Some of the streets included Applegrove Avenue (now part of Dundas St E), Ashdale, Bellefair, Berkley Ave., Birch Avenue (now Silverbirch Avenue), Burgess, Cassells, Coxwell Ave., DuVernet, Erie Terrace (now Craven Road), Fern Ave., Gerrard Street, Gibson Ave., Hambly Ave, Hiawatha Rd., Hubert, Kenilworth Cres., Kingston Road, Lee Ave., Oak Ave. Reid (now Rhodes Ave.), Waverley  Rd., Wheeler, Woodbine Avenue, etc.

Rogart…even the inhabited land is everywhere encumbered with rock. Thompson, John, The Traveller’s Guide to Scotland & its Isles, 1824

Clan Map of Scotland, Rogart is marked with a star

William Leslie was in the Fencibles, but some of these militia men also volunteered for short-term service in the new 93rd Regiment of Foot, known as the Sutherland Highlanders. The 93rd were a regular British army regiment or “regiment of the line” although the way they were recruited was anything but regular. It has been seen as the last great act of clan loyalty in Scottish history. Everything was soon to change and the loyalty of the Highlanders would be crushed in a great act of betrayal. The bonds which enabled the Countess to call on her clansmen would be violently cut and the old ways dead.

The Sutherland Highlanders had a good reputation in their dealings with the Irish. It is not recorded whether or not the Irish Catholic peasantry agreed with this benign assessment of their mostly Protestant occupiers.

The Sutherlands served in different places around Ireland including Tyrone.  Esther Beatty (1783-1867), eldest daughter of James Beattie (also spelled “Beatty”), of Omagh, County Tyrone, met & married William Leslie.  William had previously been married to Christina Ross who died in childbirth several years before.

The Irish girls were attrracted to the bonnie laddies from over the Irish sea as this song recalls. The 42nd Royal Highland Regiment is better known as The Black Watch.

Officer of the 92 Gordon Highlanders left, Sergeant of the Cameron Highlanders middle, enlisted man of the 42 Royal Highlanders (The Black Watch) right.

The Sutherland Clearance had already begun when William Leslie probably went with John Leslie, his cousin,  to Spain with the 79th Cameron Highlanders to fight in the Peninsula Campaign against Napoleon and his armies. The Countess of Sutherland had betrayed her people by driving them by force off their land to make way for sheep in a protracted campaign that is remembered as the Sutherland Clearances. Many men preferred to enlist uner Alan Cameron of Erracht who was neither a clan chieftain or responsible for clearances. Deeply devoted to his soldiers, he raised the 79th Regiment of Foot privately and lead them into battle.

Leslie family tradition says from wounds at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, but the scanty records available don’t support this. Robert Leslie’s obituary states,

They were preceded from Quebec a few months earlier by their father, John Leslie, who was a retired soldier of the British Army, having served in the 79th Highlanders [Cameron Highlanders] from 1793 to 1814, a full term of 21 years. He participated in all the celebrated engagements of the Peninsular war, including Nive, Nivelle, Pyrenees, Badajos [Badajoz], Ciudad Roderigo, Salamanca, and was shot through the arm and leg at Corunna, noted in history as the place of the celebrated retreat under Sir John Moore when he lost his life.

John Leslie is listed in the records of Royal Hospital Chelsea Pensioners, 79th Cameron Highlanders. The records note that he was “severely wounded right arm” and that he was a laborer from Rogart, Sutherland. Before he fought in Spain, he served in Canada during the War of 1812. John Leslie had served in Canada as well. He is described in the “British Regimental Registers of Service, 79th Foot Soldiers, 1st Battalion, 1809-1816, as having dark complexion, a round face, brown eyes, dark hair, and as being a laborer from Rogart, Sutherlandshire.

December , 1808. Retreat to Corunna, a death march. Over 5,000 men died.

These are the kinds of wounds sustained by John and William on the retreat from Corunna. William died, John survived.

By the time of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 John Leslie was on a pension back in Rogart and William Leslie was dead. The 93rd were in North America where the Sutherland Highlanders were decimated at the Battle of New Orleans.

The 79th Cameron Highlanders were at Waterloo. While William and John Leslie were not there, Norman Leslie from Rogart was.

Highland Regiments would go on to play a vital role in Canada’s military history.

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George Leslie’s was Canada’s very own “Johnny Appleseed”, but who was the original Johnny? And how was George like Johnny?

The original “Johnny Appleseed” was John Chapman (1774-1845). The myth of Johnny Appleseed has him wandering around America, scattering apple seeds here and there. Like all myths, it has an element of truth. John Chapman was responsible for apple trees and orchards in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and other Mid-Western states. However, just like George Leslie, he was a skilled nurseryman who grew trees, sold trees and promoted trees. He was responsible for supplying the nursery stock that started the orchards of those states just as George Leslie was responsible for supplying the nursery stock that started orchards across Canada, including Ontario. Like George Leslie, John Chapman was a trained professional who apprenticed as a gardener. Like George Leslie, he carefully selected and tested varieties of fruit trees that would thrive in the growing conditions around the Great Lakes. John Chapman was generous with his trees, giving thousands away, just as George Leslie. Both were deeply religious men committed to their faith and their communities. Both were famous in their day, much quoted and admired.

There are differences. John Chapman’s orchard was much bigger than George Leslie’s, George had 250 acres; John Chapman, had a 1,200 acres. John Chapman was an eccentric who wore rags and died of exposure in 1845, just two years after George Leslie opened his nursery in Leslieville. George Leslie was highly respectable: an Alderman, School Trustee, Justice of the Peace and “Squire” Leslie to those who knew him.

Americans are good at myth-making; Canadians tend more towards the cold, hard truth. We have few myths: the Maple Leaf Forever Tree is one. John Chapman lives on in children’s stories and Disney popularized the myth in his movies. I have included a link to Walt Disney’s “Johnny Appleseed” here. George Leslie lives on in the name “Leslieville” and is forgotten except in the last few years when my books and articles have made his name more familiar so that even a condo project is named “George” after him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=484AJlOnOnc

So let’s see if you think George Leslie deserves to be recognized as “Canada’s Johnny Appleseed.”

In 1832 he organized the first exhibition of fruit in Ontario.

Then came the time when a few men saw the possibilities of the future if fruit-culture was undertaken in a systematic way. George Leslie, one of the earliest nurserymen in Toronto, organized a fruit exhibition in 1832, but a few specimens of apples, some wild plums, and some small fruit [berries] were all he could procure. He brought trees from New York, organized a nursery, and succeeded in interesting others in the subject. 

(Canadian History, No. 10, June, 1900, 263)

In 1834 George Leslie was one of the founders and first Directors of the Toronto Horticultural Society. He opened a seed and grocery store was on Front Street. Like many others George Leslie purchased his first stock of seeds from London, England. Often the seeds were not viable or the plants successful in the very different growing environment of Ontario. George Leslie secured and tested seeds and young apple saplings that were suitable for Ontario.  He faced difficulties finding enough varieties of trees and plants. He was also concerned about quality. In the late 1830s he travelled to the US looking for suitable stock. In the spring he found two men in Rochester, New York, who had similar views and ambitions to his own, George Ellwanger and Patrick Barry.

