thumberland to compensate David M. Rogers for services as Member of the House of Assembly for the years 1801, 1802, 1803 and 1804. (Sgd.) Tim'y Thompson, 66 Chairman." And on April 9th, 1805, this order was made: "Ordered that the sum of nine pounds, ten shillings, be collected in the county of Northumberland for the wages of David Macgregor Rogers, Esquire, Member of the House of Assembly, representing the counties of Hastings and Northumberland, for his services during the first Session of the Fourth Parliament.

April Sessions, Haldimand, 9th April, 1805,

"Alex. Chisholm,
66
"Chairman."

On April 8th, 1806, the following: "Ordered that the sum of nine shillings and five pence halfpenny, be allowed in abatement to Benjamin Eqing, collector of the rates for the township of Haldimand, for the year 1805, for the rates of persons not living in the township. The Clerk of the Peace presented the following Assessment Rolls to the Magistrates for the townships of Murray, Cramahe, Haldimand, Hamilton, Hope, Darlington. Ordered that the clerk transmit a copy of the said assessments agreeable to law. Ordered that the sum of five pounds, fifteen shillings, Halifax currency, be collected for the payment of the wages of the Member of the House of Assembly for the second Session of the Fourth Parliament in the county of Northumberland.

(Sgd.) Benjamin Richardson, Chairman."

On April 14th, 1807, the following: "Ordered that the sum of eleven pounds, five shillings, be collected for the payment of the wages of the Member of Assembly representing the counties of Hastings and Northumberland, for the third Session of the Fourth Provincial Parliament, being the proportion of Northumberland."

David M. Rogers was also Clerk of the Peace; he lived for a time in Prince Edward county and then removed to Grafton, Northumberland county. He represented his riding from 1796 to 1824, with the exception of one Parliament, and was active in military matters (as his descendants have been ever since). He became Registrar of Deeds for the united counties of Northumberland and Durham, and Judge of the District Court of Newcastle District: he died in 1824, aged 52,

The Act was, however, interpreted with some strictness. When the Act of (1820), 60 Geo. III., ch. 2, authorized representation for towns in which the Quarter Sessions were held, and which had a population of one thousand, and the town of Niagara sent Edward McBride as a member to the Legislative Assembly, the Court held, that he was not entitled to wages: The King ex rel. Edward McBride, Esquire, M.P., against the Justices of the District of Niagara (1826), Tay., 542. Members for towns had to serve without wages till 1835, 5 Wm. IV., ch. 6.

Chapter four provided for laying out and repairing highways by the agency of Commissioners or overseers, the beginning of the wretched plan of leaving the care of highways to local authority.

Chapter five was of very great public importance. Before the conquest in 1759-60, of course, the Roman Catholic religion was practically universal in Canada, and there was no trouble in procuring the solemnization of marriage. Even after the conquest and until the influx from the United States, Protestatnts were few in number, and practically all

lived in places of some importance like Quebec or Montreal, and a Protestant clergyman was there available. If a Protestant married in a country place it was to a "Canadienne," and her priest was good enough. But with the immigration into Upper Canada in considerable numbers of a country population, many of them Protestants, the situation was altered. By the law of England only a clergyman of the Church of England could perform the ceremony, and these were scarce: according to a report made in 1792 by Mr. Cartwright, Legislative Councillor, there were none in the Eastern District, only two in the Midland, one in the Home and none in the Western. There were a few Presbyterian, Lutheran and Methodist ministers, and some Roman Catholic priests; but these were not qualified. Marriages had, however, been solemnized by these and in some cases even by laymen; and some relief was urgently needed. A Bill was introduced in the Council by Cartwright, which, with some amendments, became law.

