Toronto Archaeological Finds at St. Lawrence Market North - 92 Front St E, Toronto

 The remains of previous structures built at the St. Lawrence Market North site had been discovered in advance of construction to replace the aging building. With remnants of former markets dating back to 1831, the find is a significant step forward in understanding the cultural and built history not only of this historic Toronto neighborhood, but the city as a whole.

 The current building lies directly across Front Street from the larger 1850 structure which National Geographic named the world's best food market. Markets, in several shapes and forms, have occupied the site since at least 1803, when Lt. Governor Peter Hunter declared the location a place to sell "cattle, sheep, poultry, and other provisions, goods and merchandise." It wasn't until 1831 that a permanent two-story building with an open courtyard was erected on the site, with the north end housing City Hall from 1834 onward.

 A massive fire in 1849 destroyed the market, which was replaced by a new building two years later. In an effort to rejuvenate the area, a new building was constructed in 1904, until again making way for the current one-storey building which opened in 1968.

 Preparing the site for construction, Golder Associates Ltd. conducted a stage 2/3 archaeological assessment on August 31. Three trenches, measuring 15 by 1 metres, were dug out beneath the concrete floor of the existing building, subsequently peeling back layers of Toronto history. Evidence from each previous market was uncovered, a discovery which had been anticipated and factored into the new building's construction timeline.

Remnants of the old foundation piers from the 1831 market are largely intact, a good sign of things to come, as the building's cellars are likely in a similar preserved state. Those cellars as expected to provide precious artifacts that shed light on the first permanent market's activities until its unfortunate demise in 1849. The 1904 market's concrete foundation, running north and south, is also visible.

So these old foundations are before the formation of Canada. Is it possible that we remove traces of history while removing these historical artifacts?

 History of Canada

All the former colonies and territories that became involved in the Canadian Confederation on July 1, 1867, were initially part of New France, and were once ruled by France.

Following the Rebellions of 1837, Lord Durham in his Durham Report, recommended that Upper and Lower Canada be joined as the Province of Canada and that the new province should have a responsible government. As a result of Durham's report, the British Parliament passed the Act of Union 1840, and the Province of Canada was formed in 1841.

The new province was divided into two parts: Canada West (the former Upper Canada) and Canada East (the former Lower Canada). Governor General Lord Elgin granted ministerial responsibility in 1848, first to Nova Scotia and then to Canada. In the following years, the British would extend responsible government to Prince Edward Island (1851), New Brunswick (1854), and Newfoundland (1855).

The area which constitutes modern-day British Columbia is the remnants of the Hudson's Bay Company's Columbia District and New Caledonia District following the Oregon Treaty. Prior to joining Canada in 1871, British Columbia consisted of the separate Colony of British Columbia (formed in 1858, in an area where the Crown had previously granted a monopoly to the Hudson's Bay Company), and the Colony of Vancouver Island (formed in 1849) constituting a separate crown colony until it was united with the Colony of British Columbia in 1866.

 Robber trenches, aligning with the foundations for what were the walls of the 1851 market, were also found. A large flagstone sewer and two capped stone feeder sewers have been discovered and are assumed to have been constructed as part of the 1851 structure.

The northernmost trench shows several cast iron drainage pipes and a brick-lined box drain representative of the 1904 structure. An arched stone sewer from 1851 lies beneath. Each of these trenches is capped by the relatively simple concrete flooring of the existing building, demonstrating that construction of the 1968 market did not remove all traces of history associated with the site.

 

( this is the building in the back of the construction site is city property hopefully would not be demolished )

Stage 4 mitigation is the next step, which requires the complete demolition of the current building. Four levels of underground parking are included in the redevelopment of the site and it is not yet known which and how many of these artifacts will be preserved. City officials hope to eventually put many of the findings on public display.

The Ghost Canal of The Town of Newmarket that contributed to the defeat of the Liberal Government in 1911

The First Railroad in Upper Canada On the first Saturday of June 1853, the first train came into Newmarket this was the first railroad built in Upper Canada. Called the Ontario, Huron & Simcoe Railway, it eventually linked Toronto to Collingwood on Georgian Bay, but that June day the tracks ended here.

1905-1906 Farmers and businessmen from all over the Newmarket district, angry at skyrocketing railroad freight rates, met in the Town Hall on Market Square to look for cheaper ways to get their products to market.