Both businesses had large greenhouses. The 1840s and 1850s were a golden age of greenhouses. For the first time technology was available to make large sheets of plate glass and iron frames. Soon “crystal palaces” went up, heated by boilers and steam. For the first time, fruits and vegetables became available and affordable for the middle classes year round. George Leslie used every possible opportunity to market his products especially his apple trees.

In 1841, when the Horticultural Society began holding annual exhibitions, George Leslie was an energetic participant and supporter, as were some other market gardeners. Exhibitions were an excellent opportunity to advertise their seeds, exchange information and encourage the public to plant orchards, especially of apples and pears.  In an era without television, radio or Internet, there could be no better way to promote products.

In 1842, George Leslie leased 20 acres of land from Charles Coxwell Small for a 21- year term. Small, member of the Family Compact and Clerk of the Crown, was owner of extensive lands in the area. (Coxwell Avenue is named after him.) Small may have thought he got the better of the deal when he found someone foolish enough to lease his 20 acres of mucky swampland on the shores of Ashbridges Bay. The Toronto Nurseries was built on tamarack-covered swamp (Larchmount Avenue recalls this). These 20 acres of rich black mud were the core of his nursery which would expand to 200 acres, the largest in Canada. George Leslie did not buy that land until the lease ran out in 1863. Then Small demanded an exorbitant price from Leslie and apparently got it.

George Leslie valued that soft, rich dark muck and others recognized its worth. Orchards flourished then and now on the shores of the lower Great Lakes, especially Lake Ontario. The microclimate is ideal for fruit-growing. Though the Niagara Fruit Belt did not exist then, George Leslie’s fruit trees helped to create it.

In the 1840s, the “New Town”, west of the original “Old Town” (King and Parliament area), grew rapidly. Yonge Street became an important thoroughfare. Sensitive to “Location! Location! Location!”, in September 1843 he moved his seed store to Yonge Street on the east side, south of King Street. He advertised the expansion of his business:

Having twenty Acres in the liberties of the city, in course of breaking in, as a Nursery and Seed Garden, he can now supply the public with Fruit and Ornamental Trees, Shrubs, Roses, Herbaceous Flowering Plants, &C., at a cheaper rate than they can be got from New-York or Rochester.

(The British American Cultivator, Vol. 3, No. 3, March 1844)

Leslie was a skilled user of the media using advertising, interviews, and stories in newspapers and journals to promote the growing of trees and his business. He became good friends with another Reformer George Brown, who, in 1844, established The Globe. The connection worked well for the nurseryman. People in southwestern Ontario could pick up the Toronto Nurseries catalogue at the Western Globe in London and buy apple trees and other fruit trees.

In the spring of 1845 George Leslie began to advertise his new partnership with Ellwanger and Barry. He still offered a full array of seeds at his Yonge Street store including importations from J. Wresch & Son, London, England.  He also promoted his new nursery:

G. L. would also invite public attention to his Nursery Establishment, for the cultivation of FRUIT and ORNAMENTAL TREES, on a more extended scale that has been hitherto attempted in Canada. Trees and Flowering Plants will be carefully packed, so as to bear transportation to any part of the Province, should their passage take two weeks.

(Globe, February 18, 1845; Globe, March 25, 1845; The British American Cultivator, New series, Vol. 1, No. 9, Sept. 1845)

Here is an ad from a little later in the spring of 1845.

Toronto Nursery and Seed Store
ON THE KINGSTON ROAD
1 ½ MILES FROM THE MARKET-PLACE
GEORGE LESLIE & CO., PROPRIETORS

THE undersigned would respectfully inform their friends and the Public , that they have entered into a Co-partnership, for the purpose of carrying on the

NURSERY AND SEED BUSINESS,
in the City of Toronto. THE NURSERY ESTABLISHMENT is situated as above, on the Kingston commenced three years ago by GEORGE LESLIE. The Tract of Land, 20 acres in extent, is admirably adapted to the purpose.  Upwards of ten acres are already planted with Trees, Shrubs, &c. And more will be planted this Spring, and arrangements are being made with a view to make this the most extensive and useful Establishment of the kind yet attempted in the province. They have on hand, and now for offer for sale a superior collection of

FRUIT AND ORNAMENTAL TREES
FLOWERING SHRUBS AND PLANTS
GREEN HOUSE PLANTS
BULBOUS FLOWER ROOTS, DAHLIAS, &c.

The collection of Fruit Trees comprises the most valuable and approved varieties, adapted to our latitude, either here or in the well-known MOUNT HOPE NURSERIES, Rochester, New-York, with which this Establishment is now connected. The collection of ORNAMENTAL TREES, SHRUBS, ROSES, HERBACEOUS PLANTS, etc. etc. is quite extensive, and are offered at moderate prices.

Public Grounds, and other places requiring large quantities of Trees and Shrubs, will be laid out and planted, by contract, at low price.

All articles sent from the nursery are carefully packed for which a small charge, covering expenses, will be made. Packages will be addressed and forwarded, agreeable to the advice of persons ordering, and in all cases at their risk. A large supply of Fresh and Genuine, GARDEN, FIELD and FLOWER SEEDS, constantly on hand at their SEED STORE AND NURSERY DEPORT on Yonge Street between King Street and the wharf.

ALSO AGRICULTURAL AND HORTICULTURAL BOOKS, IMPLEMENTS, &c.

Orders by Mail (post-paid) from any part of the country if accompanied with a remittance, or a satisfactory reference in the City of Toronto, will receive prompt attention. Priced Catalogues will be furnished gratis in all post-paid applications.

GEORGE LESLIE, GEORGE ELLWANGER,P. BARRY
27^TH March, 1845.

(Globe, April 1, 1845)

The December issue of The British American Cultivator included an article promoting the partnership of Ellwanger and Barry and their Mount Hope Nursery with George Leslie’s Toronto Nursery. Their catalogue offered 171 varieties of apples, 141 of pears, 35 of plums, 48 of cherries, 8 of apricots, 38 of peaches, 6 of nectarines, 6 of quinces, 26 of grapes, 7 of currants, 8 of raspberries, and 24 of strawberries. As well, they sold 70 varieties of street and shade trees; 78 different
ornamental shrubs; 37 different conifers; and many other plants, including roses and peonies. (The British American Cultivator, New Series, Vol. 1, No. 12, Dec. 1845, 357-358.)

In late 1845 the City of Toronto purchased part of George Leslie’s Yonge Street property for $5,000 in order to extend Colborne Street through to Yonge.  That spring the Leslies moved to a home on the Kingston Road near the nursery.

