Christie Bales’s farmhouse, abandoned and soon to be demolished for a plaza; a billboard for the now-vanquished Simpson’s department stores; and an honour box belonging to the Globe and Mail — a photograph more eloquent than words.Courtesy of Toronto Public Library, TC 24A.
The modern world takes over as the McLean-Hunter building, built on former Bales farmland in 1949, lurks behind the barn on Oliver Douglas Bales’s farm on the northeast corner of Yonge Street and Highway 401 in 1959.The massive printing facility, one of North York’s earliest industries, was demolished in 1995 for condominium towers.
Photo by J.V. Salmon, Toronto Public Library, S 1-3149C.
Joseph Christie Bales’s son Dalton was born in 1920. He grew up on his parents’ farm at the corner of Yonge and Sheppard. After graduating from high school he decided to pursue a career in law. He eventually became a partner in the Toronto firm of McLaughlin, Soward, a firm he joined as a student in 1946. Three years later, he was called to the bar. His political career began in 1959 when he was elected to the North York Township council, where his father, uncle, and cousin Earl had served in previous decades. He would remain a councillor until 1962, in addition to serving as chairman of the North York Board of Health from 1960 to 1965, yet he had ambitions beyond the confines of municipal politics.
In 1963, Dalton was elected to the Ontario Legislature as the member from the riding of York Mills, a riding he would represent for twelve years. In 1966, he was appointed minister of labour by then-Premier John Robarts. He was later appointed provincial attorney general, a position he held from 1972 until 1974, while simultaneously serving as the minister of municipal affairs. He suffered a heart attack in 1974 and quit politics the following year, citing obvious concerns for his health. He then retired to his home near Bayview and York Mills.
On the evening of October 30, 1979, one night before Hallowe’en, Dalton Bales was attempting to cross Bayview Avenue about a block south of York Mills Road when he was struck and killed by a car in the northbound passing lane. He was fifty-nine.
So what remains as the family’s legacy? Well, first of all, there is that magnificent park — one of the few places left in North York where you can still stand on open land where cattle once grazed and crops once grew. The existence of the park has also assured the survival of the family’s original farmhouse and even parts of their barns, which now serve as maintenance sheds for park staff. The house is currently used as an Ontario Early Years Centre for parents and children.
The park is also home to the Earl Bales Community Centre, the Holocaust Education and Memorial Centre of Toronto and the previously mentioned ski centre. Other than that, there is not much left of the farms, except for the tiny Bales Avenue, a two-block road to nowhere, east of Yonge Street and south of Sheppard, which is currently little more than a shortcut for construction vehicles. Near the southern end of Bales Avenue, on Harrison Garden Boulevard, stands the front half of the Elihu Pease house that Joseph Christie Bales cut in half and moved to Avondale Avenue in 1921. The house was moved to its current location in 2002.
But it’s the most obscure piece of the Bales’ family legacy that may be the most charming. In 1921, when Joseph Christie Bales moved Elihu Pease’s farmhouse from Yonge and Sheppard to make room for his own house, he also dismantled an old shed on the property that had once been the original St. John’s Anglican Church, built in 1817, high on a hill overlooking Hogg’s Hollow. When the current stone church was built on the site in 1844, Elihu bought the old church, dismantled it, and moved it to his farm, where it was rebuilt to serve as a shed. In 1921, the timbers of the former church/shed were stored in the Bales’ barn, where they remained until 1948. That year, St. John’s began building an addition that would include a new chancel and memorial chapel. When the Bales family heard of the new construction, they donated the timbers of the original wooden church to be used in the ceiling of the new chancel and chapel. The adze marks made by the men who squared these primeval timbers nearly two hundred years ago, are still clearly visible today
{Chapter Five}
The Risebroughs: Robert I, Robert II,
Robert III, Roy, and William
When the Township of North York was created in 1922, it had a population of 6,000 and a police force of one. Roy Risebrough, fourth generation North York farmer, born on the family farm near today’s Bayview and Cummer, was definitely his own boss. Not only was he the lone constable on a force of one, he was also the chief. It’s not surprising that Roy would hold a position of prominence in the early days of North York, as it can be said without exaggeration that without Roy’s efforts, there might not even be a North York.
Roy was one of five disgruntled farmers who criss-crossed the area in 1921 gathering signatures on a petition to secede from the Township of York. He was also one of the people charged with raising money to pay for the lawyer, who would be required to conduct the secession proceedings. As the urban population of Toronto grew, fewer and fewer farmers were being elected to York Township Council until, in 1919, for the first time, no farmers were elected at all. The farmers, who were paying nearly 25 percent of the township’s taxes, decided that something had to be done. In 1921, James Muirhead, John Brumwell, W.J. Buchanan, and W.C. Snider piled into Roy Risebrough’s Model T Ford and visited all the farmers in the area to drum up support. Their efforts paid off quickly and in grand fashion. In 1922, the province granted their request and the Township of North York was born. Roy’s contributions were significant as he was the only one of the five who had a car, which made reaching all the farmers that much easier.
The new council had its work cut out for it, as North York was on the cusp of an unprecedented growth spurt. By the time Roy retired as police chief in 1957, he would be dealing with over 182,000 residents, a far cry from the 6,000 he had to worry about in the beginning. And, yes, by 1957, he had plenty of help.
Roy was born on the farm where he would live his whole life. Located on the northeast fifty acres of Lot 22-1E, on the southwest corner of Bayview and Cummer, the farm had been in the family since 1862. Roy was born there thirty years later. Forty-five years after Roy’s birth, the family farmhouse would gain a new neighbour when St. John’s Convalescent Hospital opened on part of the Montgomery/Elliot farm in 1937, just to the west of the Risebroughs’ farm
Roy studied at the little red-brick Newtonbrook Public School on Drewry Avenue before graduating from Richmond Hill High School and the Ontario College of Agriculture in Guelph. He would spend the next six or seven winters inspecting dairy cattle throughout the province and farming in the summer. He married Ida Congram of Wingham and together they had two daughters.
At the time Roy was appointed chief of police in 1922, he was also given the posts of school attendance officer and sanitary inspector, and yet he continued to inspect dairy cattle in the winter and farm in the summer. The fact that he was able to wear so many hats says a lot about the relative lack of crime in North York in the 1920s. With automobiles still beyond the reach, or taste, of most North York residents, crime was much more localized than it is today. In addition, Roy was dealing mostly with people he knew on a personal level. After all, his family had been farming here for over eighty years by the time North York was created. Crime was often minor: the odd burglary, a little rustling, public drunkenness, and domestic disputes were the types of things that Roy was likely to encounter. He never wore a gun and only wore a uniform twice — on ceremonial occasions.
As the population grew, Roy was obliged to hire additional officers. John Harrison was perhaps the most significant of Roy’s early hires. He joined the force in 1930, becoming deputy chief in 1946, and working in the community on such projects as the restoration of the Zion Primitive Methodist Church, usually going beyond the call of duty. The
