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• Toronto-Dominion Centre
  Designed by Modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in association with John B. Parkin Associates and Bregman and Hamann Architects, the Toronto-Dominion Centre is located in the heart of Toronto's financial district. The Centre was commissioned by Allen Lambert, chairman of TD Bank, in partnership with Fairview Corporation. The complex is arranged around a granite-paved pedestrian plaza and originally consisted of three buildings: the 56-storey Toronto-Dominion Bank Tower (1967), the one-storey Banking Pavilion (1968)...

• Holland's Landing Depot
  The Royal Navy Depot Holland Landing, constructed during the War of 1812, stood just north of this site on the east bank of Soldiers' Bay. Its buildings and other facilities served as an administrative and transshipment centre within a network of roads, waterways, portages and posts that connected Lake Ontario to the upper Great Lakes. To avoid American forces in the Niagara-Lake Erie-Detroit River corridor, British authorities moved vital supplies from York (Toronto) through this...

• Armenian Boys' Farm Home, Georgetown, The
  On July 1, 1923, a group of 50 Armenian boys arrived at this farm site from an orphanage in Corfu, Greece. The 'Georgetown Boys,' as they came to be known, arrived in Canada between 1923 and 1927 – 109 boys in all. The orphans were survivors of the Armenian Genocide (1915-1923). Their plight touched the hearts of thousands of Canadians, who raised significant funds and lobbied the Canadian government to bring them here. Under the...

• Founding of Georgetown
  After British officials acquired a block of land from the Mississaugas in 1818, the initial survey of Esquesing Township was undertaken in 1819. A township surveyor, Charles Kennedy, and several of his brothers settled lands located in the Silver Creek Valley. George Kennedy dammed the stream running through his property to establish a sawmill and later a gristmill. This provided the nucleus of a small settlement, known as "Hungry Hollow." The York to Guelph Road...

• Fort Rouillé
  The last French post built in present-day southern Ontario, Fort Rouillé, more commonly known as Fort Toronto, was erected on this site in 1750-51. It was established by order of the Marquis de La Jonquière, Governor of New France, to help strengthen French control of the Great Lakes and was located here near an important portage to capture the trade of Indians travelling southeast toward the British fur- trading centre at Oswego. A small frontier...

• Gibraltar Point
  Because of its large and easily defended harbour Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe decided to make Toronto the naval and military centre of Upper Canada. This site, guarding the harbour, was named Gibraltar Point. Fortification was begun here in 1794 and by 1800 two defensible storehouses and a guard house had been erected. These buildings were destroyed by the Americans during the second raid on York (Toronto) in 1813. By the following May a small blockhouse mounting one...

• Honourable George Stewart Henry 1871-1958, The
  Ontario's tenth prime minister was born in King Township but throughout his life farmed on this property. From 1903 to 1910, as York Township councillor and reeve and warden of York County, he promoted the cause of good roads and formation of a Metropolitan Toronto government. In 1913, he was elected to the Ontario legislature as Conservative member for East York. In 1918 he became minister of agriculture and, in 1923, was appointed minister of...

• Flight Lieutenant David Ernest Hornell, V.C. 1910-1944
  Born in Toronto and educated in Mimico, Hornell enlisted with the Royal Canadian Air Force on January 8, 1941. He was commissioned Pilot Officer later that year. On June 24, 1944, while serving with 162 Squadron and stationed at Wick in northern Scotland, Hornell was on anti-submarine patrol in a twin-engined Canso when he and his eight-man crew sighted and attacked a German submarine. Heavy enemy fire quickly crippled the aircraft but Hornell persevered with...

• First Jewish Congregation in Canada West
  In 1849, the Trustees of the Toronto Hebrew Congregation purchased a site in Toronto from the Hon. John Beverley Robinson for the first Jewish cemetery west of Montreal. Regular religious services were not held in Canada West until 1856 when seventeen Jewish families from England and Continental Europe formed a congregation in Toronto. This group, after acquiring the cemetery in 1858, became known as the "Toronto Hebrew Congregation — Holy Blossom". They held services in...

• Lake Light, The
  This lighthouse, one of the earliest on the Great Lakes, was completed in 1808 as an hexagonal tower 52 feet high, topped by a wooden cage with a fixed whale-oil lantern. In 1832, it was raised to 82 feet and later equipped with a revolving light. The mysterious disappearance of its first keeper, J.P. Rademuller, in 1815 and the subsequent discovery nearby of part of a human skeleton enhanced its reputation as a haunted building.

• Little Trinity Church
  Founded in 1842, this is the oldest surviving church in the city of Toronto. Under the patronage of the Right Reverend John Strachan, first Anglican Bishop of Toronto, funds were raised to start construction in 1843. Its first rector was the Rev. W.H. Ripley, and regular services commenced on February 18, 1844. Attended largely by industrial workers, it was known as "The Poor Man's Church", although such prominent citizens as William Gooderham, James Worts, Joseph...

• Loring-Wyle Studio, The
  This board-and-batten building, originally the schoolhouse for Christ Church, Deer Park, was acquired in 1920 by Frances Loring and Florence Wyle. Sculpting in the classical tradition, they achieved national prominence and executed many impressive public works, among which are Loring's Sir Robert Borden on Parliament Hill and Wyle's Edith Cavell in Toronto. They were founding members of the Sculptors' Society of Canada and their studio was an important artistic centre where musicians, writers, sculptors, painters...

• Loyalists in Upper Canada, The
  When United Empire Loyalists who had “adhered to the Crown” during the American Revolution and, in most cases, served in volunteer regiments, came to settle in this province in the 1780s, the region was largely uninhabited. These Loyalists, all of whom had suffered persecution and confiscation of property, were granted land in the vicinity of the Bay of Quinte and the Upper St Lawrence, Niagara and Detroit rivers. They laid the foundations of a new...