He opened his nursery to the public: “The Public are respectfully invited to visit the Nursery, and judge of the manner in which business is carried on.” George Leslie and other reputable nurseries faced competition from itinerant peddlers who lied about their wares and sold trees so badly neglected that they died soon after they were sold to farmers. Of course, the solution to the problem was Toronto Nurseries, if customers would:

… bring their waggons to the ground, and have their trees taken up, and carried home with them. They may then often be planted within forty-eight hours after being dug; and if the following directions are carefully followed, success may reasonably be anticipated.

Visiting the nursery gave potential buyers the opportunity to see the growing conditions for themselves.  As well people were beginning to visit nurseries (and cemeteries) almost as if they were public parks which, for all intents and purposes, did not exist in the Toronto of the 1840s. Since people were intrigued by greenhouses, this could be an outing for the family and George proceeded to develop his nursery grounds into an arboretum.  George Leslie did not start most of his trees in his nursery, but instead imported trees from Britain, including some of Toronto’s most common street trees such as Norway maple, European ash, London plane tree, Scotch elm, etc. The Leslies left many specimen trees to grown in their nursery. 40 years later Leslie’s Grove, the nickname locals gave to the tree nursery, had, according to the Leslies, “European and American forest trees of large size…in our grounds, some of them measuring over two feet through.”

In the spring of 1848 George Leslie sold his seed business, known as “The Toronto Nursery Depot” to William Gordon and announced that “his whole personal attention will in future be given to the Nursery Business” (The British Colonist, March 28, 1848) Though William Gordon bought out the name, stock and “good will” of the seed business, George kept the seed store itself. Having just built it, George Leslie did not intend to lose it. He put the store, “one of the best built frame structures of the time”, on rollers and towed it his new nursery. (Globe, May 6, 1893) George Leslie continued a business arrangement with William Gordon, supplying him with fruit trees, shade trees, ornamentals, flowers and greenhouse plants.

In 1848, George Leslie bought out Ellwanger and Barry’s interest in the Toronto Nursery for $5,000. The public reason for ending the partnership was the increasing demands made by Mount Hope Nursery on George Ellwanger and Patrick Barry. Given George Leslie’s attitudes towards authority, he was not easy to work with; the relationship was doomed from its start.  George Leslie, though reputed to be an amiable soul, was tenacious, stubborn and, above all, his own man.

In the fall of 1848 George Leslie placed large advertisements in the Globe now boasted that he had a “variety of large well grown healthy Trees, of the most approved varieties, [that] now equals any between this and New York.” His nursery had now grown beyond the initial 20 acres and he offered 40,000 apple trees for sale. He had planted them in 1843 and took pride in his “well grown healthy Trees.” He also offered a wide variety of nursery stock for orchards, vegetable and flower gardens, including his beloved Dahlias. He also offered plants at wholesale prices to other nurserymen. Each year he put out a new catalogue with this on successfully transplanting and growth plants and trees (Globe, September 16, 1848)

His reputation was growing. He began writing articles for farm and horticultural journals. In November, 1848, The Farmer and Mechanic pointed out that Leslie was a valuable resource for Canadians:

This respectable firm [Ellwanger & Barry] have been connected with Mr. George Leslie’s nursery business for the past four years which connexion, however, is amicably dissolved; and Mr. Leslie having procured all the best varieties cultivated, and perfected arrangements for procuring new ones as they from time to time are ushered into notice, a full and complete assortment of the choicest fruit trees may be had at the Toronto Nursery, each warranted to be true to their sorts, at as low a price as can be had in any part of the United States. 

(The Farmer and Mechanic, Vol. 1, no. 2, Nov. 1848, 42)

On March 14^th, 1849 George Leslie played on Canadian nationalist sympathies to take a shot at the heirs of Johnny Appleseed, his American rivals:

I have been engaged in the business of tree culture for twenty years in this neighbourhood. In recommending varieties of fruit, I shall mention only such kinds as personal observation has convinced me are quite suitable for this neighbourhood. …Canada has a right to share, with other parts of North America, the profit and honour of having her fruit shipped to all parts of the world. 

(The Farmer and Mechanic, Vol. 1, no 7, April, 1849, 188 –193)

He promoted the growing of apple and other fruit trees throughout his life – not by wandering by foot scattering seeds here and there, which the real John Chapman never did even though the American legend Johnny Appleseed did. Instead he used his shrewd business sense; his friendships with politicians, others in the trade and other Scotsmen; his ability to communicate his life of trees and his reputation as a nurseryman to promote fruit growing at every opportunity. One can sense his sadness that many Canadian farmers did not value orchards or appreciate the potential for exporting a valuable red, round cash crop to Britain and the rest of Europe. That spring George Leslie wrote another article encouraging the planting of orchards in a different publication also aimed at farmers. He recommended his catalogue, as well as his favourite fruits. (The Canadian Agriculturist, Vol. 1, no. 4, Apr. 2, 1849, 100-102) In another article for The Canadian Agriculturalist published in June, 1849, he encouraged landscaping, claiming that the planting of shrubs and shade trees was “a work of genuine patriotism, as evidencing the wealth and increasing greatness of the country.” Planting trees also should that the homeowner had both “superior intellect and a refined taste.” (The Canadian Agriculturist, Vol. 1, No. 6, June 1, 1849, 157-158)

He continued to write articles giving practical advice on subjects such as pruning fruit trees, but he was also busy in another business in which he made more money than he did selling trees. That business was real estate. Around 1850 George Leslie had some of his land north of Kingston Road between Jones and Hastings, survey into lots for market gardeners and butchers. This was the first residential subdivision in Leslieville and filled with Irish Catholics, many of whom were refugees from the Irish Potato Famine. Throughout his life, discrimination on the basis of creed was abhorrent to Leslie.

By the early 1850s, a wider audience was beginning to tune in to George Leslie’s crusade for trees, especially fruit trees. William Henry Smith, in his Statistical Account of Canada West, 1851, commented on the new interest in fruit growing:

…we heard, two or three years since, of a Toronto merchant, having a residence a short distance from the city, who sent some apples from his orchard to Scotland, and made a profit of £40 on the small quantity sent.

(William Henry Smith, Canada Past, Present and Future, London: T. Maclear, 1851, 419)

On February 5, 1852 Caroline Anne Davis Leslie died at the age of 32. They had been married 15 years. Her cause of death is not known but a cholera epidemic was raging in Toronto at that time. George Leslie was now alone with young children: George Jr. (aged 11), John Knox (6), Caroline Jane (4) and Esther Ann (2). He seems to have thrown himself into his work, continuing to exhibit and win at that fall.

Early in the 1850s Robert Baldwin commissioned George Leslie as a Justice of the Peace. George Leslie also was a school trustee for nine years. The village school was next to his General Store at Curzon and Kingston Road. The locals began to refer to him as “Squire Leslie”.  While not officially elected as Mayor, he was the leading figure in the village. Leslie’s catalogue of February 1853 reflects his optimism:

In presenting to the public a new edition of a descriptive Catalogue, the Proprietor of the Toronto Nursery takes the opportunity of acknowledging that his efforts to keep his Establishment up to the requirements of the times have been duly appreciated. This is evident from the greatly increased and steadily increasing demand for his productions, from all parts of the United Provinces. It is highly gratifying to him, to receive so many assurances that the articles sent from here prove satisfactory and are almost invariably successfully transplanted. He will continue to persevere in endeavouring to maintain this, the largest, the most correct and complete in the Canadas.

