Who Was Clem Dawes? Melanie Milanich
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Who was Clem Dawes? Melanie Milanich Tavern). In 1855, after D'Arcy Boulton's It was Edgar A. James, the first engineer of death, his son-in-law William Cayley, was the Toronto and York Roads Commission, involved with the sale of 33 acres of land in who suggested that Dawes Road got its the northern half of lot 1, concession 2 from name from Clement (“Clem”) Dawes who the Bay, to Robert Boyd. In 1858, William kept a hotel at the northwest corner of Cayley, Minister of Finance, admitted that Danforth and Dawes in the 1840s. he had advanced 10,000 pounds of public Historians have repeated this with little money to finance railway dealings with actual data to accompany it. D'Arcy Boulton's son, D'Arcy Edward Boulton, (Cayley's wife's brother). According to Ancestry, an online genealogical source, Clem Dawes came here Guillet tells us that such "indefensible as an infant in 1833 from Micheldean, conduct" was "characteristic of the Gloucestershire County, England, with his financing of the Grand Trunk and other mother Jane Lodge and his siblings. His early Canadian railways." In spite of this, father, William, followed a month later. railways were continually in financial Clem’s older brother, Thomas, became a difficulty. minister in London, Ontario. According to records in the Boulton papers The family had a long history of tavern held in the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) keeping and farming. Although the history library, D’Arcy and Sarah Ann Boulton of the of St. John’s Norway Church cites William as Grange (the historic mansion that is today an early parishioner and farmer, it is he who part of the AGO) acquired over 2,000 acres would have established the tavern in the of land, including lots in Whitchurch, Gore, 1830s, and had been running it in the and Vaughan townships. Ownership of the 1840s. land came into the possession of Sarah Ann and was then passed to her nephew James First, let’s look at circumstances of land Lukin Robinson. ownership in the area at that time. Thomas Smith, who built and leased the Both lots 1 and 2 of the second concession Butcher's Arms Inn on Broadview Avenue in from Bay in York Township were originally 1845, took possession of the land at the crown reserves. In 1828 Lot 2 became King's corners of Dawes Road and Danforth College land (providing funds for the new Avenue in 1852, and then the land passed university that became University of to William Smith in 1871. The Dawes family Toronto). would have leased the land for their hotel/tavern, never having owned land at D’Arcy Boulton, who was Auditor General of the corner, according to land registration Land Patents, received the first crown records in the Archives of Ontario. patent land grant for the northern half of lot 1, concession 2 from the Bay in 1839 (the To get some idea of land values and lot east of the to-be site of the Dawes appreciation (or possibly corruption of the Family Compact!) we can consider Sarah Ann and D’Arcy Boulton’s 100-acre park lot at the Grange that was purchased in 1808 for 350 pounds from the estate of the late Solicitor General, Robert Gray (who drowned on the schooner The Speedy). In 1828 D’Arcy sold the northern half of the lot, 50 acres, to King’s College for 1,250 pounds! Samuel Peter Jarvis, who conducted the sale (noted for pilfering funds from the Department of Indian Affairs, which he ran) bragged: “I cannot suppose you will think the rear 50 acres of your lot badly sold”. Then, as now, land was being held for speculation and causing social problems. Kingston Road, from a water colour by Land held for crown and clergy was also a Lt.-Col. Jas. Cockburn (about 1830) cause of strife among the early settlers as it affected roads, travel, access to water and Dawes and Danforth was a rural hinterland settlement patterns. It was the policy that of the new city of Toronto, population just the first concession, from Queen to under 10,000 in 1834, with the populist Danforth, and the broken front along the radical reformer, William Lyon Mackenzie, as the mayor. The town of Markham had harbour would have no crown or clergy been settled in 1794 and the village of lands designated; thus the second L'Amoreaux at Victoria Park and Finch was concession would be given a double dose of established in the first decades of the 19th these aggravating land holdings. This would century. In 1801 early residents of Scarboro have affected Clem in the second petitioned the government to open a Town concession. Line to Markham in order to get to the saw and grist mills there. Now, let’s look at political and population