According to Ms. Fowler, the fires are burned only when Mrs. Simcoe is in the steamy company of one of the Governor's men, the young and handsome Colonel John Talbot. William Moll Berczy is remembered as one of Canada's first portrait painters, but the German immigrant is a highly trained engineer with architectural skills. He designs St. James, the first Anglican Church 1806, as well as the first bridge on the Don River. Leading 600 countrymen north from America in the l790s, Berczy makes a deal with Simcoe to bring in settlers and to build roads in exchange for free land to farm. During their early years clearing mosquito-infested bush, many of the Germans die from Malaria.
Road building falls behind.
Nervous that this German community may not be loyal to the Crown, the land grants are not honoured by Simcoe's successors. Berczy's original farm and the descendants of these first settlers, still remain in the Markham area.