, and took up a sub- between Goessman and Shepard. The scription to defray the expenses of his trip postponed shareholders’ meeting was fi- to London.34 nally held in the village of Hope in East Given Mackenzie’s plans to travel to Gwillimbury on 14 April 1832. There, London, his by-election reelection would Goessman charged Shepard and other have seemed moot. It was at this point directors with embezzlement, claim- that Goessman again thrust himself into ing that he had submitted the case to an the electoral fray and offered himself up independent arbitrator, James Miles of as a candidate in place of Mackenzie. In Richmond Hill, who had decided in his his address to the electors of York Coun- favour.36 There is, of course, no way of es- ty, Goessman singled out the German tablishing if or why Shepard had embez-

33 Canadian Freeman, 12 December 1831, 5 January 1832. 34 Canadian Freeman, 2 February1832. 35 Canadian Freeman, 26 January 1832. 36 Canadian Freeman, 17 May 1832. A Farmer’s alliance 203 zled the money; one can only point to a somewhat about £15, and to my suspicion series of plausible coincidences. Macken- has been embezzled. If any should expect of me to make any reference in respect to zie had just been appointed the agent of the farmers store, I beg leave to state that in the “Central Committee of the Friends my humble opinion it does not belong to a of Civil and Religious Liberty,” which memorandum of this kind. Joseph Shepard chaired. Given Shepard’s Shortly after Goessman published his heavy involvement in organizing Macken- “exposition” in the Canadian Freeman, zie’s journey, Goessman’s bitterness at his he called a second meeting at Hope to continued electoral losses to Mackenzie “depose $500 at a proper treasurer” and (in spite of his later claim to “not meddle then authorize the issuance of “promis- with politicks”37), and the pressing need sory printed drafts” or bank notes on for a quick and large source of ready cash, that account, putting the Farmers’ Store- it is easy to imagine that Shepard might house Bank plan into action even with- have used funds from the Farmers’ Store out legislated incorporation. The same to pay for the trip or fund the activities meeting, he declared, would also discuss of the Central Committee. Whether this his accusations against Shepard.39 The was “embezzlement” (a word Goessman charges were repeated in an “exposition” bandied about quite loosely) or a loan in September 1833, where he engaged in against his stock will never be known. rather creative accounting to publicly cri- Goessman continued to make accusa- tique that year’s Farmers’ Store dividend tions against Shepard throughout 1833. of $275 on $3000 share capital (or, ap- Shepard was, for example, a key player proximately $1.15 per share, a 9% return in the formation of the “Central Politi- on capital).40 That the meeting was again cal Union,” the petitioning organization called for Hope, and that it proposed to which grew out of the Central Committee issue promissory notes at that particular in January 1833, in Mackenzie’s absence. time, was not coincidental. It marks a shift In a lengthy, tortured, “memorandum” in the leadership of the Farmers’ Store in the Canadian Freeman, Goessman at- from Joseph Shepard and John Goess- tacked this reform organization for “I. man to Samuel Hughes, an elder of the Its Menacing Attitude, II. Its Tyrannical Children of Peace, and another Central Despotism, III. Its Hostile Disposition.”38 Committee/Political Union organizer. He referred to its membership dues as The controversial and erratic Goessman “embezzlement” and cited now disappears from the picture. The an instance of a subsigny respecting the Colonial Advocate sarcastically wrote the last winters insurgency, which came under next month, “A report has been very gen- my observations, and which I think was erally circulated that Mr. Goessman the

37 Canadian Freeman, 17 May 1832. 38 Canadian Freeman, 7 March 1833. 39 Canadian Freeman, 7 March 1833. 40 Canadian Freeman, 5 September 133. 204 ONTARIO HISTORY

Frontispiece of David Willson’s book, “Impressions of the Mind”, 1835. the brethren.” Just as the Farmers’ Store issued loans against share capital to its members, some of the elders proposed that the surplus in the charity fund be loaned at interest. They appointed John Doan and Murdoch McLeod on 3 No- vember 1832 to give security and serve as loan officers.42 Since they controlled the loan process themselves, they could ensure that terms were manageable, that no one was denied credit, and that the repayment of the principal remained flexible in difficult times. As a joint stock “bank” they certainly could not legally sue. The only existing records for the Charity Fund begin in 1845, at which time the fund was worth £226 4s 5d and of which, £132 12s11d had been loaned out.43 Most of these loans were for sums less than £25. Of sixty-one loans made Deputy Surveyor has been torn in pieces between 1845 and 1854, the average by the wolves.”41 The wolves, apparently, was £19 5s – or about the amount of the were his employers. average debt of those sued in the Home The plan Goessman proposed was District Court in 1830. It is no doubt similar to a credit union implemented this model which led the Farmers’ Store by the Children of Peace the year before, to propose a similar “bank” at the annual at the time they completed the temple meeting held in Hope in 1833. and organized themselves as a joint stock company (rather than a religious body). Shepard’s Hall Their Charity Fund, composed of alms ackenzie returned to York from his collected in the newly built temple, had MLondon expidition in the last week rapidly expanded beyond their charita- of August, 1833, to find his appeals to the ble needs, making “money useless like British Parliament had been ultimately the misers store, to the dissatisfaction of ineffective. A meeting of the Central