To effect this, the grounds have recently been considerably enlarged; their extent is now SEVENTY ACRES, and the general favorable result attending Nursery productions sent form here, proves that the ground is entirely suitable for the purpose.

For the last few years, a regular correspondence has been held with some of the principal Nurseries in Great Britain and the United States. The leading Horticultural Periodicals of the day are carefully consulted; and no pains are spared to add to the Stock all acquisitions of merit; these are procured only from Nurseries of high standing and reputation, and can be fully relied on.

Ornamental Deciduous and evergreen trees have lately been much in request, and this demand is likely not only to continue, but greatly to increase. To keep the assortment as extensive and varied as possible, importations of seedlings are yearly made from England, exclusive of what are raised here. It is thought that in the ornamental department, the Toronto Nursery will bear a favourable comparison with similar establishments anywhere else, in all trees and shrubs proper for the climate.”

…Amateurs, Nurserymen, Wholesale Buyers, all who feel interested in Horticulture, and the public generally are invited to visit and inspect the grounds. To each, every attention will be paid, and all necessary information imparted.

Persons at a distance in want of trees, and communicating by letter, will have their orders as faithfully executed as if they personally present…

George Leslie,
Toronto Nursery,
Toronto, C.W.

(Descriptive Catalogue, Toronto Nursery, 1853)

New horizons were opening up for apple trees and the Toronto Nurseries. In 1856 the Grand Trunk Railway (G.T.R.) advertised that it was opened from Montreal through to Toronto. Trains delivered nursery stock much faster and much more efficiently. The G.T.R. stopped at the level crossing on Kingston Road less than half a mile west of Leslie’s Nursery.  At the same time as the railways began to crisscross southern Ontario, the economy boomed. People wanted and now could afford flowers, shrubs and trees. With the development of civic pride in Toronto, members of the public began calling for more trees, even petitioning for street trees. A 1857 Letter to the Editor pleads:

Wretched looking wooden awnings disfigure our finest thoroughfares, and not a solitary tree is to be seen to lend its grateful shade to the passerby!  This state of things should not continue.  Unsightly awnings should at once be removed, and a commencement made to plants some of our principal streets with trees. The expense would be a mere trifle; and the beauty as well as the healthfulness of shade trees would amply repay the inconsiderable outlay incurred…All who desire to join in its prayer can call during the day at Mr. Armour’s, and sign this document.

(Globe, September 7, 1857)

Landscape architecture was beginning to become a formal profession, separate from gardening.  George Leslie was quick to see the benefits of working with landscape professionals. He worked with early landscape architect, William Mundie, a fellow Scot, based in Hamilton. George Leslie took orders for Mundie at the Toronto Nurseries. In this period “the Garden Cemetery” made new graveyards like St. James Cemetry and the Necropolis, as well as the St. John of Baptist Cemetery on Woodbine, more attractive through planting trees and shrubs. George Leslie was eager to supply the need:  

Gentlemen planting largely, Corporations planting Public Grounds and Cemeteries, will be supplied with large or small Trees at reasonable prices. 

(Globe, April 4, 1855)

In 1857 the Toronto Horticultural Society incorporated. George Leslie was one of those who signed the Articles of Incorporation. In 1859 the Horticultural Society had a special meeting to deal with the land offered to them by George William Allan for use as a public garden. Allan leased, free of charge, to the Horticultural Society the five acres around the centre portion for five years. Edwin Taylor designed the grounds. George Leslie was a Director and donor. The trees there came from his nursery and probably from John Gray, Leslie’s chief competitor and fellow member of the Toronto Horticultural Association.  (Statues of the Province of Canada, Toronto: Stewart Derbishire & George Desbarats, 1857, 831-832)

George Leslie was also one of the founders of the Provincial Exhibition, forerunner of the Canadian National Exhibition (C.N.E.).  He showed his seeds there in 1858 and continued to exhibit over the years, winning many prizes. However around 1858 George Leslie stopped competing for prizes for vegetables in fairs and exhibition. His efforts now were solely directed at winning awards and recognition for his trees, shrubs and flowers. When the Provincial Exhibition incorporated in 1879 George Leslie Jr. was one of the Directors. Toronto Nurseries exhibited often over the years. The Leslies stayed active in the Exhibition throughout their lives and John Knox Leslie became the Ex’s Treasurer. They were also involved in the Toronto Electoral Division Society’s Agricultural Society and the Fruit Growers’ Association.

Another young man became more successful as a politician. Leslie bought over many young Scots, probably as indentured servants or apprentices, to work in the nurseries. John McPherson Ross came to Toronto from Scotland in 1854. He went to work for George Leslie, in 1863. Presbyterian Ross defied anti-Catholic sentiment when, on September 7, 1874, he married Annie Mulcahey, an Irish Catholic who refused to convert to Protestantism. While many Protestants would have summarily fired Ross for marrying a “mick”, George Leslie was far more open-minded. John McPherson Ross became the Toronto Nursery superintendent and later Mayor of East Toronto. George Leslie trained his men so thoroughly that they succeeded in their own businesses.

George Leslie’s nursery grounds were becoming popular as a garden.  At that time there were no public gardens “over the Don” and few in the City of Toronto. Though private, many local people and from Toronto enjoyed a visit to “Leslie’s Grove” so that it became an unofficial park.  Leslie’s Grove stretched from just north of Queen Street to Ashbridges Bay’s shore south of Eastern Avenue.  In a Letter to the Editor of the Agriculturist, in 1860, his future son-in-law praised George Leslie’s gardens:

Having occasion lately to visit some of the nurseries about Toronto, it may not be amiss for me to drop a hint or two upon some points not unseasonable at the present time.  Leaving home at half-past 3 a.m., by the early train, I arrived at the nursery of Mr. Leslie a little after five.  As gardeners never sleep after sunrise, I felt sure of finding Mr. L. about his premises even then.  It happened, however, that he was in the farther part of his grounds and thus I was left to take a quiet stroll through them.  Be sure that is was an hour of exquisite enjoyment.  The sun had risen – not in fiery splendor, betokening a burning day, very common at this season.

The air was soft and balmy, and so reviving; the trees laden with blossoms, filled the air with their delightful fragrance, and the numerous birds… 

(Canadian Agriculturist, Vol. 12, 1860, 281)

Like Johnny Appleseed, George Leslie was always generous with his time, money and trees, donating to worthy causes:

TREES.—Mr. George Leslie, of the Toronto Nurseries, has lately sent a handsome donation in the shape of 150 trees of different sorts to the Agricultural Society of Kingston, for the purpose of adorning and beautifying the grounds around the crystal Palace, belonging to the Association there. Such a present is alike honorable to the giver and must be very gratifying to the recipients. 