This validated all marriages theretofore contracted between persons "not being under any canonical disqualification to contract matrimony," who publicly contracted before any magistrate or commanding officer of a post, cr adjutant or surgeon of a regiment acting as chaplain," or any other

2

It seems to have been not unusual for a surgeon to tie the matrimonial knot, and it is not at all unlikely that the following instance accounts for the mention of them in the Act. Captain James Mathew Hamilton, of the 5th Northumberland Regiment of Foot, when stationed at Mackinac, married Louisa, daughter of Dr. David Mitchell, Surgeon-General to the Indian Department, who performed the ceremony, as there was no clergymen of any denomination in that part of the country. The young couple were afterwards, er abundanti cautelâ, remarried in 1792 by the Rev. Robert Addison, at Niagara. The entry in the marriage registrar of St. Mark's Church reads: " August 1792, Captain James Hamilton to Louisa Mitchell, his wife. They had been married by some commanding officer or magistrate, and thought it more decent to have the first repeated." The register was Mr. Addison's private book, but became the register of St. Mark's Church, Niagara, when that church was opened in 1809. Captain and Mrs. Hamilton were friends of Lieutenant-Governor and Mrs. Simcoe.

person in any public office of employment." For the future and until there should be five parsons of the Church of England in any one district, a J.P. might solemnize the marriage, using the form of the Church of England. It was of course quite too much to expect in the then existing state of religious toleration that any parson or minister of any other church or sect should receive such authority. The Lieutenant-Governor, Simcoe, indeed wrote to Dundas expressing his astonish

ment that it had even been proposed to give such power to ministers of other denominations. At all events this proposition had to be abandoned. The Lieutenant-Governor did not like the Act which was passed, but public opinion was too strong for him and he assented to the Bill. Simcoe was most anxious for the establishment of the Church of England in Upper Canada, and bent all his energies toward that end.

The provisions of the bill were wholly unsatisfactory to many of the settlers. Some were Presbyterians who had come from Scotland, where their church was established and where Episcopalians were the dissenters; others were Lutherans whose church was established in parts of Germany. Many had come from the colonies to the south without an established church at all; not a few were members of the ancient Church of Rome, which had been the established Church in Canada till a few years before. None of these could see why their clergy were not quite as good as those of the Church of England. Petitions were signed and presented to the Lieutenant-Governor for a repeal of this marriage Act of 1793. These he treated with lofty scorn. He said that he thought it proper to say that he looked upon the petition as the product of a wicked head and a disloyal heart; but at length in 1796 an Act was passed, 38 Geo. III. ch. 4, making it lawful for a minister or clergyman of any congregation or religious community professing to be members of the Church of Scotland, or Lutherans, or Calvinists, to celebrate the ceremony of marriage for members of their own congregation or religious community, upon the minister procuring a proper certificate from the Quarter Sessions. Similar marriages in the past were also validated. This was so little to the taste of the Lieutenant-Governor that he reserved the Bill for His Majesty's pleasure. The royal assent was given Dec. 29, 1798, and the Bill became law. This made the trouble if anything more acute. So long as one Church had the monopoly it was not so bad, but when four participated, all those who were excluded insistently demanded the reason why.

The agitation was at length successful. In 1830, by the Act of 11 Geo. IV., ch. 36, the power of celebrating marriages was given to clergymen and ministers of the Church of Scotland, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, Independents, Methodists, Menonists, Tunkers or Moravians,

the celebrant to take out a certificate from the Quarter Sessions.3

"How the license was obtained may be seen from a concrete example.

At a meeting of the General Quarter Sessions for the District of Newcastle, held April 9th, 1805, at Haldimand: Present, Alexander Chisholm, Robert Baldwin, Richard Lovekin, Elias Smith, senior, Asa Weller, Elias Jones, Benjamin Marsh, John Spencer, Benjamin Richardson, Leonard Soper, Joseph Keeler, Asa Burnham and Joel Merriman, Esquires, the following took place:

"Reuben Crandel of Cramahe, appeared, pursuant to notice given at the Clerk of the Peace's office, professing himself to be a Minister of the Religious Congregation of Calvinists, and having called upon John Spencer, Esquire, Moses Hinman, Joseph Phillips, Joseph J. Losie, Benjamin Ewing, Moses Doolittle and John Phinn, all of Haldimand, members of the said congregation who openly owned and acknowledged the said Reuben Crandel to be their Minister, and the Court being satisfied that he is regularly ordained according to the rules of that society, do allow him a certificate to enable him to celebrate marriage agreeable to law."

