Street names provide a highly visible record of Toronto's history. Each day as we walk, bicycle or drive, through the city, scenes
from history flash by. At Yonge we see the
Queen's Rangers cutting through the bush
when the town of York was founded in
1794. On Davenport a column of Natives
follows an ancient route from the Don River
to the Humber. Jarvis recalls a tragic duel
when a headstrong 18-year-old met his
death. Roncesvalles shows us future
residents of Toronto fighting in Spain against
Napoleon's troops. At Montgomery we see
rebels with pitchforks confronting the armed
militia during the Rebellion of 1837. At the
Gardiner Expressway we observe an early
Metro Council meeting dominated by the
first chairman, Fred Gardiner.

Toronto's rich history has been intricately woven into the names of our streets. From the
early 10-block settlement on the lakefront laid out by Governor Simcoe in 1793 to the
sprawling megacity of 2000, Toronto has spread inexorably into the surrounding
countryside, levelling ravines and paving over streams. And every step of development
is reflected in our street names.

This book offers a fascinating glimpse into the stories behind the names of our streets.
Without knowing their histories, some names may appear irrelevant. Why call a street Nina? Or Mercer? But when you know that Nina Wells' mother died giving birth to her,
and her heartbroken father moved his family back to England and died himself two years
later, the street name takes on its true meaning. And when you discover that Andrew
Mercer died rich without a will and his scheming housekeeper failed to win his estate,
which was then used to establish a grim Victorian institution to reform fallen women, you
can never pass that street again without the vision of its history rising to greet you.

Each street name opens a window into the city's past. York's first inhabitants named
streets to commemorate relatives and friends or towns and villages left far behind in
England: Willcocks, St. George, Cottingham. Retired soldiers like Walter O'Hara
recalled their military glory days with names of famous battles: Sorauren, Roncesvalles. The British influence abounds in streets that bear the names of government officials or royalty: Gladstone, Clarendon, AIberta, George, Adelaide, Melbourne, Pembroke. And the gracious estates that once lay outside the city proper now echo in downtown streets:
Bellevue, Dupont, Chestnut Park, Rose Hill, Rathnelly, Glen Edyth, Rusholme,
Dovercourt.

The citizens who lived here left their names throughout the city: brewers (Bloore, Copeland, Severn), politicians (D'Arcy Magee, Borden, Laurier), architects (Sheard,
Howard), philanthropists and educators (Massey, Ryerson), axe makers (Shepard) and
innkeepers (Steeles).

The streets presented in this book have been chosen for their interest and historical
significance. They make up just a small fraction of the hundreds of streets within Toronto.
The book has been designed with careful cross-references and a detailed index so you
can dip in and out and enjoy an intriguing ramble through the streets of the city. Along the
way you will make the acquaintance of many of the colourful and determined characters
who shaped the city of Toronto.


St. Clair Avenue

St. Clair Ave. got its name by accident and a spelling mistake. The Grainger family
owned a market garden and florist shop on Yonge St. near St. Clair in the second half of
the 19th century. They lived on a farm near Avenue Rd. and St. Clair. A Grainger
child, Albert, didn't have a middle name
and decided to give himself a name from his
favourite book, UncleTom's Cabin by
Harriet Beecher Stowe. The name he chose
was "St. Clare," the hero who had bought
Uncle Tom and set him free. Uncle Tom's Cabin toured throughout North America as
a play, and in the program the name was
often misspelt as "St. Clair." So Albert
adopted this version of the name, and in
fun painted it on a sign and nailed it to a
tree on his farm. He was a bugler with the Queen's Own Rifles and often performed with
the military band at the Opera House, where he found his nickname useful as an alias
when he was dating showgirls. Albert died at the age of 20 in 1872, apparently from the
complications of a cold he caught while drilling with his regiment. But his sign remained
nailed to the tree, and when surveyors came to map out the road, they took it for a street
sign and called the second concession St. Clair Ave.

The name came originally from the Italian saint, St. Clare, who was an ardent follower of
St. Francis in the 13th century, and founded an order of Franciscan nuns called the "Poor
Clares." They gave up all rights to property and begged for alms, living together as a
contemplative order that spent much of their time in Holy Silence. The order survived the
Middle Ages and the Industrial Revolution: as of 1989 there were 700 Houses of Poor
Clares throughout the world. In 1913 a Roman Catholic community in Toronto raised the
money for their own church and built it near Dufferin on St. Clair Ave. West. They named
their church after the saint, and spelled it correctly: St. Clare's Church.