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Elihu and Katherine Pease

Strangely enough, Elihu Pease’s farmhouse wasn’t the only one from the early farms of Willowdale that got cut in half. It is, however, the only one that was then transported to three different locations.

Elihu’s ancestors emigrated from England aboard the Puritan ship Francis, landing in Boston in 1634. Elihu was born and educated in the United States. When he came to York in the early 1800s, he was a civil engineer and a land surveyor, so naturally he took a job as a schoolteacher. This may not be as bizarre as it seems, as in the early days it was mostly men who were schoolteachers, and teachers needed no real qualifications. In fact, they were often from the ranks of those who had already failed at numerous other pursuits, or suffered some physical impairment preventing them from taking on more rigorous work. Educated non-failures like Elihu were therefore highly prized. When he began teaching in the community of Langstaff in 1811, he was employed at the first school in York Township. His career as a teacher would be brief, however, and he was soon obliged to turn his back on the great pay — twenty-five cents per pupil, per month — and the glamorous living arrangements — billeted with a different student’s family every two or three days.

As an American, Elihu refused to take the oath of allegiance to the British Crown when the War of 1812 was declared. Instead, he moved to Buffalo where he worked in the customs house and post office as well as running a tannery there for Jesse Ketchum, a tanner, and ultimately an astute businessman and politician with land just south of Yonge Street and Lawrence Avenue.[1] After the war, Elihu returned to York, swore his allegiance, and assisted in the rebuilding of the post-war town.

In 1819, Elihu married Jacob Cummer’s daughter, Katherine, and moved to the hamlet of Newtonbrook on Yonge Street, between Finch and Steeles Avenues. He began farming Lot 23-1E, on the north side of today’s Cummer Avenue, between Yonge Street and Bayview, and was once again teaching school. The family lived in the house on Yonge Street during this time, before selling their farm to Jacob Cummer and returning to Buffalo in 1821. Four years later, in 1825, they came home to North York for good and bought the southern half of their farm back from Jacob. At this point, Elihu once again returned to teaching as well as running his own farm and helping with his father-in-law’s farm.

Elihu Pease and his wife, the former Katherine Cummer, lived for a time in this massive house that would later be home to other members of the Cummer family. It was built by a previous owner in 1819, the year the Peases were married, and stood at 6059 Yonge Street, across from today’s Patricia Avenue until it was dismantled in 1964, the year this photograph was taken by Ted Chirnside.

Courtesy of Toronto Public Library, TC 115.

In 1834, the Peases would make their final move to the southeast corner of present-day Yonge and Sheppard, where they bought the northwest eighty-six acres of the 190-acre farm on Lot 15-1E that had been granted to constable and tavern-owner John Everson in 1803. Elihu built a small tannery on his new farm and, as if farming and tanning weren’t enough to keep him busy, he became interested in politics. He was elected pathmaster for the county of York in 1836, clerk of York Township in 1837, and would later be appointed inspector of schools. In 1844, the year that the new brick St. John’s Anglican Church was opened, Elihu bought the old log church and moved it to his farm where he re-assembled it to serve as a shed.

The front half of Elihu Pease’s house is shown at its current location on Harrison Garden Boulevard. It was moved there in 2002.

Photo by Scott Kennedy

Elihu’s son Edward was apprenticed to his father as a tanner, eventually opening his own tannery in today’s King Township on land donated by his father. Elihu’s daughter Elizabeth married another tanner, Andrew Davis. Andrew’s father James ran a large inn on the southwest corner of Yonge and Finch, and had also opened a small tannery there in 1834. When Andrew was learning the trade he made frequent visits to the Pease tannery, inspired no doubt by the opportunity to spend some time with Elizabeth. For love to bloom in a tannery, it must have been true.

Elihu Pease died in 1854 and all of his property was auctioned off, right down to his tools, boots, and shoes. The effects of Andrew Davis’s tannery were disposed of in the same auction, but since the Davis family leather business continued well into the twentieth century, it would appear that this auction was part of a greater plan. The next two generations of the Davis family would both count an “Elihu” Davis among their numbers. And what of Elihu Pease’s farmhouse, built in 1834 when he and Katherine first moved to Yonge and Sheppard? It’s a complicated tale, but one worth telling.

The Pease family stayed on the farm until 1871. The 1861 census shows Elihu’s son, Edward, and his wife, Sarah, as well as six dependents (possibly including nieces, nephews and/or servants’ children) living on the farm. The census also lists the crops on the farm, including wheat, barley, peas, oats, potatoes, turnips, and carrots. In addition, the family was selling wool, cider, butter, beef, and pork. When the family moved to King Township in 1871, the farm was sold to the pioneer Harrison family of York Mills. In 1896, the Harrisons sold the farm, 110 acres, to Joseph Christie Bales, whose family had been farming in the area since 1819. One of the first things Joseph Bales did was to remodel the original Pease farmhouse. In 1921, the house was cut in half, with the front half being moved to 34 Avondale Avenue and the back half to 17 Bales Avenue. Joseph Christie Bales’s farmhouse (see 1955 photo in the next chapter), was built on the former Pease property. Descendant Clarence Bales was the last family member to live in this house.

The rear half of Elihu’s house that was moved to Bales Avenue was demolished some time ago. The front half that was relocated to Avondale Avenue in 1921 is fortunately still with us. In 2002, after a long struggle that involved the City of Toronto, the Ontario Municipal Board, the Avondale Ratepayers Association, the North York Historical Society, the developer, and the Badone family, who owned the house, it was decided to move the house around the corner to its current location on Harrison Garden Boulevard, a street named after another pioneer family.

Donalda and Louis Badone had been living in the Pease house for over forty years, and, though they had hoped to see it remain on Avondale Avenue, they were painfully aware that they were not going to get their wish. When the developer made it clear that demolition or relocation were the only options, a deal was struck whereby the developer was awarded an incentive density[2] that allowed him to generate the funds required to move the house around the corner and restore it to a semblance of the way it was in the late 1800s.

And there it sits on its little patch of grass, with a row of pine trees to keep it company, surrounded by high-rise condominiums. The outside has been restored as promised, with the original clapboard now painted the same shade of cream that was discovered under the brick facing, which had been added when the house was divided and moved in 1921. The inside of the house didn’t fare so well. Last year it was turned into sales offices for the condominiums.