Toronto's lost villages

by Ron Brown

Explore the vestiges of the hamlets and villages that have been swallowed up by Toronto’s relentless growth.Over the course of more than two centuries, Toronto has ballooned from a muddy collection of huts on a swampy waterfront to Canada’s largest and most diverse city. Amid (and sometimes underneath) this urban agglomeration are the remains of many small communities that once dotted the region now known as Toronto and the GTA. Before European settlers arrived, Indigenous Peoples established villages on the shore of Lake Ontario. With the arrival of the English, a host of farm hamlets, tollgate stopovers, mill towns, and, later, railway and cottage communities sprang up. Vestiges of some are still preserved, while others have disappeared forever. Some are remembered, though many have been forgotten. In Toronto’s Lost Villages , all of their stories are brought back to life.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

208 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1997

About the author

Ron Brown is a geographer and travel author of more than twenty books, including Rails to the Atlantic, The Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore, and Back Roads of Ontario. He is past chair of the Writers' Union of Canada and leads tours of Ontario's unusual sights. He lives in Toronto.

Reviews

[Craig Rowland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Toronto’s Lost Villages by Ron Brown is a new edition from 2020. Two years ago I read the first edition from 1997 and thankfully Brown wrote a completely new book that did not seem as if I was rereading the same material. Landscapes can change in twenty-three years and the update noted what sites were, sadly, no longer around and when they were demolished (many of them falling to the wrecking ball after 1997). What remained the same however was Brown’s attitude towards developers. While I agree with him as I too am a supporter of preservation and heritage designations, it was nonetheless tiring to read over and over his dislike for urban sprawl, shopping malls, doughnut shops and condos which now occupy the land of these former villages.

The reasons for a village’s demise were often the same: a railway station was built in town, bringing a wave of construction and settlers while villages which didn’t have a station died a slow death, or a highway was cut through and obliterated everything in sight. Brown acknowledged that villages that did get a station evolved too, as they were overwhelmed with growth and industry which often swarmed around or otherwise did away with the original buildings. I only encountered one derogatory reference to “Scarberians” whereas in the first edition I read it multiple times. The funniest passage was about Yorkville:

“In 1852, 1,000 petitioners asked for village status, although far fewer than that actually lived there. A nearby cemetery, it is speculated, contributed heavily to the petition.”

While a short book of 213 pages, it nonetheless ended up a boring read as I kept reading the same story about each village’s demise. I enjoyed the new photos however unlike the first edition Brown provided no maps. I used Google Maps to locate noteworthy houses and to examine reconfigured street grids.

[Garth Mailman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The arrival of major industry alters a place inextricably. Who knew we needed apartment towers, MacDonalds, Tim Hortons, Malls, Cell Phone Towers, high-speed interenet, expressways. Such is the story of the small settlements that surrounded Toronto as it grew and spread covering the farmland that supported it. Oakville, to the West was once a rich man’s playground with estates along the lakeshore big enough to have Polo Pitches and a private boy’s school. It still caters to the rich but today they commute by GO Train to office towers downtown and lawns that spread widely enough to keep a highschool lad busy mowing them 5 days a week have given way to upscale housing subdivisions.

pg 28: Lorne Park
“two miles west of Oakville”, surely east as west would put it in Bronte. in any case it remains a private enclave swallowed up in the mess that is Mississauga.

York was founded by John Graves Simcoe to replace Newark (Niagara-on-the-Lake) as the capital of Upper Canada as the latter was deemed too vulnerable to American invasion. Not that that prevented the burning of the Parliament Buildings during the War of 1812. We, on the other hand burned the White House. As the settlement that was to become Toronto spread North, East and West and even filled in the harbour South the farming communities that sprang up around it were engulfed by suburban sprawl. Today to most these names are remembered as street names heard regularly during traffic reports or as TTC Subway, Go Train, and VIA Stops.

