Dixie Union Cemetery
Location:
707 Dundas Street East, Mississauga, Peel Region, Ontario, Canada.
Concession 1 NDS Lot 10, Toronto Township.
GPS::
Latitude: 43.59543°N
Longitude: -79.60029°W
History:
In 1785, the Crown bought Indian lands west to the Etobicoke River. Governor Simcoe, with his ill-advised hobby of eliminating Indian names, tried in vain to rename this stream Smith River, after Peel’s noted Loyalist landowner, Hon. Samuel Smith. He called his great military highway Dundas Street in compliment to the Scot who was Colonial Secretary.
In 1798, Government House, “a convenient house of accommodation”, was erected at the Credit harbour. Queen’s Rangers opened the road and built bridges along the lake shore from the Humber to the Credit, and thence on the Upper Road (Dundas Street leading to the head of the Lake).
Dundas Street being designed as Upper Canada’s “great western road … extra-ordinary and hard settling duty was required”. Farms fronting on it were granted only to men of means or influence.
The Hon. William Allen, wealthy young Scottish merchant and operator of inns at York, Niagara and elsewhere, leased Government House and sublet it. Old Indian traders, who had served in Butler’s Rangers acquired squatters’ rights, and may have had a private hostelry and an illicit still.
The rest of Lake Ontario’s north shore – barring a mile on either side of the Credit and two smaller salmon streams – was bought from the Mississaugas in 1805-6. Toronto township was thrown open to settlers, and Laura Secord’s father, Thomas Ingersoll, sometimes called Peel’s first white resident took over Government House. Unlike his predecessors, active church members in York, this fourth cousin, three times removed, of the famous infidel, Colonel Bob Ingersoll, was a Universalist. Although a Methodist itinerant Nathan Bangs claimed to have converted him, Ingersoll did no church work in Peel.
If the opening of the Dundas Trail was the first step towards the establishment of Dixie Union Church, certainly the arrival of Philip and Lydia Cody, in the autumn of 1806, was the second. Cody, a big erect New Englander, sought land in Toronto Township even though his elder brother Joseph had done well for himself around Newmarket and Aurora.
Philip saw there a rich field for speculation and acquisition. He somehow managed to obtain a lien on Mrs. T. Grant’s 200 acres, Lot 10, First Concession, south of Dundas Street, and before long was able to receive his patent. He soon set himself the task of building his home and business to be known as “Cody’s Tavern.”
On April 8, 1807, the ship the Governor Hunter steamed slowly into the port at York following an uneventful trip from Niagara. On board were some members of another family that contributed so much to the early history. They made their way from York, up the Etobicoke trail and along Dundas Street, arriving at Cody’s Inn April 20. Pushing their way in through the front door, they announced themselves as John Silverthorn, his eldest son Joseph and the latter’s sixteen-year-old bride Jane Chisholm. They were the first guests at Cody’s Tavern. They all stayed with him while Joseph built a cabin on part of Lot II, Concession 1, north of Dundas Street.
It was on this same lot in 1822 Joseph and Jane Silverthorn had “Cherry-Hill” house built to provide much needed space for their growing family.
Other early settlers were Allen Robinet (part of Lot 11, Concession 1 NDS), Moses Teeter (Lot 10, Concession 1 NDS), Abraham Markle (Lot 6, Concession 1 NDS), John Belcher (Lot 7, Concession 1 NDS), John Gage (Lot 9, Concession 1 SDS), John Jones (Lot 8, Concession 1 NDS), Peter Jones (Lot 7, Concession 1 SDS) and John Schiller (Lot 9, concession 1 NDS).
They were soon followed by William Barber, Absalom Wilcox and Daniel Harris, all familiar names in the early history of the area. Harris settled further west than the rest and provided his name for Harrisville, later to be renamed Cooksville.
Joseph Silverthorn and Allan Robinet, a shrewd Huguenot, were also land speculators. Inn- keeper Cody was their natural executive head; surveyor Robinet their technical expert. The two younger men stayed in Toronto township to complete settlement duties on lots taken up in the names of themselves or their Lincoln County friends. Old John went to and from Niagara until he got into difficulties and had to return to Peel for good.
