Agricultural area.

Details of Site Location: Scarborough Bluffs near the foot of Markham Road.

Boundary History: The property was bounded by Lake Ontario on the south, by Lot 17 on the east, by the allowance for Markham Road on the west, and by the Lake Iroquois shoreline on the north.

Current Use of Property: Residential.

Historical Description: One of Scarborough’s earliest pioneers was William Cornell, who came to Scarborough from Rhode Island through Oswego and spent the first summer in Scarborough on the schooner that had brought him and his family across the lake. In 1800, he was a squatter at this location, which he cleared and built a log cabin. In 1802, he planted Scarborough’s first orchard. In 1804 he drove to Kingston, bought millstones, paid for them with a span of colts, and drew them back to Highland Creek, where he set up the first of his several mills. With Levi Annis and others in 1801, he had cut out a new Front Road to replace a problematic section of Asa Danforth’s road to Kingston. By 1809 he had purchased his property. He was making bricks on his land and, around 1820, set up a potash works near Bellamy Road and Kingston Road. His farm and buildings have vanished, and the existing Cornell house and outbuildings are not the site of his farm; nor is the Cornell House Museum located in Thomson Memorial Park.

Relative Importance: William Cornell was hardworking, industrious, and enterprising and serves as a good role model for any period in history. His farm contains three special features: pioneer settlement, the natural heritage features of Scarborough Bluffs, and the Lake Iroquois shoreline, and some transportation history in the original alignment of Kingston Road.

Planning Implications: The area of the farm deserves explaining on a map located within the present housing area. With the map should go explanations about settler Cornell and his family, and the natural heritage features mentioned. It would also be appropriate for a grove or small orchard of apple trees to be planted in the area of the map. There is a small park area just west of Sylvan Avenue where the map and information could be placed.

Reference Sources: Robert R. Bonis, A History of Scarborough (1968); David Boyle, The Township of Scarborough 1796–1896 (1896).

Acknowledgements: James McCowan Memorial Social History Society.