41 Colonial Advocate, 5 October1833. 42 AO Ms 733, series A, vol. 2, 7ff. 43 Archives, 973.33.2. A Farmer’s alliance 205

Committee was immediately called for “on Sundays, as a place of worship by the Elliot’s Hotel for the 2nd of September , Mennonists, Children of Peace, to plan on future directions in the wake or any other religious denomination, of their disappointment.44 At this critical from time to time, as occasion may re- meeting, the Central Committee ham- quire.” And second, “as a hall for holding mered out a plan of action; they called, political meetings of the people of this on the one hand, for the construction of a town, county or district, and for the use meeting hall where reformers could meet of a Constitutional Association, on week without threat of violence – a building days, at the discretion of a majority of they called “Shepard’s Hall” in honour the trustees.” Subscriptions could be left of Joseph Shepard45 On the other hand, with , Malcolm McLellan, they planned for a “Grand Convention William Arthurs, Monis Lawrence, Tho- of Delegates” from the Home District to mas Elliot, William Jackes and William select reform candidates, and a uniform Lyon Mackenzie, a list probably coinci- platform, for the ensuing elections. The dent with the seven unnamed trustees.46 organizers of the Farmers’ Store were to That the proposed building was intended play critical roles in both the organiza- to further both “civil and religious free- tion of the Grand Convention and the dom” is unsurprising given the roots of construction of Shepard’s Hall. the Central Committee in the Friends The members of the Central- Com of Civil and Religious Liberty. Shepard’s mittee announced their plan to build Hall was, in other words, just another a meeting hall in the next issue of the joint stock company like the Farmers’ Colonial Advocate, on 7 September, two Store House, the Children of Peace’s days after the libelous attack of John credit union, or the non-denominational Goessman on Joseph Shepard’s “embez- church at York Mills; the same corporate zlement” from the Farmers’ Storehouse: form could be used for religious, political “As a token of the high sense of approba- and economic purposes. tion with which the principles and public Further details of the proposed build- conduct of that veteran friend of reform, ing, and its purpose, were published the Mr. Joseph Shepard, are regarded, it is next month after a public meeting held in proposed to honour a building intended York had solicited £150 in subscriptions. as an aid to civil and religious freedom The trustees now proposed something by calling it by his name.” The proposed more grandiose yet, “a brick building 40 “Shepard’s Hall” was to be forty by fifty feet by 60, capable, with the galleries and feet in size, and able to seat between sev- platform, of containing 1500 persons… en and eight hundred people. The build- for use this fall” Besides the political ing would be used for two purposes: first, and religious usages just described, the

44 Colonial Advocate, 29 August 1833. 45 Colonial Advocate, 7 September 1833. 46 Colonial Advocate, 3 October 1833. 206 ONTARIO HISTORY

building would also be used “as a Hall the reformers greater scope to hammer for scientific lectures and the Mechan- out a consistent district, and province ics Institute.” The article also clarified the wide political platform against which impetus behind the building’s construc- candidates could be evaluated. This was tion. The electoral violence of 23 March the aim of the Grand Convention to take 1832 had resulted in the Tory dominated place in this hall the following February. House attempting to pass “laws to declare In a meeting in the Old Court House riot a Capital felony punishable with a few days later, on 6 October 1833, over a violent death, and defining what riot $1,000 was subscribed, and a site se- is.” The week before, the “Gazette of the lected for the building.48 The Canadian Political Union” (published in the Colo- Freeman, considering the project little nial Advocate) had reviewed the suspen- but a fraud to dupe a credulous pub- sion of habeas corpus in 1815, and com- lic, suggested that this site was “on the pared this declaration of martial law to premises of King Jesse [Ketchum], just in similar calls in the House in 1832. It also the spot where the Yankees hid the prop- reviewed the “gagging bill” or Sedition erty which was stolen from the British Act of 1804, under which Robert Gour- Commis’t stores after the battle of York. lay had been prosecuted for convening It could not, we think, be erected upon a public meetings. That Act was repealed more fit and becoming foundation.49 By only in 1829.47 Knowing the biases of the November, Mackenzie announced that magistrates in applying such laws, the re- $1,500 had been subscribed but that the formers proposed to avoid the potential proposed building would not be started for arrest or violence in public meetings until the following spring.50 The builder by building their own hall of the Hall was undoubtedly Joseph Tur- in which those who are, in truth and sincer- ton, a vice president of the Central Politi- ity, the friends of civil and religious liberty, cal Union, who advertized the construc- may meet and consult together, and inform tion of a building, forty by sixty feet, on each other upon matters of general inter- the north east corner of King and York est. If following the example of Christian 51 churches, those only were asked or admitted Street at this time. While Shepard’s into a political association who professed to Hall was under construction, the reform- agree with it on fundamental principles of ers leased the old Court House on Rich- government, such disturbances as once dis- mond St, just east of Yonge. graced York could never again occur. A small notice in the Advocate of 17 This step away from general public meet- October, announced that the Old Court ings to private partisan gatherings gave House, the temporary “Shepard’s hall,”