Moses Teeter, of the Loyalist family that founded Teeterville, came to oversee settlement duties for Cody’s land. That included a log house 16 feet by 20 feet — little bigger than a garage. This done, Teeter sought a purchaser.
Ex-Corporal John Schiller’s lot close by was worked by pugilistic James McNabb, who bought it early in 1812. Later it passed through Robinet’s and Cody’s hands and the tavern was built. Cody was owner of the old Kennedy place as well. The other settlers were also homesteading their allotments or like Teeter, putting in time until they could get their patents and sell out.
Cody’s Tavern being of somewhat more ample space than other residences in the neighbourhood, became the meeting place for the early pioneers. Not only did they gather there for the odd social evening but also for the solving of various local problems which would arise from time to time. Once every two years their more formalized Christian needs were met by a circuit- rider, generally a Methodist missionary, who used this occasion to marry, baptize and administer to other needs as required. The faithful would gather in Cody’s Tavern for these ceremonies, and since the missionary visited the area so seldom, it was not uncommon for him to perform a marriage and immediately thereafter baptize the couple’s first child.
As the population expanded, the gatherings at the Inn became more frequent and crowded. Regularly the topic for discussion turned to hometown improvements. Residents were particularly concerned about the many unmarked graves scattered about the area, especially those of many departed Indian natives. The obvious solution was a proper graveyard and this was readily agreed to with the idea of a church coming quickly afterwards.
Probably because he wished his Inn and Tavern to resort to its original purpose, Philip Cody offered a piece of land he had obtained across the Dundas for the cemetery, and Moses Teeter gave the south westerly corner of Lot 10, Concession 1 NDS for the church.
Then the problems began. “If we are going to have a church, what denomination will it be?”
In the discussion that followed most argued that it should be the denomination of the “established Church” – Episcopal, or Church of England. But some were Presbyterians, others Methodists, and these people were not anxious to help build a church when their own ministers would not allow use of its facilities. They further argued that up to this time everyone, without regard to label, had gathered cheerfully and willingly in Cody’s Tavern for common services of worship conducted by the circuit-riders from York. If such joint worship was acceptable to everyone over the past three years surely, they could come to some understanding now. Besides, they all realized three or four churches could not be built. Even one would be a difficult task.
Therefore, in a spirit of brotherhood and goodwill, they agreed to build what they called a Protestant Church where any minister of the gospel would be welcome, but on the understanding that the Church of England shall have preference should there be any dispute. That final provision satisfied the dominant Anglicans and kept everyone else happy at the same time.
The first attempt at construction in the winter of 1809 came to an early end. Absolom Wilcox, a journeyman builder, who had been placed in the position of foreman, found himself standing beneath a tall tree which was in the process of being felled in the land clearing process. Wilcox was unable to run fast enough and was pinned, painfully, beneath the tree. His leg was severely injured and he had to be carried on an improvised hemlock stretcher to the army surgeon in York.
Without his direction, the building of the church ceased. He was laid up a long time, and the others did not feel like going on without him. The inspector grumbled because Wilcox had not completed settlement duties on his farm and roadway, so the neighbours turned to, did his homesteading, and put in his crop – an everyday example of pioneer Christianity.
A year later Wilcox was up and around again and after the harvest set about the task of finishing the land clearing. Unfortunately, before any serious construction work could get under way, the clouds of war had begun to muster, and soon three Silverthorn boys and Robinet had enlisted. Philip Cody served as “Ensign” with the Second York Militia in the war of 1812. These were the Church’s greatest supporters and, without them, once again work halted.
By 1816 the sound of the saw and hammering of nail once more echoed along the Dundas Trail, and before long a beautiful log chapel had been completed.
How proud they all were of their beautiful house of worship, and rightly so. It was constructed of square-hewn pine logs, each fifty-five feet long, of the same diameter and without a knot throughout. The roof was made of poles and bark and the floor of split logs. The benches were straight logs faced by a broad axe. A pulpit was placed by the back wall near a fireplace.
