WOODHOUSE UNITED CHURCH
We respectfully invite you
to investigate and consider Old Woodhouse Church
(The Cradle of Methodism in the Long Point Settlement)
WOODHOUSE
UNITED CHURCH
is located at 2164 Hwy. 24 S. near
“the Halfway”(5km south of Simcoe, 5km west of Port Dover, and 5km east of Vittoria) Worship Service
at 9:30 am
Minister: Rev. Jeff Smith Choir Director: Willie Moore Organist: Patricia Tiller Phone: 519.426.0234 Office: 519.583.0342 Mailing address: P.O. Box 11, Vittoria, ON N0E 1W0 |
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OUR
CHURCH HISTORY BOOK - OLD WOODHOUSE CHURCH - THE CRADLE OF METHODISM IN
THE LONG POINT SETTLEMENT
The congregation of Woodhouse United Church, located on Highway 24 just 3 miles south of Simcoe, Ontario and 100 yards south of the Halfway Corner, celebrated its 200th Anniversary in the year 2000. The historic old Church was established in 1800 (or perhaps even a few years earlier). Members
of the Congregation published a Bicentennial book of pictures and stories
about this historic Norfolk County institution and its accompanying Cemetery,
final resting place of so many pioneers. The book is a high-quality hard-covered
publication, bound by stitching for durability and longevity. |
| 1. Taming
the Inhospitable Frontier 2. An Unintentional Denomination 3. Echoes From The Past 4. Give Me My Books and My Saddle 5. From Pine Stump to Pulpit 6. The Ryerson Connection 7. Our Pastoral Charge-Port Dover-Woodhouse 8. United We Stand |
9. More
than Logs, Bricks and Mortar 10. W.O.W.! The Women of Woodhouse 11. Sunday Serenade 12. It's the People in the Pews 13. Reaching Out 14. And Now You'll Know ... the Rest of the Story! 15. Ashes to Ashes ... Dust to Dust Appendix Egerton Ryerson's Letter to the Colonial Advocate, May 11, 182 |
Copies of "Old Woodhouse Church - The Cradle of Methodism in the Long Point Settlement" are still available at the Eva Brook Donly Museum in Simcoe, at the office of the Editors in Vittoria, or may be ordered for delivery by mail. The price of the book is $40. Packaging, shipping and handling for each book sent by mail costs an additional $10.
For further
information about this book, please e-mail your inquiries to twilac@kwic.com
or phone 519-426-0234.
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Old
Woodhouse Church - the Cradle of Methodism in the Long Point Settlement
is more than the title of a book. It is the name given to a Wesleyan Methodist
pioneer church established in 1800 a couple of miles inland from the north shore
of Lake Erie.
The congregation of this little country church celebrated its 200th Anniversary
in October 2000. One of the highlights of our Bicentennial year was the publication
of a 300-page hard-covered coffee-table book with this title, portraying historical
highlights of the church and its adjoining pioneer graveyard.
The statuesque Carolinean trees presented an almost impenetrable challenge to
the early settlers of the Long Point Settlement. The forests and streams were
abundantly stocked with game and fish. As soon as sufficient land could be cleared
of trees, limbs, branches and brush, the settler seeded his first crop.
Methodist Missionaries had entered Upper Canada from New York in the 1780's
and had quickly established a tradition of heroic and tireless service. These
itinerant circuit riders, commonly known as saddle-bag preachers, traveled back
and forth preaching in homes, school houses, taverns, barns or in the open air,
wherever they could gather a few people together.
They were dedicated men of iron nerve who pioneered their way through stretches
of entangled forests and malarial swamps, with all their earthly belongings
tucked away in their saddlebags. They had little trouble attracting a crowd,
even where settlement was quite scattered.
The settlers came from all around to hear the itinerants preach, and those old
saddle-bag preachers were ready to preach anywhere there was an audience.
In 1790, there were no towns, no villages, no hamlets, no churches or schools, not even any houses because there were no settlers here yet. Then, in the mid-1790s, influenced by the offers of free land in Upper Canada (Ontario), the United Empire Loyalists from New Brunswick had begun to come west to make their homes.
| Many of the early
trustees of Woodhouse Church were United Empire Loyalists, and the old graveyard
to the south of the sanctuary is sprinkled with UELs and their descendants.
Each year in August a Decoration and Memorial service is held in an open
area behind the church under the huge, stately spruce trees of the pioneer
cemetery. The Woodhouse congregation has been served by over 100 ministers since its humble beginnings in the late nineteenth century. In 1925, three Protestant denominations, the Congregational, Methodist and Presbyterian, united to form the United Church of Canada. In 1936, a talented local historical artist, William Edgar Cantelon, painted and donated a beautiful mural-sized canvas “Come unto Me”, which has graced the front of the church ever since. |
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