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Cameron, Munshaw, Thorne,

Crookshank, and Brumwell

This sounds like a law firm, doesn’t it? In reality, it was a spectacular farm with a parade of equally spectacular owners. This farm extended all the way from Yonge Street to Bayview Avenue, one-quarter-of-a-mile south of Steeles. As such, it was only one lot south of North York’s border with Thornhill, so it comes as no surprise to learn that most of the farmers listed above actually lived and farmed in Thornhill while farming this land as well. Benjamin Thorne, in particular, stands out since Thornhill was named after him. George Crookshank built the magnificent clay and straw-brick house now known as Heintzman House, on Bay Thorn Drive in Thornhill. German immigrant Balcer Munshaw drove his oxcart to Upper Canada from the United States in 1794, and John Brumwell was one of the five farmers who petitioned the province for the creation of North York in 1922.

In the early days of settlement in Upper Canada, one impenetrable swath of virgin forest was much the same as the next. It was difficult to tell where one jurisdiction began and another ended — only that there were a lot of trees and bugs and bears and wolves and snow. Even the lot numbers reflected the borderless state that existed until the twentieth century. Starting with Lot #1 at Eglinton and Yonge and running all the way up to Lot #35 at Langstaff Road, the numbering system transcended the borders that are recognized today.

When the Crown granted Lot 24-1E to Hugh Cameron in 1801, Balcer Munshaw and his family were already established in Thornhill where he had been granted Lot 35-1E, running along the south side of today’s Langstaff Road from Yonge Street to Bayview Avenue. Hugh Cameron would only retain ownership of his land grant for two years, but the Munshaws would prevail for a lot longer than that. Mrs. Munshaw served the pioneer community as a midwife, at a time when it was necessary to ride all the way down to the town of York to summon a doctor when needed. It’s a good thing she had learned this trade, as her own daughter Susan is thought to be the first white child born in the wilderness now known as Markham.

Balcer Munshaw was elected constable for Vaughan and Markham in 1799. In 1809, he built a new frame house for his growing family and donated his old log cabin for the first school in the area. The schoolteacher was John Langstaff, who had recently arrived on horseback from 550 miles away in New Jersey. He had only come for a visit but decided to stay. Two hundred years later, Langstaff Road remains to remind us of him.

The Munshaws’ sons, George and Jacob, wasted little time expanding the family’s holdings in a southerly direction. Jacob bought Lot 27-1W, two lots north of Steeles, running from Yonge Street to Bathurst Street along the route that the CN rail line follows today. His farm became a favourite camping spot for Native people from the north as they journeyed up and down the primitive track that was Yonge Street. This interaction did much to cement positive relations between the two groups. Jacob would remain on this farm beyond the 1867 Confederation.

In 1811, the Munshaw brothers took a bite out of North York when Jacob bought the east half of Lot 24-1E and George bought the west half. Here again, Jacob would prove the more diligent of the two, farming his half until 1865 when he handed it over to his son Nicholas, who farmed there until the early 1890s before selling the land to John Brumwell. George only held on to the western half of the lot until 1815, a scant four years. Benjamin Thorne bought George’s former farmland in 1833. (In the interval between 1815 and 1833, the west half of the lot was owned by an Orm Hale and then a John Endicott.) Although most of Thorne’s tale unfolds in the town that would come to bear his name, it can now also be told here since he owned one of the farms of Willowdale.

Benjamin Thorne was twenty-six years old when he followed his brother-in-law from Dorset, England, to Upper Canada in 1820. He was born the same year that Balcer Munshaw drove his oxcart to Upper Canada. Benjamin settled on Lot 32-1W, where the Thornhill Golf and Country Club stands today. Described as a man “of capital and enterprise,”[1] he built a five-storey gristmill, considered the largest in Canada at the time, as well as a tannery, a general store, and a fine brick house near the top of the hill. By 1830, he had already started a successful import-export business in the town of York, exporting flour to Great Britain and importing iron ore and household goods into Upper Canada. By all accounts, Benjamin was a kind-hearted entrepreneur, always willing to extend credit to the struggling settlers who frequented his store in York. He was also the first man in Upper Canada to pay cash for wheat, further endearing himself to the pioneer farmers.

The house that Balcer Munshaw built to replace his log cabin in 1809, as it looked on September 16, 2011. He seems to have done a pretty good job.

Photo by Scott Kennedy.

