Mohawk Chapel and Sleep Rituals Through History

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The Oldest Surviving Church in Ontario

Her Majesty's Royal Chapel of the Mohawks sits on Mohawk Street in Brantford, on the banks of the Grand River. Built in 1785 by the British Crown for the Mohawk people led by Joseph Brant after the American Revolution, it is the oldest surviving church in Ontario and the first Protestant church in Upper Canada. It was designated a National Historic Site of Canada and became a Royal Chapel in 1904. Eight stained glass windows inside tell the history of the Six Nations people.

This is not a sleep article in the usual sense. We are not going to tell you what mattress to buy for 1,500 words and call it a guide. Instead, the Mohawk Chapel gives us something more interesting: a fixed point in time, 1785, from which to examine how dramatically sleep has changed, and what the people who built and worshipped in this chapel would think of our modern sleep struggles.

Because here is the thing: insomnia, as we understand it today, barely existed in 1785. Not because people were healthier or more disciplined. Because the environmental conditions that cause modern insomnia, artificial light, fixed work schedules, climate-controlled homes, did not exist yet.

Segmented Sleep: How People Actually Slept in 1785

When the Mohawk Chapel was new, the dominant sleep pattern in both European settler and Indigenous communities was not the 8-hour consolidated block we aim for today. It was segmented.

This was not a sign of sleep disorder. It was normal. Ekirch found references in legal depositions, personal diaries, medical literature, and literature across centuries. The "first sleep" and "second sleep" were spoken of as casually as we speak of breakfast and dinner. People did not worry about waking in the night because it was expected.

In 1785 Brantford, this pattern would have been the norm. The Mohawk community along the Grand River, the Loyalist settlers, the traders and farmers, all slept this way. There were no electric lights to extend the evening. No screens to stimulate the brain before bed. No alarms to force a fixed wake time. Sleep was governed by sunset, temperature, and the body's own rhythms.

The Waking Interval

What did people do during the midnight waking period? Ekirch's research found a remarkable range of activities. Some prayed, fitting the monastic tradition of midnight prayer that the Mohawk Chapel's Anglican congregation would have known. Some talked with their partners. Some got up to check on livestock or add wood to the fire. Others simply lay in a relaxed, meditative state that modern researchers describe as similar to the hypnagogic transition between wakefulness and sleep.

This waking interval may have served a biological purpose. Some researchers suggest it allowed for a period of prolactin-rich wakefulness between sleep cycles, which may have supported immune function and emotional regulation. It was not wasted time. It was part of the sleep architecture.

What Pre-Industrial Societies Teach Us

In 2015, a landmark study changed how researchers think about "natural" human sleep. Dr. Jerome Siegel at UCLA tracked sleep patterns in three pre-industrial societies: the Hadza in Tanzania, the Tsimane in Bolivia, and the San in Namibia.

A 2019 study in Scientific Reports compared sleep in indigenous villages in Vanuatu with and without electric lighting. In villages without electricity, sleep onset was earlier and nocturnal sleep duration was longer. In villages with electricity, light exposure after sunset delayed sleep onset and reduced total sleep time (Gander et al., 2019).

The implications are significant. The people who built the Mohawk Chapel in 1785 likely slept in patterns very similar to these pre-industrial groups. Their sleep was governed by natural light and temperature, not clocks. And they almost certainly did not suffer from insomnia at the rates we see in modern Brantford, where 30% of Canadian adults report dissatisfaction with their sleep.

8 min read

How Artificial Light Changed Sleep

The single biggest change to human sleep happened in the late 1800s with the widespread adoption of electric lighting. Before that, the transition from day to night was governed by candles, oil lamps, and firelight, all of which emit warm, low-intensity, amber-spectrum light that has minimal impact on melatonin production.

Electric light changed everything. It extended productive hours, which was economically transformative. But it also severed the connection between sunset and sleep onset that had governed human sleep for millennia. Within a generation, the segmented sleep pattern disappeared from Western society. By the early 1900s, "sleeping through the night" had become the expected norm, and waking in the middle of the night was reclassified from normal to disorder.

The Mohawk Chapel has stood through all of these transitions. When it was built, people slept by firelight. Today, the homes around it glow with LED screens until midnight. The building has not changed. The biology has not changed. The light environment has changed completely.

Temperature, Not Clocks

One of the most striking findings from the pre-industrial sleep research is the role of temperature. In all three societies studied by Siegel, people woke not with an alarm but when ambient temperature reached its daily minimum. Sleep onset also aligned with the beginning of the nightly temperature decline, not with sunset.

In 1785 Brantford, this would have been especially pronounced. Homes were heated by wood fires that burned down overnight. The temperature inside a cabin along the Grand River would have dropped steadily through the night, reaching its coldest point around dawn. This natural temperature curve was a perfect circadian cue: cooling body temperature initiated sleep, and the coldest point triggered waking.

Modern thermostats eliminate this cue entirely. A home set to 21 degrees Celsius all night provides no temperature signal for either sleep onset or wake-up. Some sleep researchers now recommend programming thermostats to cool gradually through the night, mimicking the natural temperature decline that our biology evolved to use.

What Modern Brantford Lost (and Can Recover)

We are not suggesting you go back to segmented sleep or give up electricity. But understanding what changed helps identify what you can fix.

Practical Lessons From Historical Sleep

Stop Pathologising Middle-of-the-Night Waking

If you wake at 2 or 3 a.m. and feel calm, this may not be insomnia. For thousands of years, this was a normal part of the sleep cycle. The anxiety about being awake often causes more sleep disruption than the waking itself. Lie quietly, breathe slowly, and let your body decide when to return to sleep.

Use Temperature as a Sleep Tool

Pre-industrial people fell asleep during the temperature decline and woke at the temperature minimum. You can replicate this: cool your bedroom to 18 degrees Celsius, take a warm shower 1-2 hours before bed (the post-shower temperature drop mimics the natural decline), and use breathable bedding that does not trap heat.

Respect the Light Transition

In 1785, the transition from firelight to darkness was gradual and natural. Today, we go from full-brightness screens to pitch darkness in seconds. Your brain needs a transition period. Start dimming lights 60-90 minutes before bed. Use warm-spectrum lighting (2700K or lower). This single change can reduce sleep onset latency by 15-30 minutes.

Related Reading

• Sleepmaxxing Routine Checklist
• Morning Sunlight Protocol
• Harmony Square Ice Skating and Winter Sleep Science
• Sanderson Centre Late Night Shows and Sleep
• International Sleep Day 2026: History, Global Statistics, and How to Reset Your Sleep Habits

Sources

• Ekirch, A.R. (2001). Sleep We Have Lost: Pre-Industrial Slumber in the British Isles. American Historical Review, 106(2), 343-386.
• Ekirch, A.R. (2005). At Day's Close: Night in Times Past. W.W. Norton and Company.
• Yetish, G. et al. (2015). Natural sleep and its seasonal variations in three pre-industrial societies. Current Biology, 25(21), 2862-2868.
• Gander, P. et al. (2019). Sleep timing and duration in indigenous villages with and without electric lighting on Tanna Island, Vanuatu. Scientific Reports, 9, 17278.
• Parks Canada. Her Majesty's / St. Paul's Chapel of the Mohawks National Historic Site of Canada. pc.gc.ca.

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