on his back, David found a surprisingly warm welcome, and, in short order, some employment.
Leaving her children with members of the Cummer family, Eliza made a brief journey to Rochester, bringing her husband’s tools, clothes, and £180. On the basis of his impressive credentials, and, with the assistance of an influential friend or two, David was soon working on major projects such as the expansion of the Erie Canal, where he was hired as first assistant engineer. Things went so well, in fact, that Eliza and the children soon joined him. They lived in Rochester and Lockport before David finally purchased a farm near the now-vanished village of Hickory Corners.
Back in Upper Canada, David’s elderly father, James, and half-brother, William, had left their families behind, immigrated to Canada in 1843, and moved onto the family farm to keep it going. Eliza returned every six months to take care of paperwork and any other pressing business, and would then go back to her family. The Gibsons had plenty of company in the United States during this time since more than twenty thousand people left Upper Canada over concerns with the Family Compact. Among them was Thomas Alva Edison’s father, Samuel Edison of Vienna, Ontario. He too had been charged with treason for his role in the Rebellion and had a £500 reward posted for his capture.
In 1841, the government of Upper Canada instituted many of the changes that the farmers had fought for in 1837, and most of the rebels were pardoned shortly afterwards. By the time David Gibson’s pardon came in 1843, the family was so comfortable in New York State that they paid little attention. They even applied for United States citizenship in 1846, but it was a step they would never take. Some years earlier, perhaps feeling the pull of Upper Canada once again, David Gibson did a most unusual thing. He had started to build a house by remote control.
David contracted Toronto brick-maker Henry Neal to produce 133,333 bricks from raw materials found on the Gibson farm, where a kiln was to be built for the purpose. The project, supervised by John Cummer (the man who took Eliza and the children into his home after the government troops burned the first Gibson house), went off without a hitch. The number of bricks was more than sufficient to build the current Gibson House, which was completed in 1851. As well, there were enough bricks to also build both the shingle mill of Jacob Cummer II (John’s brother) just to the north on Yonge Street, and Willowdale School S.S. #4, which stood near the corner of present-day Ellerslie Avenue on the west side of Yonge. David also contracted local tradesmen John Martin for all carpentry and joinery and James Morrison for the masonry work.
The Gibsons returned to Upper Canada in 1848, after David lost his job following an election south of the border that saw the new government cleaning house of former appointees. It was a fairly complicated move, involving many loads of furniture, tools, and personal effects. Once back home, the family set about completing their new house, which, despite the pre-production, was still little more than a finely finished shell. Interestingly, the house would find itself in the same condition over one hundred years later, but that is a later story.
Though it has not been possible to find any mention of where the family stayed while their new home was being completed, it was likely in one of the other houses already standing on the property, built by previous owners, the Willsons, or constructed to house hired hands. David’s diaries of the time make mention of repairing fences, cleaning out the well, putting in stoves, and repairing the pump. The Gibsons moved into their beautiful new Georgian-style house in November of 1851. They would keep their farm in New York State, however, and visit it on a regular basis for the remainder of their lives.
Once resettled, David wasted little time getting back to his overachieving ways. In 1851, he was appointed to the First Board of Examiners of the Provincial Land Surveyors — now the examiner instead of the examinee. In 1853, he was appointed Crown Land commissioner, inspector of Crown Land Agencies, and superintendent of Colonization Roads. It seems that he was missed when he was gone.
His sons James and William, now aged twenty-two and twenty, respectively, had joined him in his surveying business. Youngest son, Peter Silas Gibson, survived his time in the snowbank to graduate from the University of Michigan with an engineering degree in 1864. David built an office addition at the back of the farmhouse and seamlessly continued to survey and farm. The Agricultural Census of 1851 shows two-thirds of the farm being cultivated, with the remaining acres, likely the ones on the west end by the river valley, as “wild.” The commodities produced at the farm included wheat, oats, potatoes, wool, pork, beef, and butter.
In 1855, David Gibson petitioned the government for a local post office and suggested the name “Willow Dale,” because of the number of willow trees on the property. His request was granted and the post office opened on March 28, 1855, in the Cummers’ store on Yonge Street, just north of the Gibson farm. Jacob Cummer II was named the first postmaster, a position he held until 1880, when his brother Samuel took over.
As a little-known aside to David’s land holdings, it should be mentioned that in 1854 he was granted 10,000 acres in the District of Parry Sound in appreciation for his contribution to opening up the area for settlement. The land was mostly covered in pine, and David’s eldest sons, James and William, came up with the idea of building a sawmill to take advantage of the family’s new holdings. The mill wasn’t operational until the summer of 1857, but, when the big saw did begin to turn, it became the first business in the area. The pioneer settlement that grew to house and supply the mill workers marked the beginnings of the town of Parry Sound.
Harold Gibson’s house is shown here in 1957, the year it was torn down for construction of the Gladys Allison Building of the North York Public Library. The house stood on the southwest corner of Yonge Street and Park Home Avenue.
Photo by J.V. Salmon, Toronto Public Library, S-4064-B.
The Gibson brothers were so busy that they had to hire their Willow Dale neighbours Joseph and Michael Shepard to help them run the mill. Things went well until the outbreak of the American Civil War in April 1861, when the demand for the Gibson’s lumber slowed during an economic downturn in the United States, where many of their largest customers were located. Despite David’s objections, his sons insisted on selling the land. Its value then proceeded to rise ten-fold over the next several years. Today, its value would be inestimable. After the sale, William worked for his father as a chain-bearer and James worked for his father as a chain-bearer and surveyor. Neither were included in David’s will and most sources indicate that the brothers were left so well off after the sale of the sawmill that their father had no need to worry about their futures.
David Gibson died in 1864 at the Russell Hotel in Quebec City on Monday, January 25, after contracting a lung infection on a train trip to one of the meetings he regularly attended in the area. Though he didn’t live long enough to celebrate his sixtieth birthday, he accomplished enough to fill several lifetimes. His contributions to Upper Canada and Lower Canada had been phenomenal.
After David’s death, the family remained at the Gibson house. David left the farm to his unmarried daughter, Margaret (son William also remained unmarried). Eliza died there in 1887. Before Margaret died in 1868, she sold the farm to her brother, Peter Silas Gibson, who was demonstrating serious need for larger premises. He and his wife, the former Eliza Holmes, would eventually have nine children and twenty-six grandchildren. George Gibson wed Augusta Holmes, the sister of Peter Silas Gibson’s wife, Eliza Jane Holmes. They had two sons and six daughters. George died in 1935. Elizabeth Mary Gibson married Walter Armour, whose family farmed near Bathurst and Wilson. They had one daughter, named Lula Ada.
In addition to the Gibson house that stands today, Peter and Eliza’s eldest son, Harold, built a house immediately to the south, which was later used as the North York Public Library. It was torn down in 1957 for construction of the Gladys Allison Building of the North York Public Library, which in turn was demolished in 1986 for construction of the current library.