In 1829, Benjamin petitioned for a post office in the community that would soon bear his name. At the time, residents of the little community had to travel all the way to York to pick up their mail, a round-trip journey that could take up to eight hours. His request was granted and the new post office was the first institution to bear the name “Thornhill.” William Parsons, the brother-in-law that Benjamin had followed to Upper Canada a decade earlier, was appointed postmaster, a position he would hold until one year before his death in 1861.

In 1830, Benjamin married Anna Maria Willcocks, the woman who had inspired him to build that fine brick house. It was also in 1830 that Benjamin donated land on his farm for the construction of the Holy Trinity Anglican Church, an affiliation that Benjamin shared with members of Upper Canada’s ruling Family Compact. Most of the farmers at that time were Methodists.

By 1836, Thornhill was a thriving community of three hundred souls with four churches to save them, whatever their affiliation. Benjamin’s flour mill was so busy that, despite its size, farmers were often lined up until ten o’clock at night, waiting to have their wheat ground. Business, quite literally, could not have been better and would continue in such a fashion for the next decade. In 1842, the first year that banks could freely establish branches in both halves of the newly united Province of Canada, Benjamin was appointed one of two presidents (one for Upper Canada and one for Lower Canada) of the Bank of Montreal, which had been founded in 1817. He laid the cornerstone for the bank’s building at the corner of Yonge Street and Front Street in 1845, which was replaced in 1885 by the wonderfully ornate bank building that currently houses the Hockey Hall of Fame at the same location. Two years earlier, Benjamin and partner John Barwick had bought the already established Red Mill at Holland Landing to take some of the pressure off the mill at Thornhill. Three years later, things would go horribly wrong.

In 1846, following the Irish Potato Famine, Britain repealled her so-called “Corn Laws,” which had allowed Canadian wheat and flour to enter Great Britain duty-free. The British, desperate for any food to feed their starving citizens, now dropped their tariffs on grain imports altogether. The advantage that Canadian producers had long enjoyed evaporated overnight. As countries closer to Great Britain began to take advantage of this unexpected windfall, Benjamin Thorne was literally left with shiploads of unsaleable flour. While other smaller millers were better able to absorb the blow, Benjamin’s operations were so massive that the loss of his sole customer spelled certain doom. He put his mills up for sale, but there were no takers. Trustees, acting on behalf of his creditors, seized his assets in 1848. His sudden ruin very nearly destroyed the entire village, since farmers from miles around no longer had anyone to buy their wheat.

On June 2, 1848, an auction was held to dispose of some of Benjamin’s more liquid assets such as wagons, sleighs, carts, hogs, and horses. The auction of the mills, house, and stores was soon to follow. The month after the first dispersal, a beaten Benjamin Thorne walked into the pasture behind his house and shot himself. He was fifty-four years old with a wife and eight children.

George Crookshank was born in New York City in 1773, where his United Empire Loyalist father, the owner and captain of a merchant sailing ship, found himself persona-non-grata after the British were defeated in the Revolutionary War. The family fled to New Brunswick, where George found his first employment on the family’s ships sailing to the West Indies. In 1796, George and his sister Rachel followed their married sister to Upper Canada. Here, the Crookshanks finally found a welcoming home where George was granted 1,200 acres of land spread over several parcels in York Township, both inside and outside the Town of York, as soon as he arrived.

George’s older sister Catherine was married to John McGill, who had been put in charge of stores and provisions for the fledgling town of York in 1792. George benefitted enormously from his connections and the good will extended to the family by Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe and his wife, Elizabeth. George was charged with provisioning Fort York and the other forts in the area. He performed his duties well and was rewarded with a series of promotions, including a promotion to receiver general in 1819 and a directorship at the Bank of Upper Canada. The bill to establish the Bank of Upper Canada had just been passed by the Legislative Assembly in 1819, although its charter was not confirmed until 1821.

George Crookshank was elected to the Legislative Council in 1821, where he would serve for twenty years. He built a town house on Peter Street and established a farm in the wilderness near Bloor and Bathurst. The road he cut through the forest in front of his farm was called Crookshank’s Lane, until after George’s death when it was renamed Bathurst Street in recognition of Lord Bathurst, secretary of state for war and the colonies from 1812–27. During the War of 1812, George’s farmhouse was looted and commandeered by American troops, and, though he reclaimed his farm after the Americans were finally defeated, he began to shop around for a more peaceful piece of property.

In 1817, George bought Lot 32-1E in Thornhill for £750. Here he built one of the finest homes in the Greater Toronto Area. Known today as Heintzman House, named after a subsequent owner, the thirteen-room clay-and-straw-brick house is still a landmark in the community and frequently hosts a variety of functions.

