Many of the first settlements in Whitchurch Township were developed at the intersections of main roads throughout the township and /or near streams where mills could br built to process the timber cleared from the land. Stoufferville was one such hamlet, developing around the saw and grist mills of Abraham Stouffer, a Mennonite who with his wife Elizabeth Reesor Stouffer immigrated from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania in 1804. He acquired of land. Elizabeth's brother Peter Reesor established what is today Markham, first called Reesorville. Fifty-five more families from Pennsylvania, mostly Mennonite, arrived in Stoufferville in the next few years. Stouffer's sawmill was in operation by 1817 on Duffin's Creek on the Whitchurch side of Main Street. By 1825 he had a gristmill across the street on the Markham Township side of Main St. as well.