The "Conference Church"

In 1824, the first Methodist "Canada Conference", which resulted in the separation of the Canadian and U.S. churches, was held in a recently completed frame chapel that originally stood on this site. Built by a congregation that had been established in 1793 by Darius Dunham, an itinerant preacher from the U.S. and led by a local settler, Andrew Johnson, it was also the site for a meeting in 1831 that settled the location of a Methodist "Seminary of Learning" at Cobourg. Named the "Upper Canada Academy", this institution later developed into the present Victoria University. The present church erected in 1898, is the third to stand on this site.