(Canadian Agriculturist, Vol. 12, no. 11, June 1, 1860, 260)

He also established his own prize and became a judge in fairs and exhibitions. The first winner of the Toronto Nursery prize was George Vear, gardener to D. Macpherson, who had the best collection of gooseberries.

As his nursery grew larger, his advertisements grew longer. This reflected Toronto Nurseries’ success, but also George’s concern about competition from peddlers like Johnny Appleseed had been:

BEWARE of American Tree Agents, who sell inferior stuff, at higher prices than Canadian Nurserymen.  All Agents for these Nurseries have my signature to a certificate to that effect.

(Canadian Agriculturist, Vol. 13, no. 5, Mar. 1, 1861, 159)

He continued to use agents, suing the dissatisfactory ones from time to time, usually without success.  He commissioned other nurserymen to act on his behalf. For example Charles Chapman in Ottawa was Toronto Nursery’s only agent in that area and distributed the George Leslie’s catalogue at his own nursery. Sometimes consignments of his trees and shrubs were auctioned off in batches in other parts of Canada as they were in Prince Edward Island in 1881.

In 1862 George Leslie took over a local institution that helped to make their fortune. A Post Office, usually in a general store, was an essential component of a rural village. People came in to pick up their mail. Of course they usually purchased something, perhaps something that they had not planned like dahlias or forsythia or even a tree. The post office name changed to “Leslie” and was in Leslie’s General Store at the northwest corner of Kingston Road and Curzon Street.  He was Justice of the Peace, nurseryman and biggest employer in the village, owner of the general store which housed the Post Office, issuer of his own currency and large land owner (in relative terms).

Even American horticulturalists who knew about Johnny Appleseed also knew about the Toronto Nursery by the 1860s. An American trade journal praised George Leslie’s Descriptive catalogue of fruit trees, shrubs, etc. of 1860:

We are apt to think our brethren of the north, with their cold climate, must necessarily be limited in their enjoyments. A glance at this splendid and very accurate catalogue will speedily dispel such an idea.

(The Gardener’s Monthly and Horticultural Advertiser, Vol 2, 1860, 154)

The Toronto Nursery was one of a list of nurseries of the United States and Canada. George Leslie still faced competition from Ellwanger & Barry in Rochester. Their advertisements for 1864 are remarkably similar.

By the mid-1860s the name “Leslieville” was used in the city and county directories. George Leslie himself may have encouraged the use of “Leslieville”. City Directories were not neutral. They included descriptions and reviews of businesses, usually flattering. “Conflict of interest” was not a widely held concept or value at that time. The directories relied on advertising.  In an 1867 Directory, praise for George Leslie was probably well paid for, but it also reflected the liberal view that prosperity was the natural reward for hard work:

In all its departments every care and attention that a thorough knowledge of and experience in the nursery line may suggest, is readily taken advantage.  From this fact, and the already high reputation of the Toronto Nurseries, continued prosperity must be the reward.

By 1868 George Leslie’s advertisements claimed the Toronto Nurseries was the largest in Canada. There was about 80 acres in the main block of the Toronto Nurseries between Pape Avenue on the west, Leslie Street on the east; Kingston Road on the north and Eastern Avenue on the south. Another 20 acres lay south of Eastern Avenue, on the lake. He owned or leased other land totaling about 150 acres.

In 1869 George Leslie Sr. was 65 years old and his sons began to take over more of the work of Toronto Nurseries. For the next twelve years John Knox Leslie (Jack) was in the nursery business with his father and brother George Leslie Jr. Though officially Postmaster, George Jr. was more hands on, doing physical labour with his father in the nursery. Jack Knox became the clerk in the store and also the telegraph operator for the business and village.

As the nineteenth century progressed, people were becoming more aware of the interrelationships between trees and the environment, particularly the water cycle.  Fruitgrowers’ President D. W. Beadle spoke of the need to plant shelter belts and forests:

… our health and length of years, and the sanitary condition of the country, depend on the influences these noble forest trees exert upon them. They stand, if I may so express it, as gigantic capillary ducts, for the daily attraction and repulsion of fluids, set in motion by the force of the sun, which raise these fluids gently from, and gain return them to the bosom of the earth, and in this way they are made the instruments in regulating and graduating the permanency of rainfall. While inhaling carbonic acid vapours, and condensing them in the shape of woody fibre as so much stored up heat for our future use, they daily accumulate and emit that pure oxigen [sic] element without which human life could not exist.

(The Canada Farmer, v. 1, no. 10 (Oct. 15, 1869), 391)

In 1872, George Leslie sold an important book by Canada’s leading landscape architect: H. A. Engelhardt. The Beauties of Nature Combined With Art. Montreal: John Lovell, 1872. For sale at all seed stores and at by Leslie & Sons, Toronto Nurseries.  (H. A. Engelhardt, The Beauties of Nature Combined With Art, Montreal: John Lovell, 1872) Two years later H. A. Engelhardt designed Mount Pleasant Cemetery.  Garden cemeteries were becoming highly popular and this was to be Toronto’s showpiece. George Leslie and Sons won the contract to supply the trees, shrubs and other plants, working closely with Engelhardt. James M. Goodall, a Highland Scot like George Leslie but a Catholic, supervised the work.  By 1875 they had turned the wooded ravine and plateau into a peaceful and proper resting place for the Victorian dead. Goodall went on to become the City of Toronto’s inspector and responsible for planting over 40,000 trees along the City’s streets. Many of those trees came from the Toronto Nurseries. Cemeteries, like Mount Pleasant, became valuable arboretums with species of trees from around the world and many interesting and unusual cultivars. George Leslie was renowned for his fine hemlocks, a dark evergreen often thought appropriate for hedges, particularly in cemeteries. (It is ironic that George Leslie who did so much to beautify the graves of others now lies himself in an unmarked grave in the Necropolis.)

By the time he supplied the plants for Mount Pleasant Cemetery, George Leslie had two large greenhouses and the Leslies were recognized as experts in horticulture. They attended conferences in both Canada and the U.S. For example, George Leslie Jr. attended the meetings of the State Pomological Society of Michigan. There was a discussion about the decline in the number of varieties of apples, a concern that is shared today.

George Leslie Sr. was known for training younger men to be gardeners and trained some of his competitors. In 1870, Canadian-born William Rennie opened a seed store. Toronto had about a dozen seed houses, including those of George Leslie, James Fleming, George Keith, William Rennie and Joseph Adolphus Simmers who was also one of Leslie’s apprentices. George Leslie knew all of these men well. They met and shared a wee drop of scotch. Tain, where young George had worked for Lord Anchorfield, had produced good whiskey since the Middle Ages. Glenmorangie distillery there still makes fine single malt whiskey.

