tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87902897353024768572024-03-18T10:19:05.801-04:00The Toronto Dreams Project Historical Ephemera BlogThe Toronto Dreams Project Historical Ephemera Blog tell true stories about the history of the city, including bank robbers and duels and 100 year-old fish.Adam Bunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07330281017966163295noreply@blogger.comBlogger373125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8790289735302476857.post-59029683246585284402020-11-01T23:49:00.002-05:002020-11-01T23:49:33.870-05:00A Morbid Map of Toronto<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIrikrBjRRcPRw88LLTAjVVwt3VJkEm80Wso7XTiV2VWHntp4UyIIHmuJkvFWk9jZ1k2bOUu4cd2cyexetI534iVLtVBq-r0sXAgPO37jqPTEw9dcVFTWHAGzCDO9ph6TiKKuJAoEAQj8/s1500/A-Morbid-Map-of-Toronto-Adam-Bunch-SML.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1071" data-original-width="1500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIrikrBjRRcPRw88LLTAjVVwt3VJkEm80Wso7XTiV2VWHntp4UyIIHmuJkvFWk9jZ1k2bOUu4cd2cyexetI534iVLtVBq-r0sXAgPO37jqPTEw9dcVFTWHAGzCDO9ph6TiKKuJAoEAQj8/s16000/A-Morbid-Map-of-Toronto-Adam-Bunch-SML.jpg" width="100%" /></a></div><br /><p>This weekend is Halloween! And to celebrate, I've created a morbid map of Toronto, sharing a few of the stories that appear in <i>The Toronto Book of the Dead</i>: from vicious murders to a bloody rebellion, from a haunted lighthouse to the mysterious séances held on Euclid Avenue.<p></p><p>You can explore the map in it's full size by clicking here.</p><p>And you can learn more about all these stories — and many more morbid tales from the history of Toronto — in <i>The Toronto Book of the Dead</i>, which tells the story of our city from long before it was founded to today, all through stories of death and dying. It's available from all the usual places. In fact, it very well might be sitting on a shelf at your favourite local bookstore right now.<br /></p>Adam Bunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112071438967577096noreply@blogger.com46tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8790289735302476857.post-65938463522332193682020-02-14T16:39:00.001-05:002021-02-14T11:57:29.416-05:00North America's First Valentine — When The Founder Of Toronto Fell In Love With A Rebel Spy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAPuibdS9ACWg2tRBI2fbwumrhMwirFT4wkPlJKDqYQkzIN6WEsuN7PPszvy0HalPUFiVfevop8EHLvIIJgHA0fmJMHNLYJigNgvSgY0CV-xBe71380PjjFvLXa7lsHcEXxA518n8vnks/s1600/SimcoeValentine-0-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="331" data-original-width="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAPuibdS9ACWg2tRBI2fbwumrhMwirFT4wkPlJKDqYQkzIN6WEsuN7PPszvy0HalPUFiVfevop8EHLvIIJgHA0fmJMHNLYJigNgvSgY0CV-xBe71380PjjFvLXa7lsHcEXxA518n8vnks/s1600/SimcoeValentine-0-2.jpg" width="100%" /></a></div><p>
1779. The American Revolution was at its bloody height. John Graves Simcoe had already seen plenty of action. Years before he founded the city of Toronto, Simcoe was a young officer in the British army, fighting against the American rebels. And there, in the middle of that brutal war, he was about to fall in love.</p>
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That winter, Simcoe found himself living just outside New York City. The area was controlled by the British at the time, but there were still plenty of American rebels around. So Simcoe spent his days on patrol with his men, searching for revolutionaries, fighting terrible, bloody battles. Over the course of the war, he would gain a reputation as a hero on the British side — leading his Queen's Rangers on guerrilla-style raids, their green uniforms blending in with the forests, a white crescent moon on their hats in honour of Diana, Goddess of the Hunt. Many of the American rebels, on the other hand, would come to see him as a particularly vicious foe, accused of massacres and remembered more than 200 years later as a psychopathic villain in an ahistorical Netflix show.</div>
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But at night, things were much more peaceful. Simcoe was billeted with an American family who lived in Oyster Bay, a small community on Long Island. The Townsends were slave-owning tobacco farmers: they enslaved eight people at their home and even more on their plantation. Simcoe would later earn a complicated reputation as a passionate abolitionist, but even so, he seems to have enjoyed his time living with the Townsends. In fact, it was there during those long winter nights on Long Island that he was destined to fall in love.</div>
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Sarah Townsend was 18 years old; the middle of the three Townsend girls. Sally to her friends. Simcoe was 27, but still a dashing young officer looking for a wife. They say his fellow soldiers were deeply jealous of the time he got to spend with Sally. "She was the toast of these young men," one account would later remember, "and Simcoe was regarded as a most fortunate being in basking in the daily sunshine of her charms." The two are said to have spent plenty of time flirting that winter, and by the time February 14th came around, the young Townsend had captured Simcoe's heart.</div>
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To prove the depth of his feelings, the young man turned to a relatively new English tradition. People had been sending Valentine's Day cards for centuries, but it was over the course of the 1700s that they really evolved into the popular romantic tradition we know today. And Simcoe seems to have fully embraced it — seeing it as a chance to show off his writing skills. He'd studied poetry at school and thoroughly enjoyed writing his own verse. So, to celebrate St. Valentine's Day in 1779, Simcoe penned an ode to Sally Townsend — and then gave it to her.</div>
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The poem is a fairly epic one by the standards of a Valentine — it’s thirteen stanzas long and more than 300 words — but it begins like this:</div>
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<i>Fairest Maid where all is fair</i><br />
<i>Beauty’s pride and Nature’s care;</i><br />
<i>To you my heart I must resign</i><br />
<i>O choose me for your Valentine!</i><br />
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Later, it gets a bit more wordy:<br />
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<i>Thou knows’t what powerful magick lies</i><br />
<i>Within the round of Sarah’s eyes,</i><br />
<i>Or darted thence like lightning fires,</i><br />
<i>And Heaven’s own joys around inspires;</i><br />
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And finally, it transforms into a prayer to the God of Love — a plea that there will be more to Simcoe's life than just endless war:</div>
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<i>[God] bad'st me change the pastoral scene,</i><br />
<i>Forget my Crook; with haughty mien</i><br />
<i>To raise the iron Spear of War,</i><br />
<i>Victim of Grief and deep Despair:</i><br />
<i>Say, must I all my joys forego</i><br />
<i>And still maintain this outward show?</i><br />
<i>Say, shall this breast that's pained to feel</i><br />
<i>Be ever clad in horrid steel?</i><br />
<i>Nor swell to other joys than those</i><br />
<i>Of conquest o'er unworthy foes?</i><br />
<i>Shall no fair maid with equal fire</i><br />
<i>Awake the flames of soft desire[?]</i><br />
<i>[…]</i><br />
<i>"Fond Youth," the God of Love replies,</i><br />
<i>"Your answer take from Sarah's eyes."</i><br />
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But that wasn't all. Simcoe had more to offer than just his poetry. He also attached a sketch: two hearts, inscribed with both of their initials and joined together by Cupid's arrow.</div>
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Today, it's considered to be the very first Valentine in the history of North America.</div>
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You might be wondering how young Sally Townsend could resist such an historic overture. But the truth is that it didn't matter how much Simcoe felt for Townsend, how flattering his poetry, or romantic his art. The two could never be together. The founder of Toronto had fallen in love with the wrong woman. You see, Sally Townsend was a rebel spy.</div>
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Now that the British were in control of New York, the American general George Washington was desperate for information from inside the occupied city. So, he established a spy ring to feed him secrets from New York, as well as from Long Island and Connecticut. He called it The Culper Ring. Sally’s brother Robert was one of three men enlisted to run the scheme — and while the details are far from clear, many historians believe that he brought his sister on board as an informant.</div>
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The Culper Ring proved to be a huge success. It was in operation for five years and tipped Washington off to surprise attacks, a British counterfeiting scheme, and maybe even a plot on the general’s own life. It’s been called “the spy ring that saved America.”</div>
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But with his head firmly over his heels, Simcoe had no clue the young woman he’d fallen in love with was actually a secret rebel. Some historians suggest that while he was busy wooing the lovely young Townsend, she may have been spying on him the whole time.</div>
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One story in particular raises eyebrows. The British army’s Adjutant-General, John Andre, frequently met with Simcoe at the Townsend house. And since it was The Culper Ring who tipped Washington off to Andre’s plot with the rebel traitor Benedict Arnold — to hand the American fort at West Point over to the British — some believe that Sally must have overheard Andre telling Simcoe about the plan and then relayed that information to her brother. (Although the story wasn’t told until a century later, and it seems like the dates don’t quite match up.)</div>
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In any case, looking back on Simcoe's lovelorn winter on Long Island, it seems that Sally's interest in him may have been nothing more than a rebel ruse. As the daughter of a revolutionary family, she did have plenty of reason to hate the British officer who was making himself at home in her house. And it can't have helped that he chopped down her family's beloved apple orchard so he could use the wood to build defences for a nearby fort. In the end, as you might expect, Sally Townsend rejected Simcoe’s plea to take him as her Valentine. In fact, she would never marry — she died as a single woman at the ripe old age of eighty.</div>
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Simcoe wouldn't have to live with that rejection for long: his days with the Townsends were numbered. Later that same year, he was captured in an ambush and spent six months in a rebel prison. There in his dank cell, his health began to fail him. He was eventually released in a prisoner exchange so he could head home to England and recover. It was there, as he convalesced at this godfather's country home, that he met a new love interest.</div>
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His godfather's niece Elizabeth was young and smart and pretty and curious, a strong writer and a wonderful artist. The two fell in love as she nursed him back to health and as they enjoyed long walks and romantic horseback rides through the rolling green hills of Devon. By the time Simcoe was chosen to serve as the first governor of Upper Canada, they were married. They headed off to the frontier together, where they would found the city we call Toronto.</div>
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But there is still one physical trace of Simcoe's lost love affair that survives to this day. You'll find it on Long Island, in the old Townsend house in Oyster Bay — their home is now open to the public as the Raynham Hall Museum. There, in the house where Simcoe once fell in love with his rebel spy, they've preserved a pane of glass from her bedroom window. There's a wistful message scratched into its surface — a few longing words of love thought to have been inscribed by the besotted British officer John Graves Simcoe: to "the adorable Miss Sally Sarah Townsend."</div>
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<i>If you're interested in stories about love and the history of Toronto, then you might be interest to know that my new book, </i>The Toronto Book of Love<i>, has been published by Dundurn Press. You can get it now from all the usual places — including <a href="https://www.dundurn.com/books/Toronto-Book-Love" target="_blank"><u>the Dundurn site</u></a>!</div>
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Adam Bunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112071438967577096noreply@blogger.com29tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8790289735302476857.post-983002967880272692019-08-23T15:42:00.000-04:002019-08-23T16:10:09.586-04:00Annoucing: The Toronto Dreams Project's Grand Tour of Europe!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMZNB93FEvp-sMycg75uHGBhbhyphenhyphenqB7QKNCEyNAR-kiQPNHdwfGqW3sqwgqIqFtonERGxBmausNCaILg9Q09dJnJeUrSYtzsJueXEh0J_hnoEQE9rZZyM8uAtqWKLygrLs-fqV48t8synA/s1600/Grand-Tour-Image-0-4-LowerRes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="901" data-original-width="1600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMZNB93FEvp-sMycg75uHGBhbhyphenhyphenqB7QKNCEyNAR-kiQPNHdwfGqW3sqwgqIqFtonERGxBmausNCaILg9Q09dJnJeUrSYtzsJueXEh0J_hnoEQE9rZZyM8uAtqWKLygrLs-fqV48t8synA/s1600/Grand-Tour-Image-0-4-LowerRes.jpg" width="100%" /></a></div>
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If you're a long-time reader, then you know all about The Toronto Dreams Project — it's the reason I started this blog way back in 2010. For nearly a decade now, I've been writing fictional dreams about figures
from our city's past, printing them on custom-designed postcards, and
then leaving them in the places where that history happened so people
can find them. It's a way to bring history to life and hopefully get
more people interested in it.</p></div>
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But Toronto’s history doesn't end at our city limits; as a deeply multicultural city, you'll find our stories in places all over the world. Five years ago, your support allowed me to take
The Toronto Dreams Project on the road to the UK — leaving
dreams in places across England and Wales related to the
history of Toronto.</div>
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Now, I'm getting ready for an even more ambitious adventure... </div>
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This September, I'm taking The Toronto Dreams Project on a Grand Tour
of Europe. I'll be leaving about twenty different dreams
about the history of Toronto in seven cities across four countries: Rome,
Florence, Venice, Berlin, Barcelona, Marseille and Paris. Every one of
those places is connected to the history of our own city in utterly
fascinating ways by utterly fascinating people — from crime bosses to
war heroes to bomb-wielding suffragettes.</div>
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You'll also be able to follow along on <a href="https://twitter.com/TODreamsProject" target="_blank"><u>Twitter</u></a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TorontoDreamsProject/" target="_blank"><u>Facebook</u></a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/todreamsproject/" target="_blank"><u>Instagram</u></a> as I share incredible true stories
of our city's connection to those places. Together, we'll learn everything from how a fish from
Kensington Market ended up as a major landmark in Spain, to the link
between a baby born outside the Vatican two centuries ago and our very
own hometown rapper Drake. We'll meet a University of Toronto spy as he's gunned down by Nazis in the streets of Paris. A prime minister searching
for prophecies in Berlin. The movie star who brought fettuccine alfredo
to America. </div>
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I'll be sharing some stories about Canada's historical connections to Europe through Canadiana, too — so be sure to follow us over there as well, on <a href="https://twitter.com/thisiscanadiana" target="_blank"><u>Twitter</u></a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ThisIsCanadiana/" target="_blank"><u>Facebook</u></a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/thisiscanadiana/" target="_blank"><u>Instagram</u></a>. </div>
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Thanks so much to everyone who supported the Dreams Project's <a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bringing-the-history-of-toronto-to-europe/x/6603593?create_edit=true#/" target="_blank"><u>crowd-funding campaign</u></a>. Without you, this would be just another trip to Europe. With you, it's going be a historical adventure bringing the history of
Toronto to life in the alleyways, cafés and monuments of a continent
half a world away.</div>
<br />It all kicks off on September 7! I cannot wait to share sharing these stories with you!<br />
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<i>If you missed out on the crowd-funding campaign, but would still like to contribute, you can send a donation <a href="https://www.paypal.me/adamtbunch" target="_blank"><u>via PayPal here</u></a>.
And I'll be very happy to send you the same perks: a personalized video
message for everyone who contributes; a copy of one of the new dreams for those who pledge $25; three for $50; and </i><i><i>if you donate $100 or more I'll send you </i>a copy of every single one of the new dreams you've helped me create.</i></div>
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<i> </i> </div>
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Adam Bunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112071438967577096noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8790289735302476857.post-41580719570078448192019-07-23T11:00:00.000-04:002019-07-23T11:17:43.832-04:00Brexit, Eton & The History of Toronto<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFSXvpzQy4ycW1q_K53gSVmis_J5B0QvQSnd_i0AR9IyJXPEQfytf8r9oZb2mpsW4ZV0nPdfYy4an6Lsk9PbXJXQVqxM60DWukcFLfw7tfE7pBPTBSee5OQiAtrA_50HhzqfMUn6LAyME/s1600/Toffs%252Band%252BToughs%252B-%252BThe%252Bphoto%252Bthat%252Billustrates%252Bthe%252Bclass%252Bdivide%252Bin%252Bpre-war%252BBritain%252C%252B1937.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFSXvpzQy4ycW1q_K53gSVmis_J5B0QvQSnd_i0AR9IyJXPEQfytf8r9oZb2mpsW4ZV0nPdfYy4an6Lsk9PbXJXQVqxM60DWukcFLfw7tfE7pBPTBSee5OQiAtrA_50HhzqfMUn6LAyME/s1600/Toffs%252Band%252BToughs%252B-%252BThe%252Bphoto%252Bthat%252Billustrates%252Bthe%252Bclass%252Bdivide%252Bin%252Bpre-war%252BBritain%252C%252B1937.jpg" width="100%" /></a></div><p>
The most famous boarding school in the world just got a little bit more famous. Thanks to the shocking result of the Brexit referendum, Eton College has been popping up in the news quite a lot in recent years. The posh boarding school is where two of the architects of the mess spent their teenage years. Both former Prime Minster David Cameron and former Mayor of London Boris Johnson graduated from Eton in the early 1980s. And now — three years after the referendum — Boris will become the new Prime Minister, elected as Tory leader on a promise to ram through Brexit no matter what toll it takes on the country.</p>
So if you want to understand the breathtaking, aristocratic entitlement that has led the United Kingdom into self-inflicted disaster, it helps to understand Eton. And in understanding Eton, you can also better understand the history of Toronto — because it's not just where Boris and Dave went, it's where the man who founded our city went, too. </div>
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Eton sits on the banks of the River Thames, not far outside London, just across the river from Windsor Castle. It was founded all the way back in the 1400s; King Henry VI started the school as a charity meant to provide free education to the poor.<br />
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But oh how things have changed since then. In recent centuries, Eton has made its reputation by catering to the children of the rich and powerful, helping to perpetuate the strict British class system. Yearly tuition can cost as much as the equivalent of $60,000 in Canadian currency. For a long time, the school's official uniform was <i>literally</i> a top hat and tails. (They finally ditched the top hat in the 1960s, but they've kept the tails.)
