Saturday, July 4, 2020

Schomberg sits on the northern edge of the GTA in King Township.  The community got its start around 1830 when John R Brown emigrated from Pennsylvania to the area and settled on lot 26 in the 9th concession.  Three of his brothers also arrived in the area over the next couple of years, taking up adjacent farms.  The earliest name for the town was Brownsville but residents had to go to nearby Lloydtown for their mail so they applied for a post office of their own.  That was 1861 and the application was denied because there was already a Brownsville post office in York County.  The following year the name was changed to Schomberg, after The Duke of Schomberg, and the post office was finally opened.

An orange grain elevator stands on the side of Highway 9 close to Highway 27 that used to have the Shur-Gain symbol on the side.  Shur-Gain was introduced in 1937 as a brand name by Canada Packers.  They provided feed for animals and livestock.  Today there appears to be renovations going on at the old feed mill.

Schomberg developed a little west of the road that we call Highway 27 today on a small given road.  The town retains many of its historical buildings and so I parked and went for a walk.  Although the Shur-Gain feed mill on Highway 9 might be better known to people who pass by on the highway there is an older feed mill in town.  In 1884 Anderson Tegart built the Schomberg Feed Mill on Main Street where it had direct access to the railway.  It operated until 1927 before it shut down.  Since that time it has housed a variety of businesses including The Scruffy Duck Restaurant which is still in business.  The cover photo shows the feed mill from the south view in contrast to the view from the north presented below.

Beside the old feed mill is a small house built in the year of Confederation that belonged to one of the town doctors.  Harry E. Vaux would have served the community out of his home rather than some office in a clinic when he wasn’t visiting the homes of those who were too sick to come to him.

Schomberg has done a great job of identifying their historic buildings.  Most of the buildings on Main Street and along Church Street have little plaques attached giving the date and historical uses.

In 1905 you would have been able to walk into this building with the false front and purchase your family meat from Adam J. Smart who was the butcher at that time.

The first commercial bank in Schomberg didn’t arrive until 1902.  That was the year that the Trader’s Bank of Canada opened a branch in town.  The bank was headquartered on Yonge Street in downtown Toronto and would later become part of the Royal Bank of Canada.  The Traders bank opened in the left half of the building featured below.  The right side of the building had a grocer and general merchant in it, Wm. Leeson McGowan was proprietor of the store in 1924.

The Schomberg Agricultural Society had been meeting since 1851 and was very active in the lives of the local farmers who were served by the town.  Schomberg was well known for its produce and drew people from miles around for its farmers market.  In 1907 the Market Association was formed and they built a community hall which was used as a market.  In 1922 they added a second story to serve as a full time community hall.  The hall is currently being upgraded to make the second floor accessible and restore some of the worn out infrastructure in the building.

At one time Schomberg had its own railway line, the Schomberg and Aurora Railway which was intended to open the successful produce markets up to a larger customer base from Toronto.  It connected to the Toronto & York Radial Railway with construction beginning in 1899 at Bond Lake.  The railway operated from 1902 to 1927 bringing people to town who would have visited the markets in the community hall.   A little pathway beside the community hall building leads into the fair grounds where I found a clever use for a repurposed shipping container.  By taking the ends out it has quickly become a covered bridge over a small waterway.

It’s hard to say what will happen to the fall fairs across Ontario in 2020 with the threat of an ongoing pandemic but it might be fun to visit the one in Schomberg sometime.  The fairgrounds were pretty deserted on this hot morning.

The Baptist church in Schomberg had stopped using their building and left it vacant on Main Street.  Meanwhile, about three and a half miles away a Presbyterian congregation had been meeting since 1891 without a building of their own.  In 1907 it was decided to purchase the old church and dedicate it for their use.  They held their first services in June 1907 and continue to meet there at the present.

The archive picture below shows the old Baptist Church (now Presbyterian) and the community hall at the time before the second floor was added to the hall.  This is apparently from a postcard from the 1910’s.

