PH26582 - Lloydtown is famous as home to 1837 rebellion

Municipality :
Community : Tottenham
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Description : Go west on Aurora Road past Hwy. 27. About a kilometre down that road, you will find a village with no stores. There is also a pioneer cemetery and a cairn. Lloydtown was a large centre in the early 1800s and had a post office. For some reason, Schomberg became the hub of the area in later years. Lloydtown is farmed for the town where the Rebellion of 1837 began. Jesse Lloyd (1786-1838), a Pennsylvania Quaker, came to the tiny colony of Upper Canada in 1812. where he began to build mills on the Holland River. In 1826, he obtained 60 acres of land in King Township where he built a grist mill on Con. 9. Lloyd was an enterprising man and he began to subdivide and sell his land to settlers, who were attracted to a thriving community with a busy mill as its heart. Sometime in the early 1830s Lloyd became friends with the fiery journalist and charismatic reform politician, William Lyon MacKenzie, the member for York in the legislative assembly. The Lloyd mill inevitably becamse the rallying point for settlers disaffected by the abuses of the colonial government. The disgruntled citizens had assembled at Lloyd's grist mill (since demolished) from all over York and adjacent counties because Lloyd's Town was, at the time, the most important centre between York and the lake port of Collingwood. Pennants with such stirring slogans as Liberty or Death festooned the streets of the village. Weapons were scarce and local blacksmiths and handymen toiled to manufacture axes and staves. The famous rebel march began on a frosty Dec. 4 from Lloydtown. The ragged band, armed with muskets, sharpened staves and pitchforks, marched toward Yonge Street with the expectation of being joined by others at Montgomery's Tavern at Yonge and Eglinton. The weaponry they had been promised had not arrived, nor had some of their leaders. But thy were convinced that a show of force was all that was necessary. Captain Anthongy Anderson of Lloydtown was almost immediately killed. On Dec. 7, the ill-fated rebellion was over. MacKenzie and others sought sanctuary in the United States, from whence some never returned, including Jesse Lloyd who died of fever. The battle had been lost but not the war. The unpopular and stubborn Lt. Gov. Sir Francis Bond Head was recalled to London and a known reformer, the Earl of Durham, was named governor-general of Canada, charged with the task of investigating colonial grievances. Lord Durham's Report on the Affairs of British North America (1839) led to the granting of full responsible government in 1848 in both Upper and Lower Canada. There is a pioneer cemetery on landed donated by Lloyd in 1834. The Lloydtown Rebellion Association was formed in 1990 and has worked to keep the stones in the graveyard from deteriorating. Also, a rustic pergola has been built at the entrance and a short trail made, called the 1837 Rebel Trail, which includes a wooden bridge over a stream that meander through woods west of the cemetery.