Deer Park used to be referred to by the First Nations people as “Mashquoteh”, which is Ojibway for meadow or woodland where deer come to feed. In 1795 Lt Governor Simcoe instructed the Deputy Provincial Surveyor to open a cart road from York Harbour to Lake Simcoe. This was Yonge Street, completed in 1796.
In 1802, 40 acres, on the northwest corner of the cart road and St. Clair Avenue West (then the third Concession Road), was granted to Frederick Baron de Hoen. Eight years later, before he left for Baden, Germany, he sold the property to Mary Elmsley, the widow of the Chief Justice. In 1837, Agnes Heath, widow of Col. Charles Heath of the Honourable East India Company Service, relocated from India to Canada with her children and purchased the property and named it Deer Park.
In the 1830s the village of Deer Park began when several prominent families established country estates on the escarpment overlooking Toronto and the lake. This vista combined with fresh breezes and the convenience of travel on Yonge Street attracted more settlement.
In 1846 Agnes Heath sold her property to her son Charles Wallace Heath who subdivided it into 33 lots. Colonel Arthur Carthew bought five of the Heath lots and built Lawton Park there in 1847. It was sold, unfinished, to John Fisken in 1848. The property later included stables, a carriage house, a dove cote, roothouse, a winery, and potting sheds. Its beautifully landscaped grounds were used by the neighbouring Christ Church for picnics, teas. and other fund raising activities.
By the 1850’s the Deer Park area had grown to include a handful of country villas, a general store, a school, a cemetery, a race track, and a hotel that was located at the intersection of Yonge and St. Clair. Patrons at the Deer Park Hotel used to delight in feeding the deer that roamed on the hotel grounds. Over the next 80 years Toronto continued to grow, and Deer Park became urban and services grew – from rail transportation, roads and bridges, water and sewers, churches and schools, recreation, a library, shops, to hotels and theatres.
Churches of Deer Park
By 1930, Deer Park was home to several churches, including three that stand today; Calvin Presbyterian Church on Delisle Ave. (1927), Christ Church Deer Park Anglican (1922) at Yonge and Heath, and across Yonge Street, Yorkminster Baptist Church (1928)
The first frame Christ Church Deer Park was built in the Lawton gore in 1870. The land was purchased for $100 and construction started in early October. Eleven weeks later, the church opened. Originally a mission of the parish of St. John’s, York Mills, it was one of the earliest Anglican churches in North Toronto, with a congregation that met in Leaside in the 1860s before it moved to Deer Park.
The church was designed in the popular Gothic Revival style and made of wood, the prime local building material, and perfectly suited to the still semi-rural character of Deer Park. It boasted a commanding view of the city and the lake. The parish outgrew the small frame church as the Deer Park population grew; a larger brick church was erected on the gore lot and opened 1910. In 1922 the City bought the property for $92,100 to facilitate the widening of Yonge St. The church acquired a new lot at the corner of Heath St. and Lawton Blvd., and the new church opened on Easter Sunday in 1923.
The architects of Timothy Eaton Memorial Church graced Deer Park with “a jewel box of a church called Calvin Presbyterian,” wrote the Toronto Telegram in 1944. A beautiful stone church in the Neo-Classical style, it features Ionic columns supporting twin spires, a pediment and portico. A small pediment and pilasters surround the main door while the doors on either side sport sculpted sea shells. It has been on the Inventory of Heritage Properties since 1973. Today, the Deer Park United Church congregation and the Presbyterian congregation share the church which is home to an outstanding choir and host to a variety of musical performances. It has been the home of the Toronto Children’s Chorus since 2007.
One other architectural jewel in the crown of Deer Park is Yorkminster Park Baptist Church. Built in the Gothic Revival style out of limestone from Owen Sound and Indiana and steel, it is Canada’s largest Baptist church, seating 1200 in the magnificent sanctuary and 500 in the galleries. The church is known for the high quality of its music. The organ was crafted in Quebec in 1928. The chimes of the beautiful carillon, newly expanded, mark the hours.
The Baptist congregation began life in 1871 in a chapel on Scollard Street in Yorkville Village, moving to several locations to accommodate its expanding size. Then in the 1920s the congregation looked north to Deer Park as a home for a new church on the Glen House property where the mansion of Toronto coal tycoon Elias Rogers had stood. It is named for the famous English cathedral of 927 A.D. A piece of carved stone from the ancient York Minster is visible on the tower entrance wall.
Schools
A wooden schoolhouse was built just north of Christ Church in 1881 with the same board and batten exterior. When the wooden church was torn down in 1910, the school building was moved to 110 Glenrose Avenue to serve a Baptist congregation. In 1920, two of Canada’s leading sculptors, Florence Wyle and Frances Loring, bought it to use as their studio. In the 1960s it was remodelled as a residence and still stands, just west of Mount Pleasant Road.
In 1891 Upper Canada College moved from its urban location to the then still rural Deer Park area, establishing a large campus that remains in the same location today, interrupting Avenue Road north of St. Clair Avenue.
Growth
The northward extension of the street railway along Yonge Street in the late 19th century opened the area to residential development. Deer Park remained an unincorporated area between the Towns of Yorkville and North Toronto until it was annexed by the City of Toronto in 1908.
The deer were long gone by the time Deer Park was annexed to the City of Toronto in 1908. Deer Park filled in very quickly after annexation.
Sources
- Historical Walking Tour of Deer Park, Joan C. Kinsella, Toronto Public Library, (PDF, 1996)
- Lost Toronto, William Dendy, Oxford University Press, 1978
- Our History, Christ Church Deer Park website, 2023 (including 1870 photo)
- Contemporary photos of the three churches: Yorkminster Park Baptist, Calvin Presbyterian, and Christ Church Deer Park.