Category Archives: Uncategorized

Glen Williams

Saturday June 27, 2015

It was cloudy and rain was in the forecast but at 18 degrees it was quite comfortable. We parked at the Barber Paper Mills and started to hike north up the east side of the Credit River. A blue marked side trail, part of the Bruce Trail, runs for 12 km between here and Terra Cotta. With the sky turning black we decided that maybe the weather man was right and getting caught in the rain would be better left for a warmer day. Along the trail a small patch of Gooseberries are growing. Gooseberries are related to the currant family and were valued in the middle ages for their cooling properties in fevers. They are currently harvested for jams and preserves.

The story of Glen Williams is very much the story of the Williams family. Benajah Williams arrived in 1825 and built a saw mill and a flour mill on the Credit river in what would become known as Williamsburgh. He was born in 1765 in New York but as a staunch Loyalist he emigrated to Upper Canada. The Williams family supplied all the services that a rural community needed with Joel being the blacksmith, David the tanner, Isaac made cabinets, Jacob ran the Glen Woolen Mill and Charles had a general store and was first postmaster. The Glen Woolen Mill was a town fixture until it burned down in 1954.

Benajah’s original sawmill was built in 1826 and, along with his flour mill, formed the nucleus of the community. In the 1850’s he replaced it with the current mill. It operated as a water powered saw mill before being converted into a hosiery factory and finally serving as an apple processing plant. It belonged to Rheinhart Vinegars at the time of it’s closure in 1985. It was restored in 1989 and painted yellow earning the nick name “The Yellow Mill. Benajah passed away in 1851 leaving Charles to run much of the town’s industry.

Beside the Yellow Mill stands the old stone building which housed the Georgetown Electric Light Company. The two structures are shown together in the cover photo. This two and a half story building was erected in 1893 on the foundations of the grist mill. It provided electricity to Glen Williams for 20 years until 1913 when hydro was brought from Niagara Falls. At this time both it and the Barber Dynamo a few km downstream were shut down. It is an interesting building because the stone mason didn’t take the time to level the windows and so they slant on various angles.

Charles Williams opened a general store and post office in 1852. When he applied for a post office licence it was refused on the grounds that there was already a post office in another town called Williamsburgh. Charles settled on the name Glen Williams after the little glen in which the town sat. The building was recently home to The Copper Kettle but is presently under renovations.

The Good Templars approached Charles Williams in 1870 asking for a piece of land on which to build a town hall for the community that they could also use for their temperance meetings. Charles deeded them the town lot adjacent to his General Store. The town hall was built in 1871 and has served the community in many capacities including as a stage for Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery to perform dramas.

On the corner opposite to the town hall stands two connected buildings. The first is the home of James Laidlaw who built it in 1858. The building beside it belonged to the local tailor Thomas Frazier who operated his shop here starting in 1847. Later it belonged to Laidlaw who ran a store here. Timothy Eaton was a clerk in this building in 1853 and 1854 starting when he was 19. Timothy would go on to found Eaton’s Department Store.

Benajah Williams and his family were Methodists and the first services in town were held in 1836. The frame church was built in 1837 and given a veneer of bricks in 1903. This church stands on one side of the Credit River.

On the opposite bank stands the St. Alban The Martyr Anglican Church. It has an interesting shape with the bell tower at the rear instead of the front by the street. The first services held in this building were in June of 1903. I wonder if the Methodists decided to give their church a facelift of bricks in response to the construction of the Anglican church.

These two churches stood on either side of the Glen Williams mill pond. The mill dam stretched between the two churches until it was destroyed by a flood in 1950. Glen Williams has been subject to much flooding over the years with major floods in 1912, 1930, 1964 and 1965. Remanants of the dam can be seen on both sides of the river.

On the north end of town Joseph Tweedle operated a saw mill in the 1860’s. In 1872 Richard Hurst replaced the saw mill with the large stone structure that stands here today. In 1882 it was purchased by Samuel Beaumont who opened the Beaumont Knitting Mills. Products from the mill included blankets, socks and mittens. This mill at one time competed with Jacob Williams Woolen Mill and Benajah Williams hosiery factory in a local hub of the textile industry.

Having previously teased you with teasles in the Barbertown post I thought it fitting to post a picture of the young plant as it starts to open. Later in the season it will bloom with a purple ring but for now it looks more like it belongs in a movie about an invasive species of plant from outer space.