No doubt it was a smiling and proud Philip Cody that, having paid the agreed upon monies to Moses Teeter, accepted title papers to this magnificent structure built completely from the product of the land on which it sat. The church was named “Fountainhill” because of the excellent natural spring found on the land.
Cody then deeded the acre to the trustees of the Church, John Silverthorn, Allen Robinet and Daniel Harris. To this day, Dixie Union Chapel is administered by a board of three trustees.
The deed comprised the south westerly corner of Lot 10, “together with all houses, out houses, woods and waters thereon; for public use of building and erecting a free church of the Protestant religion and other public use as may be needful”.
While those who erected the log chapel continued to refer to it as “Fountainhill”, many more residents of the area came to call it by its more common name, “the Indian Chapel”. This was an obvious reference to the many Indians who experienced their first understandings of the Gospel from their regular attendance at the log chapel.
As the years slipped by the population increased. Acknowledging the need for additional space and at the urging of Rev Magrath and his Bishop, construction of a larger stone structure was undertaken to replace the Indian Chapel. In the bloody 1836 elections, when fisticuffs flowed as freely as liquor, Wilcox and his friends supported Mackenzie, former member for Peel. Both sides spent the year arming, and midnight raids were common. It scarcely looked as though these pioneers could reunite for any serious effort.
Whereas the log chapel had been partially delayed by the war of 1812, the opening of the stone chapel was postponed by the MacKenzie rebellion of 1837. But, by mid-1838 the official opening of Christ Church, Sydenham was an event of neighbourhood interest. (The area, had become known as Sydenham, named after the new Governor General).
Formal Church of England records suggest that the building constructed of stone, hauled by horse and cart from the Etobicoke River, was financed largely by Anglicans and seemed to them as their own. But adherents to other denominations had assisted in its erection and were unlikely to allow the Anglicans to forget.
Sometime between 1837 and about 1900, the stone church was covered with roughcast.
On April 26, 1917, the Brampton Conservator reported that the Dixie Union Cemetery Trustees proposed to tear down the stone church and shed as these structures were no longer being used and were dilapidated from lack of repair. Sentiment, the paper stated, was strongly against this. It was suggested that the church might be repaired and used as a public meeting place.
Miss Ellen Wilcox defied the trustees, “You can’t tear it down.” She is reported to have said: “The deed reads for all time.”
Money was given to repair the church. Dr. Silverthorn (who died in 1926 and is interred in St John’s cemetery) bequeathed $5,000 for the upkeep of the cemetery. Sir William Gage left $10,000 as a memorial for his parents who are also interred there. The large iron gate, fence and stonework were erected with this money, although many people did not like it.
Miss Graham states in a scrapbook she kept (about 1920) that the church is “an ancient roughcast building from which the plaster coating has fallen in great flakes and reveals layers of Credit Valley stone underneath. The shingles have curled at the tips and developed patches of baldness. The church is of Quaker simplicity. It has no steeple and belfry, no arched stained glass windows, but it is a church.
In the gable of the church over the door is a wooden disc marked as a clock face, with black painted hands set permanently at two minutes past eleven o’clock as if rebuking the worshippers for their lateness. The date is 1837.
Inside the plaster has fallen from the ceiling bringing to light the old-fashioned but durable laths of split cedar. The interior is austere in its simplicity and still full of rows of prim, right- angled, uncushioned wooden benches. The platform is low and narrow with room for scarcely a single chair. There is no organ loft.”
A statement given by Ernest E Carrington, Dixie, states; “Miss Emma Silverthorn is paying Vokes one dollar a week to look after the plot. Vokes sent me a man to work at it once in a while, paying him 35¢ per hour.”
Vokes was one of the three trustees at the time. When one trustee died, a new one was appointed by the other two.
They might argue by day, but they drank together at nightfall, and whatever blows were exchanged during the week, on a Sabbath neighbours who expected to spend eternity together sat side-by-side on the home-made benches in their new stone chapel. Hands on the dial of the clock above its entrance pointed steadfastly to two minutes past eleven o’clock. Morning, afternoon and evening services were portioned out in brotherly spirit, and the clock smiled down to remind all that, in the non-denominational chapel, it was always church time.
