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Samuel Hughes: Child of Peace, Democrat, Socialist, Quaker Minister Albert Schrauwers1 Other than the occasional ironic commen- Holland Landing overlooking Hughes’s home tary on Quaker participation in the Rebellion across the Holland River valley in Hope of 1837, little has been written about Canadian (Sharon). Both men were prominent reform Quakers’ contributions to the development of politicians: Lount in Simcoe County (whose democratic governance in Upper Canada.2 Our seat was Holland Landing), and Hughes in collective fascination with revolutionary mo- York County. Both men were renowned for ments (and in this case, their failure), has ob- their charity; Hughes as an elder of the Chil- scured the important work of Friends in build- dren of Peace, and Lount among the immi- ing a strong culture of deliberative democracy, grants to Simcoe County.3 Both men sought to both within and outside their meeting houses. promote the Farmers’ Storehouse, Canada’s One of the most important of those early first farmers cooperative -- Hughes as its presi- friends, of whom almost nothing has been dent, and Lount, with Mackenzie and Gibson, written, is the Yonge Street Friend Samuel on the legislative committee to incorporate it in Hughes. Hughes and most of his family joined 1835. Both men were delegates to the planned the Children of Peace after the War of 1812. Constitutional Convention of 1837, which During the 1830s, he was to become the presi- formed the organizational framework for the dent of Canada’s first farmers’ cooperative (and Rebellion. mutual credit association), a prominent reform The common set of economic values, poli- politician, and a temperance advocate. After the tics and history these men shared would lead us Rebellion, he rejoined the Hicksite Quakers, to expect a similar response to Mackenzie’s call where he was soon recognized as a minister. I to arms. Yet, while Lount became a leader of recount Samuel Hughes’s storied history to the rebellion, Hughes is noticeable by his ab- highlight the contribution of Quakers to de- sence. Lount has become an historical foot- mocratic reform and economic justice. note, an icon of the Rebellion’s failure. Despite The silence on early Quaker political activity his equal contribution to the politics of the era, is best highlighted by a comparison of Hughes Hughes, like their common set of values, has with his relation, Samuel Lount, a reform been forgotten. The following article is a first, member of the House of Assembly, and a mar- biographical attempt to trace those values, their tyr of the Rebellion of 1837. The two men origins, and the political action it inspired. were surprisingly similar in many ways. Both were born in Catawissa (formerly Hughesville), Family & Early Life Pennsylvania. Both men emigrated to the Samuel Hughes was born 4 February 1785 in Yonge Street area before the War of 1812 with Catawissa, second son of Job Hughes and his the extended Hughes family, although Lount second wife Eleanor Lee. Job Hughes was a was trapped south of the border during the noted Friends minister whose life has been re- War of 1812. Hughes became a member of the counted in this journal.4 He was a pacifist pio- Children of Peace along with most of the ex- neer in the new western districts of Pennsylva- tended Hughes family in 1812; Lount did not. nia along the Susquehanna River during the By 1837, they lived in neighbouring communi- revolutionary war, trapped between hostile First ties, with Lount’s farm on the hill south of Nations peoples supporting the British on one Canadian Quaker History Journal 73 (2008) Samuel Hughes Canada Half Year’s Meeting in 1810. Two years before the War of 1812, he also participated on a committee that recorded that Quakers on Yonge Street had lost £243 11s 7d in property taken in lieu of military service, and that eight members had been jailed for one to three months.6 Samuel Hughes was married for the first of three times in June 1811 in the Yonge Street Monthly Meeting to Sarah Webster, daughter of Abram and Anna Lundy Webster, born 4 Thomas Moran (1837–1926) On the Catawissa Creek, 1862 October 1786 in Sussex County, New Jersey. side, and revolutionaries intent on impressing She immigrated with her parents to Upper him in the Continental Army on the other. On Canada, settling first on the shores of Lake 9 March 1780, Job was jailed for a year on sus- Erie in 1793 and later moving to Whitchurch picion of giving information to hostile first na- Township. The new couple remained on his tions. After the war, the family grew with the widowed mother’s farm, Lot 91, 1st Conces- birth of eight children, as did the village and sion, Whitchurch Township. Sarah died 24 De- monthly