47 Colonial Advocate, 19 September 1833. 48 Colonial Advocate, 10 October 1833. 49 Canadian Freeman, 17 October 1833. 50 Advocate, 7 November 1833. 51 Patriot, 8 November 1833. A Farmer’s alliance 207

could now comfortably seat 400 people. York County on the 16th of December. And in the same issue, the Children of The “Grand Procession of the Peace announced they would hold a meet- Children of Peace” and the meeting in ing for worship there the next Sunday, Shepard’s Hall that followed were so ironically noting that this “was the Hall in well attended, that “every corner, nook, which, for many years, judges judged and and space of the court house and avenues Doctor Strachan preached extempore or leading to it were filled.” Mackenzie, with presbyterian sermons.” This sense of hav- rare humility, reported that ing reclaimed a public space from the le- Mr. Willson then delivered a sensible and gal and religious systems that oppressed well-connected address upon the state of the them added a sense of triumphalism to colony and the duty of a Christian people to the project.52 The Children of Peace col- guard their political privileges… Mr. Willson was loudly and repeatedly cheered. Mr. Mac- lectively declared in the Advocate soon kenzie also spoke for some time, but he was thereafter, that “we are ever ready to stand very dull and tedious, more so then we ever forth for our constitutional rights as hav- saw him before. ing part in the care of the province, and In the same issue of the Advocate, Macken- to use our humble exertions to appoint zie also reprinted a list of the Children of just men to government, and without an Peace’s contributions towards his expens- influenced vote choose for ourselves who 53 es for the London voyage; a list which shall rule over us. This was followed in included three women.55 As Mackenzie December by an announcement by David was to note early the next year, “since Willson, leader of the Children of Peace, ever he had known them they had been that he would, on the side of the yeomanry – they had by permission of the peaceable inhabitants of always attended the elections at their own York, appoint a Meeting in the Old Court House, at one o’clock on Saturday the 14th cost, had always voted right, had signed inst. for the purpose of promoting Civil and liberal petitions and had supported them Religious Government, to which Ministers with their purses.56 Given the general fear of Law and Gospel are respectfully invited, within reform circles of the day, the Chil- with other civil inhabitants of York, for the solemn purpose of correcting errors, dren of Peace collectively stand out as enlightening the mind, and giving speech to courageous advocates for Mackenzie. the dumb, with every other good purpose The Children of Peace continued that time and opportunity will afford.54 to share the old Court House with the This meeting was timed two days before Toronto reformers for the rest of 1834. the by-election for Mackenzie’s riding in It was here that David Wilkie, a British

52 Colonial Advocate, 17 October 1833. 53 Advocate, 5 December 1833. 54 Advocate, 14 December1833. 55 Advocate, 21 December1833. See Canadian Correspondent, 21 December 1833 for a copy of Will- son’s political discourse. 56 Advocate, 29 May 1834. 208 ONTARIO HISTORY

traveler, came across them: “the place was The Grand Convention of nearly filled when I entered, apparently with servant-girls, working-lads, and ap- Delegates prentice-boys about town.” Wilkie found t the same time as Shepard’s Hall was little to laud in Willson’s sermon: Abeing touted in the Colonial Advo- , the reformers set about organizing a the burden of his discourse seemed to be cate the injustice practised towards the world by “grand convention” to nominate reform all those who pos- candidates in the sess an abundant ensuing elections. share of the good Mackenzie put to- things of life. That they are all usurpers gether “A New Al- and tyrants; that manack for the Ca- there ought neither nadian True Blues, to be masters nor with which is incor- servants; that all porated the Consti- mankind are equal; and that it is the tutional Reformer’s duty of the poor Text Book,” osten- to pull down the sibly edited by his 57 rich. alter-ego, Patrick Wilkie was dismiss- Swift.59 The pam- ive of the message: phlet appeared ear- Ad for the “Grand Procession,” 1833 the “rambling rhap- ly in October, and sody… could not have drawn its per- was in its second edition by the end of the verted spirit from any part of the apos- month. Buried within this twenty-four tle’s inspired writings.” But he was not page pamphlet was a single page in small, far off in his description of the content. dense type, obviously originally set as a Willson was, at this time, composing a handbill which had circulated much ear- book, “A Friend to Britain,” and in an en- lier. The handbill called for the establish- try dated 12 December, a few days before ment of a regular system of nominations the “Grand Procession” to the old Court for political candidates, as was practiced in House, he wrote: “The poor are rising the United States, and by the Catholic As- and the mountains will do well to bend, sociation of Ireland, through which Dan- or be assured they will be overthrown, iel O’Connell had promoted the Catholic not by revolt, but by the power of reason, Emancipation Act of 1829. The handbill the principles of truth and justice – the called on the reformers of each town and issues of an understanding mind.58 township to call a meeting to select three

57 D. Wilkie, Sketches of a Summer Trip to New York and the Canadas (Edinburgh, 1837), 203-5. 58 David Willson, Impressions of the Mind (Toronto, 1835), 290. 59 Patrick Swift,A New Almanack for the Canadian true blues with which is incorporated the Constitu- tional Reformer’s text book for... (York: Printed and published by P. Baxter, Colonial Advocate, 1833). A Farmer’s alliance 209