One apprentice was special: a man after George Leslie’s heart – and his youngest daughter’s. Alexander McDonald Allan trained to be a lawyer, but his heart was not in books. He gave up his studies, supposedly for his health, to do manual work as a gardener. He spent several years travelling in the U.S. learning about horticulture. After that he returned to Canada and apprenticed at the Toronto Nursery. While there he fell in love with the beautiful Essie Leslie. On June 21, 1873, they married.

Alexander McDonald Allan wrote frequently on rural matters with articles, letters to the editor, etc. in the Canada Farmer, the Farmer’s Advocate, the Weekly Globe, the Horticulturist and the Country Gentleman. He became editor and owner of the Huron Signal and a director and eventually President of the Ontario Fruit Growers’ Association. He was in demand at fairs and exhibitions across North America to judge the fruit growing competitions. In 1886 the Canadian government appointed him Commissioner on Fruits at the Independent and Colonial Exhibition in London. Allan pioneered the export of fruit. In 1886 he shipped over 100,000 barrels of apples to Britain. He also helped developed markets for Canadian fruit in continental Europe, including shipments to Norway and Sweden, Germany and even far off India. He organized the Imperial Produce Company of Toronto, which became one of Canada’s largest fruit exporters. He also founded the London Fruit Co. to sell Canadian fruit there. The Pall Mall Gazette called Allan “The Fruit King of Canada.” (Henry J. Morgan, The Canadian men and women of the time, Toronto: W. Briggs, 1898, 11-14)

In 1876, the Province of Ontario asked the Fruit Growers’ Association to undertake a display at the International Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. This was a major World Fair, on the 100^th Anniversary of American Revolution, but it had been a bad fall with heat and little rain. The plum crop failed totally and the pear crop was poor. The apple crop was also damaged. George Leslie was not just an exhibitor — he was on the Provincial Advisory Board. Despite the drought, George Leslie & Son, of Leslie exhibited 35 varieties of apples; 23 varieties of pears; 15 varieties of plums; ten varieties or grapes as well as currants, gooseberries, and raspberries. The pears sound off the tongue like poetry:  Blood-good, Pratt, Beurre d’Aremberg, Steven’s Genessee, Belle Lucrative, Kirtland, Vicar of Winkfield, Duchesse d’Anglouleme, Winter Nelis, Louise Bonne de Jersey, Clapp’s Favorite, Flemish Beauty, Beurre Giffard, Des Nonnes, Easter Beurre, Tyson, Hazel or Hessel, Buffam, Glout Morceau, Napoleon, Beurre Diel, Mount Vernon, and Bartlett.

The Montreal Telegraph Co. had an office in the Leslie General Store. This allowed the Toronto Nurseries to receive, confirm and even bill orders for plants, seeds, and other products, over the telegraph wires, a distinct competitive advantage, just as e-mail and the Internet are today. Through the telegraphic skills of John Knox Leslie, they were able to specialize in mail order. By the end of the decade the Toronto Nurseries appears to have absorbed William Lambert’s nursery to the east as well as to have expanded north of the Kingston Road. An 1879 advertisement for Toronto Nurseries boasted that the nursery was now 200 acres. (Canadian Horticulturist, May, 1879)

By 1877, George Leslie was 73 years old, but still involved in the Industrial Exhibition. The Exhibition moved each year from city to city around the Province, however, many groups pressed for it to be permanently held in Toronto. The first annual fair was held in Toronto during September 1879.  George Leslie Junior was one of the Directors when the Exhibition incorporated. The Leslie sons stayed active in the Exhibition throughout their lives until John Knox Leslie was caught up in a financial scandal in 1908. They were also involved in the Toronto Electoral Division Society’s Agricultural Society, the Fruit Growers’ Association, the Florists’ Club and similar organization.

In 1880, the Agriculture and Arts Association of Ontario presented George Leslie with a special silver medal. His nursery stock was “Gold Medal Nursery Stock” and that medal from the Toronto Horticultural Society is still in the possession of one of Leslie’s descendants. That year George Leslie testified before the Ontario Agricultural Commission on forestry. George Leslie Jr. was an expert witness before the Agricultural Commission in 1881. The Leslies told how they had begun by importing very young seedlings mostly from the Lawson Seed and Nursery Company, Edinburgh. They found it cheaper to import than to raise them from seed here, but grew the seedlings to selling size here. They sold trees and shrubs for orchards, shelterbelts, lawns and roadside planting.  For street trees George Leslie Jr. particularly recommended European ash, Norway maple, Silver maple, Horse chestnut, and Basswood (Linden), street trees found throughout Toronto today. George Leslie Jr. also liked Purple beech, European weeping birch, Scotch elm, and American elm (nearly wiped out later by Dutch elm disease).

In 1881 the Globe interviewed George Leslie Sr. and Alderman Boustead, City Commissioner, about the proper planting of shade trees on city streets.  People often planted “bush trees” – uncultivated or wild trees that they had dug up from the forest to transplant to their city property.  These trees usually did not survive because of the damage to their roots. George Leslie Sr. listed his favourite trees for city streets: European ash, Scotch and American elms, the Horse chestnut, Basswood or Linden, the Norway maple, Silver maple, Sugar maple, Walnut, birches and Lombardy poplars.  The newspaper commented on the lack of municipal funding for trees:

There is no civic appropriation for either the planting or care of trees, but the City Commissioner says that he spends as much as $500 some years on this branch of public work.  This money he takes from the general health appropriation. 

(Globe, April 25, 1881)

Agricultural Commission representatives visited the Toronto Nurseries:

As you approach Leslieville you find a wooded neighbourhood. There is half a mile of the Kingston road shaded with large trees, planted in the public ground, and north and south, a hundred acres extend, covered everywhere with young trees of a thousand kinds, interspersed with towering plantations, dotted here and there with mighty trees, the monarchs of the grove.  When we learn that thirty years ago there was scarcely a tree in sight, we see that it is in the power of man, if he choose, in no long period to reproduce the forest.

(Ontario Bureau of Forestry, Annual Report of the Bureau of Forestry for the Province of Ontario, Toronto, 1882, 29)

That summer the Toronto Nursery sent a large number of trees to Britain for sale in the “Old Country”. Nothing could be a surer mark of success that this. Now, considered widely as the most authoritative tree man, George Leslie Sr. offered practical advice on growing trees to the Province of Ontario. He disapproved of monoculture tree plantations with long rows as is the common in today’s silviculture:

If trees are planted by the acre, ten acres or more, they should never be planted in rows; planting in rows is never practiced in Europe where thousands and thousands are planted every year.  They are planted in, or dotted in, as the grounds suits, among rocks and stones from three to five feet apart.  Plantations set for timber and other uses are better mixed with evergreens, such as spruce and pine trees. Those procured from the nurseries are always the cheapest.  When the ground can be ploughed deep it helps the growth of the trees. 

