Zephyr Missionary Church (Zephyr, Ontario, Canada)
Mennonite presence in the former Scott Township, Ontario County (now Durham Region), Ontario, Canada, goes back to the early 1800s. By 1871, there were 309 Mennonites in Ontario County. In the 1860s, Daniel Hoch visited Scott, and the New Mennonite Church included Scott in its 1870 preaching calendar, though there was no organized congregation. The United Mennonite Church assigned Caspar Wideman to preach there from 1876-1878.
From 1883 to 1889, the Mennonite Brethren in Christ (MBiC) held tent meetings in the former Bible Christian Church located on the 3rd Line's west side (Durham Regional Rd. 39). In 1888, when the MBiC appointed the first resident preacher, Oliver Schneider (Snyder), it organized classes at Brown Hill and Zephyr. It built the Mount Pleasant Church across the road from the Bible Christian building and cemetery in 1889, three km north of the village of Zephyr. The Keller family's church affiliations illustrate the difficulties of the Scott Mennonite community: in 1861, Henry Keller (from Switzerland) and his family were Mennonite; in 1871, Church of England; in 1881, Bible Christian; and in 1891 and 1901, Mennonite again.
The Mount Pleasant congregation helped establish the Mount Zion MBiC (Ravenshoe, Ontario) on the 6th Line in nearby East Gwillimbury Township (York County) in 1890. These people had been meeting in homes since 1883. Rural Mount Pleasant, Mount Zion, and the Brown Hill preaching appointment at (East Gwillimbury, 1889-1915) comprised the "Scott Field" for over 90 years, served by one pastor. Statistics included the whole field until 1963. Then, in 1979, the conference divided the Scott Field, with Mount Zion moving to Mount Albert (now Hillside Church) and Mount Pleasant becoming Zephyr Missionary Church in 1995.
Twenty-four people formed the Scott field membership in 1888-89. David and Rebecca Hartin, Joel Woodcock, Silas Cryderman, George and Elizabeth King, Jacob Meyer, Henry Keller, and his daughter Annie were among the leaders. In addition, Oliver Schneider gained a wife from the Mount Pleasant church with his marriage to Mary Meyer in August 1890.
The Scott field encouraged Sunday schools. Anna Keller served as Sunday school superintendent in 1890, when nearly all the superintendents were men. The Sunday schools suffered during World War I, but John Kitching revitalized them in 1918. In the 1930s, the circuit opened branch schools at Cedarbrae (Georgina Township) and Maple Grove (5th Line of Scott) that lasted into World War II. The 1970s brought the Sunday school attendance to over 100.
The Mount Pleasant congregation put a basement under the building in 1958 and constructed a new parsonage in 1963. It completely renovated the meeting hall in 1968, followed in 1985 by an addition that led to the reorientation of the main worship space, completed in 1987. Several young people (Pearl and Gloria Cullen, Brenda Pedersen, Gina Weller, Charles Mashinter) served as missionaries or in pastoral ministry from the 1980s.
The Scott Field felt Ontario's rural demographic changes until the church's founding in urban Mount Albert in 1979. Sunday School growth in the 1930s and again in the 1970s did not translate into adult membership growth.
Bibliography
Black, Marieda (Keller) and Ilah Weller, ed. Mount Pleasant Missionary Church: A Church for All People 1889-1989. Zephyr, Ontario: Mt. Pleasant Missionary Church, 1989.
Canada census 1861-1921.
Journal Evangelical Missionary Church of Canada. Ontario Conference/ Canada East District Journals (1898-2005).
Goudie, Sam. "P. E. Report." Gospel Banner 28, no. 51 (December 1905: 13.
McGillivray, Allan. The Churches of Uxbridge-Scott. [Zephyr, Ont.]: The Author, 1978.
_____. Decades of Harvest: A History of Scott Township 1807-1973. Uxbridge, Ont.: Scott Historical Committee, 1986.
Raymer, Christian. "Fields." Gospel Banner 15, no. 6 (April 1892): 8.
"Sabbath School Convention Minute Book of the M.B.C. Canada Conference, 1890-1903." Box 4006. Missionary Church Historical Trust (MCHT).
"Scott Church Record 1889-1927." Box 1204. MCHT.
"Sunday School Convention Minute Book of the M.B.C. Ontario Conference, 1916-1943." Box 4006. MCHT.