delegates to attend a county convention a district-wide convention. These com- in the Old Court House to nominate ap- mittee members met in Hope the next propriate candidates for the next election, month to elect an executive for the riding and to establish a common platform. as a whole, and to act in unison with the Although the handbill was signed York Central Committee. This ten-mem- “Patrick Swift,” David Willson was later ber executive contained five members of to claim that the idea of the convention the Children of Peace. Samuel Hughes had been his (a claim not contradicted by was unanimously elected president, and Mackenzie who published it).60 Willson William Reid, secretary. Importantly, offered further fatherly advice on how to they set quorum at any five members in- conduct such a new and innovative insti- cluding the president.63 The Children of tution in the Advocate, emphasizing the Peace thus dominated the nomination importance of establishing a permanent process for the riding in which Macken- and regular convention. Willson’s claim zie’s brother-in-law, John MacIntosh was is substantiated by an earlier report of a selected. public meeting in Newmarket called on The Grand Convention was little 5 June 1833 (before Mackenzie had re- more than a centralization of the local turned from England), to establish a sec- process for nominating candidates sug- ond branch of the Central Political Un- gested by Hughes. Local delegates were ion despite Mackenzie’s request that the to be chosen to attend the Convention unions be disbanded. The meeting was and select candidates, who would then called for the townships of Whitchurch, be confirmed by public meetings in their East Gwillimbury and Brock, the newly local constituencies. Only the delegates established Fourth Riding of the County from within a riding played a role in se- of York.61 Samuel Hughes chaired this lecting a candidate for that riding at the meeting, and William Reid was secre- convention, and their selection required tary; both were elders of the Children of local public meetings to confirm the Peace. This meeting, on a motion from choice. Given the continued emphasis on Hughes, established “Committees of local control of the nomination process, Vigilance” for each township in the rid- it is not unreasonable to wonder about ing, “to secure the return of an independ- the need for a central meeting, or con- ent Member to the ensuing Parliament.62 vention. The emphasis on local control The use of committees of reformers to of its representative was balanced, how- nominate candidates, rather than non- ever, by the collective process of defining partisan public meetings, was innovative, a platform to which the local candidates and led in short order to the proposal for had to agree. It is thus within this con-

60 Advocate, 20 February 1834. 61 Established in February 1833. 62 Colonial Advocate, 13 June 1833. 63 Colonial Advocate, 18 July 1833. 210 ONTARIO HISTORY

vention that we see the germs of a reform vention to follow. He also “pray[ed] for “party,” a “permanent convention.” a standing convention,” a party organiza- The first of the township meetings to tion, so that they could report was East Gwillimbury, which met do all your business with closed doors until in the village of Hope on 30 November; your plans are well concerted, and then bring the early participation of the Children them to the light, far and wide as your care extends. In so doing, you will hide yourself of Peace certainly adds credence to Will- from the battle till you are armed, and save son’s claim to have been the convention’s your heads from public censure, and your initiator. This was followed by Albion weakness from the archers eye.66 township, which held a meeting on 9 The day before the convention, the Chil- December,64 and King township on the dren of Peace again held a “Grand Proces- 14th.65 No further public meetings were sion” to the old Court House: “They will called until the handbill from “A New be accompanied by music and banners, Almanack for the Canadian True Blues” as on the occasion of the late County was reprinted in the Advocate on 14 De- election, and they request the friends of cember, a few days before Mackenzie’s last freedom, truth, justice and constitution- ejection from the House of Assembly. In al right to take part in the procession.” a public meeting held at the hustings just There, David Willson again “addressed after the election, a series of resolutions the meeting with great force and effect.67 were passed, one of which was to con- The members of the convention were tinue the Central Committee appoint- not, however, so easily swayed by Will- ed on 19 January 1832, with the aim of son’s call for a “permanent convention.” promoting the district and provincial After the delegates had selected their conventions. Despite continuing fears of candidates and prepared a ten point plat- violence, Mackenzie’s expulsion seemed form to which those candidates had to to have galvanized public support, and pledge themselves, Samuel Hughes “pro- more township meetings quickly fol- posed that the convention should resolve lowed to confirm these resolutions, select to continue its sittings from time to time delegates for the convention, and prepare during the continuance of the next ensu- supportive addresses to Mackenzie. ing parliament, and proposed a Consti- The convention was convened for 27 tution for its adoption.” Although the February 1834. On the 20th, the Advo- original call for the convention had em- cate published a letter from Willson ad- phasized that once assembled, its mem- dressed to the delegates in which he of- bers should assume the responsibility of fered advice on its future direction. He nominating an executive to reconvene strongly advocated for a provincial con- the convention for the next year, a ma-

64 Advocate, 14 December 1833. 65 Advocate, 21 December 1833. 66 Advocate, 20 February 1834. 67 Advocate, 20, 27 February 1834. A Farmer’s alliance 211 jority of the delegates reacted negatively preparing for the ensuing elections in to Hughes’ proposed constitution, be- October. Within days of the convention, cause they “had not been appointed for Willson enjoined the Central Committee any such purpose, and that their power to “count the cost” and begin the process would cease immediately after the next of courting public support for the candi- general election.68 dates: “your whole strength lieth in a union The main purpose of the convention of sentiment,” he argued, so “let us obtain a had been to select four candidates for the universal concurrence in all things we do four ridings of York County. The del- as much as possible. If we offend the voters, egates from each riding absented them- the strength, pride and glory of the conven- selves from the convention to settle on a tion is lost.” He added that he would “use candidate, which was then confirmed by my small endeavors to promote those you the convention as a whole. The delegates have appointed.69 When a public meeting from the first riding (York, Etobicoke, was held in Markham to confirm Dr. Mor- Vaughan and King townships) nomi- rison’s candidacy, for example, “the fine nated Joseph Shepard, who declined on band of the Children of Peace cheered the account of age; and then David Gibson, hearts of the Markhamese with a grand va- a surveyor, who was also appointed chair- riety of lively airs.”70 man of the York Constitutional Tract So- ciety. The second riding (Caledon, Chin- The Market Buildings guacousy, Toronto, Toronto Gore and espite their rejection of forming Albion townships) nominated Macken- Da party organization, the Grand zie himself. The third riding (Scarbor- Convention and subsequent election ough, Markham, Pickering, and Whitby did not end the organizational efforts of townships) nominated Dr. Thomas Dav- the reform movement. The wheels had id Morrison, the corresponding secretary been set in motion to build Shepard’s of the Upper Canada Central Political Hall. The election’s outcome was by no Union, and of the Central Commit- means certain, and the need for a safe tee. The fourth riding (East and North public space within which to hold their Gwillimbury, Scott, Georgina, Brock, meetings remained a priority. Given Reach, Whitchurch and Uxbridge town- the shortage of labour resulting from a ships) nominated John MacIntosh, Mac- cholera outbreak, the completion of the kenzie’s brother-in-law, and the chairman hall was postponed; it was eventually of the Central Committee. These four completed in early January, 1835. In the candidates were all from within the inner meantime, however, the reformers took coterie of the Central Committee. advantage of the completion of the new The remainder of the year was spent market buildings to do what they had

