Discover Toronto's history as told through its plaques

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Ontario Lakeshore Asylum Cemetery c.1890-1979

Photos by Alan L Brown - Posted February, 2016

This plaque can be found attached to a fence at the cemetery on the northeast corner of Evans Avenue and Horner Avenue. Here's what it tells us:

Coordinates: 43.617204 -79.518350

Established in 1890, this cemetery contains the remains of 1,511 individuals who died at the Mimico Asylum/Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital. Construction of the hospital on its 24 scenic hectares beside Lake Ontario began in the 1880s, as a healthy respite facility for patients who would be transferred from the Province's existing asylums.

The "Mimico Branch Asylum" opened on January 21, 1890 under the administration of the Asylum for the Insane, Toronto (later renamed the Queen Street Mental Health Centre). It received its first 116 patients on that day from Toronto, with the exception of ten male patient labourers who had been resident since 1889 to prepare the site for later occupants. In 1892, it was decided that the Mimico Asylum (so renamed) should become a fully integrated facility in its own right, rather than a "long-stay patient only" branch, which it remained until it closed and partially re-merged with the Queen Street facility in 1979.

The first burial at this cemetery took place in 1890 and the last in 1974. For 84 years, the cemetery at Mimico was used to bury patients who had no family or lacked sufficient funds to make other arrangements. The cemetery was divided in half by a central north-south road. Roman Catholics where buried on the west side of the cemetery and the Protestants were buried primarily on the east side. The rows are marked at each end by a small square stone inscribed with a letter or number corresponding to the burial register. There are 50 graves per row, aligned two end to end, by 25 across. Most of the graves are unmarked. The placement of 154 small plaques with the name and the year of birth and death of each deceased only began in 1957.

May they Rest in Peace and not be forgotten.

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