Читать книгу Leaside - Jane Pitfield - Страница 8

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.

The home of John Lea Sr. Built in 1829 and belived to be the first brick home in York Country, it would have stood in the vicinity of the juncture of Lea and Laird. Collection of the Lea Family. Courtesy Ted and Barbra Lea.

Behind the home was a large pond into which the “Leaside Creek” flowed from the vicinity of today’s Bayview and Eglinton. From here the pond would have connected to the Don River. Access to the Lea farm was by way of Williams Street which came across from Yonge Street at what is now Glebe Road.

“Little is recorded of the early period of John’s pioneering days. These must have been days of hard work and loneliness for a young English farmer, but he apparently prospered through his toil as the area became known for its high productivity. There are stories that at one time negro slaves escaping from the United States took up residence in the area. It is possible they assisted with land clearing, and were, for the most part, employed as farm help.”⁷

John Sr. died in 1854 at the age of 81 years.⁸ His wife, Mary Hutchison, had predeceased him in 1846, at the age of 55 years. They are buried in the cemetery of St. John’s Anglican Church, York Mills. Upon his death, the farm was divided and each son received about 100 acres of land. The brick home and one hundred and ten acres (this included the house, orchard and all the out-buildings) were left to his son, John Jr.

John Jr. had married Sarah Charles, daughter of James Charles, a well-known Toronto dry goods businessman. Their daughter, Mary, and son, James, were born there. In its final years, this brick house was left vacant and subsequently burnt down about 1912.⁹

Plan of the William Lea house. Sketched as the late Estella M. Lamb (daughter of Charles Lea) remembered it. She was born in this house and she approved the final drawing as being correct. From The Town of Leaside by J.I. Rempel, 1982.

John Sr. had left ninety acres of the old homestead, part of Lot 13, Concession 3 to his eldest son William. In 1841, he bought additional land, 130 acres, just to the south of his father’s farm. When William Lea founded the Village of Leaside, somewhere between 1851 and 1854, he built an odd-looking house with eight gables that reminded one of the old toll house. This strange-looking octagonal structure, two storeys high with an additional much smaller storey added on top, he named “Leaside.”¹⁰

Octagonal houses had been a trend in the United States. The book which may have inspired William Lea was A Home For All, or the Gravel Wall and Octagon Mode of Building by Orson S. Fowler. In 1973, Fowler’s book was republished under the title The Octagon House, a home for all.¹¹ During this period, it was also the trend for many churches, barns and schools to be built in an octagonal style. Lea’s house, the first octagonal home in the Toronto area, and perhaps in Ontario, was located close to where Leaside Memorial Gardens now stands. The octagonal home, “Leaside,” is pictured on the front cover of this book.

William justified his choice of the octagonal shape as he said, “… like a bee’s cell, it enclosed the greatest amount of space within the least amount of wall.”¹² The house doubled as a court house, the only court house east of Yonge Street, once William became a Magistrate for the County of York. In fact, not only was his octagonal house distinctive, it also served as a residence, a post office and a town hall, as well as a court house.

Considered an eccentric by many, William’s long beard seemed to symbolize his unique appearance and range of interests. In his career, he demonstrated his intelligence, along with a home-grown scientific curiosity. In religion, he was Anglican and in his politics, a Conservative. A poet who loved nature and tried to preserve it, William was an early environmentalist. “He was also a painter and an antiquitarian.”¹³ An historian, William wrote extensively on the Don River. His historical address on the early settlement of the Don River delivered to the Canadian Institute was published in the Toronto Evening Telegram of January 17, 1881 and February 4, 1881.¹⁴

Residence of Orson S. Fowler of Fishkill, New York. This designer of octagonal homes influenced William Lea in his decision to build “Leaside.” Taken from The Octagonal House, a home for all by Orson Fowler, 1973.

Much of William’s land was planted as an apple orchard, extending over what would later become the Gatineau Power Station property and the Thorncliffe Racetrack. “Other early farms had extensive orchards and there is a story that the Murrays (on the farm just south of William Lea) grew apples for export and experimented with a yellow crabapple which, owing to its colour did not market well.”¹⁵ As tomatoes also proved to be a profitable crop, William built a tomato cannery beside his home, and became the supplier of tomatoes for the old Queen’s Hotel (located where the Royal York is today). His tomato crops stretched to the part of the property which later became the “Leaside Aerodrome” (at Wicksteed). Over the years, William carried on farming, fruit growing and farm gardening with his sons.

A laneway called William Lea’s Lane connected the house to Yonge Street, the main thoroughfare. In 1881, William sold a parcel of land to the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) as a place for the railway to build a train station. As well, he generously gave a half-acre of land to the Anglican Church of England, for the purpose of building the original wooden St. Cuthbert’s on the Government Road (as Bayview was called then). The Leas of Leaside quite frequently had attended St. Barnabas Church, across the Don River around Danforth and Broadview (near f the Playter Estate). The Playter and Lea families were closely associated by marriage, Mary Margaret having married John Playter.

William Lea (1814–1893), son of John Lea Sr., donated land for the original St. Cuthbert’s Church in 1890. The octagonal house, “Leaside” was William Lea’s home. S. Walter Stewart Nibrary, Elmore Gray collection.

