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Barberry Place: The Thomas Clark Farm Lot

Thomas Clark built Barberry Place in 1855 to house his growing family, which would eventually include thirteen children. The prolific Mr. Clark had purchased his property in 1841, the two-hundred-acre Lot 15-2E on the south side of Sheppard Avenue, stretching from Bayview Avenue to Leslie Street. The relatively high purchase price of £900 and the late date tell us that the Clarks were not the first owners and that the property had been at least partially cleared by the time they took possession. The early ownership of the lot unfolded as follows:

1802 Crown grant to Joseph Provost

1804 Joseph Provost to Richard Graham

1832 Richard Graham to John Harp

1832 John Harp to Joseph Stiffens

1839 Joseph Stiffens to Robert Padgett

1841 Robert Padgett to Thomas Clark[1]

Thomas built his first log house as soon as he took possession of the land. His first wife died in 1844, after bearing seven children. Later, he would marry the apparently very brave Nancy Miller whose family farmed Lot 16-2E, directly to the north across Sheppard Avenue. Nancy would bear Thomas six more children. (Research showed that this Thomas Clark is also referred to as Thomas Clarke in several documents, although he is not to be confused with the Clarkes of Downsview.)

The family was intensely involved in the community’s religious life. Their first house, despite the seven children underfoot, had been the meeting place for the Wesleyan Methodists of Oriole, the hamlet at the corner of Leslie Street and Sheppard Avenue East. In 1853, the group would organize as “Clark’s Congregation.” They would hold Sunday services in the little log schoolhouse that had been built near today’s Leslie and Sheppard in 1826, and later in the brick schoolhouse that was built nearby on Thomas’s land in 1848. They continued to hold their meetings even when threatened with house- and barn-burnings by local gangs. Apparently the plague of gangs in Toronto is nothing new. In this case, it would appear that the cowards behind these ultimately idle threats may have had a vested interest in liquor sales in the area, as the Wesleyan Methodists were known to be allied with the Temperance movements of the day.

Regular services would continue to be held at Oriole United Church for at least a year after this 1956 photograph was taken by J.V. Salmon. Behind the little church we can see the looming bulk of the massive Rex Chainbelt factory that fronted on Sheppard Avenue East. The church was demolished in 1965, and, the factory, one of Willowdale’s earliest and largest industries, would follow not long after.

Courtesy of Toronto Public Library, S 1-3683B.

Students were still heeding the call of Oriole Public School’s bell when this photo was taken by J.V. Salmon in 1956.

Courtesy of Toronto Public Library, S 1-3684A.

In 1873, Thomas sold some of his land on the southwest corner of today’s Sheppard and Old Leslie Street for the construction of a proper church. This could be considered an unusual sale, since most pioneer farmers were happy to donate land for such a purpose, but the details of the transaction are not known. When completed, the 1,500-square-foot, yellow-brick structure would feature gothic-style windows and an overall air of simplicity that reflected the values of the Methodist congregations of the day. One of the church’s preachers was the Reverend Edwin A. Pearson, father of future Canadian prime minister, Lester B. Pearson. Initially known as the Oriole Methodist Church, the name was changed to the Oriole United Church in the mid-1920s when the property was transferred to the United Church of Canada.

The church would serve the community well for many years, until a burgeoning North York began to close in. The solemn last Sunday service was held on May 12, 1957. The congregation then transferred its Sunday services to Harrison Road Public School, one block south of William Harrison’s farmhouse in York Mills. Sunday-school classes would continue to be held at the old church for a while longer until all activities of the congregation were permanently moved to the new Oriole-York Mills United Church on Bayview Avenue, just north of York Mills Road, in 1961.

The little church on Sheppard Avenue would remain alone and abandoned until 1965 when it was demolished for a strip mall that would itself be demolished just twenty years later. And so it goes....

In 1874, Thomas sold half-an-acre of his farm for the construction of a new public school to replace the one that had been built in 1848. Located next to the Oriole Methodist Church, the new red-brick schoolhouse, S.S. #11, stood until 1910, when it was replaced by the red-brick Oriole Public School. The new school was a lovely little building — well-designed, functional, and in perfect harmony with its surroundings. It served the community for nearly half a century until classes were terminated in 1958. The building then served as a residence and later as office space, before being demolished in 1966 to facilitate the reconstruction of the Leslie Street and Sheppard Avenue intersection into the format that exists today. The cornerstone of the school was incorporated into the new Dunlace Public School in the new Silver Hills subdivision, a half-a-mile or so southwest across Highway 401.

In 1887, the Clarks sold their Barberry Place farm to Samuel William Armstrong, who may have been related to a William Armstrong, a farmer in the area from 1806 to 1836. When that William died in 1836, his farm was purchased by the Mulhollands, who were related by marriage. After selling Barberry Place, the Clarks moved to farmland they owned on Lot 16-2E, directly to the north, where they would farm for over twenty years. The farmland of Barberry Place was not developed until sometime around 1950, when a small subdivision was built around Rean Drive and Sheppard Square. The rest of the acreage had fallen to further residential and industrial development by the time 1960 rolled around.

Without caring and committed homeowners to maintain and protect Willowdale’s remaining farmhouses from the ravages of the modern world, a photograph like this would not be possible. Barberry Place is pictured here on a beautiful spring day in 2010.

Photo by Scott Kennedy.

As for things that were not demolished, there is Barberry Place itself, named for the red-berried barberry bushes that once grew there in profusion. Built in 1855, and built to last, the house still stands in its original location, though almost comically dwarfed and surrounded by faux New York-style high-rise condominiums and “brownstone” townhouses. The actual construction of Barberry Place is intriguing, involving details and techniques seen in few, if any, other houses in the area.

The fieldstone foundation is eighteen inches thick. The basement floor isn’t dirt; it’s paved in red brick. The exterior walls are three bricks thick, painted white. All lumber used in the house is white pine, cut on the property. All wall laths are hand-split pine. Basement ceilings and verandahs are fully finished with lath and plaster. All interior trim is custom-made, hand-fitted, and unique to the house. Later additions include two gables on the front of the house that detract somewhat from the house’s overall simplicity and a cottage-style addition to the rear that blends in more successfully. All other traces of Thomas Clark’s farm have been obliterated, some aspects several times over. Fortunately, Barberry Place still stands on its original foundation at #9 Barberry Place on the south side of Sheppard, just east of Bayview.

At this writing, a massive redevelopment on former Canadian Tire property on the south side of Sheppard Avenue has temporarily resulted in Lot 15-2E being more vacant — that is, without any buildings on it — than at any time since the mid-twentieth century. But this situation won’t last for long. In addition to the existing Canadian Tire and IKEA stores, the land will soon be home to dozens of additional retail outlets and thousands of new condo dwellers.