Centres of population gathered around sources of water power, rivers and sources of food, farmland. In an era when most roads were cow paths of deer trails rivers were safer means of transport and they powered mills that produced flour and wood products and sometimes clay for bricks. In an era where drinking water was frequently suspect an ale house was essential, a distillery usually followed. Nearby sources of food were essential given the lack of transport. Unfortunately as urban sprawl inevitably followed farmland disappeared under housing and industry. Over 50% of the best farmland on earth can be seen from the top of the CN Tower, think about that.

Very few of the buildings here described still exist. Neglect is one theme but by far most common is “it burned”. Whether these fires were deliberate to make way for new development or accident or carelessness the result is the same. Heritage buildings were lost. Just think of the cost of restoring Notre Dame especially given that many resources such as the wooden beams are no longer available and the tradesmen that built these buildings and their skills no longer exist.

Curiously Brown makes mention of Lorne Park, Erindale, Cooksville, and Dixie and cites the Mississaugas of the Credit River but makes no mention of the City of Mississauga save that it owns a particular structure.

Today I leave Oakville at 3:00 AM to beat rush hour traffic and cross Toronto and count on being South of Montreal by midday, a distance of 400 miles. In the day the conditions of the roads and given horse drawn traffic a day’s journey was 12 miles with a likely noonday stop at a local pub.

The book is a litany of disappearing farmland, a circumstance that continues to the present day. The Post Office, when it came assigned many place names to avoid duplication; a protocol that missed the Maritimes where place names occur repeatedly: think Saint John--St John’s. The oldest heritage structures in Ontario are barely more than 200 years old; out East 400 compared with 1000 in Europe making us a young nation where groups have to fight developers to save the little that is left.

[Timo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ron Brown leverde met Toronto's Lost Villages een doorwrocht naslagwerk af. Een naslagwerk, inderdaad, want het boek is eigenlijk weinig geschikt om van begin tot eind te lezen. Dat heb ik wel gedaan. Daarbij vallen bijvoorbeeld heel wat herhalingen op. Misschien beklaagt Brown zich net te vaak over de banen met zes rijvakken, de flatgebouwen en de donutshops.

Het hele boek is behoorlijk repetitief, maar over een heleboel van de verdwenen dorpen valt nu eenmaal niet veel te zeggen... Het is net lovenswaardig dat Brown de onbelangrijke plaatsen óók behandelt. Wie op verkenning wil naar het verleden van Toronto vindt in dit boek een goede gids - ik weet in ieder geval nu wat gedaan!

P.S.: Dat het boek geen enkele kaart bevat, betreur ik. Gelukkig is er bijvoorbeeld Historical Atlas of Toronto van Derek Hayes - maar ik had het niet bij de hand toen ik het boek van Brown las, helaas!

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

- Not just about the city of Toronto, but lost villages through the GTA (Greater Toronto Area)
- many examples of how geographic names have migrated, including Toronto, which originally referred to the narrows at the north end of Lake Simcoe, once called Lac Toronto.
- villages established at tollgates or intersections of early roads, around mills, later around railway stations
- many villages lost due to railways bypassing them, then street railways (streetcars) bringing suburban development, then cars & highways supercharging suburban homogenization

[Giselle · Rating 4 out of 5]

A few years ago I worked in an office building in Richmond Hill. There wasn't much nearby except for an old abandoned house in a field. I was always curious about that house and also the old church across the road.

I was happily surprised to find the chapter about Headford, which explained the history of the mill and the church and who owned that crumbling house.

[Sonia Doan · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read if so many hamlets, villages and towns which now make up GTA!

[Eric Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, a pretty dry read. But enough nuggets of trivia to make it worthwhile for a Torontonian.

[Aj Sharma · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting book if you are interested in the historical architecture of Toronto. Took me a bit to get through, was a bit dry.

[Cathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Scattered and repetitious. Over emphasis on eastern Toronto and not enough on west Toronto, especially pertaining to the Junction, Fairbanks, Scarlett Road and Smythe Park areas.

[Ed Howe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book tells the stories of the pioneer villages that predate the city of Toronto Ontario being established.