See map caption below by William D. Reid When Lord Durham, the Governor-General, refused to honor the contemplated autumn meet of the City of Toronto and York County Races of 1838 with his presence, the sponsors considered it advisable, for some unknown reason, to postpone the races altogether for the year. The author of the…
The extraordinary story of Eli Hyman first came to my attention with the following notice that appeared in the Toronto Daily Star of December 20, 1902: * * * WILL BE BURIED SUNDAY Rabbi Jacobs Will Conduct the Funeral from Holy Blossom Synagogue The funeral of the late Eli Hyman, the Jewish miser who died in…
Castlefield was a grand residence north of Toronto built in 1835 by James Hervey Price (1797–1882), a prominent Canadian attorney and political figure. According to accounts, it was a handsome and imposing red-brick, neo-gothic mansion with four crenellated turrets on a long elm-lined drive which became Castlefield Avenue. The estate on which the mansion was…
THIS appraisal of the lot of the colored population of Toronto in 1908 presents a fairly positive and upbeat portrait, but it is clear nonetheless that the “negro” of a century ago faced genuine discrimination in this city, with many doors closed in his face. The era was one in which the vast British-descended Anglo-Saxon…
From The Toronto Star Weekly, May 16, 1914 That well-known Toronto residence occupying the northeasterly corner of Jarvis street and Wellesley crescent, and formerly occupled by Mrs. Treble-Massey, was recently sold to Thos. W. Watkins, long prominent in Hamilton departmental store connections. The large structure and its beautiful grounds went for a good round sum,…
Increase of Jewish Citizens Astounding From The Toronto Star Weekly, February 24, 1912 Is the problem—for a problem there assuredly is—in connection with Toronto’s Ghetto sufficiently realized by Torontonians in general? Ten years ago the Jewish population in the whole of Ontario only numbered just over five thousand people. To-day there are something like twenty…
From the Toronto Telegram, Sept. 1 1931 As it looks today:
In Devil in the White City, a riveting page-turner that reads like a murder mystery thriller, Erik Larson resurrects the legend of a forgotten American psychopathic mass murderer, the cold-blooded H. H. Holmes, and overlays it atop the equally dusty story of the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, one of the most impressive achievements of…
From the Globe, October 27, 1902 A Centre of History: Frank Yeigh Conducts a Farewell Pilgrimage through old Parliament Buildings A farewell tour of inspection of the old Parliament buildings, now in process of dissolution, was paid by the Canadian Club on Saturday afternoon under the guidance of Mr. Frank Yeigh. Probably 400 persons, including many…
From the Canadian Jewish News, January 13, 2005 Hy Burstein can’t quite explain his passion for riding horses, only that it first hit him as a teenager and that it’s still going strong six decades later. Born to Russian-Jewish immigrants in Toronto in 1928, he recently published Ride ’em Jewish Cowboy, a book describing his…