Due to the Mackenzie rebellion the rector of St Peter’s, Credit, shut up shop and brooded on is farm. His fire-eating sons scoured the country smoking out rebels. So, there were no Anglican services held until 1839.
There were Methodist camp-meetings a mile or two west, and the Old Stone Chapel appeared on preachers’ plans of the eighteen-forties.
Other denominations got going more slowly. Energy which might have gone into Presbyterian expansion exploded in the volcanic Free Church. And the county’s first Baptist, Charles Haines, a kinsman of the Haines, was still an Anglican for some years after he brought his wife and family from Cheltenham, England, to found a new Cheltenham in Chinguacousy.
In 1828 the “New England Corporation Society” appointed Rev. Mr. Scott of New Brunswick, Baptist missionary to the Credit. He held a service or two here, but Peter Jones, half-breed Mississauga chief and local preacher, warned him off, and he was too polite to “interfere with the arrangements of the Methodists”. With regular stage-coach service, Cody’s Tavern was a famous hostelry. A visitor fleeing from York to escape cholera admired “the pretty little village of Tobococke”, with houses dotted about as the owners pleased on “crests of rising sandy knolls” or “buried in little hollows”. Across the bridge, cottages stood in an orthodox, old country row along the wayside.
John Strachan, later Bishop of Upper Canada, visited Fountainhill and is said to have baptised Andrew Laird’s daughter, Jane, and several papooses. Jane Laird grew up to become the grandmother of Col. T. L. Kennedy. Legend relates that she was the first white child to receive the sacrament of baptism in Peel County.
In the spring of 1825 Dr. Strachan brought a famous travelling missionary to Fountainhill. He was Charles Stewart. They were extremely upset to find Methodists and Baptists using the chapel and taking advantage of all the early hard work originated by those of “the established church”. Stewart was most demanding that a proper place for Anglian worship should be erected.
Stewart need not have become so agitated, however, for the Indians, who had received early Anglican influence and were now being attracted by the Baptists’ and Methodists’ so-called “easy religion”, soon left the area to join Joseph Brant at the Six Nations Reserve.
Undoubtedly, Strachan and Stewart had their spirits lifted substantially when they visited Springfield-on-the-Credit a day or two later and found Anglicans there were already planning their own church building and soon would be looking for a clergyman.
By late 1830 the Rev James Magrath had arrived at Springfield-on-the-Credit. His sphere of work was known as “The Toronto Mission” and comprised the Township of Toronto, the eastern half of Trafalgar Township and southern part of the Township of Chinguacousy. His presence in the area influenced the formal founding of an Anglican congregation at Fountainhill.
Owing to the objection of certain sects, this chapel never owned a musical instrument. For Church of England services, John Morley of Cooksville trundled his melodeon on a pushcart to St. Peter’s, Erindale, and to Dixie. The simple story of his hopes, fears and problems is a delightful thread running through old church records.
Bob Halliday, a rigid Highland Presbyterian, had a horror of “popish practices”. With him, kneeling in prayer was taboo and smacked of idolatry. Shoemaker Soady rejoiced in singing but persistently denounced instrumental music as worshipping God by machinery. He conducted evangelistic campaigns with his own lay organization.
When Frederick Tracy was conducting Baptist services in this chapel, and J. P. Treacy was the local parish priest, the Toronto press announced a new arrival in Dixie, at the Rev. Dr. Tracy’s. There was consternation in Dixie, and the postmaster, telegraph operator, and parcel delivery boys all saw to it that the celibate priest got his fair share of what was intended for the Baptist minister and his charming young wife.
