On the 1st July 1862 the trustees of the
Rainham township Methodist Episcopal Church awarded a contract to
William Jackson Havill and William W.Williams, carpenters, to build a
weather boarded 36*24 church on a small parcel of land adjoining the
Union cemetry at Sweets Corner, Haldimand, Canada West.
The church was to be complete with floor, cornices,
windows, double panelled door to the front, 30 seats and 4 benches and
be substantially completed within 3 months of award of contract, for
which they were to be paid the sum of 85 dollars, lawful money of
Canada.
The church served the local community, including
several generations of the Havill family for over a hundred years,
finally closing in 1965 with the building being sold to Mount Olivet as
a church hall in 1968.
At the time of the church`s construction William
Jackson was married with two children, but around 1865 William and his
family relocated to Stockton, Chautaugua County, NYS, the start of a
journey that saw the family in Illinois in 1876, where his youngest
daughter Edith was born, and by 1880, in Minnesota where they appear in
the US census for the Town of Brainerd, Crow Wing county.
In 1890-91 William Jackson was resident in
Minneapolis, listed in the city directory as a carpenter. |