Main street in Stouffville Ontario
Lombard Street Fire Hall in old town Toronto
The Newel Post at University College University of TorontoOn Sunday March 7th my Father and I travelled to three locations within Toronto and one in Stouffville Ontario. My Father and I had tracked down the Newel post on the campus of The University of Toronto. This post appear in one of Edwin Haynes' photographs taken sometime in the 1900's. It is suspected that Edwin attended a part of The University of Toronto called University College. There are many assumptions as to his presence at University College including the fact that he was apart of the Toronto Camera club. I contacted a history professor at the University of Toronto and was told that the legendary Newel post was located in the University College building located on U of T's campus at 15 King's Circle in the East staircase. It is rumored that the dragon/gryphon carved into the post is a lucky mascot of those who have attended the school (students rub its head before exams). The photo of the gryphon that Edwin had in his collection was meticulously outlined by a substance called opaque material to close cut the image. This is an extraordinary feat for anyone performing photography at this time.
My Father and I located University College and found the Newel post. I duplicated the image as best as I could to a copy I had brought with me. The result was a pretty close recreation of Edwin's original. My Father and I marveled, standing in the same place our ancestor did over 100 years earlier.
Next stop was to locate the fire hall Edwin photographed during the Great Toronto Fire. In the past my Father had done research to try and locate the older fire hall's in Toronto that likely responded to the disaster that ruined much of the downtown parts of Toronto. We travelled first to 50-58 Richmond street where we tried to reconstruct the possible location of the corners appearing in his photograph. We weren't completely satisfied with the result and continued further to try and find a closer match. At 110 Lombard we found the closest matching fire hall we had come across. This station had been around since 1867 and had similar arches to the three which appeared in Edwin's picture. Within the research obtained earlier my Father had discovered that there were very few fire halls that actually had three arches to house the larger water tanks and horses. What we found largely matched his photograph and considering the fire hall's location in conjunction to where the fire was we assume this is either the exact location or the closest existing match that still stands today.
After matching the fire hall and the Newel post my Father and I travelled North East of Toronto to the town of Stouffville Ontario where family history resided. In Stouffville we were hoping to recreate a photograph of a main street within the town. We found what was the best fit and continued onward to find a clock tower that matched that of one in the shot. When coming to the actual tower and going inside we found plaques with names of Stouffer and Hodgson who helped to fund the building of the newer clock tower for the town's centennial celebration. This was an unsuspected find and confirmed our thoughts in matching the shot to this main street in this old town. After recreating this image my Father and I drove outward of the main streets in hope of finding Mary Stouffer's grave site (Edwin's wife who died in child birth) we are unsure of her resting place as she passed while living out West. We did not find the grave site we hoped to but we did happen across a museum on the outskirts of town. Although it was closed my Father and I harbor suspicion that these preserved historical buildings are in some way connected to Mary's family who the town of Stouffville was named after.
The photo's that accompany this post are those that I will re-touch to further best represent their originals.
