From Quaker to Upper Canadian: Faith and Community Among Yonge Street Friends, 1801–1850

Graeme S. Mount is a professor of history at Laurentian University. He
is the author of Canada’s Enemies: Spies and Spying in the Peaceable
Kingdom, Chile and the Nazis, and The Diplomacy of War: The Case of
Korea.

This is a fascinating story. Early in the 19th century, some 20 families
from Vermont plus a few more from Pennsylvania established a Quaker
community north of Toronto. Quakers were pacifists, and Upper Canadians
had an obligation to serve in the militia or pay a fine in lieu of
service. There were two violent conflicts during the period covered by
this book, the War of 1812 and the Rebellion of 1837.

During the War of 1812, a significant number of Quakers refused to pay
the fine in lieu of military service, and even fewer would fight. Given
their U.S. origins, their patriotism was questionable, and their
actions—or lack thereof—further hurt their reputation. Some had
their property confiscated, others went to jail. After the war, the
Alien Question affected them along with other Upper Canadians of U.S.
origin. That, along with their exclusion from the clergy reserves,
radicalized the community to the point that although Quakers constituted
only 4.2 per cent of the population in what the author describes as
“rebel areas,” they “accounted for 40 per cent of the known rebels
and supporters.” Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews, hanged for their
role in the Rebellion, were Quakers.

Difficulties faced by pacifists during the two World Wars are well
known, and during other Canadian military conflicts almost non-existent.
Apart from the Fenian raids, Canadian military operations between 1838
and 1914 and since 1945 happened far from Canadian territory, and
Canadians had no legal obligation to fight. By contrast, Healey
discusses conflicts that affected Canadians, men and women, both as
residents of the battle zones and as participants. Difficulties
encountered by residents of Canada born in the Habsburg Empire before
1914 and by Japanese Canadians during World War II have attracted
historians’ attention, but a study of a specific group of U.S.-born
Canadians and their descendants in 1812 and 1837 is a novelty.

Healey based her research on an impressive body of sources from Quaker
and government collections, as well as on secondary literature.