Samuel Hughes (Quaker)
Job Hughes was the leading minister in the Yonge Street Monthly Meeting, and his wife Eleanor was an elder.
[2] The Children of Peace (1812–1889) were a utopian Quaker sect that separated from the Yonge Street Monthly Meeting during the War of 1812 under the leadership of David Willson.
Today, they are primarily remembered for the Sharon Temple, an architectural symbol of their vision of a society based on the values of peace, equality and social justice.
It was these families – most of whom were related to the Hughes – who were to move to East Gwillimbury township after the War, and to join Willson in building the new community of "Hope".
[2] Samuel Hughes soon became an elder in the group, and played a prominent role in the distribution of their alms raised in the Temple.
Their system of mutual aid was based on labour exchanges (work bees), cooperative marketing, a credit union, and for a short time, a land-sharing agreement.
Samuel's First political participation came in August 1831, in a public meeting of 150 to 200 people for the township of East Gwillimbury held in the "chapel" of the Children of Peace.
This meeting, on a motion from Hughes, established "Committees of Vigilance" for each township in the riding, "to secure the return of an independent Member to the ensuing Parliament."
The use of committees of reformers to nominate candidates, rather than open nonpartisan public meetings, was innovative and led to the proposal for a district wide convention to do the same for other ridings.
Although the original call for the convention had emphasized that once assembled, its members should assume the responsibility of nominating an executive to reconvene the convention for the next year, a majority of the delegates reacted negatively to Hughes' proposed constitution, because they "had not been appointed for any such purpose, and that their power should cease would cease immediately after the next general election."
The Children of Peace immediately formed a branch of the Canadian Alliance Society in January 1835, and elected Samuel Hughes its president.
"[8] After the unfair elections of 1836, the more moderate reformers withdrew in disappointment with their electoral loss, leaving William Lyon Mackenzie to fill the political vacuum.
[9] The second meeting of the renewed Political Union was called to order by Samuel Hughes three days later, on 3 August in Newmarket.
Samuel Hughes proposed a motion which castigated "the conduct of Sir Francis Bond Head ... for he has tampered with our rights at elections – disposed of many thousands of pounds of our revenue without our consent – and governed us by the strong hand of arbitrary and unconstitutional power – depreciating our currency, and pretending to maintain cash payments, while the Bank, immediately connected with his government, was flooding the colony with the notes of a Bankrupt Bank in another province."
The meeting appointed Hughes, Samuel Lount, Nelson Gorham, Silas Fletcher, Jeremiah Graham, and John McIntosh as delegates to the convention (and all, with the exception of Hughes and MacIntosh, leaders in the Rebellion); they also appointed 23 men to a "Committee of vigilance" to organize local political unions.
Among these 105 habitual drunkards were "78 husbands who are parents of families, and from the best information, fathers of 312 children, and are companions, or rather abusers, of 78 afflicted women, who are bound to suffer under the government of madness and distraction."
The tragic death by fire of a local magistrate in March led Hughes to immediately organize more meetings, and to publish his "Remarks on Intemperance".
[11] Hughes was struck with a severe illness on 30 September 1839 that left "most of his friends and neighbours despairing of hopes of recovery."
In June, as he moved into the new house near Holland Landing, he also applied for membership in the Yonge Street Monthly Meeting (Hicksite).
