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The Work of Our Hands It was not only life's happy events such as marriages, baptisms or even debt retirement that occupied the village's churches. Death also touched the local families, and was especially devastating when it hit the young. Abraham Cooke would thankfully not be witness to the burial service held at All Saints for his daughter-in-law Martha Biggar, wife of his son Dr. Charles Cooke. Local residents remarked at being "really shocked" at 33-year-old Martha's death in 1872. A neighbour described her as "Talented and accomplished above the majority of her associates, she married a fine looking man, the choice of her heart." Charles would later move to Toronto following Martha's death, but his older brother Abraham, a lawyer, would have comforted him as he had lived with Charles and Martha and their infant daughter Jane, along with their servant Mary from Africa in the year before Martha's death. The Anglicans were not the only ones dealing with the responsibilities of maintaining independent houses of worship. The Presbyterians built a new church in 1878, a neat white brick structure with a capacity for 150 worshippers on land purchased from David Burtch for $200 adjacent to the home he shared with Nancy Ann and the rest of the Burtch family. This new house of worship with its solid brick walls signified the transition from the transience of the pioneer frame church erected by Andrew Eadie in 1843 to the settled community of the late 1870s with its enduring structures. The Presbyterians represent the last of the community's major congregations to make that transition. Young John Marquis, a lad of 5 laid the cornerstone for the church. He was the son of Dr. Duncan Marquis and Elizabeth Bryce and the grandson of George Bryce, who had come to Mount Pleasant with his wife Catherine the same year that Andrew Eadie built the original independent Presbyterian Church on his farm. The Eadie, Marquis and Bryce families typify the long tradition of Scottish immigrants in the community and their enduring support for the Presbyterian Church. To honour the opening of the new church Miss Agnes Meggait donated the Pulpit Bible in 1878 in memory of her mother who died that year. The Presbyterians added to their more established existence in the community by building a manse (since demolished) in about