• Macdonald-Mowat House 1872, The
  Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada's first prime minister, purchased this house in 1876 and lived here 1876-78. It was built in 1872 in the French Second Empire style by Nathaniel Dickey, a Toronto iron founder. Macdonald owned the property until 1886 and it was occupied by his son, Hugh John, 1879-82. The Hon. Oliver Mowat, prime minister of Ontario, bought and occupied the house in 18888 and retained ownership until 1902. The property was leased, 1897-98, to the Hon. Arthur Sturgis Hardy who succeeded Mowat as prime minister, and sold to Knox College in 1910.

• Honourable William McDougall 1822-1905, The
  Father of Confederation, William McDougall was born on a farm in this vicinity. He became a solicitor and in 1850 founded the North American, a newspaper which became the voice of the "Clear Grit" Liberals. A leading Reformer, McDougall became Provincial Secretary in the coalition government that sought confederation. He attended the Quebec and London Conferences which negotiated the terms of federal union. Appointed first Lieutenant-Governor of the North West Territories in 1869, he was...

• York Mechanics' Institute
  The Mechanics' Institute movement began in Britain and soon spread to North America. Its aim was to teach workers the applied technology behind new methods of manufacture and craftsmanship introduced during the Industrial Revolution. The first Institute in Ontario was established at York (Toronto) in 1830. It sponsored lectures, held classes and operated a lending library. It moved from rented quarters into its own new building on this site in 1861. After passage of the...

• Maud Leonora Menten 1879-1960
  An outstanding medical scientist, Maud Menten was born in Port Lambton. She graduated in medicine from the University of Toronto in 1907 and four years later became one of the first Canadian women to receive a medical doctorate. In 1913, in Germany, collaboration with Leonor Michaelis on the behaviour of enzymes resulted in the Michaelis-Menten equation, a basic biochemical concept which brought them international recognition. Menten continued her brilliant career as a pathologist at the...

• Metropolitan United Church
  This "Cathedral of Methodism" was designed by Henry Langley in the High Victorian Gothic style. The cornerstone was laid by the Rev. Egerton Ryerson, D.D., in 1870 and the church was dedicated in 1872. It replaced an earlier structure at the southeast corner of Adelaide and Toronto Streets. The first missionaries from Canada to Japan were commissioned in this church on May 7, 1873. The inaugural service of the Methodist Church of Canada was held...

• Montgomery's Inn
  The main section of this building, one of the province's finest remaining examples of Loyalist Georgian architecture, was erected about 1832. Its original owner, the innkeeper, Thomas Montgomery (1790-1877), was a native of Ireland and a Captain in the York Militia. Situated on Dundas Street, one of Upper Canada's principal highways, the inn was a favourite stopping place for travellers and its large rooms provided space for public meetings. The Home District Council designated Montgomery's...

• Moulton College
  Near this site in Senator William McMaster's former residence, Moulton Ladies' College was opened in 1888. A year earlier, the bequest of McMaster's fortune to Baptist higher education had led to the founding of McMaster University. His widow, Susan Moulton McMaster, then conveyed the residence to the University for use as a preparatory school for girls. The Ladies' Department of Woodstock College, an older Baptist institution, was transferred to the Toronto college, named Moulton in...

• Noronic Disaster, The
  On the evening of September 16, 1949, the "Noronic", a Great Lakes cruise ship carrying 524 passengers, docked at Pier 9, 100 metres east of here. At 1:30 the next morning a passenger noticed smoke seeping from a locked closet. Crew members fought the fire, but it erupted into a life-threatening inferno before they could waken everyone aboard. Passengers descended the gangway, climbed down ropes, leapt onto the dock, or jumped into the harbour. Firefighters...

• John Ross Robertson 1841-1918
  Publisher and philanthropist, John Ross Robertson lived in this house, 1881-1918. He was born in Toronto and while at Upper Canada College he started The College Times, the first school newspaper in Canada. He became city editor of The Globe in 1865 and the following year, with James B. Cook, established The Daily Telegraph, published until 1872. Four years later Robertson founded The Evening Telegram which quickly became one of Toronto's leading newspapers. Financial success...

• Rogers Batteryless Radio, The
  In the early 1920s, radio receivers were powered by direct current from batteries that were awkward to use and needed frequent recharging. Edward S. "Ted" Rogers Sr., a Toronto radio engineer, recognized the commercial potential of a radio that could use alternating current (AC) from a household electrical system. Working in a factory across the street from here, he invented an effective AC tube, then designed around it the world's first batteryless radio receiver. Following...

• Jean Baptiste Rousseaux 1758-1812
  Rousseaux was the first European to settle in the Toronto area. He and his father were interpreters for the Indian Department and were licensed to trade in this region. In 1787, Jean-Baptiste married Margaret Clyne, a ward of Mohawk chief Joseph Brant, and by 1791 he had built a trading post here at the Toronto Carrying Place. When Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe arrived by schooner to establish the provincial capital of York in 1793, Rousseaux piloted him...

• Royal Canadian Yacht Club, The
  The province's first sailing association, the Toronto Boat Club, was formed in 1852 and two years later became the Royal Canadian Yacht Club. Dedicated to the promotion of yachting and naval interests, it initiated competitions that stimulated widespread interest in sailing and yacht design, and in 1860, instituted the Prince of Wales Cup, freshwater racing's oldest trophy. The Club was housed on Toronto's waterfront until 1881 when it moved to Toronto Island. This move facilitated...

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