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the tribune stouffville 18771m1 5 market day stouffviule continued from pg 4 six weeks of strenous work and adventure they arrived at their destination to hew out of the forest their future homes when they arrived in markham township at the river rouge peter reesor pointed out to his people the place he had selected for the principal part of his people and sure enough they heartily approved and made quite a community centre there which was for a number of years called reesorville but is now markham village purchases site of village peter reesor and abraham stou with their families and transports went about three miles further east to where mr reesor had selected his home which is known as cedar grove abraham stouffer prospected through the- woods to the north about 8 miles and coming to a small clearing of about two acres beside a creek made enquiries of the squatter on the land through him abraham stouffer found the owner who was hoag possession was given almost immediately to lot 1 con 1 whitchurch 200 acres but the title is dated march nth 1805 the price is not recorded then on july 9th 1805 the records show that abraham stouffer purchased from john williams lot 35 in the 9th concession township of markham 200 acres the consideration being 6210s lot 2 9th con whitchurch 200 acres was not taken from the crown until a few years later as soon as our pioneer abraham stouf fer got possession of lot 1 whitchurch he commenced clearing more land making the shack habitable and building a mill dam and saw mill in this way he made his own lumber and soon attracted other settlers attention for miles around for they were as yet few and far between on may 13th 1806 his son abraham the first child of the family in canada was born now this was a great event to me as he became my father then in a few years my grandfather built his grist mill being a millwright as well as a miller this of course caused a considerable stir in the neighborhood the good news soon spread and was the means of bringing other settlers to the neigh borhood farmers in the country and merchants and tradesman of various kinds to the new village which for a time was called stouffers village the names of some of the new settlers were macklem wideman yake brown boyer lehman johnson law kester morden win- terstein fenton mer- tens long davis fockler ramer hoover hamilton miller and other farmers some of the merchants and tradesmen were sheldon boyer caslor boadway cameron rusnell dr a c lloyd johnson roddick breuls stevens mc- callum shaw dunn steers flint degeer c unfortunately stout- fers grist mill was struck by lightning and burned to the ground after having been in operation only a few years the mill had however done good service to the neigh borhood and proprietor and mr stouffer with the willing cooperation of the neighbors soon had another mill at work this time on the south side of main street the next important thing was the establishing of the post office which took place in 1832 with cd sheldon as postmaster and in 1835 succeeded by wh doyle my information from ottawa says that the office was ceased in 1839 and reopened in 1841 with john boyer as postmaster john boyer was for sometime quite an important business man of the village about this time the wife of our pioneer died in 1835 and he had also the misfor tune of losing the use of his hand through an accident his family also having grown up he gave his milling property and part of his farm into the hands of his eldest son christian who also being a practical miller carried on the business successfully for some years in 1848 christian having a family of boys growing up was for their sake lured to what was at that time called the queens bush settling in the county of oxford he disposed of his stouffville property to edward wheeler a wide awake young devonshire man who had married our peter reesors daughter the reign of abraham stouffer was ended and the reign of edward wheeler began in 1848 soon afterwards came the crimean war which worked to the financial advantage of business men and far mers here although far away from railway station or lake port mr wheeler kept his mill running constantly but transportation was the discouraging feature of the business however the village grew and prospered though not very fast-