Accommodation, refreshment, and stagecoach stop.
Details of Site Location: 572–574 Kingston Road, on the north side between Woodbine and Main (Glen Stewart and Southwood).
PDM: TBA
Boundary History: The inn occupied a site bounded by Kingston Road and a ravine on the north side, and the area was about four acres.
Current Use of Property: Two houses.
Historical Description: Daniel O’Sullivan was born in Cork, Ireland, in 1809 and emigrated to Canada in 1818. He was a violent brawler who supported William Lyon Mackenzie in the 1837 Rebellion. By 1853, he had settled down and bought land with four buildings. On the north side of Kingston Road, the inn was run as the Blacksmith Arms, then the Mount Sullivan Inn, until 1874. Called O’Sullivan’s, it was a halfway house, providing accommodation, livery services, and refreshments. Given the boisterous and pugnacious nature of O’Sullivan, life around the inn was lively. Daniel’s nephews, Thomas and Michael, inherited the inn but held a mortgage that was foreclosed in 1900. In 1905, the inn was divided into family dwellings with a succession of owners from that date until 1981. In 1987, the old inn was demolished and two new houses built on the site.
Relative Importance and Planning Implications: O’Sullivan’s Inn played no major role in the city’s history but is interesting as a part of neighbourhood history. In the summer of 1987, archaeology was done by the Archaeological Resource Centre of the Toronto Board of Education, with the support of the Toronto Historical Board, the Beach and East Toronto Historical Society, and Hersh Foget of The Guided Group. A report on the dig was written by Dr. Carole Stimmel and Peter Hamalainen. No further action is recommended.
Reference Source: Carole Stimmell and Peter Hainalainen, The O’Sullivan Inn (1987).
Acknowledgements: Archaeological Resource Centre; Ontario Archaeological Society.