(Appendix Report of Fruit Growers’ Association, 1882)

George Leslie once more made the newspapers. The Leslies had built new barns with lumber from trees that they planted 40 years before. This was sustainable forestry at a time when most thought the giant White pines of Ontario would be there forever, waiting to be chopped down and floated to the sawmill.  His colleagues admired his success, widely spoken of in the trade.

Desirous of making improvements in the east end of the city, Mr. Leslie proposed the opening up of a new street through his own lands, south of Queen street, and to his energy and liberality are largely due the creation of what was at first called South Park street, now Eastern avenue, he donating the right of way through his own grounds, a length of some 2,000 feet, equal to several acres.  Under his supervision, and entirely at his own expense, this avenue was planted, as were other streets in the neighborhood, the rows of horse chestnut in front of the Queen street property being considered the finest in the Dominion. 

(Globe, May 6, 1893)

In 1881 on the way to their annual picnic, the fire fighters of the East End paraded through Riverside and Leslieville and visited the Toronto Nursery. George Leslie had not forgotten his days as one of Toronto’s first volunteer firefighters. Delighted by their visit, he promised each man a tree from his nursery. On May 8, 1882 he distributed the trees he had promised on their 1881 visit. A few weeks later, the fireman had their next picnic and expressed their appreciation to Leslie:

The procession passed along Mill road, Boulton street, and DeGrassi street to the Kingston road, and then to Leslieville, accompanied by the Riverside Drum and Fife Band, which played excellently along the route. The band serenaded Mr. George Leslie at his residence and gave three cheers for the speedy recovery of Mrs. Leslie from her late accident.

(Globe, May 25, 1882)

George Leslie, though unsympathetic to thieves, was a great benefactor to Leslieville. George Leslie planted trees along Leslieville’s streets of Leslieville, including Eastern Avenue and Queen Street. According to the Globe, “Mr. Leslie did much to open up and develop the east end, planting many trees that now afford grateful shade to pedestrians.” (Globe, June 26, 1893)

The Leslie’s were still generous with their trees and with their land. When George Leslie donated the land to build the fire hall at the corner of McGee Street and Kingston Road, he also donated “enough shade trees to plant along the front.”(Globe, March 24, 1883)  Leslie encouraged urban forestry, and growing street trees throughout his career. In an interview a few years later, he was asked about the Ontario Fruit Growers’ Association:

Yes, I have been interested in it from its formation; and now I read THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURALIST with much pleasure, but I think you should devote more attention to the subject of Forestry. 

(The Canadian Horticulturist, vol. 9, no.2, 1888)

In 1883, as everyone expected Leslieville to vote to join Toronto, real estate values boomed. George Leslie sold some of his property west of Carlaw Avenue south of Kingston Road. In June that year, Morse Street was built from Kingston Road down to Eastern Avenue. All of George Leslie’s lots and those of Samuel Sewell, the deceased patriarch of the black community, were sold on one day by public auction. George Leslie was the Executor for Sam Sewell’s estate. A large community of former slaves and some free men and women of colour lived at the four corners where the street many called Sewell’s Lane (Logan Avenue) and Kingston road crossed. George Leslie lined both sides Morse Street with shade trees.  He retained land on the west side of Morse Street as part of his nursery. The Globe noted that it was “thickly planted with young trees and shrubs, giving the locality a woodland aspect. The soil is a rich black loam of great fertility. (Globe, June 7, 1883)

In 1884 the City of Toronto annexed most of Leslieville after a referendum. Speculators bought up more market gardens and abandoned brickyards to subdivide for working-class homes:

New houses are springing up like mushrooms in all parts of Riverdale, and quite a boom has commenced in real estate. Property is changing hands daily, and small houses suitable for mechanics, etc., find purchasers as soon as they are completed. The prospects of annexation to the city of Toronto sometime during the ensuing year has induced many small capitalists to speculate.

(Toronto Daily Mail, October 23, 1883)

In 1888 George Leslie was 84 and knew that the Toronto Nursery’s (and his own) were numbered.

George Leslie began selling more of his nursery including some property at the northwest corner of Eastern Avenue and McGee Street to Edward Blong for $1,500. It also became housing. In 1887 the City of Toronto gave George Leslie permission to open another sixty-foot wide street through the nursery grounds in order to sell the land for housing. The City also graciously accepted George Leslie’s gift when he gave the street to Toronto.

In January, 1888, George Leslie, was ill again.  As the Globe put it in 1893:

Resigned to the inevitable, Mr. Leslie…bears the infirmities of his great age cheerfully and uncomplainingly, grateful for many mercies—notably that his wonderfully retentive memory is so little impaired.

(Globe, May 6, 1893)

In a similar vein, John Chapman, Johnny Appleseed said,

Do not worry at being worried; but accept worry peacefully. Difficult but not impossible.

In 1888 the Toronto Horticultural Society sold the Toronto Horticultural Gardens to the City of Toronto. In 1901 it was renamed “Allan Gardens” after George William Allan who had, in 1858, offered part of his estate to the Horticultural Society. In the spring of 1888, George Leslie, one of the founders of the Toronto Horticultural Society and on the first Board of Directors of Allan Gardens, was 84. He wrote a series of articles detailing his early days in the nursery business “when nurserymen and seedsmen were very few and very far between”. (Globe, June 8, 1883)

As he watched houses and streets creep over his fields, George Leslie mused on his accomplishments:

From a beginning of twenty acres my nursery reached fully 250 acres, while Messrs. Ellwanger & Barry, by honesty, hard work and constant application have made for themselves a great name. It is wonderful what good may be accomplished by honest perseverance. Although I have grown old in the business my interest are as fresh as ever, and looking about this country almost from ocean to ocean it gratifies my old heart to know that my labors have to some extent helped to beautify and enrich many homes.

(George Leslie, “Horticultural Reminiscences”, The Canadian Horticulturist, Vol. 12, No. 6, June, 1889, 157-158)

Later that year, J. E. Smith took the streetcar to Kew Gardens and passed George Leslie’s orchards on Queen Street near Pape:

After crossing the Don, we passed through the little villages of Riverside and Leslieville, so close together that it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. Then the houses began to scatter. There were nursery gardens, with their rows of tiny young trees; one or two orchards, very pretty in spring when the blossoms are out, and prosperous-looking now, with the fruit showing through the foliage. But, on the whole, this part of the road is not interesting.

(The Dominion Illustrated, Vol. 3, no. 71, Nov. 9, 1889, 299)

In the summer, hundreds flocked to Leslie’s Grove to hear Band Concerts, especially military bands like that of the Grenadiers. People now routinely treated Leslie’s private arboretum as a public park. But the trees were no longer in good shape; the sons did not pay the same attention to them as the Squire.

In October, 1892, George Leslie was bed-ridden in great pain. However, that fall the Toronto Nursery succeeded in selling trees and shrubs to a customer in Korea. Towards the end of May, 1893, the Leslie brothers got the welcome news that their shipment had arrived safely and that all of the saplings and bushes were thriving. The customer decided to order more.