Fred and Emma Sparling ran a bakery and confectionery on Main Street in the 1890’s in this building with the cute little quarter round gable windows.

Levi Denis was the town miller in 1875 and lived in this two story home.  The ground floor has five bays while the second story has only three sets of windows.  This lack of symmetry suggests that the second floor may have been added at a later date.

Just around the corner on Church Street is the old home of one of the town blacksmiths. This story and a half house was built in 1891 for James A. Kitchen and has some interesting patterns in the brickwork.  James and Elmira had a son named Percy who served in the First World War and then returned to live with his parents in Schomberg where he also took up the blacksmith trade.

Garrett Brown was one of the four founding brothers who started Brownsville and he built this house on Church Street in 1871.  He owned several businesses and opened the first bank on Main Street in 1885.  His bank didn’t face competition from the larger chartered banks until 1907 when the Traders Bank arrived.

Church street continues out of Schomberg and into Lloydtown which is another interesting little rural community with a unique heritage.

Here’s the link to our story on the Toronto & York Radial Railway. and the one about Bond Lake.

Google Maps Link: Schomberg

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Sunday, June 28, 2020

William Jarvis was granted 100 acres of land just east of Yonge Street and running between Queen Street and Bloor Street.  Jarvis was the first Secretary and Registrar for Upper Canada.  When the property passed to his son Samuel, he began to clear the southern 50 acres and built himself an estate which he called “Hazel Burn”.  When Samuel got into financial trouble with the government he was forced to divide the property into lots and sell them off to pay his debts.  He laid out a new street which he called Jarvis Street and sold smaller, working class lots closer to Queen Street and larger lots to the wealthy farther north.  The drawing below shows the original Jarvis estate.

Many of the original homes have been lost to fires or redevelopment.  Several of the ones that remain are involved in development proposals at this time.  I decided to get some pictures and record the state of this once grand street as it exists today.  In the future there will likely be even less of the original glory remaining.  I found a parking place on the side of Jarvis Street, they’re free on Sunday mornings, and walked up and down both sides of the street.  The mansions are presented from the north end of the street walking south.

Arthur MacMaster was a dry goods magnate in Toronto and he built a Gothic style house in 1868.  MacMaster envisioned a type of medieval castle and completed his home with a crenellated tower.  Hart Massey, of the Massey-Harris Company, bought the home for $12,500 in 1882 when MacMaster passed away.  Massey renamed it Euclid Hall and enjoyed the fully landscaped grounds.  In 1947 the trees along the boulevard were cut down so that Jarvis Street could be widened and soon the trees and flowerbeds at the corner were removed in favour of a gas station.  Most recently the estate has been used as The Keg Mansion.

Chester D Massey (1850-1926) built his house in 1887 on the corner of the Euclid Hall property.  The concrete porte-cochere was added in 1910 as it had become fashionable to have a covered porch for vehicles to take on or discharge passengers under.

William R Johnston made his fortune as a clothing merchant.  In 1875 he added his mansion to the growing list of mansions on Jarvis Street.  It remained in the family until 1941 when it became the national headquarters for the YWCA.  Today the building is home to Casey House which was the first independent AIDS/HIV hospice in Canada.  A matching home was built by Johnston’s business partner but like so many of the grand mansions on Jarvis Street it has been demolished.

Thomas B Taylor had the house at 510 Jarvis built in 1888.  Taylor had been involved in three paper mills along the Don River including the one at Todmorden.

The house at 471 Jarvis Street was built for Thomas Thompson in 1874.  The house goes by the name Elderslie and was owned at one time by Alexander Morris who served as a Conservative for Toronto East.  He was in opposition to the government of Oliver Mowat who lived at 372 Jarvis Street.

