page_title: Farmers' Storehouse Company
section_title: Organization
hierarchical_section_title: Farmers' Storehouse Company / Organization
caption_attribution_description: English: Temple of Peace, Sharon, Ontario
context_page_description: The Farmers’ Storehouse was Canada's first farmer's cooperative, founded in Toronto and the Home District in 1824. It stood at the centre of a broad economic and political reform movement that, in its essentials, was not greatly different from contemporary movements such as the Owenite socialists in Britain, as well as much later cooperative movements such as the United Farmers of Alberta in the early twentieth century.
context_section_description: After the Napoleonic Wars, as industrial production in Britain took off, English manufacturers began dumping cheap goods in Montreal; this allowed an increasing number of shopkeepers in York (Toronto) to obtain their goods competitively from Montreal wholesalers. With the consolidation of both the flour and wholesale trades in Montreal, a group of Home District millers and farmers formed the Farmers’ Storehouse Company, to circumvent the control of these new Toronto merchants. The company petitioned the Lt. Governor for a "water lot" on the beach on which to build the storehouse; they received the lot where the St. Lawrence market building now stands (and immediately south of the original market buildings). They built a warehouse 100 feet long by 20 ft. wide, and 20 ft. high. The first president of the Company was Joseph Shepard, a prominent Reform organizer with close ties to William Lyon Mackenzie. The company had 5 board members, a $3000 capitalization, and was operated by a store-keeper.
  The Farmers' Storehouse was both a producers and consumer cooperative. Farmers sold their wheat and flour through the company and purchased their needs from its store. They could also obtain small loans equal to the share capital they held.
  Management of the Company soon passed to Samuel Hughes, a member of the Children of Peace, a religious group who lived in the village of Hope, East Gwillimbury township. The Children of Peace had just established a credit union within the group, and under their leadership, the Farmers' Storehouse company also tried to establish itself as a bank. It was widely emulated throughout the province by the "Newcastle District Accommodation Company" (near Peterborough) and the "Bath Freeholders’ Bank" (near Kingston).
caption: Sharon Temple National Historic Site
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