Inns of Early Toronto

The Inns and Toll Gates of Ontario, especially Kingston Road in 1835

[Settlement of York County: Mitchell, J.] (1832) Sixteen toll gates were now dotted on the roads of the county. Doubt exists as to the exact location of some of these toll bars but is was difficult in their day to dodge them. The government made a practice of leasing the toll privileges to contractors who undertook to keep the roads in repair.... Thus came to York County after 1835 its era of toll gates, stage coaches and wayside taverns. (Thomas Smith and his son James ran a tavern/inn/toll gate in Norway on Kingston Road at Woodbine Ave.)

A tavern sign was swinging every mile or so along a traveled road and the keeper of a well conducted house was providing a necessary public service. He offered stabling to a tired team and lodging to a farmer belated on his long journey. On a day in September, 1836, over two hundred teams stopped to water at a trough by the stoop of a tavern at Thornhill; and it was thought manners for a teamster to pay two pence refreshing himself at the bar.

Most of the tavern keepers of this period were Old Countrymen, many of them of the Anglican and Presbyterian persuasion, and some of them were religious minded. Public religious services were held in taverns in York County. Police magistrates held court in these comfortable places, and for years after 1850 six of the township councils of York held their meetings in taverns. (The census of 1861 suggests the "Smith Tavern" was used for public meetings.)

Toll Gates from hell!
This excerpt, written about 1840, illustrates some of the disillusionment with "tolls" and the state of the roads in early Ontario.

It matters not whether a company has purchased the right of way, cleared the forest, fenced, “graveled,” and bridged a road, or whether it has thrown down stones or plank upon an old highway made ready for them at the cost of the public, - the traveler (who has perhaps exerted all his skill in driving between the loose stones and broken planks and the ditches, or in “straddling” the ruts) is arrested every four or five miles by a toll-gate. In winter toll is exacted even if sleighs are used, which can only be defended on the ground that some revenue must be had; but in summer there is not this relief, although it would be safe to say that, for the greater part of that season at least, the roads would be much more efficient in their natural state than they are as “improved.”

Montgomery's Inn

the museum at Etobicoke (Toronto)
4709 Dundas St
(Click the photo to enlarge)

The account books suggest that beer and whiskey were most popular. Meals, cheese and crackers, tobacco and pipes, as well as farm produce were also sold.

In the 1851 census, two girls are listed as servants in the inn. This picture shows the washing up area in the kitchen.

A corner office serves to do accounts or letters. The muskets and sword represent Thomas Montgomery's involvement with the militia.

Notes given here are from the brochure used for tours at the museum: Montgomery's Inn was built about 1830.   The Montgomery family ran the hotel for about 25 years, until the mid 1850s.
   The Inn is of an architectural style known today as "Loyalist" or "late Georgian". It is built of rubble stone. The restoration is based on 1847 when business was at its height.
The furnishings are pieces of Canadian, American or English origin that reflect the period.

Margaret Montgomery and her employees would have prepared all the meals for customers, family and farm labourers in this room.

The account books also reveal that chairs were occasionally broken, so Montgomery probably furnished this room with a variety of old, mismatched chairs and tables.

By law, innkeepers had to provide "two good clean beds" for travelers. Some country inns only had one multi-bedded room for their customers. The "close" conditions would not have shocked the majority of Upper Canadians in the 1840s.

Robertson's Landmarks of Toronto p. 310 published in 1897
(This building is a short distance east of Woodbine on Kingston Road where it was once Queens Street; the text to the left is as closely resembles its original form)

AN EAST END HOSTELRY

A Reminder of the Good Old Times - One of the Many Kingston road Taverns Frequented by the Pioneer Settlers.

   Fifty years ago that well and a clumsy, home-made pump formed part of the equipment of a roadside tavern yard. The tavern itself was a long, low building, always painted a dazzling white, with a cottage roof, and green shutters on its four front windows, which, two on either side, flanked a door, also painted green, in the centre.
      A few yards distant from the western end of the tavern was a low red building, used as a driving shed. Between the hotel and shed ws the well referred to. At the eastern end of the hotel, and somewhat to the south of it stood two substantial uprights, between which hung a heavy wooden signboard, explaining to the world at large and teamsters in particular, the purposes for which the building was intended. The hostelry stood about fifty feet back from the roadway... In front of it were three heavy posts, that the aforesaid teamsters might there secure their horses, while they themselves partook of liquid comfort at the bar, which was at the western extremity of the hostelry, in convenient proximity to the pump.
    There was an almost continuous stream of traffic passing by during the winter, great, comfortable farmers sleighs bringing in loads of produce to the rising young city; rough, heavy wood sleighs, piled high with sweet scented pine and rough cordwood; besides vehicles conveying passengers and the mails, for in those days the Kingston road ws one of the mail routes.