In the early 1830s, the old Stouffville Road was carved through largely virgin forest to connect York (Toronto) with Brock Township; a post office was opened in 1832 and the name Stouffville was standardized. In 1839, a new resident from England noted that Stouffville still had "no church (other than the Mennonite Meeting House in neighbouring Altona), baker, or butcher," though "saddlebag circuit preachers sometimes arrived and held meetings at the schoolhouse." Stouffville was considered a centre "of Radical opinion," one of the "hotbeds of revolution," and it was here that William Lyon Mackenzie set forth his plan for the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837–38.