On May 6, 1893, the Globe published an extensive interview with George Leslie Sr. He recalled his childhood and how he came to Canada as well as the growth and development of Leslieville. The Globe commented on his sometimes irascible personality:

Decided in character, adhering closely to his convictions, he, in establishing a business followed persistently what was considered the proper course. 

(Globe, May 6, 1893)

George Leslie died on June 14, 1893, with his family around him. Out of respect, the City of Toronto flew its flag at half-mast. George Leslie was a pioneering nurseryman and one of the founders of the Toronto Horticultural Society, Allan Gardens, the Toronto Exhibition and the Fruit Growers’ Association. He was one of the founding members of the Reform Association of Canada which became Canada’s Liberal Party of Canada. George Leslie stood back and watched his sons run for office while he remained the unelected Squire of Leslieville. He provided the site for the Leslieville Presbyterian Church and built it with his brother Robert. George Leslie’s name is first in the Church’s register of members. In a time of religious intolerance, he was a tolerant man, providing a safe place for refugees from slavery and from the Irish Potato Famine. Both the black community and the Irish, whose chosen colour was green, thrived in a rainbow Leslieville while the larger world of Ontario was dominated by the Orange Lodge.

Though he did not wander from place to place dropping apple seeds like the mythical Johnny Appleseed, he was responsible for many orchards. He supplied the trees; educated the farmers about fruit growing; helped find ways to market Ontario fruit in Britain; and lobbied for government support for the industry. He provided, sometimes free of charge, the trees lining Canada’s streets, gracing parks, cemeteries and public places. Thousands of his trees were planted on Toronto Island, but also along country roads and as shelter belts down farm lanes and around farmhouses.

On June 27, 1893, Mayor R. J. Fleming and all of Toronto’s City Council attended George Leslie’s funeral en masse. His old friends William Helliwell, William Rennie, Hugh Miller, J.P. and John Laidlaw were the pallbearers along with Mayor Fleming and Alderman Lamb for the City of Toronto and Peter Macdonald and Joseph Mitchell from the Leslieville Presbyterian Church. His family was there: George Leslie Jr., John Knox Leslie; his daughters Caroline and Esther; son-in-laws Robert Cumming Jennings and Alexander McDonald Allan, along with many grandchildren and other relatives including an aged Calvin Davis. George Leslie Sr. was buried next to Caroline Anne Davis, his first wife.

Gradually the nursery lands were sold off.

Attitudes towards trees had changed. On December 17, 1917, Riverdale residents protested when the City of Toronto cut down a beech believed to be 200 years old. On December 31, 1883, another old landmark had been cut down and no one complained.  This was the tall, old elm that had stood at Queen and Pape Avenue in front of the house where Alexander Muir had lived when he wrote the “Maple Leaf Forever”. Locals believed was “a hanging tree” where men had been lynched.  The fallen elm was sawn into sections that were given to all of Leslieville’s butchers for butcher’s blocks. When two more well known trees were chopped down in 1885, few complained:

Other changes have also been made in this locality. The two great trees which have stood sentry, grim as Gog and Magog, for so many years past at the top of Willow street [Pape Avenue from Eastern to Queen], have been laid low by the woodman’s axe. The one that obstructed the sidewalk on Queen street was of gigantic size, and in its removal another old landmark has gone.

(Globe, Nov. 13, 1885)

In 1924, when the founding of the C.N.E. was remembered in the Globe, the first Committee was listed (Globe, August 22, 1924). A number of familiar names were on the roster of the first Directors, including George Leslie Jr., but by the mid-1920s the term “Leslieville” had almost completely faded from use.  Those few who knew or remembered of Leslie and Leslieville with nostalgia:

Do You Remember When?  Though Present News Come Quick and Fast, ‘Tis pleasant to recall the past… When George Leslie had his nurseries in Leslieville, and his sons George and John were with him in the nursery business? 

(Toronto Star, July 17, 1926)

For decades George Leslie, Canada’s Johnny Appleseed, was forgotten except by family and older Leslieville residents. But that changed too as local history became more popular. Residents of many communities began researching, publishing and pushing for more recognition of historic sites. Thanks to the Streetsville Historical Society and others, in 1978 the Leslie Log House was designated a historic property under the Ontario Heritage Act. On May 24th, 1994 the Leslie Log House was moved from its original location, now surrounded by factories, to a new site in an orchard, a far more congenial setting.

In Toronto a number of activists led walks and informed their community about Leslieville, George Leslie and the Toronto Nursery. Some of those would go on to found the Leslieville Historical Society. Brian Astl who was with LEAF’s Leslieville Tree Festival wanted to celebrate George Leslie’s memory with a plaque. His energy and commitment helped gain Heritage Toronto’s support and approval. I researched and wrote the text for the plaque. Councillor Paula Fletcher, Toronto-Danforth, gave her political and moral support to the plaque project, as did many others, including local merchants and business owners and William Leslie of Clan Leslie.

On Saturday, June 20, 2009, as part of the Leslieville Tree Festival, a kilted piper led Leslie heirs, local activists and a crowd of interested neighbours and friends from Ashbridge Estate past the “Maple Leaf Forever Tree” on Laing Street and George Leslie’s General Store to Leslie Grove Park. Robert Prowse from Heritage Toronto’s Board, Councillor Paula Fletcher, George Leslie’s descendent Caroline Floroff and dignitaries unveiled a Heritage Toronto plaque in Leslie Grove Park. The plaque says:

Leslieville is named for gardener and businessman George Leslie who established the Toronto Nurseries in the area in 1845. His greenhouses and extensive fields produced everything from flowers to ornamental shrubs and trees. Leslie’s trees were transplanted to provide shade in Mount Pleasant Cemetery, in Allan Gardens, and along some Toronto streets. By the 1870s, Toronto Nurseries advertised itself as the largest business of its kind in Canada.

At the same time as Leslie was earning an international reputation as a horticulturalist, he and his family played important roles in the growing community of Leslieville – including that of postmaster in the Leslie Post Office located in their family store. The Leslie legacy lives on in this park, once the family’s property. Leslie Grove was the affectionate name given to the now lost, leafy oasis of the Toronto Nurseries. Heritage Toronto

In May, 2011, the Leslie Log Cabin Museum opened.  A City of Mississauga plaque also marks the site.

Although he was far from being the crazy saint that Johnny Appleseed is portrayed as in American folklore, what George Leslie stood for stood for is universal. His legacy is found across Canada in the trees on the streets, in parks and backyards and along country roads. In the 21^st century many share his vision of sustainable forestry, of farms integrated with woodlots and shelter belts, and a vibrant urban forest. A landscape of houses and neighbourhoods surrounded by flowers and shrubs under a green canopy is as relevant as when he stared across the rocky, deforested hills of  Scotland and thought, “Trees, trees, trees.”

Having read this, will you remember and tell others about Canada’s “Johnny Appleseed”? In writing this I felt like the detective on “Dragnet”. No myths are necessary: “The facts, Ma’am, just the facts.”