68 Advocate, 13 March 1834. 69 Advocate, 27 March 1834 “Count the Cost.” dated Hope, 2 March 1834. 70 Advocate, 24 April 1834. 212 ONTARIO HISTORY

done when they triumphally reclaimed The untenanted sections of the Mar- the old Court House from the Family ket Square buildings, consisting of nine Compact. The new market building had large rooms, were let at auction on 16 been initiated in 1831 by the magistrates June 1834.72 The large room, sixty by of the Court of Quarter Sessions, and twenty-seven feet in size, on the second several large rooms in it were put up for floor of the south side, was taken by Mac- rent in 1834, shortly after its completion. kenzie for the Advocate office. Macken- When Mackenzie became Toronto’s first zie had, however, put the Advocate up mayor in early 1834, he made the mar- for sale on 17 April, having found that ket building his city hall. The Advocate, little effort had been put into collecting and the reform movement, moved into a its accounts in his absence, and the bur- temporary “Shepard’s Hall” in the south den of debt was too large and onerous wing. Looking out of their windows to make it worth continuing. He would south across Palace Street, the reformers devote himself to his new role as mayor would see the Farmers’ Storehouse. of Toronto instead. The mayor’s office The Market Square building was a was in the Town Hall at the north end large rectangular structure 77 feet wide of the market square. TheCanadian Cor- and 160 feet long, with a central, open respondent, a reform newspaper edited courtyard, filling the block bounded by by Dr. William O’Grady, a defrocked King, New (Jarvis), Palace (Front) and priest, took the room facing Palace Street West Market Streets.71 An arcade joined on the southwest corner. The Advocate King St. to the inner square; a smaller continued under the editorship of Peter entrance on the south side gave access Baxter, Mackenzie’s brother-in-law, until to Palace St. A large building, the Town after the October elections for the pro- Hall, was erected above the King St. ar- vincial assembly when it was purchased cade, which was used as the first city hall. by O’Grady. O’Grady sold off its presses The remaining three sides of the building and merged the two papers into the Cor- were two storeys high. The second floor respondent & Advocate on 30 October. of the south side of the square contained The disappearance of the Advocate a single large room sixty by twenty-seven left the large room on the second floor feet. A gallery ran around the inner court- of the south building empty. The old yard, giving access to the second storey Court House was leased out, and the re- warehouses, and providing a viewing area formers – still only loosely organized as for the many public meetings which took the Central Committee – took over the place in the square below. room.73 It was only now – after the elec-

71 George Walton, York Commercial Directory, Street Guide, and Register, 1833-4… (York: Thomas Dalton, 1833), 47; Isaac Fidler, Observations on Professions, Literature, Manner, and Emigration, in the United States and Canada, Made During a Residence There in 1832 (London: Whittaker, Treacher, & Co., 1833), 263-64. 72 Canadian Correspondent, 14 June, 1834; Colonial Advocate, 29 May, 1834. 73 Correspondent & Advocate, 24 December 1834; 8, 15 January 1835. A Farmer’s alliance 213

tion – that they reorganized as the Cana- need immediately replace the Central dian Alliance Society, with James Lesslie, Committee just after the elections. It a city Alderman, as interim president. By was those five newly elected reform rep- January 1835 the Children of Peace were resentatives who were largely responsible preaching in the same room every other for the founding of the Canadian Alli- Sunday.74 And by the end of February, the ance Society, making its non-electoral fo- Mechanics Institute had also moved into cus all the more surprising. The Alliance the same space;75 Lesslie was treasurer of was a political union, a lobbying organi- the Institute, and Timothy Parsons, the zation, formed in the wake of the Central Canadian Alliance Society’s secretary, Committee’s inability to constitute itself was also the secretary of the Institute. The as a “permanent convention,” a politi- old office of the Advocate in the market cal party. Why then, was so much effort buildings thus became the second tem- poured into creating this new society at porary home for “Shepard’s Hall,” finally this time when, as Mackenzie later noted, providing a space for the three legs of the a “society of this sort could not be exten- reform movement, as called for in their sively useful” given reformers continued prospectus; what the Courier scathingly hopes “on the justice of the English Gov- called the “Holy Alliance Hay Loft.”76 ernment”?78 To account for this innovation, we Radical Hall need to consider the institutional mo- he formation of the Canadian Alli- mentum of the reform movement, as a Tance Society after the reformers re- movement. The reform movement was pudiated any form of party organization, not a political party – it had repudiated and after the elections requires some ex- that – but was, rather, a gradual coa- planation.77 It can, in part, be explained lescing of a number of disparate groups by the fact that the Central Committee, with disparate goals which only slowly under John MacIntosh’s chairmanship, hammered out a common agenda. Gal- had been appointed only until those elec- vanized by Mackenzie’s expulsions from tions. Something new, of necessity, had the House, and goaded by political vio- to eventually replace it. But the Central lence and the threat of a “gagging bill,” Committee had been narrowly conceived the political union movement, religious as an election vehicle – a task with which dissenters like the Children of Peace, it had been enormously successful, with and the Mechanics Institute had come reform candidates sweeping the seats to share both leaders, as well as a home: for Toronto and York County. Nothing Shepard’s Hall. Given the length of time,