meeting of Catawissa. However, new cember1815, after the successive deaths of land in the area was not available, and in three infants. He married secondly, Mary Doan, 1804-5, the extended family moved to Upper in 1819, daughter of Ebenezer Doan Sr. and Canada. Two daughters married Friends in the Anna Savilla Sloy Doan born 7 December West Lake area; the remaining six children, in- 1762; she died childless on 5 April 1827. He cluding Samuel, all settled with their parents in married lastly, Anna Armitage, on 21 June the Yonge Street settlement where they married 1829, daughter of Amos and Martha Doan and established their own farms and businesses. Armitage, widow of Isaac Wiggins, and niece Job Hughes was the leading minister in the of his second wife. Yonge Street Monthly Meeting, and his wife Eleanor was an elder. Job died in 1810 on a trip War & Peace to attend New York Yearly Meeting; his will The death of Job Hughes and a second min- stipulated that Samuel was to care for his ister, Jacob Winn, left a religious vacuum in the mother, and inherit the family farm opposite Yonge Street Monthly Meeting in the years the Yonge Street meetinghouse. immediately preceding the War of 1812. By Samuel Hughes was twenty years old when that time, meetings for worship had also been the family moved to Upper Canada. He later established in Queen Street (now Sharon), wrote: “My Character through the progress of Whitchurch, Uxbridge and Pickering. David my youth may be described as follows, in Willson, a new member who had donated land Childhood; passionate and willful; and as a for the Queen Street meetinghouse, tried to fill youth- wild and light minded; attended at times that ministerial void in late 1811. Hughes de- however with great sorrow, and soberness, with scribed Willson as “a man of great integrity in deep solemnity of thought. And as a young his devotions, zealous for religion and very ab- man I was zealous for religion and very full of stemious in meats and drinks.” Willson had action.” 5 This self-appraisal is reflected in the served on numerous committees in the Month- meeting minutes. He was called upon as an ly Meeting, and had served as an overseer. But overseer, and to represent the meeting at the on 15 September 1811, he began “bearing tes- Canadian Quaker History Journal 73 (2008) !33 Samuel Hughes timony that the appearance of Christ in the the restoration of unity, they only made the flesh was not to be regarded as God; but as a breach the worse, it was like the new cloth to man endowed with Divine power in whom the old garments. Thus things continued to grow will of God was made manifest and in whom worse for about a year, when two of the Elders God was well pleased; and that in him the who disapproved of him, took the responsibili- works of God (as relates to the outward) ware ty upon themselves, and required him to either finished and that hence forth the dispensation keep silent or conform to their views in doc- of God to his people became spiritual; and that trines.”9 It was this demand that politicized the the manhood of Christ should be no more meeting just as the War of 1812 commenced in worshiped as God.”7 June. Willson’s first religious confident had been Willson withdrew from the Monthly Meeting his neighbour, and Samuel Hughes elder sister, the next day, and opened his own home for Rachel Hughes Lundy. She married Israel meetings for worship. Rachel Hughes was one Lundy on 23 February 1802 in Muncy Monthly of the original five members of the Children Meeting, and they moved to Upper Canada in of Peace to meet there. In the succeeding 1805, buying the west fifty eight acres of Lot 8, months, her mother Eleanor and siblings 2nd Concession of East Gwillimbury, where Samuel, Amos and Sarah, and their families, they established a grist and saw mill. Rachel was also appeared to have sided with Willson. I one of the most active women Quakers serving have pointed out elsewhere that most of those on committees of the Yonge Street Monthly who joined the Children of Peace lived along Meeting; she thus frequently worked with Yonge Street, a military road, and not in the David Willson, her neighbour, and one of the Queen Street, Whitchurch or Uxbridge meet- most active male committee members. It is thus ings. It seems that their experience of religious no surprise that Willson turned to her when he persecution for their pacifist stance on the war first felt called to the ministry. Willson warned drew them to Willson who had formed a new her that his ministry presaged “a new and glo- group, the Children of Peace, on the promise he rious Dispensation [which] was about to break would raise the peace testimony as “an Ensign forth in the world.

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