Oliver Mowat bought a lot at 372 Jarvis Street in 1856 to build a home for himself.  Mowat was one of the Fathers of Confederation and later served as the Premier of Ontario.  His six consecutive majority governments sets a record of 24 years in power and speaks of how well loved he was.  This Georgian style house was only his for six years before he sold it.  Over the years it has belonged to several people as well as being headquarters for CBC for awhile.  It currently serves as Canada’s National Ballet School .  There are further pictures and details in our blog celebrating Sir Oliver Mowat and his contributions to Canada.

Beside the Jarvis Street Baptist Church, at 337, stands a house that was built in 1849 for Samuel Platt.  Samuel had made his fortune as a brewer until he went into politics in 1845 as a city councilor.  In 1872 he became involved in planning the young city waterworks before being elected as an independent MP for Toronto East, a position he held until 1882.  His house now serves as the Toronto Baptist Seminary, also known as Church House to the pastors who visit there.

The house at 314 Jarvis Street was built in 1865 and is known as the Sheard House.  The house was in the family for decades with some prominent members of the community living here.  Joseph Sheard was the mayor of Toronto from 1871 to 1872.  In 1901 his son Dr. Charles Sheard renovated the house.  Dr. Sheard was Toronto’s Chief Medical Officer of Health and was an MP from 1917-1925.  During WW2 the home was divided into apartments and eventually it was sold to developers.  The original proposal for a 43-story condo was rejected by the city.  The home was gutted by a fire in January 2016 and now the redevelopment of the site is going ahead.  It looks like the new proposal is going to incorporate part of a wall.

The building at 290 Jarvis was built in 1890 and is a style known as Richardsonian Romanesque.  It appeared for only about 20 years and is attributed to an architect named Henry Richardson.  It is known as the William Carlyle House and there is a mirror image home at 280 Jarvis Street from 1891 that is also sitting empty and boarded up.  The two of them have historical designations and are intended to be incorporated into a new 25 story condo development.

My personal favourite Jarvis Street mansion is found at number 504 and so it is presented out of sequence and as the cover photo.  This Richardsonian Romanesque house was built in 1889 for George H. Gooderham.  The Gooderham family owned the Gooderham and Worts distillery that dominated the waterfront and today is known as the Distillery District.  At least half a dozen family members owned mansions within a few minutes walk of George’s new mansion.  The conical tower on one side is paired with a bald gable on the other end.  Accents are cut from Credit Valley stone that could have come from the Willoughby Property.

There are several other interesting old homes along this stretch of Jarvis Street which are worth checking out if you’re passing through this part of town.

Google Maps Link: Jarvis Street

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July 1, 2020

HAPPY CANADA DAY EVERYONE!

Sir Oliver Mowat was born in Kingston, Upper Canada in 1820. Mowat was called to the bar in 1841 but had joined the law firm of John A Macdonald in 1835. Macdonald would be an ally of Mowat in forming Confederation but an adversary in determining what powers the federal government would have compared to the provinces.

Mowat attended the Quebec Conference on Confederation in 1864 where he took charge of forming the committees decisions into a legal format.  He is credited with helping to write the Articles of Confederation.  In 1856 Oliver Mowat purchased one of the estate lots on Jarvis Street from Samuel Jarvis and built this two story, 3 bay house in a Georgian Style.

Mowat was elected as the Premier of Ontario on October 25th 1872, a position which he held for the next 24 years.  Oliver was the longest serving Premier in the history of the province winning six majority governments in a row.

The house that he built before going into politics reflects the simplicity and symmetry of design that is typical of Georgian architecture.  They style always tends to put the most emphasis on the entrance and this house is no exception.  Today it bears a name related to the National Ballet School which occupies it.

While serving as the Premier Oliver Mowat had to face a fellow Father of Confederation and business partner in John A Macdonald.  Mowat was responsible for challenging the federal government and securing powers for the provinces.  When Mowat left provincial politics he went on to a position as Leader of the Government in the Senate for 2 years.  Then on November 18, 1897 he became the 8th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario.

The picture below shows the detailed carvings on the columns that support the entrance porch as well as below the transom window.

