Natural heritage feature.

Details of Site Location: Mainly within Farm Lots 6 and 7, Concession 1 from the Bay with involvement of the Broken Front Lot south of 6 and 7, plus an area of Concession 2. The area is mainly west of Woodbine Avenue.

Boundary History: The dimensions of the entire drainage area were obscured and hidden long ago but are estimated at approximately 650 acres.

Current Use of Property: The area is developed today with housing, stores, roads, and some parkland.

Historical Description: Small’s Creek was the main branch of a system involving two other flows that met it. The precise number of tiny tributaries is unknown. The main creek began north of Danforth Avenue in Concession 2, there draining an estimated 25 acres around Coxwell Avenue. The flow continued southward, broadening around Gerrard Street. In the area around today’s Edgewood, it was met by another main flow from the northeast. This second flow is labelled in historic maps and documents as either Serpentine Creek or Norway Creek. The name Norway was assigned later, referring to the sawmills established on the creek that cut Norway pine – a fast-growing pine that is not indigenous to Canada. Serpentine Creek is mapped as beginning in the area of Dawes Road south of Danforth, but is believed to have actually originated north of Danforth in the area of Dawes Road. In the 19^th century, most creeks were viewed as obstacles to development and were mapped if they reduced the value of a building lot. The exceptions to this are in the earliest years when mill sites were the most valuable properties. A mill was built on Serpentine Creek and gave rise to the community called Norway, but this location was much farther south on the system from the point of the creek’s origin. Around Gerrard Street, Serpentine Creek also widened and continued its flow in a southwesterly direction. The two main flows united north of today’s Dundas Street and flowed south together. Around 1829, Charles Coxwell Small, owner of Lots 6 and 7, dammed the united flow to create Small’s Pond. His intention was to provide power for his own mills. His father had acquired the lots in order to farm and had built one mill; to these, Charles Coxwell Small added a tannery and related buildings, a vinegar factory, and a grist mill. The Small family also had houses on their land, but not at the creek.

South of Kingston Road, the united flow picked up waters from another creek flowing in from the east. This. little creek appears to have originated at the south end of Concession 1’s Lot 7, but flowed through the Broken Front lot for most of its length. It joined the united flow, and all entered the lake at the original shoreline. The mouth of Small’s Creek system has now been completely obscured by construction of Ashbridge’s Bay Park and its water feature to the west labelled Ashbridge’s Bay (which has almost no connection with the original Ashbridge’s Bay). Small’s Pond, created for industrial uses, became a public recreation area in 1896. In 1922, the city began draining and filling the pond, with fill still being added in 1935. The creeks were buried or driven underground; the last remnant of the system was the water feature at the centre of the Woodbine Racetrack, which was supplied by the smallest and most southerly of the three creeks in the system.

Relative Importance: The importance of Small’s Creek and its system lies in its existence as a natural heritage feature, in its function related to industrial development and economic growth of the area, and in the residential and commercial development that followed as a result of the mills.