The school is synonymous with the idea of British entitlement: that the
children of the country's ruling class should naturally become its next
generation of rulers.</div>
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Nineteen British Prime Ministers have been students at Eton. Both Prince Harry and Prince William went there, too. So did
George Orwell and Aldous Huxley and Percy Shelley and John Maynard
Keynes. And if you're counting fictional characters, then so did James Bond and Captain Hook and Lord Grantham from <i>Downton Abbey</i>. </div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9mMcwPM618-u3Vkkys_unLLCXDm5OCMM_9EvqRKREoBE7-YBcgo9stPwwj3qvVETRUiUBDJeFmCq1C6bjee9IlpDygzNqrc2TX489P6w-KrivUTxNghBmI-kP67PKOSh4N0dyzA7vlDM/s1600/IMG_3819.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9mMcwPM618-u3Vkkys_unLLCXDm5OCMM_9EvqRKREoBE7-YBcgo9stPwwj3qvVETRUiUBDJeFmCq1C6bjee9IlpDygzNqrc2TX489P6w-KrivUTxNghBmI-kP67PKOSh4N0dyzA7vlDM/s320/IMG_3819.JPG" width="255" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Eton College</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
And so, it's not surprising to find that two of today's most powerful Conservative politicians both went to Eton, too. The old Prime Minster, David Cameron (inept champion of Remain), and the new Prime Minister, Boris
Johnson (Leave-supporting buffoon), both graduated from Eton in the
early 1980s. They say you can trace the roots of their rivalry all the way back there — and with it, some of the very beginnings of the Brexit disaster.</div>
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As a student, Boris was older, more popular and more successful than Cameron — things that mattered even more than usual at such an aristocratic school. And since Johnson did better at Eton — and then again when both young men attended Oxford University — they say it drove him nuts that Cameron had risen to greater heights since then. Boris might have been the former Mayor of London, a Member of Parliament, and a newspaper columnist who got paid more than £250,000 last year (or "chicken feed" <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/jul/14/boris-johnson-telegraph-chicken-feed" target="_blank"><u>as he calls it</u></a>) for writing one article every week — but that, apparently, wasn't enough.<br />
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"Yes," Sonia Purnell <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-and-david-cameron-how-a-rivalry-that-began-at-eton-spilled-out-on-to-the-main-stage-of-a6891856.html" target="_blank"><u>writes in <i>The Independent</i></u></a>, "the fact that Cameron was two years below him at Eton – a
terrifically hierarchical school – rankles deeply. As does the fact that
it was Boris who shone there, not Cameron. Masters recall Johnson as a
remarkable teenager. They do not recall Cameron at all." </div>
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According to countless media reports, Boris made it his mission to topple his old friend Dave and take his place as Prime Minster. If that meant joining the Leave campaign... well, that's what he was willing to do — whether or not he actually believed that leaving the European Union was a good idea for Britain.<br />
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Meanwhile, some suggest that Cameron's lifelong sense of entitlement —
reinforced by his time at Eton — gave him a false sense of his own
superiority. <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/06/the_british_establishment_conspired_with_voters_to_destroy_itself.html" target="_blank"><u><i>Slate </i>describes him</u></a> as "an establishment man through and through... the sort of person who gets
away with too many things and comes to mistake his privilege for innate
luck." When given the chance to gamble the future of his country in
return for his own personal political gain, he did so. After all, he's
been getting his way his entire life. Why would this time be any
different? In order to appease the lunatic far-right fringe of his party, Cameron
agreed to hold the Brexit referendum, confident that a Leave vote would never actually happen. <br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPPxSXtZWf1iGco00X9t2fafGsAfAOEYcB_NKXtxsnT_wg5E3hiR4VPMzx4JPkPE2B5yiCo4QskHw04TDkmhkOuM3hjFhwli8eUcx1T4H-_NCqEXS_fK3rnOg-rgLvAUA-qrqMG71rPBI/s1600/2704413.main_image.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPPxSXtZWf1iGco00X9t2fafGsAfAOEYcB_NKXtxsnT_wg5E3hiR4VPMzx4JPkPE2B5yiCo4QskHw04TDkmhkOuM3hjFhwli8eUcx1T4H-_NCqEXS_fK3rnOg-rgLvAUA-qrqMG71rPBI/s320/2704413.main_image.jpg" width="255" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Boris and Dave</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
But when Boris — who is thought to have personally reassured Cameron that he would never support the Leave campaign — betrayed his old friend, things suddenly became much more complicated. Johnson's support gave legitimacy to the Leave faction, even while
it descended into absurd lies and bigoted violence. The racists behind
Brexit never would have won, <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/06/27/beware-boris-johnson-the-power-of-a-cunning-clown.html" target="_blank"><u>according to <i>The Daily Beast</i></u></a>, "without the fig leaf of Boris's charm." </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
The result: a stunning victory for the Leave campaign, an economy in disarray, bigotry and xenophobia on the rise, the murder of an MP, the end of Cameron's career, and scenes of Boris Johnson being booed the moment he poked his head outside his front door. The Old Etonians had suddenly become two of the most hated men in the country they were raised to rule.<br />
<br />
At first, it looked like Johnson's plan hadn't even worked: <a href="http://ces/boris-johnson-not-standing-conservative-leadership-eu-brexit-ambition-country-paid-price-a7111151.html" target="_blank"><u>betrayed</u></a>, in turn, by one of his own supporters (die-hard-Brexiter Michael Gove), Johnson was been forced out of the race to replace Cameron as PM. Theresa May won instead.<br />
<br />
But now, Johnson's spectacular self-serving maneuverings have finally paid off: Boris has won the Tory leadership contest to replace May and will take over as the new Prime Minister.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The power of Eton College hasn't just been limited to British politics, either. Thanks to the Empire, the school's reach has historically extended far beyond England's own borders. In Toronto, you can trace Eton's influence all the way back to the founding of our modern city. More than two hundred years before Boris and Dave, there was John Graves Simcoe.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Simcoe went to Eton in the 1760s. And he too bought into its aristocratic vision for Britain. Years later, when he became the first Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, he was determined to make that aristocratic heritage an important part of his new province.<br />
<br />
Before he sailed for Canada, Simcoe got in touch with another Eton graduate: the famous scientist Sir Joseph Banks. In his letter, Simcoe asked for any advice Banks might be able to offer, and <a href="http://torontodreamsproject.blogspot.ca/2013/08/simcoes-vision-for-toronto-city-so.html" target="_blank"><u>laid out his vision</u></a> for his new Upper Canadian capital: the city that would eventually become Toronto.<br />
<br />
A strict class system, he insisted, would play a vital role. Simcoe didn't trust the general public; they couldn't be allowed to have real power. As a solider, he'd seen the bloody results of the American Revolution with his own eyes — and more recently, he'd heard the terrifying reports coming out of Paris during the French Revolution. In fact, the Reign of Terror began the very same summer Simcoe founded Toronto. In his experience, when the people gained power, they had a nasty habit of beheading the elites. And so Simcoe was determined that his new city would be free from what he called "tyrannical democracy."<br />
<br />
"There are
inherent defects in the congressional form of Government," he wrote in his letter to Banks, "the
absolute prohibition of any order of nobility is a glaring one. I hope to have a hereditary council with some mark of nobility."<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSCUjS6Qg9qoL6VyPzFwYnlYpBhMmv07cJDoCT9MJg94fgLP4kjyJQAtEZUlmqq1AEstlqnPV-FJ3Euxxp0mihwO_E-IAvDnvyJq3Gyw8rZQoaSwk7POBicyMoPUGwnTz_xlAbKFxU5Hk/s1600/Simcoe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSCUjS6Qg9qoL6VyPzFwYnlYpBhMmv07cJDoCT9MJg94fgLP4kjyJQAtEZUlmqq1AEstlqnPV-FJ3Euxxp0mihwO_E-IAvDnvyJq3Gyw8rZQoaSwk7POBicyMoPUGwnTz_xlAbKFxU5Hk/s320/Simcoe.jpg" width="255" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Graves Simcoe</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
He would never quite get his wish: Toronto never developed an officially aristocratic system like the one they had back home in England. But Simcoe did make sure that power rested in the hands of a few loyal Tory families. For the first few decades of our city's history, families like the slave-owning Jarvis clan kept all of the best government jobs and appointments for themselves and their friends. The habit would eventually earn Toronto's ruling class a derisive nickname: The Family Compact.<br />
<br />
With the backing of their British overlords, the Family Compact dominated the Legislative Assembly, blocked all democratic reform, and cracked down on dissent. Anyone who disagreed with the Tory elite or demanded change quickly found themselves subject to threats and intimidation — sometimes even violence or imprisonment.<br />
<br />
The Family Compact had no doubt they were meant to be the natural rulers of the
province — a sense of entitlement that would look familiar to anyone who
has been following Boris and Dave during the Brexit fiasco.<br />
<br />
To help ensure that the power of the Family Compact would continue long into the future, they even founded a Torontonian version of Eton. It's still around today: Upper Canada College. The school's <a href="http://www.ucc.on.ca/about/history-archives/" target="_blank"><u>own website</u></a> describes it as being "modeled after the great public schools of Britain [what we call private schools in Canada], most notably Eton College." UCC's job would much be the same as Eton's job on the other side of the Atlantic: training the sons of the rich and powerful to become the new generation of elites.<br />
<br />
And it worked. As <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Canada_College" target="_blank"><u><i>Wikipedia</i> points out</u></a>, "The school has produced six lieutenant governors, four premiers, seven chief justices, and four Mayors of Toronto." There have been plenty of other rich and powerful graduates, too, like Michael Ignatieff, Ted Rogers, Galen Weston and Ken Thomson. In Toronto, the Old Boys of Upper Canada College have played something of a similar role to that of the Old Etonians in England.<br />
<br />
But not everyone in Toronto was happy with the Family Compact. There was plenty of resentment against the ruling class in those early years. The opposition gained momentum over the city's first few decades, building into a reform movement led by the radical newspaper publisher and first Mayor of Toronto, William Lyon Mackenzie. He was becoming increasingly frustrated by the lack of democracy in Upper Canada. He made appeal after appeal to the British government, but his complaints fell on deaf ears — which was maybe not entirely surprising: nearly all of the British Prime Ministers during that period were Old Etonians themselves.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdBeWlt5NICJYAGWYeIQ0sWVevL5qj3277M9SH0_wta1xS1Dgi1m3Oupz1Txf4Rhbu54Wgk0e_m0BuJ3N8_FxBZyuEw3Voh3V6y4FxkTI-UmVRIkP7PgepJZQp3pd6FMUh6lChuHHJR-Y/s1600/Mackenzie-YearEnd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdBeWlt5NICJYAGWYeIQ0sWVevL5qj3277M9SH0_wta1xS1Dgi1m3Oupz1Txf4Rhbu54Wgk0e_m0BuJ3N8_FxBZyuEw3Voh3V6y4FxkTI-UmVRIkP7PgepJZQp3pd6FMUh6lChuHHJR-Y/s320/Mackenzie-YearEnd.jpg" width="255" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">William Lyon Mackenzie</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In the end, Mackenzie finally gave up on trying to find a peaceful solution; after <a href="http://torontodreamsproject.blogspot.ca/2014/09/william-lyon-mackenzies-mission-to.html" target="_blank"><u>a disappointing trip to London</u></a>, he became convinced that revolution was the only way to break the Family Compact's grip on power. In 1837, he gathered an army north of Toronto and marched down toward the city with the aim of overthrowing the government.<br />
<br />
Even the street the rebels marched down was a reminder of Eton's influence. Simcoe named the biggest road in Toronto after another one of his Old Etonian friends: Sir George Yonge.<br />
<br />
In the end, of course, Mackenzie's rebellion failed. Democratic reform came peacefully a decade later under the name of Responsible Government. The leading champion of the cause was the moderate Robert Baldwin, who had been educated by the leader of the Family Compact. And Baldwin was able to convince the British of its value thanks in part to the support of Lord Durham, yet another Eton graduate. Change didn't come to Canada until the people advocating for it were members of the old boys club themselves.<br />
<br />
More than a hundred and fifty years later, you can still see some echoes of that seminal
divide in the Toronto politics of today. We saw it on stunning display in recent years, when Rob Ford was able to frame his mayoral campaign as a campaign against the "elites" by positioning himself as an outsider and purposefully distancing himself from the traditional,
Upper Canada College-style Tories. Those who felt ignored by the establishment
voted for Ford in droves. Casting a ballot for an apparent outsider seemed like a rare opportunity to
give voice to their anger. Now his brother Doug has done the same, becoming Premier of Ontario.<br />
<br />
In 2016, we saw similar emotions lead to similar results in the United Kingdom. The
Leave side denounced the experts
and vilified the establishment even though the leaders of the Leave
campaign were establishment figures themselves. Boris Johnson has made a
career out of playing the blond buffoon, a carefully crafted image, trying to seem like a man of
the people instead of a millionaire raised in privilege. The Brexiters, much like Ford, managed to convince vast numbers of people that the real cause of their problems was a dastardly combination of expert opinion and immigration. Not, say, the damaging policies those very same Conservative politicians have been hawking for decades: like tax cuts for the rich paid for by service cuts for everyone else. <br />
<br />
Both campaigns were illusions. Rob Ford was a millionaire born into a political family. His policies were the same old Conservative policies that have been hurting the working class for years. His successor, the aptly-named John Tory, is one of the most establishment-friendly politician you could possibly imagine — and in general his policies are usually in line with those Ford was pushing. Even a vote against the establishment led to establishment-friendly policies; they were just served with a side of crack cocaine.<br />
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Six thousand kilometers and an entire ocean away, angry Britons voted in protest against their own elites, unleashing a wave of bigotry and decimating their nation's economy in the process. They<i> have</i> managed to drive one establishment-friendly leader out of power: Cameron, forced to resign in disgrace, will be remembered as one of the worst Prime Ministers in modern British history. But they replaced him with another contender to that title: Theresa May. And now they've replaced <i>her</i> with Cameron's old schoolmate Johnson, yet another establishment-friendly Tory leader moving into 10 Downing Street, ready to pick up right where the last one left off. <br />
<br />
The Old Etonian is dead. Long live the Old Etonian.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
-----</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKHUiwmhS4j59SfVP9O43aU945oJuhSPLZxP5VArYU8RTCfYsGoYbzuFvX0Sqx6z2sx2Os-YTVuR9RbPymuqaQDPj0p2tqlHfOywBivMELP32zj7Dw4cDmTMpuMki9Tn5QeqcLPFRqEf4/s1600/6929855021_8938b778e1_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKHUiwmhS4j59SfVP9O43aU945oJuhSPLZxP5VArYU8RTCfYsGoYbzuFvX0Sqx6z2sx2Os-YTVuR9RbPymuqaQDPj0p2tqlHfOywBivMELP32zj7Dw4cDmTMpuMki9Tn5QeqcLPFRqEf4/s1600/6929855021_8938b778e1_o.jpg" width="100%" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Via Viv Lynch <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/eskimo_jo/6929855021" target="_blank"><u>on Flickr</u></a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />
<i><br />This post was originally published in 2016 — in the week after the Brexit referendum — and has been updated on July 23, 2019 to reflect Boris Johnson's victory in the Tory leadership contest to replace Theresa May.</i><br />
<br />
<i>You can learn more about the connection between the histories of Toronto and England with A Torontonian Historical Map of London <a href="http://torontodreamsproject.blogspot.ca/2015/01/a-torontonian-historical-map-of-london.html" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>. Read more about Simcoe's vision for Toronto <a href="http://torontodreamsproject.blogspot.ca/2013/08/simcoes-vision-for-toronto-city-so.html" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>. And more about Mackenzie's failed mission to London <a href="http://torontodreamsproject.blogspot.ca/2014/09/william-lyon-mackenzies-mission-to.html" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>.</i><br />
<br />
<i>There's a whole dramatized documentary about Johnson and Cameron's early years, "When Boris Met Dave," which you can watch on Vimeo <a href="https://vimeo.com/74365223" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>. </i><br />
<br />
<i>The main image of "Toffs and Toughs" via Rare Historical Photos <a href="http://rarehistoricalphotos.com/toffs-toughs-photo-illustrates-class-divide-pre-war-britain-1937/" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>. Photo of Boris and Dave via <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/archives/politics/230823/revealed-political-rivals-david-cameron-and-boris-johnson-have-been-scrappers-since-their-school-days/" target="_blank"><u>The Sun</u></a>. Photo of Eton College by me as part of <a href="http://torontodreamsproject.blogspot.ca/search/label/uk%20tour" target="_blank"><u>The Toronto Dreams Project's UK Tour</u></a>, which explored the connections between the history of Toronto and the United Kingdom. </i></div>
Adam Bunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112071438967577096noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8790289735302476857.post-62257960968575227322019-07-17T08:16:00.000-04:002019-07-17T08:16:00.406-04:00How A Canadian Prime Minister Saved The Richest Family In America<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijneD966ZrTizUrdY1gWP2uBxhAUQNbt6m3y2InSVF2nTHGFDIelMWGmFaSRwhIbUFQ-TkHX_aNZrGjr6PKL_SEGIV7Etk5gzMEDw7Xv1cBhWmFgj876Ze7jjzQO7nSuXDjqPulJhxHvI/s1600/The+Wall+Street+Bull+-+Adam+Bunch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1199" data-original-width="1600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijneD966ZrTizUrdY1gWP2uBxhAUQNbt6m3y2InSVF2nTHGFDIelMWGmFaSRwhIbUFQ-TkHX_aNZrGjr6PKL_SEGIV7Etk5gzMEDw7Xv1cBhWmFgj876Ze7jjzQO7nSuXDjqPulJhxHvI/s1600/The+Wall+Street+Bull+-+Adam+Bunch.jpg" width="100%" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><p>
Wall Street. Home to the New York Stock Exchange. The heart of the American economy. Every day, countless tourists flock to this spot — and to a statue just down the block: the Wall Street Bull is a symbol recognized around the world. But as dozens of tourists wait for their chance to take a photo with the bronze beast, no one pays any attention to the obscure piece of Canadian history standing right next to it. It was from this spot, at 26 Broadway, that a Canadian prime minister once saved the richest family in the United States. </p></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
William Lyon Mackenzie King was born and raised in Toronto, but his family had roots in New York long before he arrived in the city. His grandfather was the very similarly named William Lyon Mackenzie — the notorious rebel mayor of Toronto, who once led an armed rebellion against the government of Upper Canada. When his revolution failed, the rebel mayor fled across the border into the United States. He and his wife Isabel spent a few years living in exile in New York City. That's where their daughter Isabella was born. And she, in turn, would have a son named after his rebellious ancestor. </div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Mackenzie King followed in his grandfather's political footsteps. As a young member of parliament he served in the Liberal government of Wilfrid Laurier, appointed as Canada’s first ever Labour Minister. But when the Liberals lost the next election, King accepted a new job. He would head south to work for one of the world's most famously rich families.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
John D. Rockefeller had made his fortune in oil. He was the first billionaire in U.S. history, founder of the company that has since morphed into ExxonMobile. But by the 1914, the Rockefellers were in trouble. The coal miners who worked for them in Colorado were on strike: thousands of miners demanded things like an 8-hour workday and the enforcement of safety regulations. </div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
The company refused. The miners and their families were evicted from their company-owned housing, forced to set up tent cities. And then the National Guard was sent in, along with strikebreakers and private detectives. Things turned brutally violent. There were gunfights. Bullets fired into random tents. A tent city burned to the ground in what become known as the Ludlow Massacre. No one is quite sure how many people died during the Colorado Coalfield War, but it was somewhere between 69 and 199 — even babies were killed. Historians have called it the “deadliest strike in the history of the United States” and “perhaps the most violent struggle between corporate power and laboring men in American history”.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
The Rockefellers had put a lot of effort into establishing a positive public image. John D. Rockefeller Jr. had used his dad's money to set up the Rockefeller Foundation, one of the biggest charities the U.S. had ever seen. But now his reputation was taking a beating; many people blamed him for the massacre. So now he used the Rockefeller Foundation to hire Canada’s former labour minister to give him advice. King would delve into a deep study of labour relations… and help save Rockefeller’s reputation in the process.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
King spent the next few years travelling back and forth between his home in Ottawa and the Rockefeller Foundation offices at 26 Broadway Avenue — right next to where the Wall Street Bull now stands — studying and learning, working on what would eventually become a book on the subject. He even travelled to Colorado himself, touring the mine and meeting with miners. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
His instincts seemed to lean toward the workers' cause. “One could not help feeling as one looked at the huge seams of coal," King admitted, "that this wealth of nature was never intended to be privately owned, but was intended in reality for society as a whole.” But he was also deeply fond of Rockefeller Jr. King admitted he knew “of no man living who I more admire.” And Rockefeller returned his admiration: “Seldom have I ever been so impressed with a man at first appearance.” His biographer claims King was “the closest friend he ever had. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
