In 1793, Town of York was laid out by engineers of the Queen’s Rangers regiment, under Britain’s first Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, John Graves Simcoe. At the foot of Berkeley Street were constructed Upper Canada’s first Parliament Buildings. Cooper’s Wharf at the foot of Church Street was the main public docking facilities and here ships disembarked their passengers and vast quantities of goods. Along Front Street were several hotels and taverns, as well as merchants and craftsmen that serviced the shipping industry. The Old Town of York remained the city centre for many years. The shops that lined King St., the main commercial street, were elegant and well-stocked, according to Charles Dickens who visited in 1842. “The town itself is full of life and motion, bustle, business, and improvement. The streets are well paved, and lighted with gas; the houses are large and good; the shops excellent…...” he wrote in his American Notes. It was the fashion to “do King”, and there moustachioed gentlemen with beautifully gowned ladies on their arms would promenade on fine evenings.

The district to the east, south of King Street as far as the Don River was “Government Park where the already-polluted marshes of the Don Mouth were located. Industry early took advantage of the low land prices. In 1831 and 1832, William Gooderham and James Worts established a windmill and flour mills at the foot of Trinity Street. The families soon discovered there was more profit in whiskey than in grain. The Gooderham and Worts Distilleries, whose buildings today make up the “Distillery District,” soon became the largest distilling operation in Canada. Nearby was the brewery owned by the philanthropic Enoch Turner. Annexed to the newly-incorporated Toronto in 1834, this area was known as St. Lawrence Ward.

Many working class families settled along the muddy and unpaved streets and kept cattle and horses, as well as large vegetable gardens. Former slaves from the United States, Thornton and Lucie Blackburn, who started Toronto’s first taxi business, as well as Thornton’s brother Alfred, occupied neat houses. By 1837, Thornton’s red-and-yellow-painted taxi cab, named “The City”, was a familiar site on Toronto streets. Although he only ever had a single taxi, he founded a proud business which continues in the city to his day.

The Catholic Irish tended to settle north of King Street in the district that later would be called “Cabbagetown,” after their habit of planting the vegetable in every bit of available soil. They mainly attended St. Paul’s Church at Queen and Power Streets, first constructed in 1824. The Protestant, or “Ulster” Irish lived south of King Street. When the Irish Potato Famines forced thousands to the New World, so many came to St. Lawrence Ward, part of it received the name, “Corktown,” after County Cork. In 1842, Enoch Turner, Gooderham and Anglican Bishop Strachan built “Little” Trinity Church, Toronto’s oldest surviving church building. Early contributors to the building fund were Thornton and Lucie Blackburn, who attended Little Trinity for the rest of their lives. Next door stands Enoch Turner Schoolhouse, Toronto’s first free school.

The City Hall, built in 1844 on Front Street, housed the City Council Chambers, Police Department and municipal offices. Some of this building can still be seen within the South St. Lawrence Market building today.

Much of Old Town Toronto was destroyed in the Great Toronto Fire of 1849. In 1850 a beautiful structure rose at the corner of King and Jarvis, the St. Lawrence Hall, a public building and meeting space still used today. Here in 1851 the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada was founded, Jenny Lind, the “Swedish Nightingale,” sang, and, later, speeches demanding equal rights for women rang out. The Great Fire also destroyed St. James Cathedral, which was rebuilt 1853. The city’s cab stand lay to the west of the Cathedral on Church St.

In 1859 the Toronto Board of Education built Palace Street School at the corner of Front and Cherry Street. A new school of fine yellow brick on a different site replaced it years later. The school took up the rear section of the Blackburns’ double lot at the northeast corner of Eastern Avenue and Sackville Street. After Thornton Blackburn passed away in 1890, his widow sold the rest of the property to school board, and the Blackburns’ little home and taxi barn were demolished to add to the playground in front of Sackville Street School.

Today the Blackburns are commemorated as Persons of National Historic Significance by the Canadian government. Their life story and some of the early history of Old Town Toronto are recounted by Karolyn Smardz Frost in her book, I’ve Got a Home in Glory Land: A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad (Toronto: Thomas Allen Books and New York: Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2007).