Oliver died on April 19, 1903 at the age of 82 while still in office as the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario.  Mowat was buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery.

Oliver Mowat was a significant figure in the founding of Canada and the Province of Ontario but is somehow less known than his political rival Sir John A Macdonald.

Google Maps Link: Oliver Mowat House

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Sunday, June 21, 2020

Armadale sat on the border between Scarborough and Markham at the intersection of Steeles Avenue and Markham Road.  Originally named Magdala, the community was a typical crossroads hamlet.  It had a couple of general stores on the west side of Markham Road just south of Steeles Avenue.  There was also a blacksmith shop and brick yards as well as a post office.  When the post office opened in 1869 the name was changed to Armadale.  Oddly enough the small community had two buildings seemingly in competition, a tavern and a temperance hall.  The county atlas below was drawn in 1877 and shows three of the homes featured below as well as the location of the church and parsonage on Passmore Avenue that would be built three years later.

James Weir was born in Scotland in 1814 and came to Canada in 1833, arriving in Scarborough.  During the Rebellion of 1837 he sided with the Loyalists and helped to put down William Lyon MacKenzie.  He arrived in the area of Armadale in 1840 and settled down to raise a family of 13 children.  As his wealth grew he built a three bedroom home so his boys could have a room as could the girls.  James and his wife kept their own room, hence the thirteen children.

The walls are made of sixty centimeters of field stone while the lintels and quoins are made of Limestone shipped from quarries in Kingston.  The house was built in 1861 and James took the unusual step of having his name included on the date stone above the door.

The house has three chimneys, including the one on the kitchen at the rear, which was a sign of wealth.  The house was in danger of being demolished but was saved by the land developer in 1975 and moved closer to the road.  The inside is currently in the midst of some kind of restoration.

Just west of Markham Road stands the oldest continually serving Free Methodist Church in Canada.  The church was built in 1880 on land bought from Francis Underwood for $1.00.  The church denomination started a year before the American Civil War and was part of an organized movement to abolish slavery that helped people to freedom through the underground railroad.  There is a separate story with more details about the Armadale Free Methodist Church.

The church cemetery lies to the east of the sanctuary.  Among the people interred here are William Stonehouse and Francis Underwood.  William is laid to rest under one of the flat limestone grave markers in the centre of the cemetery.  Francis is remembered by the single example of the tall round monuments that became popular in the late Victorian period.

Just to the west of the church stands the former parsonage where the pastor and his family lived.  Daryl Holton confirmed that his father was the pastor of the church between 1959 and 1962 or 1963.

Francis Underwood bought lot 19 in 1875 and lived in the earlier farmhouse until he died in 1890.  His son, Richard, then owned the property until 1907.  He replaced the original house with a story and a half home built in an L shape.  The west elevation has a central door between two windows.  The north side has another entrance and the chimney while a rear entrance is found on the south elevation.

The house is marked “No Trespassing” but that hasn’t kept people from breaking into it and throwing everything around.  Hopefully the developers will keep their commitment to restore this house and feature it as part of the mall that is being developed on the property.

William Stonehouse lived on the farm to the east of the Underwoods.  His house is a regency cottage style house which is one of the early form of architecture in Ontario.  I found that there is some conflicting information on the internet that shows this house as belonging to Francis Underwood.  This is in conflict with the city bylaw 107-2007 which describes the Underwood house for its historic designation.  Unfortunately, the confusion about the Stonehouse home has been  increased when the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario picked up the mislabeled picture and republished it.

This is the historical photograph that is causing the confusion.

William Stonehouse lived from 1817 to 1886 and passed the small home on to his son William  Stonehouse.  The home originally stood slightly farther to the east but was in the way of redevelopment.  The developers originally wanted to demolish it along with the Underwood home but they are both listed on the historical register for Toronto.  In the end they decided to save them both for future restoration.  The Stonehouse home was lifted and moved.  It still sits on a series of yellow steel beams and could be relocated again quite easily.

