Bedford Park Residents Organization
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York Mills plaque, Sam Heron’s Mill. Source torontoplaques.ca. Hauling lumber, McGlashan Road, Hogg’s Hollow, c 1896. Courtesy Toronto Public Library Digital Archives. As the pioneer farmers continued to push the treeline back from Yonge Street,…
Leonard Marsh and Mary Kendrick, Marriage Bonds 1803-1806 (RG 5, B 9, Vol. 13), Public Archives Canada. Attempting to describe what most Bedford Park area properties looked like exactly 200 years ago isn’t too difficult.…
Photos by Jess Hungate & John Mills. In the midst of a pandemic, when all schools (and much of everything) was closed, lawn signs popped up all over the neighbourhood marking where graduates lived. BPRO…
Illustration of Seneca Ketchum’s younger brother, Jesse Ketchum, 1782 – 1867. Reproduced courtesy of the Toronto Public Library Digital Archives. When Seneca Ketchum arrived in the village of York in 1796, he really wasn’t in…
A great big thank you to everyone who has volunteered with us this 2019/20 year. We had a great group of people who have taken on so many tasks: from way back when at the…
Looking northeast to the First Capital development. Image courtesy of First Capital. BACKGROUND In December and January we reported on the development at the corner of Avenue Road and Lawrence, and our initial meetings with…
John Kendrick House in York, Bloor Street West between Avenue Road and Bedford Road. 1897 photo reproduced courtesy of Toronto Public Library Digital Archives. On December 7, 1799, Duke William Kendrick formally announced the launch…
Castle Frank home of Governor Simcoe, built by the Kendrick Brothers, 1795 photo reproduced courtesy of Ontario Digital Archives. The rush was on. The Government of Upper Canada was giving away 200-acre lots flanking Yonge…
This illustration, by CW Jeffreys, shows the Queens’s Rangers under Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe, cutting out the original Yonge Street, ca. 1795. Library & Archives Canada, C-073665. Augustus Jones, the deputy surveyor of Upper Canada,…
This John Graves Simcoe portrait was painted by Jean Laurent Mosnier and is reproduced courtesy of the Toronto Public Library’s Digital Archive. On October 13, 1793, North Toronto was an endless maze of beech and…