All posts filed under: General History

An Immigrant Family Story:  The Breckles Part One

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This is the story of the Breckles family who came to Canada like so many others did in the early 1900s. Escaping high unemployment and poverty in the industrial cities of Britain, they hoped for better overseas. Toronto was a mecca for many, including the Breckles. Let me be clear here. I am not related to this family nor do I pretend to know intimate details about their lives. This is just the story that the public record tells and I include it because I found that it was interesting both because a Breckles family was one of the first to live on Coady Avenue and because it moved me. So let the story begin. When Anthony Breckles was born on January 31, 1854, in Tunbridge Hill, Kent, England, his father, Anthony, was 26 and his mother, Elizabeth, was 25. He spent his early years in Ipswich, Kent, but by the time he was seven the family had moved to Birmingham in the Midlands where his father worked as a laborer. They lived in the …

Some Leslieville Street Names

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Originally posted on Leslieville Historical Society:
From Tremaine’s Map of the County of York, 1860 It is sometimes difficult to trace the origins of street names. Clearly most Leslieville streets were named after families who lived here or after the builders who put up the houses on the street. Only a few, such as Eastern Avenue, are more or less self-explanatory. Moreover, street names changed over time. Doel became Dundas; Kingston Road became Queen Street, etc. Street names were changed because citizens requested it (as with Erie Terrace with became Craven Road) or because amalgamation with the City of Toronto led to confusing duplication of street names. A number of streets in the newly annexed areas had the same names as streets in the old City of Toronto so those streets were renamed. Street naming went through fads and suffered at the whim of politicians. In 1905, the City of Toronto’s Street Naming Sub-Committee (all aldermen) wanted all new streets running east and west to be called ‘avenues” and all north-south routes to be called “streets”. It wanted to…

On this place: Riverdale Collegiate (cont’d)

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Although large operations like those of Joseph Russell and John Price with heavy machinery dominated the industry by the time Riverdale Collegiate was built, small operations like this still continued using methods that had changed little since the Middle Ages. The horse is working the first type of machine that was introduced to the brick industry — in the 1850’s. The horse walks around and around that beaten track, pulling that big piece of timber which turns a grinding wheel. The machine, a pug mill, grinds the clumps of clay into a powder. The brick moulder mixes it with water and sand and pushes it into a wooden mould (in his hands). He then dumps it onto the ground to dry in the sun. The figure to his right is a young boy, probably his son. Often the women and younger children worked with the father but by this time it was not socially acceptable so they don’t appear in the photo. The children did much of the heaviest labour. The green is the richest …

On this place: Riverdale Collegiate…

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Did you ever wonder what was here in days gone by? Who lived here? What buildings stood here? Why did they build here? This picture shows Riverdale Collegiate on the far hill on December 22, 1919. We are looking from Prust Ave. Landfill with large concrete rubble fills the ravine in the immediate foreground. The new Hastings Avenue lies in the mid-ground and just west of it, hidden from sight, is Hastings Creek. On the slope immediately east of Leslie Street  is an orchard with an apple storage barn (cold storage). Lucius O’Brien, Among the Islands of Georgian Bay, watercolour, 1886. This painting depicts Anishnaabe families similar to the Mississauga people whose traditional territory included the site of Riverdale Collegiate. The Mississauga are a group within the larger Anishnaabe (also known as Chippewa or Ojibway people). When the first white settlers came to the area around Jones and Gerrard the Kichigo family of Mississaugas helped them adapt to life here, welcoming them and sharing food and medicine. Many native people still live in Leslieville. For …