Welcome to the Sharon Temple Gift Shop, where you will find a great selection of illuminating books and other materials that support the work of the Sharon Temple Museum Society.

Each of these books and other unique gift items can be purchased online using our safe and secure Paypal online payment system. Just add the items you wish to purchase to your shopping cart and, when you are ready, proceed to checkout. You will be transferred to Paypal’s website for payment. The Sharon Temple Museum Society never receives your personal banking and credit information.

Or, if you prefer, you can order by post by specifying the title and author of the book or gift item you wish to purchase, along with a cheque or credit card number (with expiry date) to cover the purchase price and shipping costs of your order.

Shipping Rates:
Canada Air mail, 15% of total order
International Air mail, 30% of total order

Mail your order and payment to:
The Sharon Temple
National Historical Site and Museum
18974 Leslie St.
Sharon, ON L0G 1V0

Union Is Strength
Author: Albert Schrauwers
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: 2009
Contents: 320 pp., index
Format: hardcover
Price: $60.00
Member's Price: $50.00

'"Union Is Strength" is an effective study of the connection between the emergence of responsible government in Upper Canada and the growth of a capitalist order. By focusing on joint stock companies and their role in the process of political reform, Albert Schrauwers makes a convincing case for the importance of economics and economic thought in the history of the region.'

-Todd Webb, Department of History,
Laurentian University

Rebuilding Hope: The Sharon Temple After 175 Years:
Author: Mark Fram
Publisher: Sharon Temple Museum Society and Coach House Books
Published: 2007
Contents: 84 pp., illus.
Format: Paperback
Price: $30.00
Member's Price: $27.00

Hope was the original name of the village of Sharon. The Children of Peace who settled Hope were renowned in their day for contributing to the development of Canadian democracy. They were also instrumental in helping to form Canada’s first farmer’s co-operative and credit union. Rebuilding Hope recounts this fascinating history, revealed through new research, to commemorate the 175th Anniversary of the building of the Sharon Temple. This surviving architectural manifestation of Hope is one of Canada’s finest national heritage treasures.

This lavishly illustrated book documents 175 years of the Sharon Temple’s intriguing life. Designed with extraordinary flair by noted author, architectural historian and book designer Mark Fram, it brims with rarely seen contemporary and archival images of the Temple. Lush, colour photography and previously unpublished archival information complement the story of the Sharon Temple ? much of it told in the original voices of the Children of Peace.

This commemorative book is part of the Sharon Temple Museum Society’s broader plans to rebuild Hope in the years to come by making this story central to the programmes and to the interpretation of the Sharon Temple National Historic Site and Museum, and by engaging new partners in this exciting process. Students in the Studio Lab Program at George Brown College, Toronto, worked with Mr. Fram on this commemorative book project. The Sharon Temple Museum Society’s partnership with Coach House Books, Toronto, made the publication of this important book possible. Finally, generous funding for the production of Rebuilding Hope was provided by the Southlake Community Futures Development Corporation.

Awaiting the Millennium:
The Children of Peace and the Village of Hope 1812-1889
Author: Albert Schrauwers
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: 1993
Contents: 300 pp., illus., index,
Format: Paperback
Price: $26.00
Member's Price: $23.40

In a small town north of Toronto there stands a beautiful and unusual church well known locally as the Sharon Temple. It is the last remaining evidence of a 19th century Quaker sect, the Children of Peace, one of the few examples of a millenarian movement in Canada. Albert Schrauwers explores the history of this intriguing group, which rebuilt Solomon's Temple and prophesied the coming of a Jewish Messiah who would abolish British colonial rule.

Schrauwers discusses the social, political, economic, and theological context in which the Children of Peace were established and, for a time, flourished. He identifies three main periods in the development of the sect: their initial break with the Quakers during the War of 1812; their reorganization following completion of the temple in 1832; and their final reorganization following the Rebellion of 1837.

Using assessment rolls and a careful analysis of relations of production, he shows how material factors influenced the political process by which the sect decided what was sacred and what was not. Ultimately he provides a detailed portrait of a remarkable group of people and the times in which they lived.

Children of Peace
Author: W. John McIntyre
Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
Published: 1994
Contents: 260 pp., illus., index
Format: hardcover
Price: $60.00
Member's Price: $54.00

Taking its title from the religious sect examined, Children of Peace is a history of one of the most significant and least-studied religious sects in English-speaking Canada. John McIntyre paints a colourful picture of a group of individuals who tried to provide a model for a new church and a new society.

The Children of Peace, which existed from 1812 to 1890, was started by former Quakers from the United States who set up a utopian community near Toronto. With their propensity for fine architecture, music, and ritual, adherents to the sect attracted the attention of the religious, political and social elites. Their leader and founder, David Willson, was one of the most prolific religious writers and theorists in Canada at the time. The Children of Peace sought to create a church where God spoke directly to all and where both Christians and Jews could find a home.

McIntyre looks at life in the community and places the sect within its broader historical contexts. His examination of the community's buildings and artefacts provides additional insights into the beliefs and behaviour of its adherents. Children of Peace makes an important contribution to the growing field of religious and cultural history in Canada.

4Square
Author: Mark Fram & Albert Schrauwers
Publisher: Coach House Books
Published: 2005
Contents: 64 pp., illus.
Format: Paperback
Price: $10.00
Member's Price: $9.00

One of the continent's great but little-known architectural treasures, southern Ontario's Sharon Temple was built between 1825 and 1832 as the central feature of a community unlike any other. The Children of the Peace had been Quakers who fled to Upper Canada from religious persecution in the new American republic. Led by minister David Willson, they erected three distinctive meeting houses of which the most grand, the Temple, survives. Built according to Willson's visions of the lst Temple of Solomon, its unique, symmetrical geometry reflects the sect's deep faith and unusual practice, with every aspect of its architecture serving as symbolic representation of biblical teachings.

4SQUARE is a guide to this remarkable place of meeting, worship and politics, revealing its architectural, historical and cultural significance and its transition from a visionary place of the 19th century to a national historic site in the twenty-first. Featuring dozens of beautiful photographs and illustrations, it is an elegant and enlightening introduction to a stirring period in Canadian history and to its modern resonance.

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