During his time in New York, King essentially organized a public relations campaign on Rockefeller’s behalf. He had him meet with labour leaders and personally orchestrated his tour of the coalfields. When Rockefeller was called to testify before Congress, King was there, passing him notes during his testimony. “I was merely King’s mouthpiece,” Rockefeller remembered, “I needed education. No other man did so much for me.” And it worked. Even the radical labour organizer Mother Jones gave them a glowing quote for the papers.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Mackenzie’s advice helped to bring an end to the strike as the union ran out of money — his “Colorado Plan” became a model followed by companies across the United States. In fact, things went so well that Rockefeller seems to have wanted King to stay on in New York, joining the oil company as an executive. But King was absolutely appalled by the idea. He had no interest in big business. He had even bigger plans.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
With the Rockefeller crisis solved, King returned to Ottawa to finish his book — and to run for office once again. Soon, he was elected Prime Minister of Canada for his very first term. By the time he retired, the man who had once saved the richest family in the United States had been in office for more than 21 years — the longest-serving prime minister in Canadian history.</div>
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<i>This post also appears on <a href="http://www.thisiscanadiana.com/" target="_blank">the </a></i><a href="http://www.thisiscanadiana.com/" target="_blank">Canadiana</a><i><a href="http://www.thisiscanadiana.com/" target="_blank"> blog</a>. It's the documentary web series I host, on the hunt for the most incredible stories in Canadian history. You should <a href="http://www.youtube.com/canadiana" target="_blank">subscribe on YouTube</a> — it's 100% free and you'll get an email letting you know when every new episode comes out.</i></div>
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</div>
Adam Bunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112071438967577096noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8790289735302476857.post-60415612959140060442019-07-10T22:17:00.000-04:002019-07-10T22:17:03.843-04:00When Belfast Battles Were Fought On Toronto Streets<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNeqQEU7ddR1KvvEmK6nxJIJBTyUsN3vKdKbeP8wzdHxUUUfTNESu2urSSqpFR-uPpYys1KdI8HqPql5wqvc9PO8VovG5QgXv0JIhZGJlwwD0EwQIw-wgwvCnOD-nmWlHu_DfSlQe_bp4/s1600/1876-Jubilee-Riots-CROP.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="394" data-original-width="730" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNeqQEU7ddR1KvvEmK6nxJIJBTyUsN3vKdKbeP8wzdHxUUUfTNESu2urSSqpFR-uPpYys1KdI8HqPql5wqvc9PO8VovG5QgXv0JIhZGJlwwD0EwQIw-wgwvCnOD-nmWlHu_DfSlQe_bp4/s1600/1876-Jubilee-Riots-CROP.jpg" width="100%" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><p>
St. Patrick’s Day, 1858: a bloody day in the history of Toronto. Thomas D'Arcy McGee has come to town. He was once was an Irish revolutionary, but now he's one of Canada's leading politicians. He will go on to become a Father of Confederation and Sir John A. Macdonald's right-hand man. And thanks to his transformation from Irish freedom fighter to a loyal British subject, he's also a deeply controversial figure: on the fault line between Protestants and Irish-Catholics.</p></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
McGee has come to Toronto to attend a banquet and give a speech. On the surface, it doesn't seem like a particularly divisive itinerary. But this is a deeply Irish city. More than a third of its residents were born in Ireland — a higher percentage than any other North American city, even Boston or New York. McGee's mere presence is enough to help plunge the city into violence — the riot that is about to rock King Street is just one example of the sectarian battles that will earn Toronto the nickname, "The Belfast of North America".</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Many of Toronto's Irish residents are relative newcomers, having arrived just a decade before McGee's fateful speech. During the summer of 1847, nearly 40,000 Irish refugees flooded into Toronto — twice the population of the entire city. They were driven out of Ireland by the Great Famine along with forced evictions by landlords who seized the opportunity to run them off their land.</div>
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The vast majority of the new arrivals were Catholic… and they didn’t exactly find themselves welcomed into the city with open arms. Seventy-five percent of Toronto residents were Protestants; many of them were members of the Orange Order, a deeply anti-Catholic organization founded in Northern Ireland during the late 1700s. Orangemen are still a major presence in Belfast to this day; even in the 21st century, their annual parades frequently descend into riots.</div>
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The Orange Order basically ran Toronto, keeping a stranglehold on municipal politics for a century. From the 1860s to the 1950s, nearly every Mayor of Toronto was a member of the Order. City councillors, too. And police. And firefighters. Just about all city employees. At the time that all those famine refugees were pouring into the city, there wasn’t a single Catholic who held municipal office in Toronto. For many decades to come, well into the 1900s, Catholics had trouble getting hired for any public job in the city.</div>
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Discrimination against Irish-Catholics became a defining feature of life in Toronto. “Irish beggars are to be met everywhere,” the <i>Globe</i> newspaper wrote, “and they are as ignorant and vicious as they are poor. They are lazy, improvident, and unthankful; they fill our poorhouses and our prisons and are as brutish in their superstition as Hindoos." By 1864, the city’s Catholic bishop was actively discouraging Irish-Catholics from moving to Toronto, warning them off because of the Protestant domination of the city and the terrible discrimination Catholics faced there.</div>
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And it wasn’t just Toronto. Orange Lodges spread across Canada from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island. At one point, there were more Orange Lodges in Canada than there were in Northern Ireland itself. At the time of Confederation, a third of all Protestant men in Canada were current or former members of the Orange Order — including Sir John A. Macdonald. Three future prime ministers would be, too; one of them, Sir Mackenzie Bowell, had been the Grandmaster of the Canadian lodge. It was said that any time they were in power, the federal Conservatives always reserved three seats in Cabinet for Orange MPs.</div>
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But no city in Canada was more Orange than Toronto. And some of the local Orangemen were willing to kill and be killed in order to maintain their grip on power.</div>
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In Toronto, just like in Belfast, the riots frequently started with a parade. Every year on the 12th of July, the Orange Order would hold a big march to commemorate the victory of the Protestant King William of Orange over Catholics in Ireland in the 1600s. “The Twelfth” was practically an official holiday in Toronto: municipal employees even got the day off so they could attend — with pay. At its height, thousands of Torontonians marched in the annual parade while tens of thousands cheered them on.</div>
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Catholics would generally stay indoors that day, and keep their children close. But not all of them. The parades would occasionally erupt into violence between Orangemen and Irish-Catholics, the battles of Belfast being fought in Canadian streets. And it wasn’t just on the Twelfth. Protestant-Catholic riots became an almost annual occurrence: after political meetings and elections, on Guy Fawkes Day, when the Prince of Wales visited... religious processions attacked, St. Michael’s Cathedral under siege, the bishop pelted with stones... Once, the Orange Order even once attacked a circus: the clowns cut in front of some Orange Order firefighters waiting in line outside a brothel.</div>
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When an Irish revolutionary came to town to deliver a lecture, Orangemen rioted for two days, smashed the windows of St. Patrick's Hall, destroyed a tavern, and trashed stores on Queen Street.</div>
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When Catholics celebrated the Papal Jubilee, stones rained down from above. Shots were fired. Thousands battled in the streets. By the time it was over, a Catholic stable hand lay dead.</div>
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That was from the only time a life was lost to the violence between Toronto's Protestants and Irish Catholics. And one of those lives would be lost on St. Patrick's Day, 1858: the day Thomas D'Arcy McGee gave his speech in Toronto. With the controversial politician in town, tensions were high. It was no surprise when the annual St. Patrick's Day parade descended into violence. An Orangemen drove a horse and cart into the procession, trying to disrupt it. Catholics fought back, chasing him into a nearby alley where a violence struggle ended with an Irish-Catholic man murdered: stabbed to death.</div>
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The incident would lead Toronto's Irish-Catholics to create a new organization that would eventually evolve into the Fenian Brotherhood: a revolutionary group dedicated to the cause of Irish independence from Britain. A decade later, American Fenians would march across the border to launch an invasion of Canada in the hope that it would help put pressure on the British to leave Ireland. The attack was doomed to fail, but dozens died and even more were wounded. Toronto's very first war memorial was dedicated to the memory of the students from the University of Toronto who died fighting against those Fenian invaders.</div>
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By then, even Thomas D'Arcy McGee himself was dead. The Father of Confederation was gunned down in the streets of Ottawa in 1868, assassinated as he returned home from a late night session of parliament. A man suspected of being a Fenian agent, Patrick Whelan, was hanged for the murder (though even today, it's unclear whether he was the real murderer).</div>
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Before long, the situation had gotten so out of hand that Toronto decided to take drastic action: beginning in the 1870s, the city's St. Patrick's Day Parade was banned. And it would remain that way for more than 100 years. It wasn’t until the 1950s that the Orange stranglehold on Toronto was broken. After the Second World War, Toronto was becoming more and more multicultural. For the first time in 118 years the city elected a mayor who <i>wasn’t </i>Protestant: the Jewish Nathan Phillips. And the tensions between Protestants and Catholics began to fade away.</div>
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And so in the 1980s, Toronto decided it was finally safe enough for another St. Patrick’s Day Parade. The sectarian violence that had once rocked the city on a regular basis was now nothing more than a distant memory of a long-ago time. Today, St. Patrick's Day is a cherished tradition in Toronto, just as it in so many other cities across Canada and the rest of the world. As the streets fill with people wearing their shamrock hats and bars sell gallons of green beer, it feels as if the whole city celebrates the holiday — without a hint of the violence that once spilled blood in its streets. </div>
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<i>Want to know more about the assassination of Thomas D'Arcy McGee and the mystery of who shot him? We reopen the country's most notorious cold case in a recent episode of </i>Canadiana <i>— the Canadian history web series I host: </i><br />
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<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ueTqBHfngPY" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<i>I wrote more about the summer the Irish Famine refugees arrived in Toronto and the power of the Orange Order in </i>The Toronto Book of the Dead<i>, which you can find at the favourite local Toronto bookstore or order <span style="font-size: small;">from <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Toronto-Book-Dead-Adam-Bunch/dp/1459738063/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=" target="_blank"><u>Amazon</u></a> or <a href="https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/product/9781459738065-item.html?mkwid=sglCNn6VL_dc&pcrid=44154474422&pkw=&pmt=&s_campaign=goo-Shopping_Books&gclid=Cj0KEQiAk5zEBRD9lfno2dek0tsBEiQAWVKyuDr68snSHDbXG7xawC27ZyhYo7XlD7V_Z2gCZMxGFdAaAvnp8P8HAQ" target="_blank"><u>Indigo</u></a>.</span></i><br />
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<i><span style="font-size: small;">Image: The Jubillee Riots of 1876 via Wikimedia Commons.</span></i>Adam Bunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112071438967577096noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8790289735302476857.post-13640869098984650432019-06-12T20:17:00.000-04:002019-06-12T20:17:10.050-04:00Announcing: The Toronto Book of Love<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAIFfvvWnWNbW7ldI2z4HhY1U88gahUVZKtL3p6yZ2tK0D-ux4xrvYTrNWBXS5FJwT-s-d_AGU5DRp6gR958-LWo2eSGuaFVKl79SACC3i4CDreu-8o09FXMVR4vK6BEmUCvybg668fYI/s1600/Toronto-Book-of-Love---Collage-3-8-web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAIFfvvWnWNbW7ldI2z4HhY1U88gahUVZKtL3p6yZ2tK0D-ux4xrvYTrNWBXS5FJwT-s-d_AGU5DRp6gR958-LWo2eSGuaFVKl79SACC3i4CDreu-8o09FXMVR4vK6BEmUCvybg668fYI/s1600/Toronto-Book-of-Love---Collage-3-8-web.jpg" width="100%" /></a></div>
In my first book, <a href="https://www.dundurn.com/books/Toronto-Book-Dead" target="_blank"><u><i>The Toronto Book of the Dead</i></u></a>, we explored the history of the city through some of its most gruesome and grisly deaths. Now, I'm very excited to announce that my second book is officially underway — and that it will be something of a less morbid companion to my first... </div>
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<i>The Toronto Book of Love </i>will be published by Dundurn Press in early 2021.</div>
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Toronto’s past is filled with passion and heartache. <i>The Toronto Book of Love</i> will bring the history of the city to life with fascinating true tales of romance, marriage and lust: from the scandalous love affairs of the city’s early settlers to the prime minister’s wife partying with rock stars on her anniversary, from ancient First Nations wedding ceremonies to a pastor wearing a bulletproof vest to perform Canada’s first same sex marriage. </div>
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Home to adulterous movie stars, faithful rebels and heartbroken spies, Toronto has been shaped by crushes, jealousies and flirtations. <i>The Toronto Book of Love</i> will explore the evolution of the city from a remote colonial outpost to a booming modern metropolis through the stories of those who have fallen in love among its ravines, church spires and skyscrapers. </div>
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Make sure to follow me on <u><a href="http://www.twitter.com/todreamsproject" target="_blank">Twitter</a></u>, <a href="http://www.facebook.com/TorontoDreamsProject" target="_blank"><u>Facebook</u></a> and <a href="http://www.instagram.com/todreamsproject" target="_blank"><u>Instagram</u></a> where I'll be sharing plenty of updates as the book comes together: researching, writing and visiting the places where the city's most passionate romances took place.</div>
Adam Bunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112071438967577096noreply@blogger.com74tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8790289735302476857.post-9138328673619626752018-03-29T06:34:00.003-04:002018-03-29T06:37:47.089-04:00The Con Artist Harry Decker — Toronto's First Star Baseball Catcher<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDw-ij1aHtNQxssIymEtTjkljYvhiFmWsB-H4QwqAR9_BcHnmG_grEe5R1nUTZdCOw2Lo9vKecsFcmK7DzVV1xAUx548k2l-SYB4YL-3eoGABVwg8NOR1aQMOYT38TMFaGZ7JKERtisO0/s1600/Harry-Decker-Post-Image-0-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="367" data-original-width="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDw-ij1aHtNQxssIymEtTjkljYvhiFmWsB-H4QwqAR9_BcHnmG_grEe5R1nUTZdCOw2Lo9vKecsFcmK7DzVV1xAUx548k2l-SYB4YL-3eoGABVwg8NOR1aQMOYT38TMFaGZ7JKERtisO0/s1600/Harry-Decker-Post-Image-0-1.jpg" width="100%" /></a></div><p>
Toronto was celebrating. The 1887 baseball season was over, and the city had just won its first championship. The team was packed with beloved stars, like the ace of the pitching staff, Ned "Cannonball" Crane, who led Toronto to victory in 16 straight games to finish the year. The names of the players who'd pulled off the feat would be revered in the city for decades to come. But one of them wasn't quite what he seemed. </p>
In the midst of all those beloved heroes was one notorious villain. The man who crouched behind the plate all season was more than just a baseball player. He was a con artist — and his life was about to take a terrible turn. His name would soon appear in the papers under much more dismal circumstances: as the subject of manhunts and of courtroom dramas, locked away in prison cells and in lunatic asylums, earning a reputation as "one of the most dangerous men in the country."<br />
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Toronto's star catcher was a criminal. <br />
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Harry Decker grew up in Chicago. As a teenager he was already among the most promising young prospects in the city. A catcher with "a good, strong, accurate arm... solid batting and capable defensive work," he signed his first professional contract before he turned 20 and quickly broke into the Major Leagues with the Indianapolis Hoosiers. His future seemed incredibly bright.</div>
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But it didn't take long for the first signs of trouble to appear. Decker seemed determined to squander all that promise.</div>
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He didn't even finish his first season with Indianapolis. He quit halfway through a game, when a couple of players from a new, rival league showed up. "Oh Deck!" they called out to him, "Over here" — quite literally waving a wad of dollar bills in the air. </div>
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They say it only took three or four innings for Decker to make his move. In the sixth, he let the ball hit him in the finger so he could claim he was injured and pull himself from the game, never to return. He raced off to Kansas City to play for a new team in the new league — leaving a pile of debts and unpaid bills behind him.</div>
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It was a costly decision. The new league quickly failed and Decker was blacklisted from the Majors for a season. The season after that, he was back in trouble again: suspected of throwing a game for gamblers. The crime was never proven, but he committed three errors and let himself get thrown out at the plate during the supposedly fixed contest — enough to make people very suspicious.</div>
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And so, as the 1887 season approached, Decker found himself looking for a job.</div>
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He got three offers: the teams in Washington, Rochester and Toronto all wanted him. So he said yes to all three. And then tried to cash all three of their cheques.</div>
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His scam didn't work — thanks to a mistake that was either breathtakingly dumb or breathtakingly brazen. He tried to cash two of the cheques at the same time, with the same banker. The banker caught on quickly: he'd been on the Board of Directors for the Washington team. </div>
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Still, Decker wasn't ready to give up yet. Next, he tried to cash three <i>more </i>cheques from three <i>other </i>teams by pretending to be three <i>different</i> catchers. This time, his fraud was uncovered because he gave a fake address for one of his alter-egos. When the team showed up at that address, they found nothing there but a vacant lot... and Harry Decker pacing up and down the street, waiting for his cheque to arrive in the mail.</div>
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Even then, he didn't admit his wrong-doing. His first line of defence was simple: no one, he claimed, could possibly be that stupid. When that failed, he concocted a new fraud, claiming that there were <i>two </i>Harry Deckers who were both catchers in the Major Leagues. That one didn't work either.</div>
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Suddenly, teams were getting cold feet. His offers were quickly drying up. </div>
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And so that's how he ended up in Toronto.</div>
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1887. Toronto was booming. New railroads were bringing new Canadians into the city every day. The population was skyrocketing. New businesses and entertainment ventures were being opened constantly. And now, for the first time ever, they included a professional baseball team.</div>
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The Toronto Baseball Club had played their very first season the year before, in the city's first baseball stadium, which stood
overlooking the Don Valley at the corner of Queen & Broadview —
right across the street from the spot where the Broadview Hotel now
stands.</div>
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It was originally known as the
Toronto Baseball Grounds, but it would soon be nicknamed <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunlight_Park" target="_blank"><u>Sunlight Park</u></a>
in honour of the nearby Sunlight Soap Works factory. Spectators could
walk in
off Queen Street or ride up in their carriages and park their horses on
the grounds. Admission was a quarter — plus an extra dime or two to sit
in
the best seats in the house. The sheltered grandstand had enough room
for more than two thousand people, and there was standing room for another
ten thousand beyond that. A sellout at Sunlight Park meant that about 10% of the entire population of Toronto was at the ballgame that day.<br />
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Baseball was still brand new back then. So new, in fact, that some of the rules were <a href="http://www.baseball-almanac.com/rulechng.shtml" target="_blank"><u>still being developed</u></a>.
That year, a pitcher needed four strikes to get a batter out. He could
throw five balls before giving up a walk, and he was allowed to hit the
batter too. Umpires
could ask players and fans for advice. Sacrifice
flies didn't exist. And for the very first time, every home plate would
be made of rubber instead of marble. </div>
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The Toronto team played in one of the minor leagues: the International League. But they were still stacked
with star players and memorable characters. </div>
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There was outfielder Mike Slattery, fast as anything. He stole 112 bases that year, setting the International League record, which still stands to this day. And as if that wasn't impressive enough, he and another one of his teammates — August Alberts — both had a batting average over .350.<br />
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The backup catcher was George Stallings. He would go down in history as a Major League manager — "The Miracle Man" who led the hapless 1914 Boston Braves from last place to a stunning World Series sweep — and is credited with being the first manager to successfully use a platoon.
