Church Drive Shed
c. 1860

This shed was originally part of the Primitive Methodist Church in Balsam (this church was also known a “Temple Hall”). It stood on Lot 4, Concession 8. Community members moved the shed to Mount Zion Methodist Church (Lot 6, Concession 7) sometime before 1890. It is said that it was moved on rolling logs. ​

 

Primitive Methodism in Pickering

The Rev. William Jolley was the earliest Primitive Methodist Preacher in Pickering  Township.

The church sent him as a missionary from England in 1837. In 1842,  he was assigned the Whitby-Pickering circuit. Jolley helped establish the Bethel Primitive Methodist congregation in 1843 (just east of where the Balsam congregation was established later). Prior to Jolley’s arrival, class meetings were lead by local settler, Robert Middleton. Middleton was living at Lot 13, Concession 7. It it is said that meetings took place in his kitchen. There were four branches of Methodism in Pickering Township by 1855. This included the two Primitive Methodist congregations (Bethel and Balsam), as well as the Bible Christians, and the Mount Zion congregation of Methodist Episcopalians.

 

By 1884, all Methodist sects in Canada were brought under one umbrella: the Methodist Church. This included the Wesleyan Methodists, the Primitive Methodists, and the Bible Christians, as well as an assortment of smaller offshoot Methodism sects. Mt. Zion Church had originally begun as a Primitive Methodist congregation in Pickering Township. By the time its members acquired this drive shed, it had transformed into a Methodist Church.