Local history buffs could find few more rewarding outings than a trip to the Heinztman House, seen here in 2011. The ongoing restoration has won several awards, and though a small entrance fee is sometimes charged for the times when the house is open to the public, it is comforting to know that all funds collected go to the upkeep of the house.

Photo by Scott Kennedy.

This lot had originally been granted to Anthony Hollingshead in 1798. Anthony was another Loyalist who had served as an officer in the American Revolutionary War. Unlike many other Loyalist grantees, Anthony actually cleared part of his land and built a log house on the property as the Crown required, receiving his deed in 1802. His house survives to this day, although it will never be seen again. It seems that George Crookshank incorporated the two large rooms of the Hollingshead house into the much larger house that he built around it. When completed, the Crookshank house had no peers. For starters, the rooms were huge, with several measuring sixteen feet by twenty-five feet. A winding staircase led from the main floor to the second floor. The interior trim was custom-made from imported English walnut — at considerable expense. The massive front door was also made from English walnut and featured a twelve-inch wrought-iron lock that was opened by a seven-inch iron key. The straw-brick walls were nearly two feet thick and can be seen today through a little trap door in the parlour that affords the modern-day visitor a tell-tale glimpse of this sadly neglected method of construction, which kept the house warm in winter and cool in summer. In 1817, the same year George built his new house, he also bought a farm in North York described as Lot 25-1W, on the south side of today’s Steeles, between Yonge and Bathurst.

In 1821, the Honourable George Crookshank, as he was known after his ascension to the Legislative Council, married Sarah Lambert of New York. George and Sarah, who had inherited property in the United States from her family, had three children — two sons and one daughter. In 1837, the Crookshanks bought the west half of Lot 25-1E, directly across Yonge Street from their farm on Lot 25-1W, and in 1852 they completed their North York holdings when they bought the west half of Lot 24-1E that had previously been owned, albeit briefly, by George Munshaw and Benjamin Thorne. George Crookshank was known for his kindness and his generous donations to a variety of charities. The family enjoyed a comfortable life on their Thornhill farm until George’s health began to fade around 1850. He sold the family properties in town in 1851, which were subsequently subdivided and developed until all traces of the family in Toronto had disappeared.

George died in 1859. He left his entire estate to his only surviving child, daughter Catherine Crookshank Heward. Excluding the farms in Thornhill and North York, George’s estate was valued at the rather staggering amount of £49,986. After Catherine sold the Thornhill farm, it passed through a number of hands before being purchased in 1881 by John Francis, who was also farming in Newtonbrook at the time.

The Francises named their new property “Sunnyside Manor Farm” and owned the farm for nearly fifty years, with Samuel Francis taking over from his father in 1882. They raised sheep and cattle and fished in the spring-fed stream that ran through the property behind their house. Their fields were full of wheat, oats, and barley and, lest it be thought that people who lived in such a grand house were somehow above their neighbours, it is known that Samuel’s wife, Mary, sold her hand-churned butter for ten cents a pound and fresh eggs for ten cents a dozen. Harvest time saw an additional fourteen or fifteen hired hands sitting down at mealtime. William Francis, one of Samuel’s brothers, manufactured Francis Ready-Mixed Paints at Queen and Sherbourne Streets. The company’s name would eventually be changed to Benjamin Moore and Company.

In 1894, the Francises rented Sunnyside Manor Farm to another farmer and moved to a smaller farm they owned on the northeast corner of Yonge and Steeles. They returned to Thornhill in 1904 and retired to a new house they had built at the end of their lane on Yonge Street in 1916. A Mr. Royston and his son Arthur ran Sunnyside Manor Farm for the Francises until the farm was sold to Charles Theodore Heintzman in October of 1929 for $100,000. Charles was the grandson of Theodore August Heintzman, who had established the family’s piano-manufacturing business in Toronto in 1860. Samuel Francis died in 1937 and his wife Mary followed him in 1944. They had been married since 1882.

Charles Heintzman was also a dedicated farmer and wasted little time putting his own stamp on the place. He made the farmhouse even more grand with the addition of a new main entrance that includes the columned porte-cochere and covered second-floor balcony that still enchant the visitor to this day. He also added garages, servants’ quarters, a bar, a billiards room, and the lovely glass conservatory to the south of the house with its radiators hidden beneath the planting areas. Charles even installed an intercom system to connect the main house with the barns and other outbuildings. The farm remained a serious working farm for the next three decades, its claim to fame being the Heintzman’s herd of prize-winning Jersey cattle. Charles died at home in 1954. His wife Marion followed a few years later, and, in 1959, their beautiful farm was sold to developers for $880,000.

