Between 1796 and 1798, as the first settlers began arriving to settle on the escarpment in West Flamborough Township, members of the Methodist Episcopal Church were there to bring them spiritual comfort in the new life that they faced in Upper Canada.
At a Methodist Class Meeting held in “Flamberry” on 1 May 1802, the amount of £2 18s 1d was collected by the Class Leaders, but there is no mention in an early record book of a building, so the service was probably held in a home or barn, or even in a forest clearing. Six years later the little settlement at Rock Chapel was identified as one of the ‘stations’ on the Ancaster Circuit that the circuit riders visited on a regular schedule.
The success of the early class leaders, such as Samuel Van Every and Daniel Morden, led to the appointment of a minister, Rev. William Case by the New York Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church to Canada. He regularly rode as much as one hundred miles a week, as his territory of scattered settlements stretched around the western end of Lake Ontario – from Trafalgar Township in the east, throuh Nelson, Ancaster, Beverly, East and West Flamborough to Barton Township in the west.
On 24 Jun 1822, an acre of property for a church at Rock Chapel was purchased from Class Leader, Daniel Morden Jr. for the sum of £7 10s. Recognized as only the second Methodist church erected at the Head-of-the-Lake, it was almost certainly from the religious zeal of the little congregation and resulted in the name, “Methodist Mountain” being assigned to the area.
The building that came to serve as the community’s place of worship was erected on a ledge of solid rock jutting out from the brow of the escarpment and overlooking the Dundas Valley hence its name Rock Chapel. Built by members of the area who supplied the building materials and the labour, it was truly a collective effort. The two storey clapboard structure resembled a barn rather than a church in appearance. The unpainted cherry and walnut timbers were hand-hewn and probably prepared at the oldest sawmill in the township founded at Rock Chapel by Moses Morden in the first decade of the nineteenth century.
When the chapel was first built, the community views it as a Meeting House and for a number of years the building was used by small groups of Anglicans, Baptists and Presbyterians. Gradually the large number of adherents to the Methodist Episcopal Church resulted in it becoming recognized as only their denomination’s place of worship.
Several stories are associated with the early years and illustrate how strong-minded and zealous the little congregation had become. Circuit rider, Joseph Sawyer, twice failed to deliver his sermons because immediately he stood up and started preaching, the congregation also stood and began to continuously pray out loud, believing the service was ending and that they should never close one of their assemblies until everyone was blest. On his third visit, before the service commenced, Sawyer told the congregation that “he had come to preach to them and that he must have a hearing, but that when they were alone they might pray as they liked.”
During the 1830s, the influx of settlers from England, who were almost entirely members of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, resulted in ownership of the chapel becoming a contentious issue. Members of both denominations claimed the chapel as their own. On one occasion, members of the two groups actually fought a ‘battle’ for control of the building. On the Sunday in question, when the Episcopal congregation was inside worshipping behind locked doors, the Weslyans attempted to storm the chapel. They managed to raise the first storey windows from the outside and were preparing to climb inside when the Episcopalians realized what was happening. They immediately ceased their worship and prevented entry by “pounding every hand that appeared on the window sills or pricked them with knives until they were glad to let go.”
By 1870, the wooden church had become out-dated and badly in need of repairs. During this decade, the various sects within the Methodist Church agreed to a union and the need for a larger church became apparent. In 1876, an acre of land for a new church, adjacent to the chapel’s cemetery property near Highway #5 was donated by the Lyons family and later the same year, a new red brick church was erected on Rock Chapel Road.
Later the old wooden church was sold at auction to Rock Chapel resident, John Boreer Sr. for $84. Almost immediately a public subscription was held to raise the auction price after he offered the building back to the Rock Chapel community for use as a public hall. The interior of the building was changed, with the removal of the gallery on the second level. During the next forty or so years the hall was in regular use, for concerts and plays, as a meeting house and even serving as the polling station on election days.
By the late 1940s, the building was recognized as unsafe and it was ordered closed by West Flamborough Township Council. In 1947, the building was purchased for $150 by Mr. J. D. Taylor, who demolished it and took some of the cherry and walnut lumber and crafted a baptismal font which he presented to the Rock Chapel United Church, so preserving part of the oldest place of worship in West Flamborough Township.
© The Waterdown-East Flamborough Heritage Society 2008, 2024.