The Anglican congregation of Fountainhill, which had been created with Magrath’s encouragement, saw little need to change the customs which had been accepted over the past dozen years. They continued to worship in the log chapel with their Protestant friends of other denominations. On the other hand, the Springfield Anglican church (St Peter’s, Erindale) was consecrated by the Bishop on September 23, 1828. This was Rev. Magrath’s home church and, according to William Perkins Bull in his book “From Strachan to Owen”, Magrath showed little interest in the Anglicans worshipping at Fountainhill. It is not known how often he visited his flock there, but pieces of historical records indicate it may not have been as frequent as local parishioners may have wished. In Magrath’s defence it must be argued that he had an extremely extensive area to cover and transportation and weather-related difficulties obviously had a bearing on his ability to fulfil the task he had been assigned.
By 1829 a growing dispute between Church and State began to acquire a more serious complexion. The Church of England in Upper Canada held a privileged position as the State Church. To the annoyance of the settlers, it was allotted one-seventh of all the land in what were known as clergy reserves. Early pioneers were equally concerned by a bill introduced in the parliament to make it illegal for any but an ordained priest to perform the sacraments. This meant that ceremonies performed by the Methodist circuit-riders would be illegal; marriages and baptisms at which circuit-riders had officiated would thus be invalid.
Although the Silverthorn’s and many others remained to see this proposed legislation defeated some of the settlers left the country before its outcome was known. In October of 1829 Cody’s Tavern was advertised for sale. It was purchased by Joseph Farr who opened the business under his own management on New Year’s Day with “an excellent stock of liquors and the best accommodation for travellers …”. Cody sold off other of his properties and soon departed for Ohio leaving behind his daughter Nancy who had married Amos Marigold.
Joseph Farr and his wife, who is described as a very refined woman but deadly accurate with a gun, were good church people and carried on much of the work Cody had begun in the log church. Mr. Farr replaced Philip Cody as one of the three trustees.
Following the MacKenzie rebellion, there were hard feelings throughout the area over the government’s attempt to consolidate the church’s position. William Lyon Mackenzie, who opposed the plan of clergy reserves and the favoured position of the Church of England, had lost his battle for the moment and fled to the United States. Passions aroused by the ideological background to the rebellion spilled over to the local church.
Sydenham residents debated vigorously who should, or who should not, be allowed into the new church building. It was decided to keep it as it had been founded, and so it remained a truly Union Church. As a result of the agreement, Anglicans worshipped each Sunday at 9:30 am, the Methodists at 2:00 pm, and the Presbyterians at 7:00 pm.
Although the Anglicans surrendered claim to the church as their own, the congregations flourished, and it became an impressive adventure in cooperative worship. Conversely, the Anglicans at the Hurontario Chapel at Derry West decided to enforce their exclusive rights to their union building and to live with the consequent neighbourhood dissension. Before long the consequences of their unfortunate parochialism began to take effect and the congregation fell away and the empty building was abandoned.
Between the time of the opening of the stone chapel in 1838 and the year 1844, the congratulations of each of the three denominations grew steadily as the population further expanded. In 1844 the Methodists decided to build their own church in Cooksville and their separation from the Chapel at Sydenham left only the Anglicans and the Presbyterians to share facilities.
During those same years, the passage of time was beginning to take its toll on Rev. Magrath. Aging noticeably and less inclined to visit outlying churches, he remained very close to his home “Erindale” and his main church, St. Peter’s.
The Bishop, seeking to lend some assistance to the aging Rector, succeeded in appointing the popular Rev. Robert J. MacGeorgie to develop the parish of Trinity Church, Streetsville. MacGeorgie was very successful and being a younger man with somewhat greater energy visited other neighbouring parishes.
Again, from William Perkins Bull’s recollections in “From Strachan to Owen”, he writes, “Indeed he (MacGeorgie) drove past Magrath’s very door to carry consolation to the forlorn Anglicans at Sydenham”.
Obviously, the Anglican congregation had slowly grown over the years. Just as clearly, it had been done by the faithfulness and dedication of the laity for unquestionably, direction by the clergy had been plainly lacking over the first twenty years.
By 1850 Magrath was 81 years of age. Realizing he needed a younger man to assist him in his duties, he appealed to the Bishop and was assigned the services of 66-year-old Vincentius Fererius Mayerhoffer, MA, a Hungarian immigrant and former member of the Roman Catholic faith.