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The star of the team was <a href="http://torontodreamsproject.blogspot.ca/2015/10/the-tragic-tale-of-torontos-first-big.html" target="_blank"><u>Cannonball Crane</u></a>, the ace of the Toronto
pitching staff; one of the game's first big power pitchers. His fastball was the fastest in the game. And he combined that blistering
speed with a "deceptive drop ball" that baffled opposing
hitters. It was a deadly combination.</div>
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With Decker behind the plate catching him, Cannonball carved up opposing hitters. He would win 33 games for Toronto that
year — more than any other pitcher has ever won on <i>any</i> Toronto team — with a 2.49 ERA. And he was one of the best hitters in the league that year, too, finishing with a .428 batting average — <a href="http://books.google.ca/books?id=QJsaKhT5qE4C&pg=PT37&lpg=PT37&dq=1897+toronto+baseball&source=bl&ots=GSFz6FUAsG&sig=cckbjzoSawvClrcNI6Qmibf1Cks&hl=en&sa=X&ei=citaUcWGFM6A2QW1_4DgCg&ved=0CDEQ6AEwATgK" target="_blank"><u>still considered to be the best</u></a> batting average by a pitcher in professional baseball history.<br />
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Together, they battled for first place all through the summer, neck and neck with the teams from Newark and Jersey City. The decisive day came on a Saturday afternoon in September: a double-header against their rivals from Newark. Cannonball pitched <i>both</i> games and hit the walkoff home run to win the second, propelling Toronto into first place. They would never relinquish that lead: they won every single game for the rest of the year. 16 in a row.<br />
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Harry Decker had helped to bring our city its first baseball championship. </div>
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He would play even better the following season, hitting .313 as the Toronto Baseball Club finished in second place. But even after he'd established himself as a star in Toronto, it was his life off the field that made Harry Decker truly remarkable.<br />
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For one thing, he was an inventor. He came out of his time in Toronto having produced a design for a new kind of padded catcher's mitt — the same basic idea that is still being
used today. He enlisted a business partner and together they applied for a patent, working in the offseason to prepare for production. It would prove to be an incredibly lucrative idea, but Decker was never a patient man. He nearly lost the patent entirely when he didn't bother to pay the necessary fees. And in the end, he sold off his interest in the new glove for $50. The rights were bought by Al Spalding's company: the sporting goods king who founded the National League would go on to manufacture the glove for years to come. <br />
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And that may not have been Decker's only sucessful invention. That same winter, he might have invented a new kind of turnstile, which quickly became the standard in ballparks, fairgrounds and racetracks across the country. But the details aren't clear. The <i>New York Sporting Times</i> accused Decker of ripping off the design: they claimed he stole a turnstile from the Philadelphia Phillies' ballpark, filed off the name of the original inventor, replaced it with his own, and then tried to sell the turnstile back to the Phillies as a completely new design.<br />
<br />
And whether or not that story was true, it certainly wasn't out of character. Harry Decker was a con artist with an impressively long rap sheet. </div>
<br />
Over the years, he faced criminal charges over and over again. He was arrested for stealing from teammates. And from his roommate. He was arrested for stealing a suit of clothes, and for stealing a bicycle, and for stealing a horse. He forged a cheque to pay his tailor, another to pay his grocer, a third to pay for a fancy hat for his mistress, and many more beyond that. He forged the signatures of Al Spalding and of the owners of the Phillies. He got caught counterfeiting money — and then forged the signature of the U.S. Marshal who arrested him for it.</div>
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As one Pinkerton detective put it, "I know it is customary in some circles to always describe a criminal as 'one of the most dangerous men in the country.' But this trite phrase well applies to him." The <i>Chicago Tribune </i>complained, "Decker's hallucination is that he owns the City of Chicago. He was in
the habit of entering saloons and ordering wine for everybody present
and then walking out with the belief that the place belonged to him and
he could give away his own wares if he saw fit."<br />
<br />
He used so many fake names that eventually the police admitted they didn't even know what his real name <i>was</i> anymore. All they knew for sure was that he grew up in a respected, wealthy family... in Pittsburgh. Which wasn't true at all. </div>
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Decker gave many explanations for his litany of crimes. He blamed some of them on getting hit in the head by a baseball. Others on getting kicked in the head by a horse. Some, he blamed on the stress of having a wife and a young child. Some, on insanity — the courts institutionalized him twice, but both times the doctors at the asylum found nothing wrong with him and released him back onto the streets again.</div>
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Once, Decker convinced a judge to send him to a particular prison of his own choosing by claiming he was dying of tuberculosis — which he miraculously recovered from as soon as the decision was handed down. On another occasion, when arrested for forging yet another cheque, he evaded jail time entirely by pointing out that when he signed the person's name, he'd spelled it wrong — so he couldn't possibly be guilty; he hadn't <i>actually</i> signed their name at all. At one point, he even seems to have had an operation to remove a cyst from his forehead — so it would be harder for witnesses to identify him.</div>
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On the occasions when he wasn't able to talk his way out of trouble, his rich parents were usually there to bail him out or to hire the best lawyers to defend him.</div>
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But his personal life, as you might imagine, did suffer.</div>
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Decker was married young, during the year he was blacklisted from the Major Leagues: to Annie Burns, a fifteen year-old girl he'd gotten pregnant. He had never been faithful to her: as his baseball teams toured from city to city, he quickly gained a reputation as a serial womanizer. The <i>Philadelphia Inquirer</i> called him "The Don Juan of the Diamond." And their marriage suffered another crushing blow when their two year-old daughter — who by all accounts, Decker was truly devoted to — died at the end of his last season in Toronto. Things seem to have gotten even worse after that. </div>
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In 1891, Decker tried to marry a second woman under a fake name. But his fraud was quickly uncovered and he was charged with bigamy. It wasn't the last time he'd be caught trying to do something similar. And on another occasion, he was charged with statutory rape, having seduced an underage girl.</div>
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"I
think I am a most unfortunate man," he once complained. "It seems to me that if I merely look
at a girl she fancies me so much that a breach of promise suit is the
result."</div>
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Annie divorced him in 1896. </div>
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His baseball career was even shorter than his marriage. He played only two and a half seasons after leaving Toronto. His talent was undeniable and he got another shot at the Majors, but his actual results were usually mediocre and his teams' patience with his criminal behaviour quickly ran out. He was released by the New Haven Nutmegs halfway through the 1891 season — after he was arrested for the second time in just a few months. "If Decker had pursued a different course," an old manager once lamented, "he would now be in demand by the best clubs in the country." Instead, he would never play professional baseball again. </div>
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He did turn up on a diamond at least once more, though. In 1915, <i>Sporting Life</i> magazine stumbled across an interesting photo. It had been sent to the manager of the Los Angeles Angels as a thank you: the Angels had sent free uniforms to the team of prisoners who played baseball at San Quentin Prison. The autographed photo showed the full roster of inmates, and there among them was the star of the team: a catcher who looked awfully familiar. He was older now, and calling himself Earl Henry Davenport, but the face was unmistakable: it was Harry Decker. His life of crime had caught up with him yet again. He's thought to have spent a total of twelve years in prison.</div>
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But after that, he disappears from history. After being released from prison in October of that year, Harry Decker essentially vanished. Historians from the Society for American Baseball Research have spent decades trying to track him down, searching for any mention of him in the years after his stay at San Quentin. But it's not an easy job: Decker is thought to have used anywhere between fifteen to twenty aliases during his life; it was once said he "changes his name each time he boards a train." </div>
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And so, no one knows how Harry Decker spent his final days, when he died, or where he is buried. It seems as if the ultimate fate of the one most notorious ballplayers in the history of Toronto will forever remain a mystery.</div>
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<i>Peter Morris' book, "Catcher: The Evolution of an American Folk Hero" has an absolutely fantastic chapter about Harry Decker. You can find it on Google Books <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=86P2pteOc40C&pg=PA201&lpg=PA201&dq=%22harry+decker%22+prison&source=bl&ots=I8Toh7c3Lf&sig=qJK8TeX0vKZaZhgZmICYlXS-2kM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjdlMHS6_rLAhUFk4MKHdpJCBkQ6AEIKDAC#v=onepage&q=%22harry%20decker%22%20prison&f=false">here</a>. I first learned about him in a passing mention in the awesome book "Baseball's Back In Town: From the Don to the Blue Jays A History of Baseball in Toronto" by Louis Cauz. You can buy it <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Baseballs-Back-Town-Baseball-Toronto/dp/B001DRMBEW" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a> or borrow it from the Toronto Public Library <a href="http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?Entt=RDM463675&R=463675" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>.</i></div>
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<i>I wrote more about Cannonball Crane <a href="http://torontodreamsproject.blogspot.ca/2015/10/the-tragic-tale-of-torontos-first-big.html" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a> — and he gets a chapter in my Toronto Book of the Dead, too, which you can buy at your favourite Toronto bookseller (or from Amazon <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Toronto-Book-Dead-Adam-Bunch/dp/1459738063/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1501797689&sr=1-1&keywords=toronto+book+of+the+dead" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>). I also wrote about the 1887 championship team <a href="http://torontodreamsproject.blogspot.ca/2013/04/torontos-first-great-baseball-team.html" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>. </i></div>
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<i><br />"Bob Lemke's Blog" shares Decker's story <a href="http://boblemke.blogspot.ca/2009/11/harry-decker-catcher-inventor-convict.html">here</a>. He's also mentioned in "Big Sam Thompson: Baseball's Greatest Clutch Hitter" by Roy Kerr on Google Books <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=kwkyBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA33&lpg=PA33&dq=harry+decker+baseball+blacklist&source=bl&ots=Zu4CnJPYex&sig=wt1AyhRex0v6JeDLgXhvBCvZ3Q0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwicgKD4kv7LAhVEk4MKHd5JCQQQ6AEIKzAD#v=onepage&q=harry%20decker%20baseball%20blacklist&f=false" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>. And Sportsnet lists him as one of "The Greatest Mysteries in the History of Sport" <a href="https://www.sportsnet.ca/magazine/can-you-handle-the-truth-13-greatest-mysteries-in-sport/" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>. Baseball History Daily has more about him <a href="http://boblemke.blogspot.ca/2009/11/harry-decker-catcher-inventor-convict.html" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>. And Goodwin & Co does <a href="http://www.goodwinandco.com/1887_old_judge_cigarettes_n172_harry_decker_philad-lot17884.aspx" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>. His Baseball Reference stats page is <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/deckeha01.shtml" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>
(though sadly, they don't have the numbers for that 1887 team). The
Vintage Baseball Glove Forum has images of the glove he invented <a href="http://www.vintagebaseballgloveforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=4446" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>.</i><br />
<i> </i></div>
Adam Bunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112071438967577096noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8790289735302476857.post-41069287410953072362017-11-07T20:52:00.002-05:002017-11-07T20:52:53.349-05:00My Favourite Memory of Roy Halladay<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="7tvve" data-offset-key="4udo3-0-0">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB7LkudjNI0KA498wFXOWTyY7qSeuYfxT20Sxa8Hyw7nP7Dh8eIBPXQuUrS1RDuSP5e1s51mAqs5Lk1AlM3zKc-Hd8SiXdUhUbLhaWbJsZ18OF69tnTBalsf3CU7DqwN65qywWHTvEdBs/s1600/halladay_roy-1040x572.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="572" data-original-width="1040" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB7LkudjNI0KA498wFXOWTyY7qSeuYfxT20Sxa8Hyw7nP7Dh8eIBPXQuUrS1RDuSP5e1s51mAqs5Lk1AlM3zKc-Hd8SiXdUhUbLhaWbJsZ18OF69tnTBalsf3CU7DqwN65qywWHTvEdBs/s1600/halladay_roy-1040x572.jpg" width="100%" /></a></div>
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My favourite memory of Roy Halladay came on a night he lost an unimportant game in the middle of an unimportant season.<br />
<this 2007:="" a="" and="" back="" because="" beginning="" br="" check="" d="" decision...="" do="" doc="" dome.="" down="" few="" for="" fourteenth="" free="" grab="" have="" head="" headed="" i="" if="" it="" jays="" last="" may="" mediocrity="" mind-numbing="" minute="" mound="" my="" near="" night="" of="" on="" one="" pitching="" reasons="" s="" seasons="" see="" sister="" spontaneous="" straight="" that="" the="" then:="" then="" ticket.="" to="" twenty-one="" was="" watch.="" what="" when="" who="" you=""><br />The Jays were playing the Red Sox, who would win the World Series that year, and Doc was coming off his worst start in years... but we weren’t worried. This was Roy Halladay. He <i>never</i> had two bad starts in a row. And to top it off: as we waited in line at the box office, a couple in Red Sox gear came up to us and randomly offered us their extra tickets. Two seats just a couple of rows behind the Jays dugout. The best I’ve ever had. For free. To see Doc.<br /><br />This. Was. Exciting. We were going to get to watch the best pitcher of his generation ply his craft from just a few meters away.<br /><br />But this was not Doc’s night.<br /><br />He gave up a run in the first and then struggled even more mightily in the third, giving up six more runs — including a three-run homer to Mike Lowell. The unthinkable was happening. Two bad starts in a row. Something was very wrong.<br /><br />But Doc kept battling, got out of the inning, and managed to make it through five before his night was over.<br /><br />The next day, he was rushed to hospital… and straight into surgery. Turns out Roy Halladay’s appendix was ready to burst. He’d pitched five innings of major league baseball with an organ inside his body on the verge of exploding. And of course when the doctors told him he’d miss 4–6 weeks, he had his own ideas. He was back on the mound just three weeks later. <br /><br />Put his name on the Level of Excellence, retire his number, and stick a statue outside the Dome. My god, he’ll be missed. </this></div>
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Adam Bunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112071438967577096noreply@blogger.com198tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8790289735302476857.post-89034106490359883102017-10-05T00:45:00.001-04:002017-10-05T00:45:56.682-04:00Dream 24 "The Herd of Lambton Hall" (George Brown, 1880)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://torontodreamsproject.com/1pages/24-Brown.html" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://torontodreamsproject.com/PostcardImages/24-GeorgeBrown.gif" width="595" /></a></div>
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Seven weeks after being shot by a disgruntled Globe employee, George Brown dreamed that a herd of cows had come to speak with him on his deathbed. He could see them outside his window, dull bells clanking around their necks as they chewed cud and kicked up a musty cloud of dust. He could hear their hooves on the hardwood downstairs and as they clomped up to the second floor to squeeze into his room. It was tightly packed in there. The air was foul, green with the fumes of the manure that soaked into the rug, and buzzing with flies.</p>They had concerns, these cows. They pushed up to the side of his bed, all wet bovine noses and bad breath. One was there to talk about Bow Park. The financial situation at the farm had the beast worried. Another was upset about the poor Liberal showing in the last election. Some of them wanted jobs. One wanted money to make telephones with Alexander Graham Bell. More than a few had ideas about the newspaper’s redesign. They were all annoyed and short-tempered.<br /><br />But George Brown was barely listening. His attention was fixed on the only cow in the room who hadn’t said a word. She was down closer to the foot of his bed, calmly licking at the wound in his thigh. When he tried to shake her off, he found his leg refused to move. So when she started to chew at it, there was nothing he could do — just lie there in pain and wait.<br /><br /></div>
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<i>George Brown was a Father of Confederation and the founder of the Globe newspaper. He was shot by a disgruntled newspaper employee in 1880 and, refusing to give up his demanding schedule, he died slowly of his wound. He lived in a house at the corner of Beverley and Baldwin Streets in Toronto called Lambton Hall (now a National Historic Site) and owned a farm called Bow Park just outside Brantford.</i><br />
<i><br />You can read more about the assassination of George Brown in Jamie Bradburn's post for Torontoist <a href="https://torontoist.com/2009/05/historicist_the_death_of_george_bro/" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>. Explore more Toronto Dreams Project postcards <a href="http://torontodreamsproject.com/9pages/01-09.html" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>.</i></div>
<br />Adam Bunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112071438967577096noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8790289735302476857.post-22247214644327803132017-09-14T16:57:00.004-04:002017-09-14T16:57:41.797-04:00Launch Party! Come Celebrate The Toronto Book of the Dead!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNtlq7YlqqILOaGyK8-kggdfSgXsYZk8xlsNqRabFSsKe9uy-8ZVoIrUapXmVWwXc-Z7MPqySTkNwzpnEqppvGnMX1d3PSJgbOTwRPNj7Vf8u0xa68OssXB0KFIQQOVT_mHKyg0htL6pQ/s1600/21034422_1462387783825407_4056677031308835553_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="523" data-original-width="960" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNtlq7YlqqILOaGyK8-kggdfSgXsYZk8xlsNqRabFSsKe9uy-8ZVoIrUapXmVWwXc-Z7MPqySTkNwzpnEqppvGnMX1d3PSJgbOTwRPNj7Vf8u0xa68OssXB0KFIQQOVT_mHKyg0htL6pQ/s1600/21034422_1462387783825407_4056677031308835553_n.jpg" width="100%" /></a></div>
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After years of researching, writing, and editing, <i>The Toronto Book of the Dead</i> is officially being released this weekend! And you can already find it popping up on the shelves of bookstores across the city.</p></div>
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To celebrate, we're throwing a party on Friday night (Sept. 15). Come to the Spacing Store from 7:30–10:30 to hang out, have a few drinks, and chat about Toronto's morbid history. The event is being supported by the International Festival of Authors as part of their Toronto Lit Up book launch series, it's completely free, and the Spacing Store is a magical place filled with amazing Toronto memorabilia even on nights it <i>doesn't</i> have beer... so I hope to see you there!</div>
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<i>The Toronto Book of the Dead </i>is published by Dundurn Press. It explores the history of the city
through the stories of some of its most fascinating and illuminating
deaths: tales of war and plague, of duels and
executions, of suicides and séances. It covers everything from
ancient First Nations burial mounds to the grisly murder of Toronto’s
first lighthouse keeper; from the rise and fall of the city’s greatest
Victorian baseball star to the final days of the world’s most notorious
anarchist. You can order it from Indigo <a href="https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/product/9781459738065-item.html?mkwid=sglCNn6VL_dc&pcrid=44154474422&pkw&pmt&s_campaign=goo-Shopping_Books&gclid=CjwKCAjwk4vMBRAgEiwA4ftLs8jwXbrYnKX4qKNQPpKg0i9T3QUwlscX05kUCcyreXDkyeb5iO45DhoCo0gQAvD_BwE" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>, Amazon <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Toronto-Book-Dead-Adam-Bunch/dp/1459738063/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1501797689&sr=1-1&keywords=toronto+book+of+the+dead" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>, or find it at your favourite local bookstore.</div>
Adam Bunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112071438967577096noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8790289735302476857.post-17922615642231298312017-08-26T20:40:00.001-04:002017-08-26T20:40:39.407-04:00A Tour of Toronto's Most, Uh, Complicated Statues<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh43AiFltNOLjr8op_4nlxnJpz1vPRGKalCkTsFuoacrrERUVLnGOVh2tKo9Uwgg5OYOxcBIH8WRdpMFthpheakbtJoe-wE-o7-E0_Z1m77A_T2r9eCpJnl8qza_8hnsmhB53n5Z9ICwnc/s1600/StatueTriptych-MacdonaldBrownSimcoe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="1024" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh43AiFltNOLjr8op_4nlxnJpz1vPRGKalCkTsFuoacrrERUVLnGOVh2tKo9Uwgg5OYOxcBIH8WRdpMFthpheakbtJoe-wE-o7-E0_Z1m77A_T2r9eCpJnl8qza_8hnsmhB53n5Z9ICwnc/s1600/StatueTriptych-MacdonaldBrownSimcoe.jpg" width="100%" /></a></div>
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Most of Toronto's statues feature dead White dudes and were erected by other dead White dudes to celebrate figures whose histories are much more complicated — and often much less worthy of praise — than their positions atop a pedestal might suggest. So this week I grabbed my phone and headed down to Queen's Park to kick off a Twitter tour exploring some of the dark stories behind our city's monuments.</p></div>
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<br />Adam Bunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112071438967577096noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8790289735302476857.post-90008239656642407712017-08-15T17:26:00.001-04:002017-08-15T17:26:16.573-04:00The Bizarre History of "O Canada"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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"O Canada" has a long and bizarre history. The song didn't become our national anthem until 1980, but it was written a hundred years earlier: the music was composed by an American Civil War veteran from Montreal with the awesome name of Calixa Lavallée. He didn't write the tune to be Canada's national anthem, he wrote it to be <i>Quebec</i>'s. "O Canada" was composed in honour of Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day: an ancient
religious celebration that would eventually become Quebec's national
holiday, deeply associated with the separatist movement.</div>
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We explore that strange story in the very first episode of the new web series I'm hosting: <i>Canadiana</i>. It takes us all the way from Montreal to Quebec City to Ottawa, from 1968 to 1646 to 1980, from Pierre Trudeau to the first French settlers to the FLQ. We visit riots, referendums and hockey arenas — all on the trail of the bizarre tale behind our national anthem</div>