74 Correspondent & Advocate, 15 January 1835. 75 Patriot,10 March 1835. 76 Patriot,13 January 1835. 77 Wilton, Popular Politics, 164-65. 78 Constitution, 16 November 1836. 214 ONTARIO HISTORY

and the number of temporary homes it poses, for which it will be kept” above.81 occupied, it is easy to lose sight of the The stores were eventually occupied by reformers’ plans for a “people’s hall.” the printing establishments of the reform The little publicized plan formulated in newspapers, the Correspondent and Advo- late 1833, came to fruition when these cate, and W.L. Mackenzie’s Constitution. three organizations came to share the The public hall was used for the meetings same leased space in 1834 in the market of the Canadian Alliance Society and by building. By late 1834, their proposed groups of religious dissenters such as the hall, now called “Turton’s Building,” was Children of Peace, Methodists, Irvin- taking physical shape. It was this asset, gites, and the Mormons.82 The buildings as with the Temple of the Children of were constructed on land belonging to Peace, which proved the immediate im- Dr. , who was petus for the nebulous “Reform Society to become the president of the Canadian of Toronto” to adopt a constitution and Alliance Society in May 1836. Once the establish itself on a more formal basis.79 Alliance and reform newspapers moved When the Upper Canada Central in, it clearly fulfilled the Society’s original Political Union first proposed “Shepard’s vision: Hall” in September 1833, they expected Our proposition is by no means new. The to start construction in the spring of lawyers have combined and built their Hall; 1834.80 Turton was a vice-president of the Legislative Council have theirs; the governor and his executive council theirs; the Political Union, a common councilor the district magistracy theirs; the pensioned in the Toronto city council and a “man- priesthood theirs; the bank monopolists ager” of the Canadian Alliance Society theirs; the college council theirs; and the which succeeded it in January 1834. By House of Assembly theirs. All these “politi- November 1833, Turton was already ad- cal unions” are upheld at the proper cost and charges of the good people of Upper vertizing the construction of two three- Canada – the people it was who paid for storey buildings on the north-east corner all these halls. But what have they gained of King and York streets, to be available by them? Are these political bodies, as now the 1st of May. The buildings were, how- constituted, or are they not, so many organ- ized combinations carried on for the private ever, only completed in December 1834. advantage of their several members, at the Instead of two separate three-storey continual sacrifice of the public good? Are buildings, he built a single building with they, or are they not? similar sized stores, and an additional Is it not time that the people should come “large room, 60 by 20 feet, for Public pur- forward and subscribe their money, materi-

79 Correspondent & Advocate, 11, 18 December 1834; Patriot, 12 December 1834. The Canadian Al- liance Society adopted its constitution at a meeting on 9 December 1834. 80 Colonial Advocate, 7 September 1833. 81 Correspondant & Advocate, 18 December 1834. 82 Constitution, 7 September 1836; the Methodists were led by dissidents to Ryerson’s union with the Wesleyan Methodists, including the Rev. James Richardson, and the Rev. Mr. Turner. A Farmer’s alliance 215

als, and labor, to build THEIR HALL, a ingly squeezed by their creditors, called place in which they, for whom alone govern- for a “Provincial Loan Office” to help ments are, or ought to be established, may quietly and peaceably assemble and meet them weather the storm. The idea of a together to concert measures in favor of provincial loan bank had been discussed cheap law, cheap religion, cheap government, in the colony for more than a decade; it and encouragement and spread of all useful was, in short, a provincially-sponsored knowledge throughout Upper Canada? bank which would loan farmers small The prospectus for Shepard’s Hall draws sums of £1 or £2 against the security of clear parallels between “combinations”, their farms. A bill confusingly establish- such as the Law Society, the Court of ing such a bank as “The Bank of Upper Quarter Sessions, and the Executive Canada” had been passed in 1821; how- Council, each of which, like their “politi- ever, when the York-captured “Bank of cal union,” had their own hall. Whereas Upper Canada Bill” returned two days the “combinations” of the Family Com- later with royal assent, this bill was an- pact were closed corporations with legis- nulled and the project dropped.83 In Au- lated monopolies over law, government gust of 1833, shortly after the Children and banking, the reformers proposed of Peace established their own credit an alternate open model, a democratic union, and attempted to transform the “people’s corporation.” It takes little to Farmers Storehuse into a bank, a “poor appreciate the irony of the site of “Radi- farmer of East Gwillimbury” (where the cal Hall” currently being the home to the village of Hope lay) renewed the call for Toronto Stock Exchange Towers. a loan bank, and suggested let us exert ourselves, and see if we cannot The Provincial Loan Office get a loan office established in this wealthy he first petition circulated by this part of the country. This we can obtain in Tnew alliance was for a “Provincial spite of the House of Parliament, for we Loan Office” on the model of the Chari- need no charter from them. A poor man has no chance in their bank, for what reason? ty Fund of the Children of Peace, and the Because he cannot get less than £25 or £50; Farmers’ Store House Bank. It is impor- when our loan office could lend a sum as low tant to underscore the economic factors as they see fit, perhaps £1: 0: 0; such would which both brought these disparate ac- give the poor man a chance as well as the rich man. This would be placing the rich and the tors together in Shepard’s Hall. By 1835, poor more on an equal footing. If we don’t the province was in economic crisis, and assert ourselves in pleading the poor man’s the economic ills which had pushed the cause, depend upon it crushed down we are; farmers of the Home District to form for the more they can tyrannize over us the 84 the Farmers’ Storehouse became acute. better their glory. Farmers in the Home District, increas- This “Provincial Loan Office” was to be-