Thanks to my brother for providing some of the pictures in this post. He’s the guy who puts the “we” in “we”.

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Toronto Port Lands

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Sunday May 3, 2015

It was a beautiful day, sunny and 19 degrees by the edge of Lake Ontario. I parked at Cherry Beach with the idea of walking the beach east to Leslie Street where I could get around the shipping channel and back along Commissioners Street.

The Port Lands are an entirely artificial construction, tacked onto the end of an artificially straightened Don River. Formerly marsh land at the mouth of the Don River, it was home to abundant wild life. Gooderham and Worts used the marsh to dispose of animal waste and wheat swill from their distillery. Soap factories and other heavy industry upstream as well as raw sewage worked together to create Canada’s most polluted river. By the 1890’s the marsh had become so foul that there was constant fear of cholera outbreaks. The Don River was straightened from just below Riverdale Farm, but silt continued to be a problem that required annual dredging of both the river and the harbour. In 1912 the Waterfront Plan was implemented and the city began a program of filling in the Ashbridges Bay Marsh. The cover photo shows the dredging operation that helped create what became the port lands.

There are some nice spots along the beach in spite of the fact that it is made of rubble and fill. In many places bricks and parts of demolished buildings litter the sand on the shore. Considering that there is a large concrete recycling facility along the Leslie Slip, just past the turning basin, I think cleaning this up must be too simple to occur to a politician.

Although the city attempted to crowd the marsh out it has been re-established in places. New wetlands exist that provide habitat for birds and butterflies. I notice that the robins and red-winged blackbirds are looking fat and are getting ready to lay their eggs. The picture below was taken looking back toward the city across a field of Typha (cattails) and European Common Reeds.

As you walk east along the beach the massive tower of the Richard L Hearn generating station remains a focal point along the way. It stands on the south side of the ship channel beside the newer Port Lands Energy Centre. Commissioned in 1951 as a coal fired generating station it was in service for only 32 years before being decommissioned in 1983. At it’s peak in the 1960’s it was burning 400 tonnes of coal per hour which could be offloaded from ships right beside the generator. The smoke stack was built in 1971 to replace the eight shorter ones that were considered to be polluting downtown. At 215 meters it was one of the tallest in the world at the time. This is one of three old smoke stacks on the waterfront, all of them are out of service. The other two are on the Ashbridges Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant and Commissioners Street Waste Incinerator. The picture below is taken from the corner of the ship turning basin looking at the two power generation buildings, with “The Hearn” being on the right.

This boat is sitting beside the turning basin. The name plate on the front identifies it as a CB2 made by Suka Van Vene.

As you walk along Commissioners Street you come to fire hall No. 30, built in 1928. This building has it’s single bay bricked off and is now used as a meeting hall.

The four buildings along the east side of Cherry Street are all listed as heritage properties. On the corner is the former Dominion Bank building from 1920. It is currently in use as Cherry Street Restaurant.

Next to it stands the 1930 Toronto Hydro Substation.

One of the remaining industrial buildings in the port lands is the former William McGill and Company offices. The company was established in 1871 on Bathurst Street as coal and wood merchants. Much of the port lands was used for coal storage and distribution.

The Bank of Montreal building on the corner also dates to 1920. As the city looks to redevelop the port lands it will be allowing residential and commercial development on either side of the new Don river park. This block has been proposed for condo development but the heritage buildings will be retained in some form.

Also on this small block are some of the few remaining oil storage facilities on the port lands. At one time large tracts of land were covered with these tanks. Most of them have been removed and have left acres of contaminated soil behind.

The plan for a new mouth for the Don river received approval Jan 28, 2015 on it’s final environmental assessment. This clears the way for the river to be disconnected from the Keating Channel and given a new winding, more natural entrance to the harbour. Soil would be removed, cleaned on site and used in berms to provide flood control. Trees would be planted and a new green corridor leading into the heart of the city would be established. A diagram of this was presented in the companion post, The Don Narrows. The picture below shows the area where the new river mouth would be built. This was once the site of 40 or so oil storage tanks.

An artists conception of the newly created park lands at the mouth of a naturalized Don River. In the background the artist has included the smoke stack from “The Hearn”.