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You can watch that first episode below. And it's just the beginning. In the months to come, <i>Canadiana</i> will be exploring many more extraordinary stories from the history of our country, including murders, massacres, rebellions, love triangles, secret laboratories, and more. You can watch a teaser for the series <a href="https://youtu.be/yoBC7IqFhYA" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>. </div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="335" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UAf2SzRBU5U" width="595"></iframe>Adam Bunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112071438967577096noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8790289735302476857.post-64596999718969430412017-08-11T14:29:00.000-04:002017-08-11T14:29:20.435-04:00The Imperial Airship Scheme — A Blimp Above 1930s Toronto<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHhiMQ0i-MNyjxvD1h6ZrLXM43TknHtWsDd3LvN861eg0uLdj398CjpTXsScM7UcFhp8JvwxEloKoaAgaigsTBBDuxk4UuzM4tCE-0tIjnjV8GPD6YAP3jv7flILOU7RD-2fPKfa7Bd4M/s1600/dirigible_1930_f1244_it10045.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="759" data-original-width="1009" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHhiMQ0i-MNyjxvD1h6ZrLXM43TknHtWsDd3LvN861eg0uLdj398CjpTXsScM7UcFhp8JvwxEloKoaAgaigsTBBDuxk4UuzM4tCE-0tIjnjV8GPD6YAP3jv7flILOU7RD-2fPKfa7Bd4M/s1600/dirigible_1930_f1244_it10045.jpg" width="100%" /></a><br />
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In 1928, Germany launched the world's greatest airship, the <i>Graf Zeppelin</i>. For the next decade, it would make hundreds of flights all over the world: from Germany to the United States, Brazil, Japan, even the north pole. With the Second World War only nine years away, it was enough to make the British very nervous.</div>
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Their answer was the Imperial Airship Scheme. It was a contest between a private military contractor and the British government to build the best blimp. The first to be finished was the "Capitalist ship", the <i>R100</i>. It was the fastest airship in the world, with a top speed of 130 km/h. And its first big test was a trip to Canada. For three days in the summer of 1930, it cruised across the Atlantic before finally reaching Quebec. A couple of weeks later, it was flying around the skyscrapers of downtown Toronto.</div>
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The whole trip was a rousing success. So much so, in fact, that once it returned home, the team working on the government-built "Socialist ship", the <i>R101</i>, decided to push ahead with their voyage to India, which they'd thought they might postpone due to safety concerns. Their blimp made it all the way from England to France before plummeting to the ground and bursting into flame. The disaster killed 48 people, more than the <i>Hindenberg</i>. The Imperial Airship Scheme was abandoned, the <i>R100 </i>was grounded and then sold for scrap.</div>
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<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Airship_Toronto.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Airship_Toronto.jpg" width="595" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0OM8a5KfB_rE1vvxPbeNuIwk2AZlA7gbRG-NdxvBNTlPrizrBVE50s2BpD97m_1S16_FMBOubV256POrb7ZZv6BJigb2R61kNm4Ih2s1xonwFj1xuY8CdZV9eoGt7Ii0gzkqA_UDf5rI/s1600/R100TorontoWaterfront.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="663" data-original-width="1000" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0OM8a5KfB_rE1vvxPbeNuIwk2AZlA7gbRG-NdxvBNTlPrizrBVE50s2BpD97m_1S16_FMBOubV256POrb7ZZv6BJigb2R61kNm4Ih2s1xonwFj1xuY8CdZV9eoGt7Ii0gzkqA_UDf5rI/s1600/R100TorontoWaterfront.jpg" width="595" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBB9eeLYkJ3I0RO7sb0vaxLn6lUKoXw6idUcYnw_eLNvvSCTk833AryhnsCWEVNKsKCAL0dR5gkfkHoTQI8qy7w9dA5T023svfPKsr8RTGXONo9FP3A7olL8tL1oPDpuC4uYjvCh_iUF0/s1600/R100+1930+over+TO.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1481" data-original-width="888" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBB9eeLYkJ3I0RO7sb0vaxLn6lUKoXw6idUcYnw_eLNvvSCTk833AryhnsCWEVNKsKCAL0dR5gkfkHoTQI8qy7w9dA5T023svfPKsr8RTGXONo9FP3A7olL8tL1oPDpuC4uYjvCh_iUF0/s1600/R100+1930+over+TO.jpg" width="595" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrTlRe-K-fnDOSw_NlSQWPnx9_R6lxqRcPsr_Rbx5sJLb4xVPVaA70IoLmo-N29Kk8WE6DhEOihIh3GXjrXP5Wx_1zFHAg7qTVgrQUCPpdiFgaf4JhmdgCAMFDQDq5npegLeDxdDp4kGM/s1600/2009_01_31Rooftop_it7920_640Cropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="832" data-original-width="595" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrTlRe-K-fnDOSw_NlSQWPnx9_R6lxqRcPsr_Rbx5sJLb4xVPVaA70IoLmo-N29Kk8WE6DhEOihIh3GXjrXP5Wx_1zFHAg7qTVgrQUCPpdiFgaf4JhmdgCAMFDQDq5npegLeDxdDp4kGM/s1600/2009_01_31Rooftop_it7920_640Cropped.jpg" width="595" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_RwKKgi0mpOfJZxmt0ztSZK3DK1MHWz3XWL0QhOAT0ZAkupS8u2q16ADTPFo8ZK6PyCOTC61-5BP14j9u5dIQ0Y_LW592J2eJwzMCnXCFdlP02kgkzsM6jo9A_QItC7edUDHefbN8VA4/s1600/2009_01_31HeadlinesAugust11alt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="504" data-original-width="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_RwKKgi0mpOfJZxmt0ztSZK3DK1MHWz3XWL0QhOAT0ZAkupS8u2q16ADTPFo8ZK6PyCOTC61-5BP14j9u5dIQ0Y_LW592J2eJwzMCnXCFdlP02kgkzsM6jo9A_QItC7edUDHefbN8VA4/s1600/2009_01_31HeadlinesAugust11alt.jpg" width="595"/></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGGEoikXDsybZfgjY_no3MDcZIYdb51Tnr_uk4bp02B5paqf1nHi2cYffPmqAJCDvmm3MdTObVAV-pUUkBjWPo_tjfXzFtToRsNqASSZ9TWUxbJysYDsJbU-K1rbymp4bdTJDs6LYWsk8/s1600/R-100_attached_to_mooring_mast_in_Bedforshire%25252C_1930.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGGEoikXDsybZfgjY_no3MDcZIYdb51Tnr_uk4bp02B5paqf1nHi2cYffPmqAJCDvmm3MdTObVAV-pUUkBjWPo_tjfXzFtToRsNqASSZ9TWUxbJysYDsJbU-K1rbymp4bdTJDs6LYWsk8/s1600/R-100_attached_to_mooring_mast_in_Bedforshire%25252C_1930.jpg" width="595" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The R100 in Bedfordshire, England, just before leaving for Canada</td></tr>
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<i>A version of this post was originally published on August 29, 2010. It has been updated to add more photos.</i></div>
Adam Bunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07330281017966163295noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8790289735302476857.post-85827705274704146192017-08-07T18:16:00.000-04:002017-09-08T00:08:00.536-04:00John Graves Simcoe's Weird Relationship With Slavery<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZNjsm6jYjs0oYrnXPKGxn5Ahj361PWuNsyoU3SJax5AdELcjpT39xwlZdlNGg316BPhjmeRD_0OHSku0U-W0b_o2ui7gLta50gBRPjp1_mJBZGCTjJe8ngNUQsZaZkuE2EBtGE-fOVFk/s1600/SimcoeSlavery.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZNjsm6jYjs0oYrnXPKGxn5Ahj361PWuNsyoU3SJax5AdELcjpT39xwlZdlNGg316BPhjmeRD_0OHSku0U-W0b_o2ui7gLta50gBRPjp1_mJBZGCTjJe8ngNUQsZaZkuE2EBtGE-fOVFk/s1600/SimcoeSlavery.jpg" width="100%" /></a></div><p>
Meet John Graves Simcoe. Founder of Toronto. British veteran of the American Revolution. And an avowed abolitionist with a very weird and complicated relationship to slavery.</p></div>
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Simcoe hated it. Back home in England as a Member of Parliament, he gave anti-slavery speeches in the House of Commons. And when he was picked to be the first Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, he made it clear: he saw no place for the practice in his new province. "The principles of the British Constitution do not admit of that slavery
which Christianity condemns," he wrote before he officially took his post. "The
moment I assume the Government of Upper Canada, under no modification
will I assent to a law that discriminates by dishonest policy between
natives of Africa, America or Europe."<i> </i><br />
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And indeed, one of the very first things Simcoe did when he got to Upper Canada was to introduce a bill to end slavery in the province forever. In July 1793, his "Act Against Slavery" became the very first slavery-abolishing law
ever passed anywhere in the British Empire. To this day he's celebrated as the man who ended slavery in Upper Canada — more than 40 years before it was abolished across the Empire and 70 years before the Emancipation Proclamation in the United States. <br />
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But things weren't quite as simple as that makes it seem. <br />
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For one thing, Simcoe's law wasn't nearly as groundbreaking as it sounds. By the time he came to Canada, there were no slaves in England — a court decision had freed them all fifteen years earlier. Compared to the Mother Country, the Canadian colonies were behind the times. Hundreds of slaves were "owned" by the colonists in Upper Canada, many of them brought
north to the new province by Loyalist refugees as they fled the
revolution in the United States. The British government had actually
encouraged the practice, passing a law in Westminster that promised new
Canadian settlers they would get to keep their slaves.<br />
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So while slavery in England was already over, if Simcoe wanted to get rid of slavery in Upper Canada, he was going to have to
pass a new law to actively abolish it. And that wasn't going to be easy.<br />
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Simcoe would need support. The bill would have to pass through the Legislative Assembly and then through the Legislative Council. Both of those bodies were full of slave owners. And that, in part, was thanks to none other than John Graves Simcoe. </div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSZEUQhkkdKxcCUGDO9Xb4o_zq50FZw1lJTmzsr6XyGvt1Rf7Zo2qHVzDyGqbQT8vfYd4e4qX0vqwNXEholN6JpRYdprQlt7JuLS-Y3kCOTEQL9ys0e33HtMwY5yndDjob6bS046nFcXI/s1600/Peggy+Pompadour+-+Peter+Russell+-+Slave+Ad.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSZEUQhkkdKxcCUGDO9Xb4o_zq50FZw1lJTmzsr6XyGvt1Rf7Zo2qHVzDyGqbQT8vfYd4e4qX0vqwNXEholN6JpRYdprQlt7JuLS-Y3kCOTEQL9ys0e33HtMwY5yndDjob6bS046nFcXI/s1600/Peggy+Pompadour+-+Peter+Russell+-+Slave+Ad.gif" width="210" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Peter Russell tries to sell<br />Peggy & Jupiter Pompadour </i></td></tr>
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The Legislative Assembly was an elected body. But the members of the Legislative Council were hand-picked by Simcoe himself — it worked a bit like the Senate does today. And Simcoe packed his Council full of slave-owners. At least five of the nine members were either
slave-owners or from slave-owning families. They formed a majority.
Simcoe, determined to abolish slavery in Upper Canada, had made it
almost impossible to do.<br />
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But he was still going to try. It was
the resistance of Chloe Cooley that gave him the opportunity he needed.
Cooley was a Black woman living in
slavery at Niagara. When her "master" sold her to someone on the American side of the river, he tied her up with rope and forced her into a boat to be
taken across the border. Cooley, like many slaves, had long resisted her captivity: refusing work, stealing, disappearing for periods of time, generally trying to disrupt the life of her "master" and ensure her enslavement was as much of an inconvenience as possible. Now, she resisted again. As she was unloaded and handed over to her new "owner," Cooley screamed and put up a fight.
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When Simcoe heard the tale, he was appalled — and he saw his chance. During the next session of the legislature, he pushed a bill to abolish slavery.</div>
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But with his government full of slave-owners, he was forced into a compromise — the exact thing he had promised never to do. The new law didn't abolish slavery immediately; instead, it would be gradually phased out. No new slaves could be brought into Upper Canada, but any who were already here would spend the rest of their lives in slavery. Their children would be born into captivity, too; they wouldn't be free until they turned twenty-five. Finally, anyone who wanted to free a slave was discouraged from doing so: they would be forced to provide financial security to ensure the newly freed slave wouldn't be a drain on the resources of the state.
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The bill was passed just a few weeks before Simcoe founded Toronto. And so, the foundations of our city were laid with the help of slave labour. During the early years of the new town, there were fifteen Black slaves within its borders — and another ten just across the Don Valley.<br />
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Some of Toronto's slave owners are still familiar names today. William Jarvis is remembered by Jarvis Street; James Baby's old estate on the Humber River is still called Baby Point. Peter Russell — a gambling-addict ex-con who Simcoe trusted as Receiver- and Auditor-General — enslaved a woman named Peggy Pompadour and her three children: Jupiter, Amy and Milly. Their acts of resistance were brutally punished by Russell: Jupiter was once bound and strung up in the window of a storehouse as a painful public humiliation. But Peter Russell is still remembered in the names of Peter Street and Russell Hill Road. <br />
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Simcoe's relationship with slavery only got weirder and more conflicted after he left Toronto. In 1796, ill-health forced him to sail home to England. Just a few months later — while still officially serving as Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada — John Graves Simcoe was sent to Haiti. There, the avowed abolitionist was asked to put down the biggest slave uprising since Spartacus. </div>
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Haiti was a French colony back then; they called it Saint Domingue. The leaders of the French Revolution had abolished slavery, but French royalists still controlled Haiti — and they had no intention of giving up their half a million slaves.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWQOzvGAFLalGvrIwxHNVkaz07YIzuaFIz9Yo5tDENndXTMefMKKvuAvndpRp56Olk0kRjNOvqTD0u6hpE_lW3HtyuFiqrQp-n-oviiMwoxK8AU7-n1T53pTPD6QB1u642pM2IiVzQ8XY/s1600/toussaint-louverture-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="300" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWQOzvGAFLalGvrIwxHNVkaz07YIzuaFIz9Yo5tDENndXTMefMKKvuAvndpRp56Olk0kRjNOvqTD0u6hpE_lW3HtyuFiqrQp-n-oviiMwoxK8AU7-n1T53pTPD6QB1u642pM2IiVzQ8XY/s200/toussaint-louverture-1.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Toussaint L'Ouverture </i></td></tr>
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When the slaves rose up in a revolution led by François Dominique
Toussaint L’Ouverture, the French royalists asked the British for help. Thousands of British troops were sent to the island, hoping to crush the uprising, restore slavery, and secure the island's sugar riches for themselves. By the time Simcoe arrived, they'd been fighting for years without making any real progress. His job was to turn things around. He was appointed as commander of the British forces in Haiti — a man who hated slavery fighting a bloody war to preserve it.<br />
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The Haitian Revolution was a long and brutal struggle. It raged for thirteen years and claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Countless atrocities were committed. Simcoe's attempt to keep his own men in check — an order to halt all "cruelties and outrages" — was ignored. His army pushed Toussaint's forces back, but were stalled by a counterattack. His men were dying by the thousands: some in bloody battles, still more of yellow fever. <br />
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Simcoe only lasted a few months before he got sick of fighting for a cause he didn't believe in. He was sick of the war, sick of a lack of support from his superiors, sick of
literally being sick. He left Haiti and sailed home to England, where he tried to convince the government to withdraw from the war; he was nearly arrested for desertion. The British kept fighting for a year after Simcoe left Haiti, and the French kept fighting long after that. In the end, the Haitian Revolution was successful — it led to the establishment of
a new, independent, slave-free country in 1804.</div>
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But while slavery was now over in Haiti, it was still part of life in Toronto. It would take many years before it gradually dwindled out: one by one the city's slaves died or were freed by their "masters." There's no record of when the practice finally ended in Toronto, but there were no slaves left in the city by the time the British abolished slavery across the Empire on August 1, 1834.<br />
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By then, Toronto was beginning to gain a very different reputation. Black families like the Abbotts, the Blackburns and the Augustas — some of them former slaves themselves — worked with White allies like George Brown to make Toronto a relatively
safe haven for those fleeing slavery in the United States. They organized anti-slavery societies, secured lodging for refugees, and raised funds to help the new arrivals get started in their new home. They struggled every day to make Toronto a more welcoming place for those fleeing racial persecution. <br />
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Half a century after Simcoe's chilling compromise, Toronto had become an important stop at the end of the Underground Railroad.<br />
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<i><a href="https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/product/9781459738065-item.html?mkwid=sglCNn6VL_dc&pcrid=44154474422&pkw=&pmt=&s_campaign=goo-Shopping_Books&gclid=Cj0KEQiAk5zEBRD9lfno2dek0tsBEiQAWVKyuDr68snSHDbXG7xawC27ZyhYo7XlD7V_Z2gCZMxGFdAaAvnp8P8HAQ" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://www.torontodreamsproject.com/dead/TorontoBookOfTheDead-Preorder-Twitter.jpg" height="90" /></a></i></div>
<i><br /></i></td><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: small;">A version of this story will appear in </span>
<b>The Toronto Book of the Dead</b><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>Coming September 2017</i><br />
</span>
<hr />
<span style="font-size: small;">
<i>Pre-order from <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Toronto-Book-Dead-Adam-Bunch/dp/1459738063/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=" target="_blank"><u>Amazon</u></a>, <a href="https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/product/9781459738065-item.html?mkwid=sglCNn6VL_dc&pcrid=44154474422&pkw=&pmt=&s_campaign=goo-Shopping_Books&gclid=Cj0KEQiAk5zEBRD9lfno2dek0tsBEiQAWVKyuDr68snSHDbXG7xawC27ZyhYo7XlD7V_Z2gCZMxGFdAaAvnp8P8HAQ" target="_blank"><u>Indigo</u></a>, or your favourite bookseller</i></span></td></tr>
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<i>This post was based in part on a Twitter essay I tweeted out on Simcoe day last year, which you can find <a href="http://torontodreamsproject.blogspot.ca/2016/08/john-graves-simcoes-weird-complicated.html" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>.</i><br />
<br />
<i>You can learn more about John Graves Simcoe from "John Graves Simcoe, 1752–1806: A Biography" by Mary Beacock Fryer and Christopher Dracott (which is available from Amazon <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/John-Graves-Simcoe-1752-1806-Biography/dp/1550023098" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a> or the Toronto Public Library <a href="http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/search.jsp?Ntt=John+Graves+Simcoe+fryer" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>), from his entry in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography <a href="http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/simcoe_john_graves_5E.html"><u>here</u></a>, and from his entry entry in the Canadian Encyclopedia <a href="http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/john-graves-simcoe/" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>. And you can read his letters in "The Correspondence of Lieut. Governor John Graves Simcoe" which you can find at the Toronto Public Library <a href="http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/search.jsp?Ntt=The+Correspondence+of+Lieut.+Governor+John+Graves+Simcoe" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Learn more about slavery and resistance in Upper Canada from Natasha Henry's "Talking About Freedom: Celebrating Emancipation Day in Canada" (Amazon <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Talking-About-Freedom-Celebrating-Emancipation/dp/1459700481" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>, Toronto Public Library <a href="http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?Entt=RDM2796032&R=2796032" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>), from Robin Winks' "The Blacks in Canada: A History" (Amazon <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Blacks-Canada-History-Robin-Winks/dp/0773516328/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1502142784&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Blacks+in+Canada%3A+A+History" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>, Toronto Public Library <a href="http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/search.jsp?Ntt=The+Blacks+in+Canada%3A+A+History+robin+winks" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>), from "The Underground Railroad: Next Stop, Toronto!" by Adrienna Shadd, Afua Cooper and Karolyn Smardz Frost (Amazon <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Underground-Railroad-Next-Stop-Toronto/dp/1554884292/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1502142858&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Underground+Railroad%3A+Next+Stop%2C+Toronto%21" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>, Toronto Public Library <a href="http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/search.jsp?Ntt=The+Underground+Railroad%3A+Next+Stop%2C+Toronto%21" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>), from William Renwick Riddell's 1923 article in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology <a href="http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1901&context=jclc" target="_blank">here</a> (that's a PDF), or from the Canadian Encyclopedia <a href="http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/black-enslavement">here</a>. The Encyclopedia also has an entry about Chloe Cooley and Simcoe's law <a href="http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/chloe-cooley-and-the-act-to-limit-slavery-in-upper-canada" target="_blank">here</a>. </i><br />
<br />
<i>You'll find the Wikipedia entry for the Haitian Revolution <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>. And a timeline of the history of Haiti <a href="http://library.brown.edu/haitihistory/1sr.html" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>. </i><br />
<br />
<i>Read some my previous posts about the Simcoes:</i><br />
<i><a href="http://torontodreamsproject.blogspot.ca/2013/08/simcoes-vision-for-toronto-city-so.html" target="_blank"><u>The story of John Graves Simcoe's vision for Toronto (a city so awesome it would undo the American Revolution)</u></a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://torontodreamsproject.blogspot.ca/2014/01/elizabeth-simcoes-1794-nightmare-story.html" target="_blank"><u>The story of Elizabeth Simcoe's 1794 nightmare</u></a><u> </u></i><br />
<i><a href="http://torontodreamsproject.blogspot.ca/2015/05/torontos-founding-dog-how-he-almost-got.html" target="_blank"><u>The story of their dog, Jack Sharp</u></a><u> </u></i><br />
<i><a href="http://torontodreamsproject.blogspot.ca/2012/03/torontos-first-cat.html" target="_blank"><u>The story of their cat</u></a><u> </u></i><br />
<i><a href="http://torontodreamsproject.blogspot.ca/2014/07/how-simcoes-fell-in-love.html" target="_blank"><u>The story of how they fell in love and the magical hills where it happened</u></a><u> </u></i><br />
<i><a href="http://torontodreamsproject.blogspot.ca/2014/07/dinosaurs-sir-walter-raleigh-simcoes.html" target="_blank"><u>The story of their summer home in Budleigh Salterton</u></a><u> </u></i><br />
<i><a href="http://torontodreamsproject.blogspot.ca/2014/07/samuel-taylor-coleridge-simcoes.html" target="_blank"><u>The story of their connection to Samuel Coleridge and his family</u></a><u> </u></i><br />
<i><a href="http://torontodreamsproject.blogspot.ca/2014/07/death-simcoe-boys.html" target="_blank"><u>The story of the Simcoe family and Exeter and death</u></a></i></div>
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<a href="http://torontodreamsproject.com/1pages/01-Simcoe.html" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="new"><img border="0" src="http://torontodreamsproject.com/PostcardImages/01%20John%20Graves%20Simcoe.gif" width="100" /></a></div>
<br /></td><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">This post is related to dream</span><br />
<b>01 Metropolitan York</b><br />
<i>John Graves Simcoe, 1793</i></td>
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<a href="http://torontodreamsproject.com/1pages18-Russell.html" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="new"><img border="0" src="http://torontodreamsproject.com/PostcardImages/18-PeterRussell.gif" width="100" /></a></div>
<br /></td><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: x-small;">This post is related to dream</span><br />
<b>18 Russell Creek</b><br />
<i>Peter Russell, 1799</i></td></tr>
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<br />Adam Bunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112071438967577096noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8790289735302476857.post-39019993015969018182017-07-03T13:32:00.001-04:002017-10-05T00:51:54.180-04:00Canada Wasn't Born in 1867<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMgvzFKLqQIg6aEW9ml9bBe1-Tc4kbz7qDR_-qkkrrUpnUuK0nx3yEoyAEaYoZJlA_vyY5DUyPqC9PXG1saEV4z8bWnFbk0SJ5MgIWHjLnHU_edhDMbdKY9BTUFCDy3XTNmsiwYKVUueM/s1600/fathers-of-confed-ptng.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="857" data-original-width="1600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMgvzFKLqQIg6aEW9ml9bBe1-Tc4kbz7qDR_-qkkrrUpnUuK0nx3yEoyAEaYoZJlA_vyY5DUyPqC9PXG1saEV4z8bWnFbk0SJ5MgIWHjLnHU_edhDMbdKY9BTUFCDy3XTNmsiwYKVUueM/s1600/fathers-of-confed-ptng.jpg" width="100%" /></a></div>