83 Adam Shortt, The Early History of Canadian Banking: The First Banks in Upper Canada (Toronto: Journal of the Canadian Bankers’ Association, 1897), 17-18. 84 Colonial Advocate, 15 August 1833. 216 ONTARIO HISTORY

come the first petition campaign of the fices in each district associated with the new Canadian Alliance Society. registry office; these offices would issue A letter by Randal Wixon was pub- “provincial loan notes” equal to twice the lished in the Correspondent & Advocate provincial debt which would be legal ten- on the first of January 1835, advocating der. These notes would be loaned in small “A PLAN TO HELP EVERYBODY, amounts to farmers on security of their INJURE NO BODY, AND PAY OFF property, due in fifteen years, at 6% simple THE WHOLE PROVINCIAL DEBT interest. It offered long term credit, as op- IN FIFTEEN YEARS BY ESTABLISH- posed to the ninety-day loans of the Bank ING PROVINCIAL LOAN OFFIC- of Upper Canada, and would be repaid ES.” Wixon was a member of the Hope yearly rather than quarterly, since farmers Political Union led by Samuel Hughes, had but one crop a year to sell. As these and had been the editor of the Advocate farmers paid their yearly installments, this in Mackenzie’s absence. Wixon’s plan, money would be reloaned to others, on a like the Children of Peace’s credit union, shorter period, so that at the end of fifteen would provide small loans on flexible years, the original pool of notes would terms to farmers, rather than merchants. provide compound interest; the profits Wixon attributed the plan to William from this compound interest would be Cunningham, a Quaker from Hallowell sufficient, after expenses, to pay off the township, Prince Edward County. Most provincial debt at the end of fifteen years. of the petitions came from areas with a Basing bank notes on land, rather heavy concentration of Quaker settlers. than on specie or a legitimate commer- Wixon asked, cial transaction, was anathema to mer- How are people to be relieved from the pres- chants who needed notes which could sure of these hard times? Produce fetches be trafficked outside the province. The almost nothing, and every body are in debt. reformers held this out as an advantage; From what has fallen under my own observa- notes based on land, which could not tion, and from every other means which I have taken to inform myself, I am decidedly be converted into gold, would not fall of opinion, that, at least one fourth part of in the continual snare of the Bank of the people in this province are so deeply in- Upper Canada which found its specie volved in debt, that their personal property reserves constantly drained outside the sold to the best advantage, at the present pric- es, would be totally insufficient to pay their province. But for merchants, this lack of honest debts… The consequence will be, that convertibility would allow the “Province an immense quantity of property, both real of Upper Canada to turn swindler upon and personal, will be brought into market at 86 85 a grand scale.” The critique seems less Sheriff ’s sale, with few purchasers. telling when it is recognized that even The plan that he proposed called on the the Bank of Upper Canada frequently provincial parliament to establish loan of- would not honor local merchant’s for-

85 Correspondent & Advocate, 1, 22 January 1835. 86 Patriot, 6 January 1835. A Farmer’s alliance 217

eign drafts, if they paid for it with the Provincial Loan Office emerged directly Bank’s own notes; it demanded specie in out of the newly formed rural branches of payment of such international transfers. the Canadian Alliance Society, and not If the Bank of Upper Canada’s notes had its urban headquarters. The Lloydtown no international currency, why should branch, for example, was formed on 17 the Provincial Loan Office’s notes? January 1835, and its ninth resolution These alternate conceptions on what called for the implementation of the Loan was (or should be) the real basis for mon- Office scheme; their petition, from Joseph ey reflected the differing mentalité of Watson and thirty-nine others, was read merchants and farmers. In the same issue in the House on 11 February. The Albion of the Correspondent & Advocate as Wix- branch was formed on 12 January, and on defended his plan from the merchants’ its second resolution called for the adop- critiques, David Willson clearly articulat- tion of the plan; their petition, signed by ed an agrarian sensibility that labour, not eighty-nine members was presented on trade, was the source of all value: 21 March. In all eleven petitions, signed What do you think of our legislating powers, by 1,012 freeholders, including George have they acquainted themselves with our Hollingshead, a member of the Children necessities. No!! they never hold the plough, of Peace and sixty-eight others, and Silas nor drive the cart – manure the soil, nor reap the harvest; but we by spoonsful, fill up their Fletcher, former director of the Farmers’ treasures, and they receive with shovels or Store, and ninety-six others, were present- wholesale our hard earned bread. ed.88 These petitions were referred first to He highlighted the importance of the the Select Committee on Trade, and then petitioning movement of the Canadian to a select committee composed of Sam- Alliance Society: uel Lount, Charles Duncombe, and Dr. We have good men far and near who have Thomas D. Morrison. They drafted a bill, taken up our cause… Behold how beautiful which received first reading on 6 April the line is drawn – thro’ friends and agents a 1835. In the same session, on 25 Janu- way is opened for the farthest inhabitant of the wood, to the throne of our king. It is not ary 1835, the trustees for the Farmers’ with us as in days past, when we had no mass storehouse, led by Samuel Hughes, again of influence to plead our cause, and public petitioned for incorporation to put their matters were whispered over in the closet.87 banking plans into operation. Although The Farmers’ Store, and the organization their petition was referred to a select com- of the Canadian Alliance Society, seems mittee composed of William Lyon Mac- to have been the crucible within which kenzie, and David Gibson, they learned how to garner public sup- who drafted a bill, it was not presented port, and to petition the House of As- until the next session, 11 February 1836, sembly for equitable treatment. indicating the significant legislative barri- The petitioning movement for the ers the reformers faced in their fight for