The Docks Entertainment Complex added a drive in theatre in 2000 making Toronto the only city in North America to have a downtown drive in theatre. It stands on the site of the former Polson Iron Works Limited, a Toronto ship building company founded in 1886. In the redevelopment scheme, Polson Slip, where they launched their ships, would be converted into the mouth of the river. The 1930 Strauss Trunnion Bascule bridge over the ship channel is seen in the background.

Having seen the turning basin once, I don’t see why I would ever walk down Commissioners Street again. The beach, however is another story. You can walk along the beach in one direction and take a small nature trail on the way back.

I’m waiting to see if they will actually complete the naturalization plan for the mouth of the Don River. That may never happen, but I just might go with my wife to a drive in movie on the waterfront this summer.

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Silverthorne Grist Mill – Meadowvale

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Saturday March 28, 2015

(Revised March 31st)

It was minus 10 with a wind chill of minus 18. This was one of the coldest morning hikes of the year, in spite of the date on the calendar. We parked in the Meadowvale Conservation Area parking lot where the Second Line dead ends south of the new Derry Road. We crossed under the bridge and walked north where the Meadowvale mill pond once connected with the river.

When John Beatty arrived in 1819 he brought the first settlers to the area. He built mills along the Credit River and founded Meadowvale. In 1831 Beatty sold his mills to James Crawford who opened saw and carding mills to compete with John Simpson who operated mills on lot 10 south of Derry Road. By 1836 Meadowvale had reached village status. In 1844 Francis Silverthorne took over from Crawford and greatly expanded the mill complex building a saw mill. In 1845 he added a large grist mill. When it burned in 1853 he got backing from the Bank of Upper Canada and rebuilt. During the Crimean War the price of flour had jumped from $1.50 per barrel to $3.00. Silverthorne stockpiled grain in an effort to take advantage but when the war ended in 1860 the price fell to $1.00 per barrel. When the Bank of Upper Canada foreclosed on his loan, William Gooderham, who was in charge of the bank, bought the property. Gooderham and Worts had also purchased Alpha Mills, north of Streetsville, the same year. Silverthorne retired to the family mansion, Cherry Hill.

After the Gooderhams the mill was owned by the Wheelers until 1895 when it was sold to Henry Brown. Henry restored the mill and returned it to full production. In 1906 he set about developing Meadowvale into a tourist attraction. The first step was to increase the size of the mill pond and create what came to be known as Willow Lake. He built a larger dam further north on the Credit to allow more water to be retained. By following the western wall of the former Willow Lake we were able to locate the remnants of this dam. Concrete remains can be found on both sides of the Credit River.

Water is held in the western most parts of the old Willow Lake as we made our way along the berm toward the old mill. The land along the western side of the old lake has been scooped out to create a retaining wall for the mill pond.

After publishing this post I came across the following picture in the heritage assessment of 2014. It shows an aerial view of Meadowvale with the old mill pond drawn in with dark blue and previous courses of the river in light blue. Derry Road runs across the lower right corner and second line across the upper right corner. Silerthorne’s grist mill is sketched in where the mill pond approaches Derry Road then follows along it in dark blue as the tail race. His saw mill is drawn in a little above there where an old tail race returns to the river.

As you approach old Derry Road concrete structures from the mill come into view.

The mill stretched over both sides of the millway with the water wheel, and later the turbine, generating power to turn the grinding wheels to produce flour.

The foundations on the west side of the millrace are pictured below. Notice the stonework in the middle at ground level that marks a former water tunnel through the wall.

This picture shows the main foundations for the water wheel. Notice the bridge in the background where the tail race leads out along Willow Lane on it’s way back to the Credit River.

The mill changed hands several times until it went out of production in 1950. The Emersons owned the mill at the time and kept it for storage. Fire is a common fate for grist mills and the community became concerned about its safety. The wood was 100 years old, dry and full of a century of flour dust. When Luther Emmerson was told he had to demolish it he did so himself. Smashing it up in a fury and leaving the pieces where they fell. The wood was carried away and the rest settled and was filled in. They say the old turbines are still buried in the basement.

The mill stone has been preserved on the site of the Silverthorne Mill. Mill stones come in pairs. The lower stone is stationary and is called the bedstone. The upper stone, or runner, spins and does the actual grinding. The grooves serve to channel the flour to the outside of the stones for collection. The grain is fed through the eye in the centre of the runner stone to be ground between them. Both upper and lower stones are preserved here.