<p>
Canadians across the country partied this weekend in honour of #Canada150. But
while July 1, 2017 did mark the 150th anniversary of Confederation, the
celebrations were also more than a little bit misleading. Canada isn't
150 years old, and Canada Day isn't really its "birthday". </p>
This summer, I'll be hosting a new web series: <i>Canadiana</i> is on the hunt for the most incredible stories in Canadian history: <i>Canadiana</i>. Our first episode — about the bizarre history of "O Canada" — will be coming soon, but in the meantime, we've been posting nuggets of Canadian history on social media. And since the suggestion that our country "began" in 1867 is bizarre and misleading, I took to the <i>Canadiana</i>
Twitter account on Canada Day to do a little ranting on the subject. <br />
<br />
You'll find my Twitter essay embedded below, and for more tweets about the history of Canada you can follow us on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/thisiscanadiana" target="_blank"><u>@ThisIsCanadiana</u></a> or like us <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thisiscanadiana/" target="_blank"><u>on Facebook</u></a>.<br />
<br />
<div class="storify">
<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="no" height="250" src="//storify.com/TODreamsProject/canada-isn-t-150-years-old/embed?border=false" width="100%"></iframe><script src="//storify.com/TODreamsProject/canada-isn-t-150-years-old.js?border=false"></script><noscript>[<a href="//storify.com/TODreamsProject/canada-isn-t-150-years-old" target="_blank">View the story "Canada Isn't 150 Years Old" on Storify</a>]</noscript></div>
<br />
<br />
<i>You can subscribe to Canadiana<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0CPKMIqMeEzyoDrKXLn1Cg" target="_blank"><u>on YouTube</u></a>, follow us <a href="https://twitter.com/thisiscanadiana" target="_blank"><u>on Twitter</u></a>, or like us <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thisiscanadiana/" target="_blank"><u>on Facebook</u></a>.</i>Adam Bunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112071438967577096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8790289735302476857.post-81231375086421285922017-03-07T19:40:00.000-05:002017-03-07T19:40:09.068-05:00Dream 23 "Sir Henry & The Sleeping Dragon" (Sir Henry Pellatt, 1923)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://torontodreamsproject.com/1pages/23-Pellatt.html" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://torontodreamsproject.com/PostcardImages/23-HenryPellatt.gif" width="595" /></a></div>
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Sir Henry dreamed there was a dragon living in Casa Loma. He found it in the Great Hall, asleep atop a mountain of treasure. The beast must have collected every valuable object in the castle: gold and silver, paintings and tapestries, china and books and swords. Noxious smoke curled from the reptile’s nostrils. There were scorch marks on the ceilings and the walls.<br />
<br />
Sir Henry crept carefully forward, plucked a sword free from the pile. Then he mustered all his courage, drew himself up to his full height, and bravely cleared his throat. “Excuse me, sir,” he called out in his most commanding tone, “but that is my treasure. I demand you remove yourself this instant!”<br />
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The dragon kept sleeping; didn’t so much as twitch.<br />
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So Sir Henry tried again. “I am a knight of the British Empire and you will do as I say!” And with that, he brought his sword down upon the slumbering beast’s scaly hide with every ounce of strength he had.<br />
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The blade bounced off harmlessly. There wasn’t even a scratch.<br />
<br />
Finally, one of the lizard’s drowsy eyes cracked open. Sir Henry found himself staring into a pupil the size of a tabletop — but only for an instant before the eyelid slid back shut. Then, with a flick of its tail, the dragon sent the knight flying through the window, out into the garden, and down the Davenport hill.<br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Sir Henry Pellatt was one of the richest men in Canada in the late 1800s and early 1900s. He built Casa Loma as an opulent home for himself and his wife before his corrupt business practices destroyed his fortune — and the life savings of thousands of other Canadians along with it. </i><br />
<i><br />You can read more about Sir Henry and the building of Casa Loma <a href="http://torontodreamsproject.blogspot.ca/2012/12/casa-loma-crooked-knight.html" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>. Explore more Toronto Dreams Project postcards <a href="http://torontodreamsproject.com/9pages/01-09.html" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>.</i></div>
<br />Adam Bunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112071438967577096noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8790289735302476857.post-38472573416777000752017-02-22T20:54:00.000-05:002017-11-30T01:30:23.597-05:00Born in the Holocaust — Miriam Rosenthal & Her Miracle Baby<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3oppz4SAMpUgh3fH2cLdO1eU0UM_v5jEpuODpSp-VEL1SEKuESPwBnCqUgU9NKMgTNw2t_-LDfQSs1zC-_hyphenhyphen9ioGynimqHHfVKX0CUCQQbPrn3IXQ7ZEk7DDT0Ug_YwyoA34Lzzt4EtE/s1600/Miriam%2527s-Judaica-Bathurst-Street-Adam-Bunch---IMG_4746-02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3oppz4SAMpUgh3fH2cLdO1eU0UM_v5jEpuODpSp-VEL1SEKuESPwBnCqUgU9NKMgTNw2t_-LDfQSs1zC-_hyphenhyphen9ioGynimqHHfVKX0CUCQQbPrn3IXQ7ZEk7DDT0Ug_YwyoA34Lzzt4EtE/s1600/Miriam%2527s-Judaica-Bathurst-Street-Adam-Bunch---IMG_4746-02.jpg" width="100%" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><p>
It's easy to miss the shop if you're not looking for it. It blends into the other storefronts, one of many Jewish businesses along that stretch of Bathurst Street. It's been standing there for more than 50 years, just two blocks south of Lawrence Avenue, on the corner of Caribou Road. A plain blue sign lists the wares inside — books, sephorim, gifts — and displays the name of the store itself: Miriam's Judaica. </p></div>
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At a glance there doesn't seem to be anything particularly remarkable about it. It's a store like any other store. But the story behind that little Jewish shop on Bathurst Street is one of the most extraordinary stories you'll find in Toronto — or anywhere else for that matter. </div>
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~~~ </div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4OQFLEXnCzMswQcebmgclQKYmEMH0MzYr9_FtOsBiP_yPUNoZlxg65YAvQZt5o8sGs3CxVIuayPPEVhm4HsEf3busseU3sIKw7QHD1E7N0gyy3WDLP7vMGjF3OlP07sz-MsOE8EJCqi8/s1600/Miriam+Rosenthal+and+Bela+Rosenthal+-+Wedding+Photo+-+1944.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4OQFLEXnCzMswQcebmgclQKYmEMH0MzYr9_FtOsBiP_yPUNoZlxg65YAvQZt5o8sGs3CxVIuayPPEVhm4HsEf3busseU3sIKw7QHD1E7N0gyy3WDLP7vMGjF3OlP07sz-MsOE8EJCqi8/s320/Miriam+Rosenthal+and+Bela+Rosenthal+-+Wedding+Photo+-+1944.jpg" width="199" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Miriam & Bela on their wedding day</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The Miriam in Miriam's Judaica is Miriam Rosenthal. Her story begins in the town of Komárno, where she was born. It stands on the banks of the Danube River, in what's now Slovakia, right on the border with Hungary. She had a good childhood, the youngest of more than a dozen children in an Orthodox Jewish family. "I was spoiled," she once remembered. "I had a beautiful life."</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
When she was 22 years old, her family allowed her to get married — something she'd long been looking forward to. She went to a matchmaker and picked her husband out of a catalogue: Bela Rosenthal was the handsome son of a cattle broker; he lived on the Hungarian side of the border. Before long, they were engaged to be married.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
But this was April 1944. Darkness had descended on Europe. The Slovaks had been allied with the Nazis since the early days of the Second World War; the persecution of the country's Jewish population began immediately. Two years before Miriam and Bela got engaged, the first trainload of Jews had left Slovakia for Auschwitz. Komárno had been turned into a major military hub for the Germans; as the young couple planned their wedding, all of the Jews in Miriam's hometown — nearly three thousand of them — were being deported. Some of her brothers had already been sent off to labour camps.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Still, she was determined to go through with the wedding. She used false papers and wore a cross as she slipped across the border, taking a train to meet her fiance in Hungary. They were married just a few hours after she arrived. As the rabbi performed the ceremony, German bombs began to fall; the wedding party rushed underground, finishing the ceremony in the basement. "The rabbi insisted," Miriam explained years later, "bombs or no bombs." The young bride wore a red rose pinned to her lapel to cover her yellow star.</div>
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The newlyweds barely had any time to build their new life together. Just two weeks after the wedding, they were rounded up into a ghetto and separated. A few weeks after that, the Nazis came for them again. Bela was sent to a slave labour camp. Miriam was sent to Auschwitz.</div>
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More people would die at Auschwitz than at any other Nazi concentration camp: more than a million were killed in the four years the gas chambers and the ovens were in operation. As Rosenthal and the other new arrivals were herded off their trains, Dr. Joseph Mengele — "The Angel of Death" — was waiting for them. By then, they were already weakened by their journey:
untold hours spent crammed together in cattle cars without room to sit
or food to eat. Many died along the way. Now, Dr. Mengele scrutinized them, his eyes coldly assessing them from beneath the brim of his black cap, the skull and crossbones of the SS emblazoned on the front. He divided them into two groups, their fate determined by a wave of his gloved hand or a flick of his cane: left or right. Those he deemed unfit for work — more than 80% of them — were sent to the left: straight to the gas chambers. The others, to the right: to a life of slavery inside the concentration camp. Rosenthal watched as her mother, her sister, and her one year-old niece were all sent to the left, to death. But she made it through.</div>
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And it was there, just a few weeks later, trapped within the horrors of Auschwitz, that Miriam Rosenthal realized she was pregnant. </div>
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~~~</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDqioezUvpY4kTB9rbrraCHpss7W7ur72qx_0No3vDon_vjjdUY0wyCII5BjpRT2atLZ2e2bW1-_1nlQeRIeld1UMl4-BXGxdCOymotZW9it1dC7CR4lBXtxj_Sj3wdox5qrMi5FQ5yDQ/s1600/Children+Auschwitz+1945.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDqioezUvpY4kTB9rbrraCHpss7W7ur72qx_0No3vDon_vjjdUY0wyCII5BjpRT2atLZ2e2bW1-_1nlQeRIeld1UMl4-BXGxdCOymotZW9it1dC7CR4lBXtxj_Sj3wdox5qrMi5FQ5yDQ/s320/Children+Auschwitz+1945.jpg" width="275" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Children at Auschwitz, 1945</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The Nazis didn't spare Jewish children. They killed more than a million of them during the Holocaust. The leader of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, repeatedly justified and defended the slaughter in chilling speeches to his fellow party members.</div>
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"I believe, gentlemen," he once told a group of generals, "that you know me well enough to know that I am not
a bloodthirsty person... on the other hand, I have such
good nerves and such a developed sense of duty... that when I recognise something as necessary I can implement
it without compromise. I have not considered myself entitled... to allow the
children to grow into the avengers who will then murder our children and
our grandchildren. That would have been cowardly."</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
At Auschwitz, many children were immediately gassed, but a few were allowed to live. Some were kept as fodder for horrifying medical experiments carried out by Dr. Mengele and his staff. When he was done performing his bizarre tortures, he would kill some of them himself, injecting chloroform into their hearts and then dissecting them to study their organs. On other occasions, death came more casually: Mengele is said to have once drawn a line along the wall of the children's barracks about five feet from the ground; any child shorter than that line was promptly sent to the gas chambers. Sometimes children were thrown straight into the ovens, burned alive.</div>
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Pregnant women weren't given the chance to give birth. They, just like young mothers, were usually declared unfit for work and quickly murdered. <br />
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There was no question: Rosenthal would hide her pregnancy for as long as she could. "Not a word," one of her fellow prisoners advised her. "Not a single word. If not, you'll end up at the crematorium."</div>
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One day, the SS called for all the pregnant women to step forward. They were, the officers told them, going to be given double their usual ration of bread. But it was a lie: a trap.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Can you imagine?" Rosenthal asked a reporter from the <i>National Post</i> just a few years ago. "Even women who were not pregnant
stepped forward." But she stayed put. "Two hundred women stepped forward and 200
women went to the gas chamber. And I don’t know why I didn’t step
forward... I have asked rabbis. I have asked some big people and no one can
give me an answer... I have asked myself this
question so many times as I lay in bed upstairs."</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Declared fit for work, she was soon transferred out of Auschwitz and eventually sent to a factory in Augsberg where she was forced to make airplane parts for the Luftwaffe. Things there were slightly easier: the prisoners were given clean clothes and a little more food, allowed to grow their hair long for the first time since they'd arrived in the camps.</div>
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But all the while, Rosenthal's pregnancy was progressing. She was beginning to show. It was only a matter of time before the SS would notice.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
The dreaded day came during the winter of 1944. Two SS officers arrived at the factory with angry German shepherds; they demanded that any woman who was pregnant immediately identify herself. This time, there was no hidding.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
"I had to raise my hand," she explained. "I was showing, and if I
didn’t put up my hand all those other women would be killed. How could I
not put up my hand?"</div>
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The SS officers were furious. "You bitch!" they barked. "You're coming with us — to Auschwitz."</div>
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<i><br /></i>
"I said goodbye to my friends," she remembered, "who were crying, but it was a relief for me. The suffering would be over, as well as the fear of what would happen to my baby." Rosenthal resigned herself to death. <br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
She was taken out into the snow with nothing to protect her from the bitter cold but the dress she'd been wearing in the factory. The SS loaded her onto a train. This time, strangely, it wasn't a freight train packed full of prisoners, but a regular passenger train. There were civilians on board, seemingly oblivious to the genocide taking place all around them. One woman was shocked to see Rosenthal in her emaciated state. "Frau, what is with you?" she asked the prisoner. "You don’t have hair.
The clothes you are wearing. What are you, from a mental hospital?"</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"She didn’t have a dream, this German woman," Rosenthal remembered, "of all the horrible
things the Germans were doing. I told her I am not from a mental
hospital, I am going to Auschwitz — I am going to the gas. She looked at
me like I was crazy, opened her purse and gave me some bread. I ate it
so fast. I was so hungry."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
She was 22 years old and seven months pregnant.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
~~~ </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYochSQ-v8K2j6Ga_dcrwlPrwNSic9V-Z4XLOJIBbeFo14ZbKY_8EVW9x8-hu7KvX_pVr_GNBjXMznewcSzA22AUN5_vRUBmntL-B21zahesIH85xZa3psvI8ICYLd7w3g6v0JHjF3kMo/s1600/German-prisoners-uncover-a-mass-grave-at-one-of-the-Kaufering-sub-camps-of-Dachau-1945.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYochSQ-v8K2j6Ga_dcrwlPrwNSic9V-Z4XLOJIBbeFo14ZbKY_8EVW9x8-hu7KvX_pVr_GNBjXMznewcSzA22AUN5_vRUBmntL-B21zahesIH85xZa3psvI8ICYLd7w3g6v0JHjF3kMo/s320/German-prisoners-uncover-a-mass-grave-at-one-of-the-Kaufering-sub-camps-of-Dachau-1945.jpg" width="275" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Mass grave, Kaufering III, 1945</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Now that the Nazis knew Rosenthal was carrying a child, Auschwitz would mean almost certain death. But that's not where the SS took her. The Russians, they told her, had just bombed Auschwitz, so instead they were headed toward another one of the most notorious concentration camps: Dachau.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
By then, the war was going very poorly for the Nazis. The Allies had landed at Normandy six months earlier and begun their push across Europe. That year, the British and the Americans dropped more bombs on Germany than in the entire rest of the war combined — hundreds of thousands of tons of them. In response, the Nazis were moving their facilities underground. Near Dachau, in a town called Kaufering, they established eleven smaller sub-camps and used the slave labour of the prisoners to build giant subterranean airplane factories. There, they were put to work making Hitler's new "miracle weapon": the Messerschmitt, the world's first fighter jet. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Rosenthal was taken to one of those sub-camps: Kaufering I. It held thousands of prisoners, the vast majority of them Jewish, half of them doomed to die. The guards took her below ground and left her there in a dark room. It was hard to see. Only a single bulb cast dim light in the subterranean prison. But there were voices: other women, speaking Hungarian. "Where are you from?" they asked. "What happened to you?" There were six of them, they told her. And they were all pregnant. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"We started to cry and we just cried and cried," Rosenthal remembered. "It was
like we were all sisters. We had no one else in the world. We hugged each other. We kissed each other."</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
With the end of the war approaching, it seemed as if some of the Nazis were beginning to realize there would be consequences for their war crimes. They were starting to worry. The killing was far from over, but it seemed as if some things were beginning, ever so slightly, to change — if only so the Nazis could save their own skins. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The seven pregnant women were eventually taken above ground, to a small wooden hut that would serve as meagre shelter against the most terrible winter Europe had seen in the last fifteen years. What little heat they had came from a stove smuggled in for them by a fellow prisoner — one of the "kapos" who agreed to help oversee the camps in return for special treatment. She had taken a great risk by getting it for them. When the guards discovered the stove, they took it away and beat the kapo bloody. The next day, she brought it right back. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The SS officers brought them a doctor, too: one of the prisoners in the camp had been a gynecologist in Hungary before the war. But there was only so much Dr. Vadasz could do for them. He broke down in tears when he first saw the seven women, all of them now very far along in their pregnancies. He begged the Nazis to give him the equipment he would need for the deliveries. "I have no instruments! I need hot water! Towels! Soap!" But he would have to make do. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Within days, the first of the women went into labour. And in the weeks to come, the others would follow, one after another, suffering terribly as they gave birth on a hard, wooden bunk without anesthetic or the necessary medical equipment. Dr. Vadasz, terribly weakened himself, was given nothing but a bucket of hot water to use.<br />
<br />
Still, one by one, the first six mothers did what seemed to be impossible: they gave birth in a concentration camp. Six new babies were brought into the world. Six new lives in the middle of all that death.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Eventually, it was just Miriam Rosenthal who had yet to give birth to her child. She finally went into labour during the last week of February. But as she struggled through the contractions, it was clear that her delivery wasn't going as smoothly as the others had. There were complications. She became frightened that she couldn't hear the baby's heartbeat. And she was growing weak. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Dr. Vadasz urged her on. "Miriam
push, push, you must help me. I can't do it on my own. He's going to
die." Her strength was failing her. "Miriam please try, try try try..."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"I couldn't keep going any longer," she later remembered, "but all of a sudden
the baby is out... And what a beauty. With blond, beautiful
hair; big, blue eyes. The other women were crying. Dr. Vadasz was
crying. Everyone was crying."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
On February 28, 1945, Leslie Rosenthal was born. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
~~~</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH73jXdAF3npDcr8Ggz_7sYjV4IqktrN7TUNTjP5xagpCnh8Qkj2hDRKCk2atVhnJxT0U3LobbsuBwAk_2eM-Urvo9rMSkLCKsgGKh88SbFM69hHpoX_8VMiibfLFqn4JziOCNCmj11OM/s1600/Dachau+-+Mothers+and+Babies+including+Miriam+Rosenthal+and+Leslie+Rosenthal+1945.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH73jXdAF3npDcr8Ggz_7sYjV4IqktrN7TUNTjP5xagpCnh8Qkj2hDRKCk2atVhnJxT0U3LobbsuBwAk_2eM-Urvo9rMSkLCKsgGKh88SbFM69hHpoX_8VMiibfLFqn4JziOCNCmj11OM/s320/Dachau+-+Mothers+and+Babies+including+Miriam+Rosenthal+and+Leslie+Rosenthal+1945.jpg" width="270" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The seven mothers & their babies, Dachau, 1945</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
It was a miracle. But they weren't safe yet. The Allies were still fighting their slow, bloody way across the continent. The war against Germany wouldn't end for another ten weeks.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
And those ten weeks would be hard weeks. An outbreak of typhoid tore through the camp. Prisoners were still dying everywhere. And even as they recovered from the strain of childbirth, the new mothers were forced
to keep working, washing prisoners' clothing
and unloading dead bodies. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Rosenthal was in especially poor shape. After the delivery, her placenta had never emerged. It was another life-threatening complication. "After a week I started to bleed," she remembered. "The blood was flowing like water
from a tap. Terrible. So much blood." Dr. Vadasz warned the others that Rosenthal wasn't going to make it. "If you die," one of them promised her, "I will take Leslie."</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Rosenthal kept fighting, and eventually recovered. But death was still a constant threat. When Leslie was still just two weeks old, the camp's head physician signed an order to have all of the new mothers and their babies sent to Bergen-Belsen to be gassed. His order, for some unknown reason, was never carried out. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Meanwhile, the Allies were getting closer: by the end of March, they were across the Rhine, marching through Germany itself, pushing on toward victory. Soon, the Soviets were on the outskirts of Berlin, shelling the capital. Hitler had retreated into his bunker, never to emerge again. In just a few days, he would put his gun to his head and end his own life. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
As the Third Reich collapsed, the SS officers at the Kaufering camps were debating what to do with their prisoners. Some were determined to kill as many Jews and destroy as much evidence as they could before the end. As the Americans approached, the Nazis set fire to some of the barracks. Hundreds of prisoners were too weak to escape the flames. They were burned alive.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Thousands of others — including the seven mothers and their babies — were evacuated, forced into a death march from the sub-camps of Kaufering toward Dachau itself, nearly sixty kilometers away. "Anyone who was unable to keep walking was shot on the spot," one of the other mothers remembered.