Unfortunately, the home has been compromised and trashed inside.  Smoke stains on the underside of the eaves in a few placed suggests that there was a fire in there at some point.  I hope it hasn’t been destroyed beyond the point of restoration.

James Daniels was one of the earliest settlers in the Markham area and appears in William Berczy’s 1803 census.  In 1818 he bought the farm at the north west corner of Steeles and Markham Road in what would become “downtown” Armadale.  They lived in a small brick home that had been built in the 1830’s and raised their children there.  In 1840 they sold the farm to their son John who build a new home in 1851 in the Georgian Style.  His home is one of the few remaining in the community that is in livable condition.

Armadale wasn’t served by the railroad when one was constructed nearby and this caused it to decline in relative importance.  The post office closed in 1917 when rural mail delivery began and eventually most of the buildings in the original core of the town were demolished.  The archive photo below shows the post office and general store as it once appeared.

The town of Armadale was an important local community that has been all but forgotten.  Don’t forget to check out our story on the Free Methodist Church for more details.  Also, large portions of Passmore Avenue have been abandoned.  Follow the link to read about Abandoned Passmore Avenue or Passmore Forest.

Google Maps Link: Armadale Methodist Church

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Saturday, June 13, 2020

Halton Regional Forests have saved over 1,700 acres of land in the past 75 years that are split into fourteen separate tracts that create a green corridor for wildlife.  The tracts consist of a wide variety of habitats that includes forests, wetlands and meadows.  Five of these tracts make up the Britton Complex and preserve land along the north and west sides of Hilton Falls Conservation Area.  The Britton Tract has parking in two places on the Six Line Nassagaweya.  We parked in the first lot north of Campbellville Road where there is only room for about 8 vehicles in official spots with maybe four more squeezed along the entrance.  Parking on the road will likely result in a ticket.  We set out to follow the trail north toward the second parking lot before heading west.  Our intention was to follow the outside loop of trails and explore side trails as the urge hit us.  We suggest you take a picture of the trail map as you begin your hike.

The Britton Tract sits on a section of the escarpment where there is a lot of hard dolomite near the surface.  Karst action has left many places where water collects leaving a lot of surface water and wetlands.  This is also displayed in areas where the water at surface level supports considerable moss growth.

It was one of those hikes where there was an abundance of insects but fortunately not many of the biting kind.  Butterflies, moths, dragonflies and damselflies were everywhere, a small selection  of the variety is represented in this post.  The Tawny Crescent butterfly is fairly small and has black and white knobs on the antennae.  They are partial to asters which provide shelter for the eggs, food for caterpillars and nectar for the adults.

There were several Red Admiral butterflies along the trail, some of them brightly coloured and some more subdued.  They are one of the butterflies in Ontario that migrates for the winter.  They are often found around stinging nettle, a plant that I avoid because it lives up to its name.  This Red Admiral was making the rounds of the local wildflowers.

The Silver Spotted Skipper are a type of butterfly known as a nectar thief because they feed on the plant without pollinating it.  They tend to probe the innermost parts of the flower which are male without contacting the outermost florets which are the female portions.  Therefore they don’t transfer the pollen and fertilize the plant.

The trail is 3 meters wide in many places but the side trails are smaller and can be muddy in some seasons.  The trail we were following came to a place where there is a stream to cross.  Passage was easy on this day but there will be times when there is no way across here.

The Ebony Jewelwing is a damselfly that likes to rest in sunny places on leaves.  Damselflies rest with their wings closed and the female Ebony Jewelwing can be identified by the large white spot on the end of the wings.  The male pictured below has an all-black wing.

The Britton Tract has a wide variety of forest types including evergreens, birch thickets and mature stands of hardwoods.  In areas where the water is retained close to the surface some trees have a hard time breathing and tend to fall over and die before they reach the normal size for their species giving the forest a perpetual young look.

Asters are a part of a large family that includes daisy, asters and sunflowers.  The family contains over 32,000 species, many of which are native to North America.  They attract a large selection of pollinators including butterflies and bees.