The restriction to marriages of persons one of whom at least was a member of the denomination, was removed. Former marriages "before any justice of the peace, magistrate or commanding officer of a post, or before any minister or clergyman," were validated and confirmed unless either of the parties to an invalid marriage had thereafter contracted matrimony according to law.*

The right to solemnize matrimony was of some value, and unauthorized celebrants were proceeded against criminally. I give one

case:

In Easter Term, 42 Geo. III., April 9th, 1802, before Elmsley, C.J. and Allcock, J., a rule was issued against John Wilson, calling on him to shew cause why an information for a misdemeanour should not be filed against him for having solemnized or

pretended to solemnize marriage on the 7th day of June`.. last, between Paul Marin, of York, baker, and Jane Butterfield, of the same place, spinster, otherwise called Jane Burke, in contempt of the law, contrary to the statute in such case made and provided, and in profanation of religion."

This last clause is especially fine.

The rule, after two enlargements, came on before the Full Court (Elmsley, C.J. and Powell and Allcock, JJ.), in Trinity Term, 14th July, 1802, and it was made absolute.

The information was a proceeding now practically obselete, but much in use in those days in place of an indictment.

No doubt Wilson was tried upon the information ordered to be issued against him but I do not find any record of the result.

Rev. John Carroll, in the first volume of his " Case and His Contemporaries," p. 148, sec. 17. speaking of Rev. Isaac B. Smith, a Methodist missionary, says: "He was courageous. After his ordination he ventured to marry a couple within the Province boundaries, and was, consequently, prosecuted by the privileged class, who claimed the exclusive right to celebrate matrimony. Unlike the excellent but timid Sawyer, who for a time fled the country on a similar charge being preferred against him, Smith stood his ground, searched into the law on the subject, plead his own cause, and despite the talents and legal lore of the prosecuting attorney, and the Judge's brow-beating, came off scot-clear. In this he was more fortunate than his father-in-law, Mr. Ryan, who, according to report, was banished for a similar

L

offence, though afterwards made a subject of the Governor's clemency, for his known loyalty."

66

Sawyer," was Rev. Joseph Sawyer, who became Presiding Elder of the Upper Canada District of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1808, having then been a missionary for fourteen years.

"Mr. Ryan," was Rev. Henry Ryan, of great fame in the same Connexion, but who afterwards was a prominent leader in the division which took place in 1828-9, resulting in the formation of the Canadian Wesleyan Methodist Church.

I have not been able to verify the statements made as to these three ministers: there is no doubt, however, that ministers of all denominations considered it a part of their clerical functions to perform the marriage ceremony, and resented the ban put upon such act by the law.

In 1857, by the Act 20 Vic. ch. 66, the power of celebrating marriages was given to ministers and clergymen of every religious denomination in Upper Canada; in 1896, by 59 Vict., ch. 39, also to any elder, evangelist or missionary of the "Congregation of God" or "Of Christ,” i.e., "Disciples of Christ," and also to a Commissioner or Staff Officer of the Salvation Army. Quakers are specially provided for."

There was no dearth of denominations in 1830, when the former Act was passed.

William Lyon Mackenzie, in the Introduction to his Sketches of Canada and the United States," 1833, says:

"There is variety enough, if we include the Canadas. Within a square of 400 miles may be found the professors of 100 religions, creeds and systems, from the Menonist, Tunkard, and Child of Peace of Upper Canada, to the Hopkinsian, the Chrystian and Universalist across the Niagara."

The Children of Peace consisted of thirty or forty families in or near the village of Hope, in the township of East Gwillimbury, about 35 miles from York, and 41⁄2 miles from Newmarket. David Wilson was their leader, but they had no written creed.

At an election at Niagara Falls, for the county of Lincoln, July 26th, 1824, Mackenzie says, p. 89: "There were Christians and Heathens, Menonites and Tunkards, Quakers and Universalists, Presbyterians and Baptists, Roman Catholics and American Methodists; there were Frenchmen and Yankees, Irishmen and Mulattoes. Scotchmen and Indians, Englishmen, Canadians, Americans and Negroes, Dutchmen and Germans, Welshmen and Swedes, Highlanders and Lowlanders."

The number of persons with this authority is fairly large, but no one is justified in getting up a little denomination of his own, and claiming the power to celebrate the marriage ceremony just because he is the minister of it. One Robert Brown tried that; he was the minister of a congregation known as "The First Christian Chinese Church, Toronto," and as such solemnized marriages. The Judge of the County Court of Toronto convicted him of the crime of unlawfully performing the marriage ceremony and the Court of Appeal affirmed the conviction: Rex. v. Brown (1908), 17 O. L. R. 197.