"People were sick, weak and malnourished. We had to march without shoes."<br />
<br />
Rosenthal could barely keep moving, but if she stopped she knew she would be killed — and Leslie with her. At one point, as she struggled to carry on, one of the Nazi officers offered to help. More than sixty years later, she was still moved to tears by the memory of that small, unexpected act of humanity. "I couldn't believe
it: an SS man says, 'Let me carry your child.' You see, there are good
people in this life. They were SS but this man had a heart.
He took the child. I could hardly keep walking and he said, 'I'll carry
him.'"<br />
<br />
"Some Germans helped," she once told the <i>Toronto Star</i>, "maybe not enough, but there were some." </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Rosenthal kept going, struggling on long enough to get loaded onto yet another train. But even the train wasn't safe. The American air force didn't realize it was filled with the people they had come to save — so they bombed it. As prisoners fled the wreckage into the surrounding woods, the SS opened fire. The forest was filled with bodies.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"I
kept saying, 'Leslie, we're going home. God will help us... Please God, please God. Help me, help me.'"<br />
<br />
In the end, it took two days for the prisoners and their guards to make the journey from Kaufering to the main camp. Thousands of prisoners died in death marches around Dachau in the final few days of the war. But Rosenthal, the six other mothers, and all seven of their babies survived. </div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The morning after they arrived, they were lined up for one last roll call. A few hours later, the Americans arrived.<br />
<br />
It was over. They were free.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
~~~</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnanhyphenhyphen57RRLGa62VI6SlgfAH4delCi_6fSBCmo-OuBfkHVnm0A44eozpQoVs1eOFQgHZHGbrmRhsXJw0XF9xTJMriZI7l5sb00whlXXaGlWUigKigm2RpYORMm-hwtgp0a0dExNUs-AZ8/s1600/Miriam-Bela-Leslie-Rosenthal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnanhyphenhyphen57RRLGa62VI6SlgfAH4delCi_6fSBCmo-OuBfkHVnm0A44eozpQoVs1eOFQgHZHGbrmRhsXJw0XF9xTJMriZI7l5sb00whlXXaGlWUigKigm2RpYORMm-hwtgp0a0dExNUs-AZ8/s320/Miriam-Bela-Leslie-Rosenthal.jpg" width="275" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bela, Leslie and Miriam</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
He was there, in the distance, running toward her. Somehow they had both survived — and they had both made their way back home to find each other. Bela was stunned to see Leslie in Miriam's arms. He couldn't believe she'd gotten pregnant so quickly, in those two brief weeks before the Nazis tore them apart. He was overjoyed. "I can’t describe that feeling of when he saw our baby," she remembered, "when he saw Leslie for the first time. We cried and cried and cried."<br />
<br />
With the war over, they decided to leave Hungary behind and to set out in search of a new life: they travelled through Bratislava, Prague, Paris and Cuba before they finally reached Canada. For a while, Bela worked at a mattress factory. And then as a rabbi in Timmins and Sudbury. But in the end, they settled in Toronto, where they would spend the rest of their lives.<br />
<br />
In 1965, they opened a shop on Bathurst Street at the corner of Caribou Road. They called it Miriam's Fine Judaica. They ran the store for more than 40 years, and raised their growing family: three children, and then grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. They would both live into their 90s. <br />
<br />
At first, Rosenthal didn't tell her story to very many people outside her own family. She was still haunted by nightmares of SS officers coming to steal her newborn child. But in her later years, she began to share her extraordinary tale. "I believe," she told the <i>Star</i> in 1997, "as I get older I think more and more about the Holocaust and my family... I feel my memories more, but still I am not bitter."<br />
<br />
In 2010, she was interviewed for an <a href="http://www.newyorkfestivals.com/winners/2011/pieces.php?iid=413383&pid=1" target="_blank"><u>award-winning German documentary</u></a> about the seven mothers and their children called <i>Born In A Concentration Camp</i>. A couple of years after that, a journalist from the <i>National Post </i>interviewed her for <a href="http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/pregnant-in-auschwitz-toronto-holocaust-survivor-recalls-split-second-decision-that-saved-her-and-unborn-son" target="_blank"><u>an article</u></a> about her remarkable life.<br />
<br />
Leslie was there, too. By then, he was nearly 70 years old. As he arrived, Miriam proudly introduced her son: "Here is my miracle baby now." <br />
<br />
"And here," Leslie answered, "is my miracle mother."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
-----</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>You can watch the documentary, Born In A Concentration Camp, online <a href="http://www.newyorkfestivals.com/winners/2011/pieces.php?iid=413383&pid=1" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>. And you can read the National Post interview <a href="http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/pregnant-in-auschwitz-toronto-holocaust-survivor-recalls-split-second-decision-that-saved-her-and-unborn-son" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>. And if you've got a Toronto Public Library card, I think you should be able to read the Toronto Star article <a href="http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.torontopubliclibrary.ca/docview/1346237806" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a> (<span class="TF"><span class="tf">Page E1, April 21, 1997). The website for Miriam's Fine Judaica shares Bela (William) Rosenthal's obituary from the Canadian Jewish News <a href="http://miriamsjudaica.com/?page_id=5116" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>. </span></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Haaretz wrote about the mothers and their babies <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/news/six-jewish-babies-born-in-dachau-reunite-65-years-later-1.285012" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>. The Canadian Jewish News wrote about the Rosenthals <a href="http://www.cjnews.com/perspectives/opinions/birth-amidst-death-toronto-womans-son-born-dachau" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>. </i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum shares more information about the Kaufering camps <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10006171" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a> and Auschwitz <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005189" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>. The Guardian has some more information about Auschwitz <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/27/auschwitz-short-history-liberation-concentration-camp-holocaust" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>, as does the London Jewish Cultural Centre has some more information about Auschwitz on their "The Holocaust Explained" site for students <a href="http://www.theholocaustexplained.org/ks3/the-final-solution/auschwitz-birkenau/transport-and-arrival/#.WK0iUYWNvMO" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>. </i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>You can learn more about the Jewish history of Komárno from the Slovak Jewish Heritage Center <a href="http://www.slovak-jewish-heritage.org/komarno-menhaz.html" target="_blank">here</a>. </i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>PHOTOS: Miram and Bela's wedding photo comes from the </i><i><i>United States Holocaust Memorial Museum <a href="https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1086355" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>, which also shares their story. The photo of the children in Auschwitz comes via the Globe and Mail, which shares the story of one of those children <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/auschwitz-survivor-recalls-liberation-from-infamous-death-camp/article22606072/" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>. The photo of the mass grave at Kaufering III — and the German prisoners being forced to uncover it at the end of the war — comes </i></i><i><i><i>from the </i><i><i>United States Holocaust Memorial Museum</i></i> <a href="https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1158804" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>. The same site has the photo of the seven mothers and their babies <a href="https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1158563" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>. </i> </i><br />
</div>
Adam Bunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112071438967577096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8790289735302476857.post-47779055529560188782017-01-30T18:06:00.000-05:002017-01-30T18:11:07.370-05:00Toronto's Founding Purpose: A Haven For Refugees<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha4WiW5nFAheylMYQZ6WilIzXdS8vFIxHNVgVIVVzltGoXb7X3rDUaHGle0Ry_FbRKaJdKCpZMGHMYHPlqrxsFOMg6kMOSZ9LN_qwFaLWuHc1SRvjUB6CA6I26vsFmcaDrOzefEA_SsmA/s1600/Budapest-Park---Adam-Bunch-IMG_4924.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha4WiW5nFAheylMYQZ6WilIzXdS8vFIxHNVgVIVVzltGoXb7X3rDUaHGle0Ry_FbRKaJdKCpZMGHMYHPlqrxsFOMg6kMOSZ9LN_qwFaLWuHc1SRvjUB6CA6I26vsFmcaDrOzefEA_SsmA/s1600/Budapest-Park---Adam-Bunch-IMG_4924.jpg" width="100%" /></a></div><p>
More than two hundred years ago, the city of Toronto was founded to serve as the new capital of Upper Canada — a province created to be a home for Loyalist refugees forced to flee from the chaos and persecution they faced in the United States after the American Revolution. Today, as our neighbours south of the border turn their backs on the world, it seems especially important to remember Toronto's founding purpose. Many of our city's greatest moments have come when we've opened our arms to welcome those in need of shelter: from the victims of the Irish Famine, to those fleeing the Soviet crackdown after the Hungarian Revolution, to the Syrian refugees of today. And many of our darkest times have come when we've shut our doors on those who needed our help.</p></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I shared some thoughts about refugees and the history of Toronto on Twitter recently, and have turned them into a Storify post here: </div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="storify">
<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="no" height="750" src="//storify.com/TODreamsProject/toronto-was-founded-to-be-a-safe-haven-for-refugee/embed?header=false&border=false" width="100%"></iframe><script src="//storify.com/TODreamsProject/toronto-was-founded-to-be-a-safe-haven-for-refugee.js?header=false&border=false"></script><noscript>[<a href="//storify.com/TODreamsProject/toronto-was-founded-to-be-a-safe-haven-for-refugee" target="_blank">View the story "Toronto's Founding Purpose: To Be A Safe Haven For Refugees" on Storify</a>]</noscript></div>
Adam Bunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112071438967577096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8790289735302476857.post-62528643842261292682017-01-25T02:13:00.000-05:002019-07-10T22:05:33.297-04:00The Tragic Final Days of Lucy Maud Montgomery<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifAvWn0olp-2-vgqUfeklHw3ZyORkvLwFpJaYDtNqMwFm9Ws6iGMfnbuqfR1o1iVQBwD5gmK8Gas8Y6wXm0aMN_5FobpLPGqpH709Y8VkPnj_L1WTTifegNSnrt_Z8jZbB4nhXVO8es6M/s1600/Journey%2527s-End-Lucy-Maud-Montgomery-by-Adam-Bunch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifAvWn0olp-2-vgqUfeklHw3ZyORkvLwFpJaYDtNqMwFm9Ws6iGMfnbuqfR1o1iVQBwD5gmK8Gas8Y6wXm0aMN_5FobpLPGqpH709Y8VkPnj_L1WTTifegNSnrt_Z8jZbB4nhXVO8es6M/s1600/Journey%2527s-End-Lucy-Maud-Montgomery-by-Adam-Bunch.jpg" width="100%" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><p>
This is where Lucy Maud Montgomery died: the house she called Journey's
End. It's on Riverside Drive in Swansea: the west end of Toronto. Montgomery spent her last decade living here, perched high
above the Humber Valley as she grew old and wrote the last few sequels to <i>Anne of
Green Gables</i>.</p></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Those were dark years for the beloved Canadian writer. "There has never been any
happiness in this house — there never will be,” she confessed in her
journal. "The present is unbearable. The past is spoiled. There is no future."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
She had been suffering from depression for years — and it deepened
near the end of her life. She was plagued by mood swings and waves of
crippling anxiety, haunted by nightmares and painful memories, beset by
headaches, vomiting, shooting pains, and trembling hands. She had
difficulty sleeping. At times, she couldn’t concentrate well enough to
write. The pills the doctors prescribed only made things worse, and
before long she was hooked on them.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Meanwhile, her literary legacy was under attack. Once upon a time, Montgomery's stories had been enjoyed by men, women, boys and girls of all ages — even the Prime Minister of Great Britain sang her praises. But now her work was being dismissed by a new generation of male, modernist critics who claimed her books were too "sugary" to be enjoyed by anyone but little girls, and that her stories were too regional — too <i>Canadian</i> — to have any appeal for a worldwide audience. "Canadian fiction," according to one of Montgomery's harshest and most influential critics, "was to go no lower."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
And yet she still kept fighting. Even as her depression deepened, her family life crumbled, and the Second World War broke out, Montgomery acted as a passionate advocate for Canadian authors: giving speeches and readings, imparting advice to young writers, insisting that Canadian stories were worth telling and that Canadian voices were worth hearing. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It was on a spring day in 1942 that it all finally caught up with her. On the very same day the manuscript of her final sequel to <i>Anne of Green Gables</i> was dropped off at her publisher's office,
her maid found Montgomery dead in bed. There were pill bottles on the table
next to her along with a sheet of paper that read:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"I have lost my mind
by spells and I do not dare think what I may do in those spells. May God
forgive me and I hope everyone else will forgive me even if they cannot
understand. My position is too awful to endure and nobody realizes it.
What an end to a life in which I tried always to do my best."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Her family
kept Montgomery's depression and her apparent suicide a secret for more than sixty years, until her
granddaughter finally revealed the truth in 2008, hoping to contribute to a more honest conversation about mental illness.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
“I have come to feel very strongly,” she wrote <a href="http://v1.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080919.wmhmontgomery0920/BNStory/mentalhealth" target="_blank"><u>in the <i>Globe</i></u></a>, “that the stigma surrounding mental illness will be forever upon us as a society until we sweep away the misconception that depression happens to other people, not us — and most certainly not to our heroes and icons.”<br />
<br />
Depression — far being from being a sign of weakness or of failure — plagued even one of the most celebrated Canadian authors of all-time. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
-----</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<table><tbody>
<tr><td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i><a href="https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/product/9781459738065-item.html?mkwid=sglCNn6VL_dc&pcrid=44154474422&pkw=&pmt=&s_campaign=goo-Shopping_Books&gclid=Cj0KEQiAk5zEBRD9lfno2dek0tsBEiQAWVKyuDr68snSHDbXG7xawC27ZyhYo7XlD7V_Z2gCZMxGFdAaAvnp8P8HAQ" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://www.torontodreamsproject.com/dead/TorontoBookOfTheDead-Preorder-Twitter.jpg" height="90" /></a></i></div>
<i><br /></i></td><td valign="top"><span style="font-size: small;">A version of this story appears in </span>
<b>The Toronto Book of the Dead</b><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>Out now</i><br />
</span><br />
<hr />
<span style="font-size: small;">
<i>Order from <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Toronto-Book-Dead-Adam-Bunch/dp/1459738063/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=" target="_blank"><u>Amazon</u></a>, <a href="https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/product/9781459738065-item.html?mkwid=sglCNn6VL_dc&pcrid=44154474422&pkw=&pmt=&s_campaign=goo-Shopping_Books&gclid=Cj0KEQiAk5zEBRD9lfno2dek0tsBEiQAWVKyuDr68snSHDbXG7xawC27ZyhYo7XlD7V_Z2gCZMxGFdAaAvnp8P8HAQ" target="_blank"><u>Indigo</u></a>, or find it at your favourite bookstore</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>The Globe and Mail has more about Lucy Maud Montgomery's depression in articles by Irene Gammel <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/the-fatal-disappointments-of-lucy-maud/article1199004/" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a> and James Adams <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/lucy-maud-suffered-unbearable-psychological-pain/article17971634." target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>. There's also lots more in Mary Henley Rubio's biography of the author, "Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wings," which you can borrow from the Toronto Public Library <a href="http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?Entt=RDM2441503&R=2441503" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>. </i></div>
</div>
<br />Adam Bunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112071438967577096noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8790289735302476857.post-81746074545505006542016-08-31T16:45:00.000-04:002016-08-31T16:45:34.948-04:00Come To The Ex! Watch Us Slice Open A Pet!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUZRJCKeM2fXSpXjLXIX2Dn6_IOdstzifqZdmCHoci17x6uLXu75iSxpGwxgpxG0qmiRHNmnH0to1XvjjOwnffCJowtsCfqXRvOrxPH3nKqYwYDGz_YynOk_hrLODDb9qxgIrWnovh_OQ/s1600/Vetescope62-BiG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUZRJCKeM2fXSpXjLXIX2Dn6_IOdstzifqZdmCHoci17x6uLXu75iSxpGwxgpxG0qmiRHNmnH0to1XvjjOwnffCJowtsCfqXRvOrxPH3nKqYwYDGz_YynOk_hrLODDb9qxgIrWnovh_OQ/s1600/Vetescope62-BiG.jpg" width="100%"/></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><p>
The Ex had never been more popular than it was in 1962 and ’63. More
than three million people walked through the gates during those years.
The crowds set new <a href="http://www.cnearchives.com/download/CNEAFDates.htm" target="_blank" title="CNE Archives">attendance records</a>
for Canada’s biggest fair — less than half as many visit these days.
Many of those flocking to the Exhibition Grounds were about to see one
of the most bizarre exhibits the CNE has ever displayed.</p></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It was called Vetescope. The Canadian Veterinary Medical Association
organized it. They wanted to show Canadians that vets were more than
just “horse doctors” – that they were a vital part of modern society,
using cutting edge technology to keep our animals healthy. They billed
it as “the biggest public relations venture that organized veterinary
medicine has undertaken on this continent.”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It was huge. The full exhibit sprawled over 9,000 square feet in the
gorgeous Hydro Building (they call it the Music Building now) and cost
$1 million to prepare. There were more than 250 vets on hand to answer
questions from the public, manning 18 displays about their profession.