Mayerhoffer ministered to the local congregation for a little more than a year. In 1851, and at 82 years of age, Rev. James Magrath died. His remains are buried in the cemetery at St. Peter’s Church, Erindale, following a funeral service conducted by Rev. Saltern Givins, who shortly thereafter moved in to take over Magrath’s duties.
With the influx of pastors, flocks divided. The Methodists opened a church in Cooksville in 1845. The Anglicans put up a separate building in 1870. Presbyterians built a new church on the property immediately north of the old church in 1922, and finally the Baptists left. But when the Church of England was struck by lightning and burned, its congregation returned to the old church until St John’s, Dixie, was rebuilt. Unfortunately, the cemetery burial records were also destroyed in the fire. These have been partially recovered though information received from relatives of the deceased buried in the cemetery.
The first residents to require use of the cemetery were local Indians. They were buried, as was the custom, with their feet facing west. Many field stones were placed at the head and foot of these graves but most of the stones have since disappeared.
Dixie Union cemetery lies on the east side and behind the small stone church on the north-east corner of what is now Cawthra Road and the Dundas Highway (Highway 5) in Mississauga. Today, the grass is well kept and the cemetery still in use, although it is evident that many of the early memorials are sunken into the ground, leaving open spaces. In addition, the pathways between the sections are now being sold as cemetery plots. A few of the older plots have been reused by descendants, as the names of the early families appear on new monuments. Broken monuments lie with the names Adams, Craig, Ernest, Laird, Stein and Wilcox still legible on them. One monument reads as follows:
“Philanda Horning, died 1837 aged 34 yrs 8 mos 23 das,
As I am now, so you must be,
Prepare to follow after me.”
Several of the memorials standing in the old part of the cemetery are damaged and cracked. The top has been broken off the Peaker family monument and the Totton monument is now mostly buried.
The cemetery was surrounded by graceful chain fences, with iron thistles, squares and compasses, anchors, bells and lilies. Just within the side gate opening off the first line east was, for nearly a score of years, Peel’s only house of worship. Adjoining it to the south-east, an octagonal frame building served as schoolhouse, for band practice, and more or less as a community hall. This was Dixie’s social, cultural and religious centre.
In the cemetery are the graves of the great men who in 1809 met in Cody’s Tavern to give religion a start in Peel. Ordinary river stones mark some early graves, and sunken boulders as if planted to stand until judgment day define the corners of plots. Here lie some of Upper Canada’s outstanding pioneers – men who did great things and whose sons achieved still greater – Silverthorn, Cody, Robinet, Price, Harris, Gage, Kennedy, Wilson, Goldthorpe, Shaver, Hawkins, and many others. All that can be paid to them now is reverence.
Fortunately, the Dixie Union cemetery was documented in 1937, and this record along with the history and folklore of the stone church and cemetery is contained in the Perkins Bull papers located in the Peel Archives in Brampton. A few members of the Mississauga Historical Society have also provided information to the local public libraries.
A description of the cemetery as it was in 1937 follows:
“This cemetery is in three parts with no fence dividing it.
There is the old Union Cemetery, which is badly neglected with very little evidence of
care, only a few lots being clean. The Anglican, on the east side behind the church,
and the Presbyterian are in fine order, apparently having a permanent caretaker. Mostly
all monuments in these two parts are quite new and in good order.
A steel picket fence along the front and west side is looking nicely.
A large stone memorial and rough iron gate in front of the old church was erected by Sir Wm Gage
As a memo rial to his parents Andrew and Mary Gage.”
In 1937 there were 707 interments in the Dixie Union Cemetery. The earliest monument, dated 1812, is for Philip Harris, age three years, son of Daniel Harris and Sarah Wood. This monument apparently marks the first settler’s burial in the cemetery. The roughly chipped slab of Credit Valley sandstone was carved by his father. In 1937 the monument was held together by wire across the top and was peeling badly. This monument had disappeared by the summer of 1969 and replaced by a new monument. The well-known Dr. C. W. Jeffries reported in the 1930’s that on the west side of the cemetery, burials faced east to west, with the heads in the west looking toward the east and the rising sun. These monuments were mostly marked by hand-carved ordinary field stone. Great boulders set in the ground marked a few of the burials. Close to Dundas Street, the graves were square with the roadway. In addition to the 1812 grave of the Harris boy, Mr. Jeffries found another about the same age marked “W B” and another 1820. He further noticed one plot with marble posts and iron bars around it.