Willow Lane used to be known as Water Street and is home to some of the oldest houses in the village. The house at 1125 Willow Lane is the oldest remaining building in town having been constructed in 1825 by John Beatty. It later belonged to Crawford, Silverthorne and Gooderham as it seems to have changed hands with the ownership of the mills.

By 1917 Guelph was linked to Toronto via the Toronto Suburban Railway line. It ran from Lambton to Guelph, passing through Meadowvale. The line ran from 1917 until it was shut down in 1931 when travel between Guelph and Toronto had switched to bus and car on highway 7. The tail race from Silverthorne’s mill ran between Derry road and Willow Lane. The foundations of the old suburban railway line remain but are badly crumbling.

The picture below shows the railway bridge over the tail race in 1915. The past 100 years have taken their toll on the bridge. The route of the train is even less easily distinguished as a flood control pond has been built on the old right of way south of Derry road.

Walking along the river back to the car you could hear the rustle of slush in the river as it rubbed along the river bank. We weren’t the only ones hiking up the Credit River.

By 1856 the mill was a major employer in the village and Silverthorne built cottages for his mill workers at 7077 and 7079 Pond Street.

Charles Horace “Holly” Gooderham came to Meadowvale to run the mills on behalf of his father William Gooderham of Gooderham and Worts in Toronto. In 1870 he commissioned a 21 room mansion that cost him $30,000. The Gooderhams ran the mills, a cooperage and the general store in town. When William Gooderham died in 1881 Holly left for Toronto and the estate was sold. During the 1920’s it belonged to Samuel Curry whose brother, Walter, was a Member of the Legislative Assembly in Ontario from 1919-1923. The house received several modifications over the years, including the oversized front portico and the white siding in the late 1970’s.

Meadowvale was the first community to be honoured with the designation “Heritage Conservation District“. The original community survives, largely intact, complete with it’s narrow streets designed for horse and carriage. There are many historic buildings in town which will form the basis of a companion post.

Dixie – Ghost Towns of the GTA

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Sunday Dec. 28th, 2014

Just two degrees with a biting wind. Not a great day for moving but my brother didn’t get to pick the weather. He had been living in the former town of Dixie on property that once belonged to Joseph Silverthorne who was the founder of the town. Joseph’s house, known as Cherry Hill house, was featured during the exploration of Summerville. A break from moving is a great opportunity to explore and so we set out for the Dixie Union Chapel. Dixie Union is the oldest surviving union chapel in Canada.

Early settlers in the Dixie area were too few in numbers to be able to afford to build their own churches. The solution was for several denominations to go together and build a union chapel that they all could use. Eventually congregations would grow and get their own churches, as happened here. In Dixie the Anglicans, Methodists and Presbyterians got together and built Dixie Union Chapel. The first chapel was a log one which was started in 1811. The war of 1812 interrupted construction and it was not finished until 1816. In 1837 the project of hauling stone from the Etobicoke creek was begun in preparation for construction of a new building. There is some suggestion that Silverthorne’s mill was taken down around this time and the stone may have been recycled in the present chapel. Like the earlier log building the Stone Chapel, (as it was also known) suffered a delay in construction. This time due to the Rebellion of 1837. There is a wooden clock in the front of the church just below the roofline. The cover picture shows the time as 11:02 and it is dated at the bottom with 1837.

Buffalo Bill Cody was famous for his travelling show which presented the old west. He got his nick name “Buffalo” because of a contract he had in which he sold buffalo meat to the Kansas City Railroad workers. American Bison is the correct name for what is often called buffalo. Cody is reported to have killed 4,282 bison in an 18 month period. A brief write up about bison is included in the previous post High Park – Zoo. The Cody family were the first settlers in what became Dixie and donated the land for the church. Buffalo Bill Cody was baptized there in 1847.

This is the only graveyard in Mississauga that existed prior to the war of 1812. There are six known burials of militiamen who served in that conflict. Some older tombstones here run at a 45 degree angle to the general grid pattern of the grave markers. These “angled” ones run with their feet facing the east to allow the dead to rise facing the dawn on judgement day. Other denominations tend to have their tombstones run parallel to the property lines. As this is a union cemetery there is a mix of these two traditions making this rather unique. In the picture below the tall marker on the left is for the Silverthorne family, including Joseph. The two white stones on the right, along with the four shorter ones to their left, are angled facing east.