There was information about “radiology, anatomy, embryology, histology,
pathology, bacteriology and parsitology”. But that’s not all. They also
featured some attention-grabbing displays about the modern innovations
in veterinary science.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
You could, for instance, learn about the role of animal medicine in
space exploration. And as part of the Large Animal display, members of
the public could meet “Maggie the magnetized cow”. It seems she was
equipped with one of the latest breakthroughs in bovine science: a cow
magnet. It rested in her gut, collecting all of the metallic odds and
ends a cow accidentally consumes over the course of her lifetime, thus
preventing troublesome “hardware disease”. It was a brand new
development back in the early 1960s; today the use of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_magnet" target="_blank" title="Wikipedia">cow magnets</a> is commonplace.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But it wasn’t the space age exhibit or the magnetized cow that
grabbed the biggest headlines. The organizers of Vetescope had put
together an even more dramatic demonstration of their profession. They
had veterinarians perform live surgeries in front of crowds of curious
onlookers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
People loved it. Thousands upon thousands of Torontonians and
tourists showed up to witness the surgeries. So many, in fact, they
couldn’t all get close enough to see through the windows into the
operating room. Those who were too far away to see inside watched on a
closed circuit television system.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
For some of them, it was all a bit too much. As the doctors made
their incisions into the tiny, furry patients on the operating table,
many of those who were watching grew dizzy and weak in the knees. In one
day alone, at least a dozen people fainted. One man passed out twice.
Another recovered only to walk straight into a tree. One <a href="http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=v7lOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=MQEEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3800,5267914&dq=vetescope&hl=en" target="_blank" title="Toledo Blade">American newspaper</a>
called the operations “too realistic,” reporting that an average of
three audience members were fainting during every surgery. “More than 50
visitors have been carried or helped out, and a few have required
hospital treatment.” The organizers, fearing for public safety, made
sure there were “fainting assistants” on hand to help those who did keel
over.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Despite the queasy combination of cotton candy, corn dogs, roller
coasters and live surgery, Vetescope was, by all accounts, a smashing
success. Nearly 400,000 people came to see it in the first year alone.
“[T]he general reaction could almost be described as one of
astonishment,” a supporter later recalled. “It became apparent even to a
child that medical care of animals is on par with that of humans.” The
veterinary masterminds behind the exhibit were lauded for their public
relations success.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In fact, it was such a big hit they made sure to capture it on film:</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<object height="329" width="410"><param name="movie" value="https://www.youtube.com/v/AWw07LNQoOw?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param>
<param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param>
<param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param>
<embed src="https://www.youtube.com/v/AWw07LNQoOw?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="410" height="329"></embed></object></div>
<br><br>
<i>A version of this post was originally published on August 23, 2010.</i><br><br>
Adam Bunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07330281017966163295noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8790289735302476857.post-27734581353629532252016-08-24T14:53:00.000-04:002017-07-19T18:32:21.469-04:00Coming Soon: The Toronto Book of the Dead<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBT84zwJcvgn8iz3e9apjhQ7Q7XsSA0SylWxNW-IWre920kXDooBAeRxwHCJphZq_F967XBDH3Uw_ZWixZR-KidosxSXXFPQpPwLZ9LOie9jMg0U60vtGY9M8bebAo3BK_8lRDegnnFgg/s1600/Book-of-the-Dead-Collage-NO-WORD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBT84zwJcvgn8iz3e9apjhQ7Q7XsSA0SylWxNW-IWre920kXDooBAeRxwHCJphZq_F967XBDH3Uw_ZWixZR-KidosxSXXFPQpPwLZ9LOie9jMg0U60vtGY9M8bebAo3BK_8lRDegnnFgg/s1600/Book-of-the-Dead-Collage-NO-WORD.jpg" width="100%" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><p>
Things have been a bit quiet on the Dreams Project blog this year — but there's a pretty good reason for that: I spent most of 2016 working on my first book. It's available for pre-order now (from <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Toronto-Book-Dead-Adam-Bunch/dp/1459738063" target="_blank"><u>Amazon</u></a>, <a href="https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/product/9781459738065-item.html?mkwid=sglCNn6VL_dc&pcrid=44154474422&pkw&pmt&s_campaign=goo-Shopping_Books&gclid=CjwKEAjw-LLKBRCdhqmwtYmX93kSJAAORDM61bR5-VkDX7v_Uv94UWcEqGtdiqifFTLlRi0pMDD-xBoCi9Tw_wcB" target="_blank"><u>Indigo</u></a>, or your favourite local bookseller). It hits shelves in September 2017.</p>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>The Toronto Book of the Dead</i> will explore the history of the city through the stories of some of its most fascinating and illuminating deaths. There will be morbid tales of war and plague, of duels and executions, of suicides and séances. It will cover everything from ancient First Nations burial mounds to the grisly murder of Toronto’s first lighthouse keeper; from the rise and fall of the city’s greatest Victorian baseball star to the final days of the world’s most notorious anarchist.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Countless lives have been lived and lost as Toronto has grown from a muddy little frontier town into a booming metropolis of concrete and glass. <i>The Toronto Book of the Dead</i> will tell the story of our ever-changing city through the final moments of those who have called this place home.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>Adam Bunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112071438967577096noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8790289735302476857.post-70963286505954445482016-08-02T16:16:00.000-04:002017-08-07T18:16:28.046-04:00Simcoe's Weird & Complicated Relationship With Slavery — A Tweetstorm<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxFgRTbiDCw7eGFB8zu17KD05f0oIgQsNzsgFmHhDxPOAyjJo-l3dum734oZSxGcAv6plAlecHOfUIoCX5kHiU0v9oxRPEmeCAKm8-a3x2e6Hd1iosGqtx8wBBGkxLOeTAMqoOx-JnjNk/s1600/SimcoeSlavery.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxFgRTbiDCw7eGFB8zu17KD05f0oIgQsNzsgFmHhDxPOAyjJo-l3dum734oZSxGcAv6plAlecHOfUIoCX5kHiU0v9oxRPEmeCAKm8-a3x2e6Hd1iosGqtx8wBBGkxLOeTAMqoOx-JnjNk/s1600/SimcoeSlavery.jpg" width="100%" /></a></div>
<p>August 1 was both Simcoe Day and Emancipation Day in the City of Toronto. One is meant to remember the British soldier who founded our city; the other marks the day slavery was abolished across the entire British Empire. It's an interesting overlap: Simcoe was responsible for abolishing slavery in Toronto; he passed the first law to end the practice ever passed anywhere in the Empire. But his relationship to slavery wasn't anywhere near as clear-cut and simple as that might make it sound. And so, to mark this year's Simcoe and Emancipation Days, I thought I'd do some tweeting.</p>
You'll find the Twitter essay embedded below. And if you can't see it for any reason, you can read it all on Storify <a href="https://storify.com/TODreamsProject/john-graves-simcoe-s-weird-complicated-relationshi" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="storify">
<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="no" height="750" src="//storify.com/TODreamsProject/john-graves-simcoe-s-weird-complicated-relationshi/embed?border=false" width="100%"></iframe><script src="//storify.com/TODreamsProject/john-graves-simcoe-s-weird-complicated-relationshi.js?border=false"></script><noscript>[<a href="//storify.com/TODreamsProject/john-graves-simcoe-s-weird-complicated-relationshi" target="_blank">View the story "John Graves Simcoe's Weird & Complicated Relationship With Slavery" on Storify</a>]</noscript></div>
Adam Bunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112071438967577096noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8790289735302476857.post-66117735116102638242016-05-27T00:11:00.000-04:002016-05-27T14:58:47.335-04:00Some Stuff You Should See At Doors Open 2016<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3QpEElm1V5VyqOWGX5dogppJ-LfWJWBYU-LYTjG6HqOXB-DDTTZSoy9v44AYlDyxFBo9kShR4oU-Fc0IMjHeXcT6CCFwQvrfMmNVwJN8Y8pfReqSzsVxZftZnS-HlQGWbWmodMmUVnGY/s1600/St+James+Cathedral+int.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 0em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3QpEElm1V5VyqOWGX5dogppJ-LfWJWBYU-LYTjG6HqOXB-DDTTZSoy9v44AYlDyxFBo9kShR4oU-Fc0IMjHeXcT6CCFwQvrfMmNVwJN8Y8pfReqSzsVxZftZnS-HlQGWbWmodMmUVnGY/s200/St+James+Cathedral+int.jpg" width="195" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><p>
This weekend is Doors Open weekend in Toronto. More than a hundred and thirty buildings
across the city will be opening their doors to the public over the next two days — including some of the most
interesting, beautiful and historic buildings that Toronto has to offer.
And since there's no way one person can manage to catch all of the cool
stuff without a TARDIS or a DeLorean or a Time-Turner, I thought I'd share some of my own picks for this year's event.</p>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I might be out and about myself this weekend and, if so, I'll be sharing my adventures <a href="https://twitter.com/TODreamsProject" target="_blank"><u>on Twitter</u></a> and <a href="http://instagram.com/todreamsproject#" target="_blank"><u>on Instagram</u></a> (@TODreamsProject). So you can follow me there!<br />
<br />
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiASPLvYs16l1UrYjASPRzw-cMN_8oCjaWgYYXNGiQ9WGec9EqR7SPcQXtvnEigT2e6FYDGr_CktZuOB_5MbR_un1BuSqRKYvWXlDxzCBrTbKZYmH1Gur_VjR-kc626-pxnErWrFR8myTE/s1600/St+James+Cathedral+ext.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 0em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiASPLvYs16l1UrYjASPRzw-cMN_8oCjaWgYYXNGiQ9WGec9EqR7SPcQXtvnEigT2e6FYDGr_CktZuOB_5MbR_un1BuSqRKYvWXlDxzCBrTbKZYmH1Gur_VjR-kc626-pxnErWrFR8myTE/s200/St+James+Cathedral+ext.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. JAMES </b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Not only is the Cathedral Church of St. James one of the most spectacular buildings in
Toronto, it's also one of the most important buildings in the entire
history of Canada. The story of St. James stretches all the way back to a
small wooden church built at what's now the corner of Church & King
in the <i>very</i> early 1800s — and over the course of that century,
it played a central role in the battle for democracy in Canada. This was
the church most our city's leaders attended. The first preacher, John
Strachan, was also our city's first Anglican bishop, arch-nemesis of
William Lyon Mackenzie and a figurehead of the infamously
anti-democratic Family Compact. He's still there today, buried
under the chancel. (I wrote the full story for <i>Torontoist</i> a while back; you can check it out <a href="http://torontoist.com/2011/11/the-battles-at-st-james/" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>.) To this day, it's still the heart of the Anglican faith in Canada. Even the Queen prays here when she's in town. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>The doors to the church will be open from 10 to 5 on Saturday and 12:30 to 4 on Sunday afternoon.</i></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-iiDS7rj9vqnHi8u9wbuQlwhUyuCOlG0jYP_LU92_gGZyKGzth6XRQhcAzM_8bPQnyujFMDhPMTUw4uqGHZmqe3FNeBxFuqI_sF5p66P6HdP52TFbwH4XnV7PQ5LEY9RkiiRvMNlUIdw/s1600/Fort+York+Post-Walk+Soldier.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 0em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-iiDS7rj9vqnHi8u9wbuQlwhUyuCOlG0jYP_LU92_gGZyKGzth6XRQhcAzM_8bPQnyujFMDhPMTUw4uqGHZmqe3FNeBxFuqI_sF5p66P6HdP52TFbwH4XnV7PQ5LEY9RkiiRvMNlUIdw/s200/Fort+York+Post-Walk+Soldier.jpg" width="191" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><b>FORT YORK</b> <br />
<br />
</b>Fort York is one of the jewels of Toronto. A National Historic Site hidden
between the highways and the skyscrapers. The fort has been standing on
this spot — the place where the modern city of Toronto started — for more than 200 years. Its story stretches back through one
war after another, back through the bloody battle that raged here
during the War of 1812, back all the way to the very first day the city
of Toronto was founded. It was here, at what was then the mouth of the
Garrison Creek, that the first British soldiers showed up to start
chopping down trees and building the military base that would guard the
mouth of our harbour. Meanwhile, Governor Simcoe and his wife Elizabeth
lived in an elaborate tent overlooking the construction from the other
side of the creek, exploring the beaches and the forests with their
young children, <a href="http://torontodreamsproject.blogspot.ca/2012/03/torontos-first-cat.html" target="_blank"><u>their pet cat</u></a> and a dog they called <a href="http://torontodreamsproject.blogspot.ca/2015/05/torontos-founding-dog-how-he-almost-got.html" target="_blank"><u>Jack Sharp</u></a>. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>The site will be open from 10 to 5 on
both Saturday and Sunday, with tours pretty much every hour.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmQgvdzAna-RUNe7WVwM5dtpQNKExuCmqHIiO8q3mnGUmXNeu0nnv9Yl6mcxdYjEeGDdRL5xEd9sE2XokDa3J5DC55TqVdikw-xJ2dxWRMAqU7tu9pluQpAO475jMoDnl150GhCGF8ydU/s1600/Pumping+Station+Dials.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 0em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmQgvdzAna-RUNe7WVwM5dtpQNKExuCmqHIiO8q3mnGUmXNeu0nnv9Yl6mcxdYjEeGDdRL5xEd9sE2XokDa3J5DC55TqVdikw-xJ2dxWRMAqU7tu9pluQpAO475jMoDnl150GhCGF8ydU/s200/Pumping+Station+Dials.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<b>THE HIGH LEVEL WATER PUMPING STATION</b> <br />
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Just like the much more famous <a href="http://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/contentonly?vgnextoid=4b312bc76a8cc410VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD&key=7B28640E91208E7085257DDC005E25EE" target="_blank"><u>R.C. Harris Water Treatment Plant </u></a>out in the east end (which will also be open this weekend), the High Level Water Pumping Station takes Toronto's water
infrastructure and transforms it into something beautiful. And the old
building also played a central role in one of the most delightful episodes in
the history of our city. Back in the 1960s, the residents of the
surrounding neighbourhood — Rathnelly — declared independence from the rest of Canada.
As the story goes, they wrote a letter to Prime Minister Trudeau,
elected a Queen, issued their own passports, and sent an "air farce" of
children holding a thousand helium balloons to surround the Pumping
Station until their demands were met. To this day, the neighbourhood is
known as the Republic of Rathnelly. They've even got their own custom
street signs featuring a national crest.<br />
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The doors will be open from 10 to 5 on both Saturday and Sunday. </i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieNHdjjZc4mfASa36w83sct7l_DLj9P96Iko6Hr0oT4m5tt3MbJbgtq3hi_lCSdlqPqgrbxzhQ15FL4OVNNAIgc3ERaGn0uc5aIXS8sypNJWr9CglwivvLth3VIJQWHjSXt6aZVgS-DWE/s1600/Old+City+Hall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 0em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieNHdjjZc4mfASa36w83sct7l_DLj9P96Iko6Hr0oT4m5tt3MbJbgtq3hi_lCSdlqPqgrbxzhQ15FL4OVNNAIgc3ERaGn0uc5aIXS8sypNJWr9CglwivvLth3VIJQWHjSXt6aZVgS-DWE/s200/Old+City+Hall.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<b>OLD CITY HALL</b></div>
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Old City Hall has been keeping time above the intersection of Queen & Bay
since the very end of the 1900s. It was built by one<u></u> of Toronto's
most important architects, E.J. Lennox, the same guy who did Casa Loma,
the King Edward Hotel, and the west wing of Queen's Park. It's Old City
Hall that he gets the most attention for, though. In large part because
of his battles with city council. He went waaaaaaaaaaaay overbudget,
spending six times as much as he was supposed to. They retaliated by
saying he wasn't allowed to carve his name into the building, like he
usually did, but he did anyway. And hid his face among the grotesques adorning the entrance. Inside, you'll also find one of the most wonderful stained-glass windows in Toronto.</div>
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<i>The site will be open from 10 to 5 on
both Saturday and Sunday</i> </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjugWW0JjsslcNbWfML1Qefndmg3lrYw_GA_Ph8OVPJ2r45KthaPzUMcmLx-XSe-kY-Yo5oSfabus7wnW_hY8Tc8w7OdjQPvGjGVLdMI3f-StoxV1aA8DYxMuhz29Fv8wtNfPodcjJFjwM/s1600/4a35a840a76c11e1989612313815112c_7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 0em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjugWW0JjsslcNbWfML1Qefndmg3lrYw_GA_Ph8OVPJ2r45KthaPzUMcmLx-XSe-kY-Yo5oSfabus7wnW_hY8Tc8w7OdjQPvGjGVLdMI3f-StoxV1aA8DYxMuhz29Fv8wtNfPodcjJFjwM/s1600/4a35a840a76c11e1989612313815112c_7.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<b>OSGOODE HALL</b></div>
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Osgoode Hall has been on the corner of Queen & University, nearly as
long as there has been a Queen & University. It was originally
built in the 1830s, with lots of additions and subtractions since then
(including that iconic, black, wrought-iron fence). The architect was
William Warren Baldwin, a doctor and lawyer who was one of the most
important pro-democracy figures in Toronto's early history. He's also
the same guy who built the original Spadina House, and had Spadina
Avenue carved out of the forest. Today, it's still home to the Law Society of Upper Canada and some of Ontario's highest courts.<br />
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Osgoode Hall is also where an escaped slave, Thornton Blackburn, got a
job working as a waiter when he first came to Toronto. He used the money he earned there to launch the
city's first horse-drawn cab company, which in turn gave him enough
money to help other former slaves get on their feet after coming to
Toronto through the Underground Railroad. (I wrote more about him <a href="http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CFgQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Ftorontodreamsproject.blogspot.com%2F2010%2F08%2Fblackburns-harrowing-escape.html&ei=qpDDT76qA-KK6QHO6ty-Cg&usg=AFQjCNFbs6IvsTRTzshiUHhNc-omAOy0Sw&sig2=MNGPb-afi81jWqHJ9dBXvw" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>.)<br />
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<i>The site will be open from 10 to 5 on
both Saturday and Sunday.</i><br />
<i> </i> </div>
Adam Bunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112071438967577096noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8790289735302476857.post-15993745181132965842016-05-02T14:17:00.000-04:002017-03-07T19:40:29.013-05:00Dream 22 "The Star Harvest" (William Peyton Hubbard, 1911)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://torontodreamsproject.com/1pages/22-Hubbard.html" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://torontodreamsproject.com/PostcardImages/22-WilliamPeytonHubbard.gif" width="595" /></a></div>
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The alderman dreamed of a night when the people of Toronto climbed up onto their rooftops, up to the highest branches of all the trees, up cathedral spires and skyscrapers. He joined them, too, high up the clock tower of City Hall. From there, you could reach the stars with a butterfly net. One swipe through the sky might bring down two or three at a time. They shone a soft, cold blue and were smooth to the touch, perfect and round. All over the city, they were collected in baskets and pillowcases and brought down to earth. They were taken to the sides of the roads, along sidewalks and ditches and lawns, where they were planted in the dirt by the light of the moon. By the time the sun rose, they had sprouted into tall, slender silver birches. They lined every street in graceful rows. And when night came again, those trees unfurled lush blue flowers. Inside each one was a brand new baby star. And all of Toronto glowed.</p></div>
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<i>William Peyton Hubbard was Toronto's first Black alderman — and even served as acting mayor on some occasions. The son of a former slave, he got into politics after saving George Brown (Father of Confederation and owner of the Globe newspaper) from drowning in the Don River. In the early days of electricity, Hubbard was a champion of public ownership of power utilities, teaming up with Sir Adam Beck to bring public power to the city of Toronto and the province of Ontario. </i><br />
<i><br />You can read more about Hubbard on Torontoist <a href="http://torontoist.com/2009/02/historicist_public_history_and_william_peyton_hubbard/" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>. Explore more Toronto Dreams Project postcards <a href="http://torontodreamsproject.com/9pages/01-09.html" target="_blank"><u>here</u></a>.</i></div>
<br />Adam Bunchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112071438967577096noreply@blogger.com0