Norway, an unincorporated village just east factors affecting area development. of Kingston and Woodbine, had a steam To put the area in the context of the 1830s, sawmill operating since 1835 at the immigration was increasing rapidly from the intersection of the present Queen and British Isles; and farms, sawmills and roads Kingston Roads. Further up Kingston Road in the greater Toronto area were growing by just west of Victoria Park, at the five-mile leaps and bounds. Although water post from the market, was the Painted Post transportation was still a critical means of Inn, built about 1835. It was a hangout for transit, Kingston Road was being planked supporters of Mackenzie's Rebellion of and by 1839 there were daily stage coaches 1837, and run by a character named Ballard. all the way to Kingston, Ontario. Railways “The Painted Post” also became were being constructed in Quebec and in synonymous with the toll gate established the Niagara area. Talk of a railway in York there and the York/Scarboro’ surveyed County was in the air. boundary line. By the 1840s the tension from the Rebellion Dawes Road had been a native indigenous and the world-wide recession that lasted trail. Archeologist Ronald Williamson from 1837 into the 1840s was ebbing and informed me that these trails in the glacial new spurts of growth were taking place. Lake Iroquois sand and clay basin lands The population of York Township grew from would have been used for at least 5,000 3,127 in 1830, to 5,720 in 1842, and to years. Dawes Road was considered a 8,874 in 1850. "given" road because of the difficulty in navigating the surveyed official boundary The Guarantee Act of 1849 encouraged line. Victoria Park, the surveyed Town Line railway investment and speculation. The and the boundary between Scarborough Baldwin-Lafontaine government achieved Township and York Township, was not used responsible government in 1849 in the between Kingston Road and St. Clair due to province of the united Canadas and the the deep swampy ravine at Taylor Creek. Baldwin Act of 1850 established elected The Dawes Road route began to be used by municipal government in the townships. early settlers from Scarboro, coming down The Boyds, Chapmans, and Moffats settled in the the boundary line of York and Scarboro area along the present Dawes Road in the 1840s. Townships (the present Victoria Park The Boyds were farming, the Chapmans farmed Avenue), then turning onto Dawes Road and and then ran a brickyard, and the Moffats connecting at that time to Kingston Road as operated the Royal Oak Inn one-quarter of a a route to the Market Square (today’s St. mile north of St. Clair from 1845. Wexford at Lawrence Market). Lawrence, with St. Jude's Church nearby, was being settled in the 1840s. It was common for individuals to have more than one property, business or trade, and, as is the case today, immigrants often moved to new locations to seek better opportunities. Around this time some other entrepreneurial spirits entered the scene in the Dawes Road vicinity along Kingston Road. In 1847 George Munro, one of Dawes Road became an "official" highway through Toronto's leading wholesalers and the city's a by-law of the Home District in 1848. According mayor in 1841, bought and leased 60.5 to records in the Hope United Church Archives acres of lot 1 south of Kingston Road that and a map in The Beach in Pictures, Dawes was known as the Painted Post farm. Road, itself, was called the "Town Line" through Originally coming from Cork County, Ireland, the 1870s. The highway from Kingston Road to Steeles Avenue (both the present day Dawes Road Daniel O'Sullivan in 1848 built the Norway and Victoria Park Avenue) became known as (Old) Inn at the intersection of Kingston Road and Dawes Road in the 1880s at a time when more Dawes Road which was the first meeting roads were being built and named. The present place for the congregation of St. John Victoria Park Avenue assumed its name in the Norway Anglican Church before they moved 1950s as confirmed by Rick Schofield, archivist for to Woodbine Avenue (then a concession the Scarborough Historical Society. road). The 1848 by-law stated that the surveyed road began at the Painted Post along the When and why “Dawes Road” came into being Kingston Road (presumably the four-mile Painted Post). The posts, painted red for visibility, designated the mileage from the Market Square. (At the eastern end of the province, red cedar posts were inserted every mile along the Kingston Road for the same purpose.) Opening the road as an official highway was petitioned by the residents and involved some straightening and adjustments as well as widening the road to 40 feet throughout.