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Willowdale
Photos by Alan L Brown - Posted May, 2012
This plaque, located here on the northeast corner of Yonge Street and Church Avenue, was erected in 2010 by Heritage Toronto. Here's what it says:
Coordinates: 43.773976 -79.413825 |
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This graveyard is a rare remnant of the time when Willowdale was a small agricultural community centred around this stretch of Yonge Street. Aboriginal peoples hunted, fished, and camped on this land for thousands of years before European settlement began in the late 1790s. The area then became known as "Cummer's Settlement" after the pioneering family of Jacob Cummer (Kummer). The name "Willowdale" appeared after the opening of the area's first post office, named "Willow Dale," in 1855.
Largely unchanged until early in the 20th century, Willowdale then began to expand with the development of new residential streets, at first stretching out on either side of Yonge Street. In 1923, it became the site of the new offices of the Township of North York. Beginning in the 1950s and 1960s, residential development rapidly replaced the earlier farmsteads as widened roads and new expressways provided better access from North York to the City of Toronto.
Other plaques at this location
Church Avenue
Willowdale
Related webpages
Willowdale
Willowdale (Toronto Star)
Related Toronto plaques
Jacob Cummer 1797-1841
The Cummer Family
Church Avenue
More
Towns and Villages
Here are the visitors' comments for this page.
> Posted April 19, 2009
I'm amazed that this little cemetery that I used to walk through as a kid is still there. Located right next to the Northtown plaza I thought it would have disappeared long ago. It was kind of neglected then and I figured it was living on borrowed time. I live in BC now and lately I wondered what everything looked like now and I read that they relocated the Dempsey brothers hardware store where I bought mesh for my pet hamsters cage and that the library I used to attend regularly has six floors. Wow.
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