Additional Information
Address: 14209 Durham Regional Rd 39, Zephyr, Ontario L0E 1T0
Telephone: 905-473-3696
Website: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064423942170
Denominational Affiliations:
Evangelical Missionary Church of Canada
Pastoral Leaders at Scott Field of Mennonite Brethren in Christ
Zephyr Missionary Church
| Name | Years of Service |
|---|---|
| Daniel Hoch (1805-1878) | 1860s |
| Abraham Raymer (1814-1891) | 1870 |
| Casper Wideman | 1876-1878 |
| Visiting preachers from Markham |
1883-1888 |
| Oliver Bricker Schneider (1863-1944) | 1888-1890 |
| Christian "Chris" Raymer (1853-1933) | 1890-1893 |
| William Schroeder (1859-1945) | 1893-1895 |
| David Fretz (1866-1956) | 1895-1898 |
| W. John Hilts (1842-1901) | 1899-1901 |
| Amos Eby (1842-1923) | 1901-1903 |
| William Brown (1872-1942) | 1903-1906 |
| Lewis Percy Ramer (1877-1940) | 1906-1908 |
| Harvey Weber Stauffer (1881-1956) | 1908-1910 |
| Sidney Shupe Shantz (1884-1985) | 1910-1912 |
| John Abram Sider (1857-1930) | 1912-1913 |
| A[lbert?] Molson (1885-1950) | 1913-1914 |
| Albert P. Remington (1882-1958) | 1914-1915 |
| John Bolwell (1852-1946) | 1915-1918 |
| John W. Kitching (1869-1947) | 1918-1921 |
| Harvey R. Frey (1882-1963) | 1922-1925 |
| Nicholas Hilton Schwalm (1878-1961) | 1925-1929 |
| Isaac B. Brubacher (1883-1950) | 1929-1933 |
| Harvey S. Hallman (1907-1990) | 1933-1936 |
| Arthur D. Lehman (1905-1992) | 1936-1941 |
| J. Henry Good (1900-1979) | 1941-1945 |
| Dilman Kraft Eby (1911-1988) | 1945-1946 |
| William Henry Yates (1886-1950) | 1946-1949 |
| Harold Wesley Hallman (1925-1971) | 1949-1950 |
| H. Raymond Priddle (1923-2014) | 1950-1952 |
| Cyril Arthur Berry (b. 1909) | 1952-1954 |
| Edward Norman Chester (1931-2018) | 1954-1959 |
| Wilfred Orval Shoemaker (1921-1994) | 1959-1964 |
| Ronald A. Hallman | 1964-1968 |
| J. Henry Good (1900-1979) | 1968-1971 |
| Wayne F. Good (1927-2010) | 1971-1978 |
| Bruce Clark | 1978-1979 |
| Paul Boadway | 1979-1983 |
| J. Edward "Ted" Montgomery (1920-1988) | 1983-1985 |
| Harold Boadway (1921-2004)(Interim) | 1985 |
| Edwin Smart | 1985-1992 |
| Mark Snider | 1992-2002 |
| Gordon Shreeve | 2003- |
Scott Field of Mennonite Brethren in Christ Membership
| Year | Members |
|---|---|
| 1888 | 24 |
| 1902 | 35 |
| 1913 | 28 |
| 1920 | 25 |
| 1930 | 43 |
| 1940 | 51 |
| 1950 | 42 |
| 1960 | 46 |
Zephyr Missionary Church Membership
| Year | Members |
|---|---|
| 1965 | 20 |
| 1970 | 19 |
| 1980 | 21 |
| 1990 | 28 |
| 1995 | 48 |
| 2015 | 19 |
| 2020 | 19 |
Original Mennonite Encyclopedia Article
By Edward N. Chester. Copied by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 3, p. 760. All rights reserved.
Mount Pleasant United Missionary Church, located 1 1/2 miles north of Zephyr, Ontario, was organized in 1889. In 1957 it had a membership of 24, with Edward N. Chester as pastor.
| Author(s) | Clare Fuller |
|---|---|
| Date Published | February 2023 |
Cite This Article
MLA style
Fuller, Clare. "Zephyr Missionary Church (Zephyr, Ontario, Canada)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. February 2023. Web. 26 Apr 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Zephyr_Missionary_Church_(Zephyr,_Ontario,_Canada)&oldid=174789.
APA style
Fuller, Clare. (February 2023). Zephyr Missionary Church (Zephyr, Ontario, Canada). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 26 April 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Zephyr_Missionary_Church_(Zephyr,_Ontario,_Canada)&oldid=174789.
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