Leaside. Jane Pitfield

      Map showing extent of the waters of Lake Iroquois. Mapwork by Ed Freeman.

      The earliest humans, Paleo-Indians, arrived in this area from the south about 9,000 years ago.¹ “The first known humans in the Toronto area were the Laurentian peoples—stone workers, who lived just east of present day Toronto, from 3,000 to 1,000 B.C.”² By the time that Native people appeared, the western portion of this area would have been ice-free. Native farming of corn, beans and squash was known to have occurred in the area bounded by Bathurst, Eglinton, Duplex and Strathallen streets circa 1645 A.D. However, reliable evidence points to human habitation at least 200 years earlier in North Toronto. The Huron had a settlement here for about 25 years, now called the Quantat Village, with traditional long houses grouped near an artesian spring, and surrounded by corn fields. This discovery, made during the basement excavation of Franklin Jackes’ Castlefield house in 1887, was identified by Toronto’s first professional archeologist, David Boyle.³

      The short duration of the Quantat site was typical and attributed to the fact that the Native population did not practise crop rotation. Corn, very destructive of soil, probably failed after a few decades of continuous planting. The Natives would also have gathered berries and nuts and hunted the local deer, but seemingly they did not hunt wolves which were also plentiful. According to Elizabeth Simcoe’s diary, dated January 14, 1794: “The Indians do not kill wolves, they seldom take trouble that does not answer to them, & the Wolves are not good to eat & their skins are of little value.”⁴

      Étienne Brûle, interpreter for Champlain and an explorer in his own right, is believed to have seen the environs of the Don and the Leaside lands in the early 1600s. At that time, the main Native settlement was at the mouth of the Humber River, a few miles to the west. There, they spent the winter months sheltered by the dense forest that covered the area.

      By the 1780s, under the pressures of the American Revolution, survey parties had penetrated far into the endless forests. With the arrival of Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe in 1793, the village of York was established and, by 1800, permanently settled on the layers of fertile, often muddy, sediment deposited by ancient Lake Iroquois. Beyond the village limits, well up into the hills, scattered settlements were forming across the countryside.

      Large numbers of slaves from the United States, following the famed “Underground Railway,” sought shelter in Ontario, from the 1850s up to 1865 when the American Civil War ended. More than 1,500 of the estimated 40,000 settled in Toronto where they contributed to economic and political life of the area.⁵ “For a time the population of what is now Leaside was largely augmented by the influx of negroes escaping from the bondage of slavery prevalent in the United States at that period.”⁶

      Forty-one years prior to this, however, the arrival in Canada of a British immigrant and his subsequent purchase of land in York Township, marks the true beginning of the Leaside we know.

2

       THE LEA FAMILY

      THE HISTORY of the Lea family is at the heart of the history of Leaside. In no other part of the Toronto area has a family been more closely associated to the development of a community than the Leas were in Leaside.

      The Lea name appears in mid-15th century Spain. A Ferdinando Lea emigrated from Spain to England. In succeeding generations, one branch of the family anglicized the surname to “Leigh,” the other branch retained the “Lea” spelling. Both branches prospered and many rose to nobility. In the mid-1500s, Sir Thomas Leigh became Lord Mayor of London.¹

      John Lea was born in Lancashire in 1773. He married Mary Hutchison from Cumberland. On May 28, 1814, their first child, William Lea, was born in Lancaster. Four years later they left England for the United States.

      In the spring of 1818, John and Mary Lea, with their son, sailed from Liverpool in a barque commanded by Captain Birkett. After tossing on the Atlantic for three months, they arrived in Philadelphia. There they remained for only a short time, then travelled by stagecoach over the Alleghany Mountains to Pittsburgh, where they stayed for a year. Either not liking the country or the people of their new home, or possibly concerned about the lingering anti-British sentiment, John Lea decided not to stay in America. Leaving his family to follow when he was resettled, he went to Canada in search of a suitable place for a home. Once John Lea had found a location to his liking in the Township of York, he informed Mary of his purchase of Lot 13, Concession 3, situated three concessions north from the Toronto bay. She and William were to join him.

      Mary Lea, with her young son, travelled east along the shore of Lake Erie, crossed the Niagara River at Black Rock and went on past the Falls, the sound of which William remembered hearing. The sight of the more familiar British soldiers in their scarlet uniforms at Niagara on the British side of the river gave Mary courage.

      With William, who was about five years old, Mary crossed Lake Ontario in a schooner belonging to a person named Garside. The year was 1819. Upon arrival at York, at that time a town consisting of 1,174 people (including children), 91 one-storey houses, 68 two-storey ones and a total of 21 shops,² they proceeded to the newly-acquired farm, a small log house with a few cleared acres. The rest of the two hundred acre property was heavily timbered. Records indicate that the log home was located where Laird Drive and Lea Avenue meet. Over the ten years that they lived there, John Lea Jr. was born (1823) and later, a daughter, Mary Margaret, was added to the family.

      John Lea had chosen York because the price of land there was inexpensive as compared with other parts of Upper Canada. He desired land that was fertile and easily drained for the crops he planned to grow. “Leaside stands about 150 feet above lake level on land that is high and dry.”³ With close proximity to Yonge Street (the only main road at the time) and close to a good market to sell his produce, he found Lot 13 in the third concession a perfect match for his ambitions. The 200 acres were purchased from Alexander McDonnell for two hundred guineas. This transaction was recorded on January 20, 1820. (According to family tradition, he paid one guinea per acre for the land which was expensive for the time but, the cleared land and the completed log home probably contributed to the higher price)⁴ While it seemed expensive for property in this area, it had in its favour woodlands that could be cleared quickly, with a portion of this tough, back-breaking labour already completed.

      John Lea was a successful farmer. In time, he bought cows and kept a dairy as well as planting an orchard of Northern Spy apples.⁵ In 1829, only ten years after his initial purchase, he was able to erect a larger brick home, in the same vicinity as the original log cabin. It is claimed that this was the first brick house to be built in York Township.⁶ The house resembled an English country home and, with its four chimneys, was considered to be unique. At that time, homes were taxed according to the number of fireplaces they contained, however one fireplace was tax-free. This home may, in fact, have had five, as one (the middle) chimney was purported to be double-sized, perhaps to accommodate the construction of two back-to-back fireplaces.