“William Lea had been educated at boarding school in York.”¹⁶. In 1841, William married Mary Ann Taylor, the first of what would become three wives. Mary Anne was the second daughter of James Taylor who had emigrated from Tadington, Derbyshire, England and settled on the east side of the Don River. William and Mary had two daughters, both of whom died in infancy. Their mother soon followed, dying within three years of her marriage.

In 1848, William married Elizabeth Davids, eldest daughter of Charles Kendrick Davids from Dartford, Kent. They had seven children (three sons and four daughters): Joseph, Charles, James David, Lillian, Mary Alice, Jessie and Fannie. Elizabeth died in 1867, at the age of 52 years. Three years later, William married his third wife Sophia Blogg. She was the sister of Elizabeth Davids and the widow of John L. Blogg, remembered by many Torontonians of the time as the fashionable bootmaker. Blogg’s shop was on King Street.

William died in 1893, at 78 years of age. Both William and his second wife, Elizabeth, are buried at St. John’s Anglican Church, York Mills, with William’s parents. Sophia Blogg died in 1903.

Lea Lane with tomato cannery on right. Date of photograph is unknown. S. Walter Stewart Library, Elmore Gray collection.

Two years after his second marriage, William Lea was elected to the office of Township Councillor and would hold office for seven years. During Lord Elgin’s period of government, William was appointed a Justice of the Peace, a prestigious position, possibly a political reward for his support of the Conservative party.

William increased his original land holdings of 90 acres, left to him by his father. Over the years he purchased additional land until he had a total of 250 acres. This land, along with the adjoining farm of his brother John Jr., the Murray farm to the south and the Elgie and Beatty farms to the north, ultimately became the Town of Leaside.

Upon William’s death in 1893, his eldest son Joseph, took over the tomato cannery and lived in the octagonal home until 1903. In 1913 the house, having been abandoned for ten years, was demolished by the Canadian Northern Railway. Having been left unprotected for this span of time, the house was in bad shape. Much of the interior had been ruined by the boys of the neighbourhood who had broken the panes of glass, wrenched away the stair rails and thrown about the magazines from the attic.¹⁷

The CNoR purposely set fire to the old landmark as part of the clearing of land for the company’s proposed new sidings and townsite. It is said that it took all day to burn the magnificent pine woodwork. There was not a single knot in it. Today, such wood trim would be worth a great deal.

The William Lea home, showing the original porch of the octagonal house. The man with the dog is Mr. Blogg. The man with folded arms is Joseph Lea, William’s oldest son. The young woman dressed in black in the background is his niece, Estella Mary (Mrs. Canon Lamb). From the Archives at Todmorden Mills Museum.

William Lea’s Lane looking east. The house on the left is the farm home of Charles, William’s second son. From the Archives at Todmorden Mills Museum.

St. Cuthbert’s Road, looking west from Bessborough Drive to St. Cuthbert’s Church on the left. The home of John Lea Jr. is on the right. Photograph taken in February 1938 by the late Stuart L. Thompson.

Home built by John Lea Jr., across from St. Cuthbert’s Church. Eventually the site was occupied by Humphrey Funeral Home. Leaside Public Library Collection.

“Leaside,” William Lea’s octagonal house, burning in 1913. S. Walter Stewart Library, Elmore Gray collection.

The flames also consumed a fine collection of old engravings and photographs, including many pictures of both Queen Victoria and King Edward VII. The travels in Canada on the occasion of the King’s first visit were recorded and illustrated in both the Star and the Globe. All were devoured by the fire.

The scorched remains of this burnt building stood sadly until 1918. The planned sidings and townsite had not materialized and the Canadian Northern Railway, in bankruptcy, was taken over by the federal government as part of the Canadian National Railways. The gutted shell of William Lea’s “Leaside” was later torn down. Today, all that remains to remind us of this once exceptional building is a plaque, erected by the East York Historical Society, located outside on the wall of the Leaside Memorial Gardens.

John Lea Jr., William’s younger brother, left the original Lea brick house in 1870 and built a home across from St. Cuthbert’s Church, further east on Bayview (where Humphrey’s Funeral Home presently stands). As an area farmer, he was well-known as a cattle breeder.

John Lea and his wife, Sarah, had two sons and one daughter. James Lea, their first son, built what is now 201 Sutherland Drive around 1909. Today, it does not front on Sutherland, but rather was constructed to face James Lea Lane which came in from Bayview at the time. Edgar Lea, son of James Lea, the great grandson of John Sr., was the last member of the family to live in the house.

The photograph is belived to be Charles Lea with his wife Charlotte (Playter). Daughter Estella Mary (later to become Mrs. P. M. Lamb) is sitting on her monther’s knee. Leaside Public Library Collection.

The Sutherland Drive house became a nursery school run by Mrs. Eve Procunier from 1939 to the late 1950s. It was affectionately called “The Wendy House” after Wendy in the story of Peter Pan. Today, the house still stands as a residence and is owned by the Rutherford family. The porch was added to the original home and the present owners have renovated the attic, creating additional living space.