The farm was then covered in new houses by the Costain Development Company and Wycliffe Homes. The old farmhouse stood forlorn and abandoned, while the land surrounding it was ploughed under. By the mid-1960s, the rest of Sunnyside Manor Farm had been converted to housing, and the developers turned their attention to the farmhouse and its remaining acreage where they wanted to build a high-rise apartment building. Thankfully, concerned local residents managed to convince Markham Township Council to step in and save the house as a centennial project in 1967. Markham bought the property from the developers and adapted it to fill a new role as a community centre.

The Thornhill Lions Club aided the project by working hard to find and donate suitable period furnishings to complete the project. Thanks to a dedicated team of volunteers, Heintzman House is still very much in demand for weddings, parties, meetings, fundraisers, and other events. The house was designated as a historic site under the Ontario Heritage Act in 1984 and has recently won numerous awards from the Town of Markham for the accuracy and quality of its ongoing restoration. Though not open to the public on a daily basis, Heintzman House holds many events that are open to all, such as the Christmas craft show in mid-November. The house still stands at 135 Bay Thorn Drive over two hundred years after Anthony Hollingshead started it all by proudly carving his log cabin out of the foreboding wilderness.

That leaves John Brumwell, whose exploits are also detailed in the chapter on the Risebrough family. His contribution was so seminal to North York, however, that it bears repeating. In 1894, John Brumwell, also spelled “Brummel” in some records, bought the east half of Lot 24-1E that had been farmed by the Munshaws since 1811. While he farmed his land, he watched with dismay as fewer and fewer farmers were being elected to the council of York Township, as the population of the city of Toronto grew larger and larger. In 1919, there were no farmers elected at all, even though they were paying nearly 25 percent of the township’s taxes. As noted earlier, in 1921, John and fellow disgruntled farmers, W.C. Snider, Roy Risebrough, James Muirhead, and W.J. Buchanan, climbed into Roy’s Model-T Ford and criss-crossed the area, gathering signatures and support for their petition to secede from York Township and form their own township. Their efforts were successful and on the thirteenth of June, 1922, the provincial government granted their request and the Township of North York was born. John lived in a farmhouse that the Munshaws built on Bayview Avenue, across the street from today’s St. Joseph’s Convent and high school, which has recently been sold to another religious order, the Tyndale College and Seminary. John Brumwell’s descendants farmed this land until the middle of the twentieth century, when it was sold for housing.

Benjamin Thorne’s house outlived him by 115 years. After Benjamin’s death, the house burned but was not destroyed. John Langstaff, who by now had abandoned his teaching career in favour of manufacturing shingles and eavestroughs, grafted the upper floor of another abandoned house onto the Thorne house to create a functional, yet extremely odd-looking new dwelling. In later years this structure housed the Thornhill Mineral Springs Resort before becoming the clubhouse of the Thornhill Golf Club, which opened on May 24, 1922, with a course designed by Canada’s foremost golf course architect, Stanley Thompson. When the club became the Thornhill Golf and Country Club, the poor old house was demolished in 1963 to make room for curling rinks, lounges, locker rooms, and a new dining room.

This house was built by Jacob Munshaw on Bayview Avenue, on the eastern border of Lot 24-1E. It is pictured here around 1910 when it was owned by John Brumwell, with John’s wife, Jane (Kennedy) Brumwell, standing on the back porch.

Photographer unknown, North York Historical Society, NYHS 789.

Balcer Munshaw died in 1830. He and his wife were proud grandparents to forty-three grandchildren — clearly a family with few intimacy issues. Their second house, built in 1809 to replace the family’s log cabin, still stands at 10 Ruggles Avenue, which runs south from Langstaff Road, just east of Yonge Street. It survived as a private residence for over 175 years, but has now been reduced to industrial office space.

It is fortunate that two of the houses built by these pioneers still exist, and although they don’t exist in North York, they are close enough that they are certainly worth a visit. In addition, there is another Heinztman house still standing in North York. It was built by one of Charles’s sons in the late 1940s on former Harrison family farmland and has recently been renovated, rather than demolished like the majority of its neighbours. It would be nice to think that this unlikely survivor at 116 Forest Heights Boulevard points the way to a new appreciation of the area’s remaining historic properties.