Unfortunately the weather and possibly vandals have taken their toll on the older stones in this cemetery. Many of them are broken off and are leaning against trees, fences and the chapel itself.

This tree looks like it tried to escape by bending the bars on the fence. Some day the trunks will rot and drop out of the fence leaving people to wonder how the wrought iron got bent like that.

The old steel lamp posts at the front of the building would have been forged by the local blacksmith. Having three congregations in the building pretty much guaranteed the services, usually volunteered, of most tradesmen. This kept the cost of building and repairs to a minimum. Today lamps like this are back in style and can be bought by the container load from China.

In 1870 the Anglicans built a brick church just to the east of the Dixie Union Chapel which they called St. John The Baptist. It was remodeled in 1922 but was destroyed by fire after a lightning strike in 1925. The church was reconstructed in a similar style as the 1870 building.

The Presbyterian congregation erected their own building at the north end of the cemetery in 1910. This building now serves a similar function to the old Dixie Union Chapel. According to the sign out front it also hosts a Korean Methodist and an Eastern Orthodox Congregation.

While helping my brother move I was admiring the detailed inlay of the wood around the edge of an antique dresser. It was manufactured by North American Furniture Company in Owen Sound and sold at Simpsons. At one time Owen Sound was a hub of furniture manufacturers with over 25 in the early 1900’s. The North American Furniture Company operated from 1910 to 1939. It was nice of my brother to furnish this item for this post. LOL

That’s all for 2014. It was a year full of adventure, exercise and investigation. I loved it all. Happy New Year everyone and here’s to some great hiking in 2015!

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G. Ross Lord Park

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G. Ross Lord Park runs from Steeles Ave south to Finch Ave. on the east side of Dufferin Street. The park was created in 1972, mostly for flood control purposes. It was based on plans developed after Hurricane Hazel hit the Toronto area on Oct. 15, 1954 killing 81 people and causing $137 million worth of damage.

Two mills are marked on the 1887 map of the park area, along with their mill ponds. A grist mill located on the second property south of Steeles Ave. is the site of Jacob Fisher’s original mill. I have been unable to find any trace of the saw mill on the second property north of Finch.

Fisherville was named after the Fisher family. Jacob Fisher emigrated from Pennsylvania with 22 members of his family in 1797. They were granted a tract of land which was on both sides of Steeles, east of Dufferin street. They ran a saw mill on the West Don River and later a grist mill which operated with different owners until about 1912.

The Presbyterian church that used to stand near the north east corner was built in 1856 on land donated by Jacob Fisher. It was moved to Black Creek Pioneer Village in 1960 and I got married there in 2007. It’s site is marked by a cemetery where this stone from 1840 marks an early settler in the area.

The park can be entered by a trail the follows the West Don River south from Steeles Ave. in the hollow east of here. The trail follows the river winding its way through grand old trees like the one in the cover photo that dwarfs the park bench beside it. When you are abreast of the old smoke stack on the left, you will be standing in the middle of the old Fisherville mill pond.

In the 1947 aerial photo below the dam still crosses the river in the lower right corner. The three light patches that straddle the river just above it are the clear space at the bottom of the former mill pond. The trail passes through the middle one of these.

A little further along there is still some concrete from the old dam on the north side of the river.

A curved wall of earth about 10 feet high marks the retaining wall of the old mill pond. There is a line of older trees behind it that can be seen from the trail and marks the spot. Staying on the foot path leads to a little bridge that will take you across the river. From here it is possible to go back along the fence line to the old mill site. The curve of the earthen wall is visible in this picture.

The bottom of the mill pond is now growing over with small trees and brush.

Across from Supertest Road there is an entrance to the park off of Dufferin Street. Two parallel rows of evergreen trees mark the laneway of a home that stood here until the city bought the land and tore the home down in the early 70’s. These trees were planted around 1950 and now are part of the off-leash area where dogs still run up and down the lane.

The cluster of evergreen trees just to the south of the first parking lot was planted at the same time. They were planted on the north side of the house to provide some shelter from the cold northern winter winds. This was a common practice for country homes across Ontario. This is the view from where the house once stood. The house looked out over Westminster Creek down in the hollow.

