Sunday, 25 October, 2026
I’ve been taking so many photos, and it can be hard to decide which ones to share. To show all of them along with my thoughts would mean a lot of blog posts. My blog host people tell me that I need more storage — my blogs are photo-heavy. I’m working on it but need to win the lottery.
Last weekend I met my niece at the Tollkeepers Cottage. I’d been trying to visit for quite some time, and finally I found a date that worked. The cottage is on Davenport Road, a street not too far from where I live, a street that always seems almost suburban. Davenport Road is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, roads in the vicinity of Toronto, with a history dating back to the time when the great ice sheets were melting. It was used as an ancient footpath by Indigenous people as an overland route from Montreal to Niagara. It then became an important trail for French fur traders in the 1600s, and for the first European settlers who arrived in the area in the 1790s, and was slowly converted into a built road during the 1800s. At that time, the roads were just muddy trails (Toronto was called Muddy York), waterlogged after rain and slippery in the winter. The tollgates were a way to improve the roads by collecting money to fund these efforts. Outside the cottage, beside the ramp, were examples of two styles of roads — log and plank.
Because of its style, this tollhouse (Tollgate #3) probably dates from about 1832. It was built from what we think was just one white pine tree felled nearby and constructed in very rare vertical plank construction (no framing), held in place by bottom and top sills (huge beams). The cottage stopped collecting tolls with the abolition of the tolling system in 1895 and then lay idle. Originally, it sat on the land on the southeast corner of Davenport Road and Bathurst Street. It’s the oldest tollkeeper’s house surviving anywhere in Canada open to the public and among the oldest still standing.
Once inside, there was a land acknowledgement (very common in Toronto, at least), then a large room with a craft table and volunteers helping visitors with crochet, mending, and knitting. Over beside the small gift sales area was a lady who was spinning wool. The atmosphere was friendly. There was a kitchenette area in the main room, and a toilet at the front of the cottage. They made me a cup of tea – no milk today, they told me apologetically. I chose to knit a chicken and chatted with the people at the people. I’d leave my tour-visit until my niece could get there. They were having a meeting after visiting hours ended, and one of the visitors’ husbands arrived with Halloween snacks of crackers and candy. There was a nice, inclusive atmosphere. I felt comfortable and decided it was a good idea to come back to do more in November if I can.
The cottage was moved and transformed several times in the 150 years since it closed. It was discovered in 1991, not too far away, when land nearby was being redeveloped. Fortunately, a neighbour knew what it was and the developer sold it for $1 and delayed the construction until it could be removed. The Community History Project, which still runs it with the help of volunteers, kept it in a transport yard while they and the Toronto Historical Board raised funds to restore it.
The original plans and records were lost in a fire in 1881, so they needed to find craftspeople who could determine how to restore it. Finally, in July 2002, a house mover transported the cottage to its present location, and the restoration began. This included removing all the 20th-century fixtures that had been added, finding period-appropriate stones for the foundation floor, making bricks and mortar as it would have been made in the 1830s, hand-splitting and shaping cedar shakes for the roof and creating plaster walls and laths for the interior. The original floorboards were numbered, removed and hand washed, and woodwork from the door and windows was removed and re-installed.
They obviously went to great lengths to restore the building to its 1861 appearance, that year being chosen because most of the found furnishings and items belonged to the Bulman family who were living there then. Bulman descendants were able to provide artefacts to add to the authenticity. The City of Toronto designated the Tollkeeper’s Cottage a historic site in 2004.
The cottage newsletter arrives every month, promising craft lessons, tours and more. I’m ready for it.
Adrianna and I left there and walked down the street for a while.
