Reesor | |
|---|---|
Unincorporated community/ghost town | |
 Monument to the Reesor Siding Strike | |
| Coordinates: 49°34′21″N83°4′42″W / 49.57250°N 83.07833°W | |
| Country | Canada |
| Province | Ontario |
| District | Cochrane |
| Municipality | Mattice-Val Côté |
| Elevation | 200 m (800 ft) |
| Time zone | UTC−5 (EST) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC−4 (EDT) |
Reesor is a ghost town located in Cochrane District, Ontario, Canada, along Highway 11 (Trans-Canada Highway), named after its founder, Thomas Reesor. [1]
Around 1925, Thomas Reesor (1867-1954), a Mennonite minister from Markham, Ontario, sponsored and helped to settle new German-speaking Mennonite immigrants from the Soviet Union in the area which would become known as Reesor. [1] [2] [3]
In 1927, a school was built. By the fall of 1928, Reesor had 226 people living on 55 homesteads. A total of 35 acres (14 ha) of timbered land had been cleared for farming. [4]
By the 1930s, the town included a freight station, a store, a lumberyard, a blacksmith shop, a garage, and a pool hall. The Reesor United Mennonite Church had begun services in 1926; a building and cemetery were added in the mid-1930s on Lot 26, Conc. II, McGowan Township, about 3 miles (4.8 km) north of the siding. [5] [6]
Besides the Mennonites, the area was also home to a small number of French Canadians.[ citation needed ]
The transition from cutting pulpwood to agriculture proved to be very difficult in Reesor. By 1935, Reesor's population had slipped to 150. The settlement continued to decline through the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, as better opportunities opened in southern Ontario. The Mennonite congregation finally dissolved on 5 January 1948. [7]
Logging continued to play a role with remaining settlers of the region. In 1963, Reesor-Siding (2.8 kilometres (1.7 mi) east of the Reesor community proper) was the site of the Reesor Siding Strike, one of the defining labour conflicts in Canadian history. [8] [6]
By the 1970s, all the businesses of Reesor had been closed.[ citation needed ]
In 2007, a play was written about the Mennonite settlement in Reesor by Lauren Taylor and Erin Brandenburg. [9]
Anabaptism is a Protestant Christian movement which traces its origins to the Radical Reformation.
Mennonites are members of certain Christian groups belonging to the church communities of Anabaptist denominations named after Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland. Through his writings, Simons articulated and formalized the teachings of earlier Swiss founders, with the early teachings of the Mennonites founded on the belief in both the mission and ministry of Jesus, which the original Anabaptist followers held with great conviction, despite persecution by various Roman Catholic and Protestant states. Mennonite beliefs were codified in the Dordrecht Confession of Faith in 1632, which affirmed "the baptism of believers only, the washing of the feet as a symbol of servanthood, church discipline, the shunning of the excommunicated, the non-swearing of oaths, marriage within the same church, strict nonresistance, and in general, more emphasis on true Christianity involving being Christian and obeying Christ".
Conrad Grebel, son of a prominent Swiss merchant and councilman, was a co-founder of the Swiss Brethren movement.
Cochrane is a town in northeastern Ontario, Canada. It is located east of Kapuskasing, northeast of Timmins, south of Moosonee, and north of Iroquois Falls. It is about a one-hour drive from Timmins, the major city of the region. It is the seat of Cochrane District. The town's population is made up of about half anglophone and half francophone residents.
Old Order Mennonites form a branch of the Mennonite tradition. Old Order are those Mennonite groups of Swiss German and south German heritage who practice a lifestyle without some elements of modern technology, who still drive a horse and buggy rather than cars, wear very conservative and modest dress plainly and who have retained the old forms of worship, baptism and communion.
Conrad Grebel University College is a university college affiliated with the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The college is owned by Mennonite Church Eastern Canada and named for early Anabaptist leader Conrad Grebel. Its mission statement reads: "The mission of Conrad Grebel University College is to seek wisdom, nurture faith, and pursue justice and peace in service to church and society."
The Swiss Brethren are a branch of Anabaptism that started in Zürich, spread to nearby cities and towns, and then was exported to neighboring countries. Today's Swiss Mennonite Conference can be traced to the Swiss Brethren.
Cedar Grove is a community in Markham, Ontario on the Little Rouge River. It is centred on 14th Avenue and Reesor Road and within the boundaries of the future national Rouge Park.
Abram Bowman Kolb (1862–1925): teacher and publisher; born 10 November 1862 near Berlin, Ontario, to Jacob Z. and Maria (Bowman) Kolb. Kolb is notable for editing Words of Cheer and Herald der Wahrheit. He also translated manuscripts including the Enchiridion of Anabaptist leader Dirk Philips, and Restitution by Henry Funk. He was the oldest son in a family of five sons and two daughters. On 3 January 1893, he married Phoebe Funk, the second daughter of John F. Funk. They had two daughters and two sons. Abram died 15 March 1925.
The Oklahoma Bible Academy (OBA) is an interdenominational Christian private school located in Enid, Oklahoma. OBA is the oldest coeducational private school in the state of Oklahoma.
Eden High School, also known simply as Eden, is a public secondary school in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. It is located on the corner of Lake St. and Linwell Rd. Eden is a part of the District School Board of Niagara (DSBN). The school was founded in 1945 as Eden Christian College.
Altona is a ghost town located in Pickering, Ontario, at Sideline 30 and the Pickering-Uxbridge Town Line. It is just east of Whitchurch-Stouffville, and was named after Altona, now a borough of Hamburg, Germany.
The Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online (GAMEO) is an online encyclopedia of topics relating to Mennonites and Anabaptism. The mission of the project is to provide free, reliable, English-language information on Anabaptist-related topics.
The Orthodox Mennonites, also called Wellesley Orthodox Mennonites and Huron Orthodox Mennonites, are two groups of traditional Old Order Mennonites in Canada and the US with about 650 baptized members. Even though plain to a very high degree and primitivist concerning technology, they are rather intentionalist minded than ultra traditional. Since 1999 they were joined by several other Old Order Mennonite communities.
New York Mennonite Conference is a regional conference of Mennonite Church USA comprising 14 churches Upstate New York.
Abraham Stouffer is the founder of the town of Stouffville, Ontario.
Peter Reesor was one of the original settlers of Markham, Ontario.
The Markham-Waterloo Mennonite Conference (MWMC) is a Canadian, progressive Old Order Mennonite church established in 1939 in Ontario, Canada. It has its roots in the Old Order Mennonite Conference in Markham, Ontario, and in what is now called the Regional Municipality of Waterloo. The Conference adheres to the 1632 Dordrecht Confession of Faith. The Markham-Waterloo Mennonite Conference is in fellowship with two similar car-driving Old Order Mennonite churches: the Weaverland Mennonite Conference and the Ohio-Indiana Mennonite Conference.
Barbara Claassen Smucker was an American writer, primarily of children's fiction, who lived in Canada from 1969 to 1993. She is the author of twelve books, including Underground to Canada (1977) which is still widely studied in Canadian schools and Days of Terror (1979) which won the Canada Council Children's Literature Prize. In 1988, she received the Vicky Metcalf Award for a distinguished body of writing.
Samuel J. Steiner is an American-Canadian historian, author, and archivist. Steiner moved to Canada in 1968 as a draft resister, where he became a historian and archivist at Conrad Grebel University College in Waterloo, Ontario and was the founding editor of the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia. He has authored five books about Mennonite history, including a biography of Jacob Yost Shantz and is considered an authority on Ontario Mennonite history.
Coordinates: 49°34′21″N83°4′42″W / 49.57250°N 83.07833°W
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