Close by in the woods is an old garbage dump, likely from this house. The bottles here have all been smashed but date from the late 1800’s into the 1940’s.

Following the trail will bring you to the parking lot off of Martin Ross Ave. The lower mill pond and saw mill site is most likely somewhere below the new flood control pond built in 1973. This picture looks at the possible site of the mill, now mud flats when the water level is low.

Google Maps Link: G. Ross Lord Park

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Humber Bay to Bloor Street

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Saturday May 24, 2014

It was a gorgeous sunny morning with temperatures soon rising into the 20’s C. We parked in the parking lot near the Petro Canada on the South Kingsway. This area was home to Jean Baptisite Rousseau who had a fur trading post at the mouth of the Humber River into the 1790’s. He greeted Governor Simcoe when he arrived in 1793 to start Fort York, later to become Toronto. We crossed the Humber on the Queensway and followed the river to the pedestrian bridge at the mouth of the river.

This 1860 bridge abutment for the Grand Trunk Railway stands just to the north side of the rail crossing near the mouth of the river.

The Palace Pier was conceived in the early 1920’s as an 1800 foot long entertainment facility sticking out into the lake. It was designed by the same company that had opened Brighton Pier in the UK in 1899. The depression delayed construction and in 1941 the Dance Hall was opened. The Pier was destroyed by an arson in Jan. 1963. A footing is all that has been preserved.

Shown in this 1957 aerial photo of the mouth of the river, the Palace Pier juts into the lake on the west side of the river. Just above the Lakeshore bridge, construction is underway for the bridge for the new Gardiner Expressway. The darker bridge is the railway tracks and the old bridge abutments can be seen just above, on either side of the river.

This view is from the footbridge across the Humber looking east to the downtown. The shore line to the east was extended about 100 yards into the bay by extensive land fill projects in the late 1910’s and early 1920’s.

This monument to the east of the river mouth was dedicated on June 7, 1939 by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth to commemorate the QEW highway. This was also the occasion of the first visit to Canada by a reigning monarch.

In 1908 the Hydro Electric Power Commission of Ontario contracted to purchase electricity from Niagara Falls and began construction on a set of power lines that ran along the lake shore into Toronto. The towers crossed the Humber just north of the current Petro Canada station from 1910 until 1940. The footings remain on the eastern embankment.

The photo below shows the hydro towers being dismantled at Sunnyside Beach just to the east of here in 1940.

We attempted to follow the river’s edge north from there but found that it quickly became inaccessible. We did find the bottom of a 1952 soda bottle along here but not much else as it is very overgrown. We were forced to follow the path of the old Toronto Carrying Place trail which roughly follows Riverside Drive. The scent of lilacs and other garden trees made the walk along the streets a little more enjoyable.

Unable to access the river again we crossed the bridge on Bloor street and started back down along the western river bank. The main trail takes you behind the boat club and up onto Humber Valley Road. If you stay with the river you will eventually be forced back up the hillside near this relic sitting in the trees.

It’s possible to climb back down to the river bank at the end of Stephen Dr. but you will only be forced back up again very soon. Following the Discovery Walks markings along Stephen Dr. will lead you back into the park a short way later. This wooded area as well as the site of the water treatment plant a little farther along used to be the Humber Valley Golf Course. Damaged extensively by Huricane Hazel this golf course was taken over by the city as part of it’s plan to control watershed floodplains.

This structure, known as The Pavilion or The Oculus, was built in 1959 as a public washroom. It’s location makes security and maintenance difficult and it has been closed for several years.

The leaf coverage is nearly full this week giving the river a secluded and peaceful feeling.

Old Mill to Lambton Mills

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Saturday May 17, 2014

The morning was overcast and cool at only 7 Celcius. We parked again in the lower parking lot at the foot of the Old Mill bridge on Catherine street. Here we met two guys preparing to go treasure hunting with metal detectors. They told us that last year they had found a musket ball in this area. French forts at this site date to 1720 when Magasin Royal stood near present day Baby Point. The Toronto Carrying-Place trail, a main route to the upper great lakes, also ran up this side of the Humber River making this an ideal location for treasure hunting.

Keeping to the main trail we rounded Baby Point (home to last week’s stone ovens) before entering the woods on the north side of the point in an area known as Magwood Park. There are several places along here where someone has taken the time to balance a lot of flat stones on top of each other. This set is just below the third of six little waterfalls between Bloor street and Dundas street.

