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PAGE 16, WEDNESDAY, J UNE 1l, 19 8, "OUR HISTORICAL HERITAGE' , WHITBY FREE PRESS Settiers kept the church alive at home -By EUGENE HENRY Every Sunday, thousands of people in the Whitby area go to church and worship their God in their own way. Mindful of the fact that our ancestors lived through a pioneer period of early set- tiement, when there were no churches and few if any churchmen. For a long period of time, it seems a miracle of sorts that religion survived at ail, during what .seems to be spiritually baren times. The first settlers were loyalists-loyal to their God and their King. They found their land grants far from any settlement and distant from their nearest neighbor. Sometimes a preacher on horseback would ride by their farm and sometimes there might be a prayer meeting in a centrally located barn. Years would pass, however, before the first church would appear. These first farmers kept their faith alive through prayer. Grace before meals, prayers at bedside at night OUTDOOR COMMUNION OF PRESBYTERIANS and special readings from the Bible or prayer books on Sunday. That vital spark of spirituality was kept alive and passed on by parents and children praying together and presumably they had an on-going con- suming desire to build a church at the earliest possible date because that is what they did. These two fine black and white drawings by C.W. Jef- freys capture the dedicated long rider for God and the peaceful contemplation of the Pressbyterians in- an outdoor communion meeting. I. do suppose that these drawings illustrate full well, the roots of religion in the Whitby area. Some of the first places of worship that were buiît here, were St. John's Angligan Church in Port Whitby (1846), St. Thomas' Angligan Church in Brooklin, Whitby's First Methodist Church (1854) on the north-west corner of Centre and Mary Streets, St. Andrews Church (1857-9), Ail Saints' Church (1867) and the First Roman Catholic Church soon thereafter. Proud to be a pairt. of Whitby DurhaeeoMent Services