Common Whitetail dragonflies are highly territorial and the males will lift their abdomens in a display of power.  Dragonflies sit with their wings open when at rest.

The Britton Tract is full of trails and we kept mainly to the ones that circled the outside of the tract.  There comes a point where you will have to make a choice to turn and head back to the parking lot or to carry on into the Robertson Tract.  This option will take you out to the fourth line and add another hour or more to your hike.

As we were following the trail we disturbed a toad and possibly saved its life.  When it jumped the garter snake that was hunting it moved quickly and caught our attention.  Unfortunately we didn’t see that unfolding or we might have been able to capture some interesting shots of a snake having dinner.

Dryad’s Saddle is one of the edible mushrooms that is often seen but seldom picked.  When it is young and fresh it can be quite good and apparently has a slight lemon flavour.  When they get larger, up to 30 centimeters, they become very woody and are only good for boiling into a broth.

The eight spotted Forester is a moth that is seen between April and June.  The larvae feed on the leaves of Virginia Creepers and River Grapes which are found in the tract.  They are distinctive for the coloured spots on their wings.  The fore wing has two large cream coloured patches while the hind wing has two white patches.  They have tufts of orange on the front and middle legs.  This moth is often mistaken for a butterfly because it visits flowers during the daytime.

Halton Regional Forests have lots of trails and the potential for many interesting hikes.

Google Maps Link: Britton Tract

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Sunday, June 14, 2020

The wealthy have always been looking for a way to escape the core of the city to enjoy their money.  In the early 20th century the area of Bayview and Lawrence was farm country which provided plenty of gorgeous ravine lots overlooking The Don River.  In 1924 Edward Rogers Wood bought the property on Bayview on the south side of the bridge over the Don River.  After the one lane bridge was replaced with six lanes in 1928 the lands north of the river became prime estate lands.  His brother Frank Porter Wood bought the 30 acres north of the bridge in 1928 on which to build his estate.

Frank had been born in Peterborough in 1882 and spent his working career as a financier in various firms.  One of these firms was the National Trust Company which had been incorporated by his brother Edward Rogers Wood.  The estate that Frank built on his property incorporated the Georgian style along with some Beaux-Arts architecture.  The cupola provides a little touch of Renaissance to the structure.

The house has seven bays and dominates the landscape with two and a half stories.  Built of smooth limestone great attention was given to the entrance facing the street.

Wood was a lifelong collector of fine art and amassed a collection that he donated to the Art Gallery of Ontario when he died on March 20, 1955.  To this day his bequest remains the largest single donation in the history of the gallery.  Near the front entrance to the mansion is an ornate fountain.

A solarium extends from the south elevation of the home.

The property became home to Crescent School in 1970, beginning fifty years of teaching boys in grades 3-12.  Wood gave as much attention to the rear entrance to the home as he did to the street facing one.

The far end of the back yard was turned into the Century Garden in 2013 to mark the 100th anniversary of the school.  The sundial shows that it was around 1:30 when I was there.

After struggling for its first 20 years the school was donated the property known as Dentonia Park Estate that had belonged to the Massey Family.  They were prominent in Toronto being involved in several industrial ventures including farm implements.  When the park was sold for development in 1970 the school moved to the present location on Bayview Avenue.  They brought the columns that supported the front entrance to Dentonia Park and set them up in the garden as a memento to the time spent there.

The school has expanded the site adding several buildings including a gym and library as well as a science and technology wing.  From the Centennial Garden the rear of the house is still imposing when compared to the other structures.

Attached to the front of the house is an extension that may have served as both the drive shed and perhaps a tack shed as well.

When I visited I simply parked in the parking lot and walked around like I was allowed to be there.  I’m not sure that was true but the gentleman who was entering as I was leaving gave me only a quick glance.

Several other estates in the area can be seen in our story Bayview Estates

Google Maps Link: Crescent School

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