This person obviously had a lot of spare time and a very steady hand.

Along the top of the hill are several more impressive stone walls and decks looking out over the edge of what is often a hundred foot drop down to the river below.

Along here we found an old utilities pole standing alone in the woods at the top of the hill. It still had wooded steps at the bottom and metal rungs near the top from when someone used to climb it. Those a little older than me might think of Eva Gabor climbing the pole to answer the phone in the late 60’s tv show Green Acres.

Following the river you will come to the old town of Lambton Mills at Dundas street. William Cooper opened a mill here in 1807 and the hamlet of Cooper’s mills was started. In 1851 the name was changed to Lambton mills. Soon a town of 500 people stood on either side of the Humber where the Dundas street bridge crossed. The bridge in the photo below was destroyed in 1954 by Hurricane Hazel.

Lambton House was operated as a hotel from 1847 until it closed in 1988. At one time it was surrounded by mills and a general store. A fire in 1915 destroyed all the wooden structures on the east side of the river leaving the brick hotel standing by itself. Today it is tucked in among a bunch of apartment buildings. Along with the old bridge abutments this is all that’s left of the historic village of Lambton Mills.

This week the trees are much greener than last week and visibility in the woods is becoming limited which makes it easy to walk right past a point of interest and not even see it. The woods is an ever changing pallet of colour and this week Ontario’s Provincial Flower, the Trillium, appeared for the first time this season.

Ovens Above Old Mill

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Sat. May 10, 2014

This was the nicest day we’ve had so far this year for hiking. It was sunny and 17 degrees C, warm enough to hike in a t-shirt but early enough in the season to be free from mosquitoes. We parked in the lower parking lot beside the Old Mill bridge on the Humber river. This magnificent stone bridge was built in 1916 as a replacement for the previous one which was washed out during the spring ice break-up that year. In the photo below, from March 29, 1916, The Old Mill is abandoned and the earlier bridge is a twist of steel in the middle of the ice flow.

The mill in this photo was built in 1849 and destroyed by fire in 1881. It is actually the fourth mill on this site and is the foundation for the restored inn and restaurant that currently form a local tourist attraction. The first mill was constructed in 1793 at the request of Governor Simcoe and was the first industrial site in Toronto.

As is our habit we decided to stay away from the paved path going north along the east side of the river. At this time of the year the ground along the base of the hill is marshy and we had to keep going up to avoid getting wet feet. We climbed about half way up the forested embankment and made our way along the side of the hill. There is an animal trail here which includes prints from the local deer.

From our position part way up the hill, we were able to see old stone walls further up the hillside. Climbing up, my brother found an old stairway and railing in hiding in the trees. In places, the trees have grown around the old railings. In others, the railings and stairs go down the hill and suddenly end where the slope increases dramatically.

The tree has grown completely around the fence rail.

Old stairways in the woods always require investigation and this time it was well worth the climb. We found a series of abandoned terraced gardens with at least 4 old ovens sitting at the top of the hill looking out over the old mill. Some of these contain ornate stonework likely built with rock hauled up from the river below.

James Baby served in the war of 1812 and when his property was damaged, and he was taken as prisoner, he was awarded land in the area of York (Toronto). In 1815 he acquired the point of land that overlooked the Humber River and the Kings Mill (The Old Mill). The land had been a Seneca village and Baby used it to build his estate. Baby and his family lived on there until 1910 when the government purchased the land with the idea of building a military fortress and barracks. When this idea was abandoned the land was sold to a developer named Home Smith. He developed an enclave for the rich and many of these homes had grand views over the ravine.

A set of stone pillars on Jane Street mark the entrance to this early version of a gated community. Homes started developing the subdivision in 1912 and it is easy to envision Great Gatsby type of garden parties here in the 1920’s.

We found a lot of broken bottles on the hillside as well with dates on them from 1938 to 1947. Two of the more interesting ones were a Lavoris Chemical Co. bottle which would have contained mouth wash and a City Dairy milk bottle. City Dairy opened in 1900 and operated until 1930 when it was bought up by Borden’s Dairy. It was famous for it’s safe drinking milk, which was preferred by the city’s doctors for their own use. City Dairy was started by Walter Massey, who’s father ran Massey-Harris, because at the time Toronto’s milk wasn’t safe and it was estimated that 400 children a year died from drinking it.

