Rebel Trail

The village of Lloydtown was established in 1812, by a United Empire Loyalist(Quaker) named Jesse Lloyd.

The Lloyd family came to Canada from Pennsylvania in 1788, first settling in Whitchurch Township. Jesse Lloyd, the eldest son, married Phoebe Crossley in 1812 and moved to King Township, where he and his new bride established a new community which would bear his name. They worked quickly to build a home, clear the land for farming, damned the Holland River and established mills. Lloyd attracted other United Empire Loyalists(Quakers) to his community, which thrived under his leadership. He also generated a large family of 14 children. His community grew to become the most important settlement at the time, between York(Toronto) and Collingwood.

In 1834, a servant of the Lloyd family died and Jesse Lloyd donated a plot of land at the corner of his farm for a community cemetery. This servant was the first burial, and his own daughter Hannah was the second in 1837.

Jesse Lloyd became a strong follower of William Lyn Mackenzie, and shared his views on the Family Compact style of government that had besieged Upper Canada. Mackenzie was a newspaper publisher and spread the word of the opposition to the government of the day. Mackenzie and Lloyd banded together to plot a rebellion, known as the 1837 Upper Canada Rebellion, and in December of 1837, gathered a rag-tag group of rebels and marched towards York to overthrow the government. The march met resistance in the form of the Loyalist Militia, at Montgomery’s Tavern in North York. Many of the rebel leaders were captured and hanged, the other followers quietly returned to their farms in Lloydtown. Mackenzie and Jesse Lloyd would both escape to the USA, Lloyd to a group of relatives in Ohio, where he died in the next year of fever. Mackenzie would eventually be pardoned and returned to become a strong political leader in Upper Canada.

Phoebe Lloyd continued to run the family farm in Lloydtown until her death in 1882 at the age of 89. She is buried along with many of her family in the cemetery donated by Jesse Lloyd.

In 1844, a Wesleyan Methodist Church was built across the road from the cemetery, and became associated with the cemetery also. This pioneer cemetery then was the resting place of many different faiths, although it started out as a Quaker cemetery. The Methodist church was destroyed by fire in 1908 and was never rebuilt. It is estimated that 275 souls are buried here, most before 1900. Only 16 recorded burials occurred after 1900, the last being in 1944. The cemetery was badly neglected and overgrown until the 1990s when local history groups began to restore the cemetery and to publicize its importance.

After the absence of Jesse Lloyd, the village began to dwindle, it was bypassed by major roads and railways, business and industries starting closing shop, and settlers moved on to larger more important settlements.

Today Lloydtown is still a small village, with a few hundred residents and very little business. A statue to Jesse Lloyd has been erected at the main crossroads, built with stones from his original gristmill, and a few historical plaques dot the area. No structures remain from the time of the1837 Rebellion, except for the pioneer cemetery and a newly dedicated Rebel Trail