87 Correspondent & Advocate, 22 January 1835. 88 Correspondent & Advocate, 2 February 1835; Journal, 1835, 11, 13, 17-20, 25, 27 February 1835. 218 ONTARIO HISTORY

economic justice.89 politically and economically. Toronto’s However, on 11 April 1835, Dun- merchants could determine both the combe, also the chair of the Select Com- price they paid for wheat, and the price mittee on the Currency, delivered a of the goods they bartered for it, keep- report which confirmed the legality of ing the farmer in perpetual debt, and joint stock banks on the Scottish system. hence a political dependent. The Farm- The reformers pointed out that private ers’ Storehouse, by allowing its members banking in the U.S. had been restricted to to borrow either cash or goods, reduced chartered banks, which they held respon- their dependence on merchants. Inde- sible for the high number of bank failures pendence and respectability had their there. Few such failures occured under economic implications, but so too, their the Scottish system since employees were public or political side; only independ- paid a fixed salary (hence they had no ent freeholders could vote according to incentive to increase loans beyond their their conscience when voting was open, capital resources), and were made person- and the support of a particular candidate ally responsible for all bad debts. Share- visible to all. The cooperative movement holders, similarly, were responsible for all granted that independence of conscience, bank debts to the full extent of their per- but also, as I have just argued, served sonal property. The committee affirmed as the crucible for the development of the legality of these unchartered banks in a democratic sensibility, one rooted in the province, and offered a template for serving the public, and of public vigilance their creation based on several successful in their supervision of elected public fig- British joint stock banks.90 The legislative ures. And lastly, the cooperative move- plans for the Provincial Loan Office and ment had its explicitly legislative aspect, the Farmers’ Storehouse Bank were thus as it worked through the loose network transformed into the joint stock “Farm- of political reformers to fashion a more ers’ Bank” and the “Bank of the People.” permanent solution to the systematic economic and political oppression they Conclusion faced. Like the agrarian democrats of a n this article, the interconnections be- century later, they castigated the ‘special Itween a number of disparate themes, privileges’ granted to legislated limited events, institutions and personages have liability monopolies like the Bank of Up- been underscored. Debt was an assault per Canada. They developed a labour on a farmer’s independence and respect- theory of value, which undercut mer- ability, and the Farmers’ Storehouse was chant’s control of economic policy, and an early attempt to circumvent its effects tried to implement a program of radical

89 Journal, 1835, 46; 1836, 43, 62, 142, 238; an incomplete draft of this bill can be seen courtesy of the City of Toronto, Culture Division, Gibson House Museum, Ms 11-2. 90 “Report of Select Committee to which was referred the subject of the Currency”, Appendix to the Journal, 1835, No. 31. A Farmer’s alliance 219 monetary reform and state measures to gether. Joseph Shepard, a key figure in redistribute wealth. the Farmers’ Storehouse, was also a key The Children of Peace played a criti- figure in the developing reform move- cal role in the creation of the Canadian ment in the Home District. As with Ely Alliance Society that has not been rec- Playter, his activity in the Farmers’ Store- ognized. As key players in the Farmers’ house was one reason he achieved the po- Storehouse, and as instigators of a “per- litical prominence that he did, eventually manent convention,” they helped pull granting his name to its meeting hall. The the movement together in its new home, same can be said of Samuel Hughes, who “Shepard’s Hall.” Teasing out these link- also served as president of the Farmers’ ages requires us to follow an intricate trail: Storehouse. Hughes was a delegate to the from the rebuilding of Solomon’s Temple “Grand Convention” where he proposed in “Hope” by these “lost Israelites” fleeing the creation of a permanent reform party their pharaoh, to the creation of a credit organization. He was an organizer of the union from the alms they collected there, Canadian Alliance Society, where his ties and ultimately to the petitioning move- with the Farmers’ Storehouse and the ment for a “Provincial Loan Office.” From Children of Peace helped serve as glue their cooperative sale of wheat, they pro- for the movement. And he was a del- ceeded to the formation of the Farmers’ egate to the Constitutional Convention Storehouse, and from children of “peace” of 1837, by which Upper Canada would subjected to political violence, they built have been declared a republic. The radi- a safe home for free speech. And, finally, cal ideology that the Children of Peace from preaching in Shepard’s Hall, they developed around the theme of charity, became political proselytizers for a demo- and the economic strategies they imple- cratic Upper Canada. mented in their moral economy, served To follow this trail it is particularly as a model for the broader democratic important to highlight the individuals political movement of which they were who served to link this movement to- taking a leadership role. o