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Their Member of Parliament, Sir William Mulock, convinced them a canal was the answer and so the Newmarket Canal was born. 

Newmarket’s civic leaders went to Ottawa to lobby for a canal linking to Lake Simcoe and the Trent Waterway. 

With Mulock as its chief advocate in Cabinet, the canal was approved and construction started in 1906. It was almost complete in the summer of 1912 – three lift locks, three swing bridges and a turning basin – when the new government of Robert Borden cancelled the project. 

The attempt to build a canal linking Lake Simcoe to the Holland River during the years 1906 to 1911 was one of the fore most topics of controversy on Parliament Hill. 

This  project was apparently entered into with an amazing lack of foresight, there being insufficient water to operate it, thus totally impractical. 

The scandal brought about as a result of this project and the wasteful expenditure of a large sum of government money contributed significantly to the defeat of the Liberal Government in 1911.

History of Newmarket

In June, 1800, Timothy Rogers, a Vermont Quaker, explored the area  around the Holland River and up to Lake Simcoe to find a suitable location for a contemplated Quaker settlement. The Quakers were disturbed as a result of difficulties encountered when this peaceful sect refused to take part in the rioting and bloodshed of the American Revolutionists. In 1801, Rogers, leading several Quaker families, left their homes in Vermont and Pennsylvania and secured land grants of 8,000 acres located at the east end of lots 93, 94, and 95 along Yonge Street in the former Townships of Whitchurch and King. It was easy for them to see the potential in these fertile rolling lands, through which flowed the Holland River, an important trading artery for both aboriginals and fur traders.

Having arrived in the spring, these first Quaker settlers immediately began the arduous task of clearing the land for their homes and farms. Indeed, By Christmas of 1801, Joseph Hill had constructed a mill on the Holland River at what is now Fairy Lake, around which the settlement to be known as Newmarket sprouted.

 It is possible that at that time the river to have been larger.

In its first 50 years, the community grew and prospered. Farmers’ markets were held regularly on Saturdays and were well-attended because purchasers were spared the long journey to York. Although it was essentially an agricultural community, it provided a busy centre for commerce and small industry. It is believed that the name Newmarket evolved as a result of the trading that took place, while York (not Toronto) was the ‘old market’, this new centre of commerce became the "New Market".

Many factors helped to shape this growing community. One which had a significant impact was the Rebellion of 1837. Newmarket was a focal point of discontent against the manipulations of the governing Family Compact, of whom it was said "were robbing the country". This anger grew to the explosive point with the general election in 1836. 

When the new "Constitutional Reform Party of Upper Canada" was defeated, and grievances of the settlers were not addressed, there was no holding back the tide of rebellion. 

The rebellion was quickly crushed and William Lyon MacKenzie fled to asylum in the United States. Two participants in the uprising were hung, one of whom, Samuel Lount, was from the Newmarket area. The death warrant was signed by Sir John Beverly Robinson. 

By the mid-1800s the fur trade had come to an end and the aboriginals were no longer trading along the Holland River.  

A local news paper, the "New Era", was started in 1852 and in 1853, with Erastus Jackson as its editor, was renamed the "Newmarket Era". 

With the coming of the steam railway the same year, Newmarket experienced another surge of prosperity and growth making it the

most important village north of Toronto.

Newmarket was incorporated as a village in 1857 with a population of 700. Schools we re built, many small industries were started, dry goods and grocery stores flourished. In 1880, with a population of 2,000, Newmarket became a Town and William Cane was elected as its first

Mayor.

Newmarket benefited from technology with the advent of the Electric Railway in 1902. The railway ran from Toronto to 

Newmarket and in 1906 was extended north to the trendy summer resort of Jackson’s Point. 

Newmarket was experiencing a boom, which was to last until the onset of the Great Depression in 1930. 

The coming of the railroad also cinched Newmarket’s role as the business center of the vast and wealthy hinterland north of Toronto. Communities missed by the tracks withered and disappeared, those with stations grew and prospered. 

Businesses moved here, mills and factories were built and the population grew. It has never stopped growing. The railway station was replaced with a larger building twice in the first half century. Today’s railway station was built in 1899 and has been restored by the Chamber of Commerce as a symbol of our business success.