Hotel.
Details of Site Location: The site of the first Peacock Hotel would now be in the middle of Dundas Street where Dupont Street and Annette Street meet.
Boundary History: Originally 100 acres to the north and east of Dundas and (old) Weston Road. Each time the hotel was sold the size of the property was smaller.
Current Use of Property: Parkette in intersection of Dundas, Dupont, and Annette.
Historical Description: In the heart of the forest, midway between York and the bridge over the Humber River, was a famous resting place for travellers and their horses. In the early 1820s, James Farr, who was related to and a good friend of Joseph Bloor, opened the Peacock. Mr. Farr was also related to John Farr, who established Cornell’s Brewery in 1819. It was called a perfect specimen of a respectable wayside hostelry with a very spacious driving shed and other outbuildings. The hotel was a wooden building of two storeys with attic. The front had four shuttered windows on the top floor and three shuttered windows and a door on the first floor. On the sides of the building were two shuttered windows on each of the two floors and a small window in the attic. A wooden path led up to the front door. A log shed behind the hotel served as a marketplace for the local farmers. W.H. Smith, a writer of that day, called it the Pea-Rooster. It was in a little area called Scarlett’s Plain. E.G. Guillet wrote: “Oak and dwarf cherries predominated among the trees, while sassafras, wild strawberries, and a profusion of orange lilies and great clumps of blue lupine made this district a pleasant change from the cedar swamps to the south.” On Tuesday, 5 December 1837, William Lyon Mackenzie and a group of forty to fifty followers robbed a Western Stagecoach of its mail and its money. A few people who happened to be around were also robbed. In 1875, the hotel, stables, and 1 3/8 acres of land were sold to John Cullen. Later Thomas Scholes bought the hotel and then leased it to Daniel Blea. In 1878 the tavern burned. It was rebuilt in 1880, and then Mr. Blea purchased it in 1891. In the 1889 Assessment for the hotel, Daniel Blea, nine people, one dog, and one horse lived there. The value of the property was $7,000. The area is now called the West Toronto Junction.
Relative Importance: It was an important hotel that helped people travel from Toronto to other settlements and is important when the Mackenzie Rebellion story is told.
Planning Implications: The parkette is the perfect place to install a large plaque with a picture of the hotel and the story. The West Toronto Junction Historical Society have asked the city for a plaque but as yet have had no response.
Reference Sources: Edwin G. Guillet, Pioneer Inns and Taverns (the author, 1954); Joan Miles, editor, West Toronto Junction Revisited (3rd ed., Ampersand Printing, 1992; Henry Scadding, edited by F.H. Armstrong, Toronto of Old (Oxford, 1987); Diana Fanchar, West Toronto Junction Historical Society; photograph, John Ross Robertson Collection, Metropolitan Toronto Library; drawings, West Toronto Junction Historical Society.