It was a good day for enjoying the spring wild flowers. Yellow, purple and white flowers carpet the woods. This dog-toothed violet was one of the first to open itself to the morning sunshine. A few days from now they will be out in the thousands.

It’s amazing to see how much the leaves have opened on the trees in just one week.

Google Maps link: Baby Point

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Humber Marshes – Urban Oasis

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Saturday May 3, 2014

It was a cloudy morning around 7 degrees. We entered the trail on the east side of the Humber River, south of Bloor St. This is Etienne Brule park and it is undeveloped. It is named after the first European to see the Toronto area and who arrived at the mouth of the Humber River in 1615. Once down in here among the trees and the ample wild life it’s easy to imagine that you’re not in the heart of Canada’s largest city or perhaps its 1615 all over again. The little trail quickly descends to the marshes and runs along the river bank. We were surprised to find deer tracks, thinking they weren’t this far down the river. We stayed along the river until the first pond was passed. Here the trail climbs the hill and then drops back down. If you follow the river you will soon come to a stretch of water you can’t get across. There is a second pond in here which has a permanent opening to the river. The two ponds on the right hand side of the river show up as green in the shot below because it was taken in late summer and they’re covered in algae. At this time of year the ponds clear and are home to many wetland bird species.

We had seen that the deer tacks went into the woods so we followed and it wasn’t long before we saw a female deer. It’s standing at the edge of the grass with its head hiding behind the tree that’s in the middle of this picture.

We had already determined that you couldn’t get through around the back side of this pond because the hillside is steep and runs right down to the water’s edge. However, we’d seen the deer come from that way and guessed it knew something we didn’t. It turns out that the deer had made it’s way along the edge of the water and we could too. We eventually came out at the river’s edge having got around the point we couldn’t cross. Somewhere along the way we re-graded this hike from “advanced” to “daring”. This part of the hike should not be tried. For our efforts, we got to watch an Egret making it’s way along the opposite shore as it was fishing.

There was a small strip that contained hundreds of freshwater clam shells.

This is an excellent hike if you like bird watching as we identified more than 30 different species. Among them were many waterbirds, including Egrets, King Fishers, Swans, Cormorants and Terns.

It was also nice to see the willows turning green and everything else coming into bud. It seems late this year, maybe that makes it a little more beautiful to see.

Old Eglinton Road

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Sunday April 27th, 2014

It was a bright sunny afternoon around 10 degrees. I entered the woods at the east end of the Eglinton Ave. bridge over the East Don River. As you go into the south east you come quickly to the first storm drain. Cross above the drain and make your way through the cedar woods towards the bottom of the hill and the CPR tracks.

After skirting the edge of the hill for a short while you will come across a ramp coming down the hillside. This is the end of Old Eglinton Road when it used to come down the hill and out to the railroad tracks as recently as the 1970’s. There is some garbage along the north side of the roadway but nothing to specifically date the rubbish. Lots of Ketchup bottles but unfortunately Heinz never took to dating their bottles.

Following the trail a little further brings you to a small stream that disappears under the railroad tracks and runs under the golf course to the East Don River. If you take the trail away from the tracks and midway along the side of the hill you will come to a place to cross the stream where it flows out of a large culvert. Crossing the culvert and turning to your right you will find a set of five footings from an old bridge. The footings on the north side have been broken up, but still remain. I disturbed a pair of cardinals who likely have a nest here. As usual they’re a little camera shy and don’t sit still long enough to get their picture taken.

Old Eglinton Road as seen in this 1971 aerial photo. The road can be seen cutting through the trees in the lower right hand corner. The new Eglinton Ave is marked where it runs a couple hundred meters north of the old road.

The north side of the bottom end of Old Eglinton Road as it descends the hill.

Looking up the hill on Old Eglinton road the trees are well established.

Hiking by myself, I decided not to try this bridge. There is a little trail that will lead you up and around.

Hiding in the trees and leading straight up the hill into the side of a building are five concrete supports for a bridge. As of this writing I can’t find anything on them.

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Hiking the GTA

Places to hike and things to see in and around the Greater Toronto Area

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Ovens Above Old Mill

Humber Marshes – Urban Oasis

Old Eglinton Road