It was recorded that in 1937 there were several other rough monuments in the cemetery, however the wording was indistinct.
A statement given by Ernest E. Carrington, Dixie about this time reads as follows:
“Another curious item in the old Union Cemetery is the dark monument. It bears a cross
and marks the grave of a transient, one William Walmer, the son of an English lawyer.
When only sixteen he had been shipped in disgrace from the Old Country. He travelled
from place to place, working among the gardeners. He was drunk when killed on the
highway and was interred in someone else’s plot. No one knew anything of his relatives, so no one could be notified when he met this tragic end at the age of sixty-two and came at last to his rest in
the tranquil quiet of old Dixie Union cemetery.”
The story of John Newlove, a native of Yorkshire, who died in 1861 and is interred in the cemetery, was told in the 1930’s by a Mrs. Alderson and a Miss Sinclair:
“John Newlove was an Anglican church warden and has a very interesting epitaph in
the Dixie Cemetery. He took up the collection in the Church on Sundays, using a little
velvet bag on a pole or some such arrangement. He would sometimes be somewhat
under the influence of liquor, and at such times would thrust his little bag too closely
into the faces of the worshippers, occasionally giving someone a jab. There follows
the epitaph he ordered to be inscribed on his monument:
‘Farewell vain world, I have had enough of thee.
Therefore I am careless what thou sayest of me.
Whate’er thou hast seen amiss in me be sure to shun.
Look well to home, there is enough to be done.’
The above was written because he felt he had become the subject of unkind gossip.”
In the 1930’s, Miss Graham, whose ancestors were the Graham’s of Grahamsville just above Malton, said that she had seen the deed for the land where the Union Cemetery is situated. The deed was “faded and covered with old-time calligraphy with seals still attached”. The deed read that in 1810 (a newspaper clipping from E. W. Cody, London Ontario, dated the deed 1816) Philip Cody, for the nominal sum of five shillings, transferred to John Silverthorn, Allan Robinette and Daniel Harris as trustees, and their heirs in perpetuity, a one-acre parcel of land “for the building and erecting of a free church and school and other public use”. Some years later, two-thirds of an acre was added.
Today St John’s Church provides assistance in new burials and William Pinkney is the custodian for the grounds.
A small plaque attached to right-hand wall near the front entrance states: “Dixie Union Chapel 1838, designated under the Heritage Act (1974), City of Mississauga, Mississauga Heritage Foundation, Local Architectural Conservation Advisory Committee.”
A plaque (cast in 1981), erected on a stand in the front of The Chapel by the Ontario Heritage Foundation, Ministry of Culture and Recreation, states: “Dixie Union Chapel. Constructed of stone from the nearby Etobicoke River, this building also known as the Stone Chapel, is a rare surviving example of a “union” chapel from the settlement period of Upper Canada. It was erected in 1937 through the efforts of John Silverthorne, Allen Robinet and Daniel Harris, prominent early settlers in Toronto Township. It replaced a previous log structure in which Anglicans, Methodists and Presbyterians worshipped as early as 1816. The erection of such multi-denominational churches was the result of the small size and poverty of many early religious groups. Little altered on the exterior since its construction, the Chapel was last used for regular services by a Baptist congregation in the 1950’s and is still held in trust for local Protestant denominations.”
Sources:
(1) The Canadian Churchman, An Address by Wm. Perkins Bull, KC, at the centenary celebration of Dixie Old Stone Chapel, on July 3, 1937.
(2) Betty Clarkson, Mississauga Historical Society, 1969.
(3) Reflections from Yesterday, Anglican Church of St John the Baptist, Dixie, 150th Anniversary by Frederick M. Ketchan, Anniversary Committee Chairman.
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