Thomson Settlement

Toronto's Historical Plaques

Learn a little of Toronto's history as told through its plaques.

The Thomson Settlement

There are two plaques called 'The Thomson Settlement'. One is in this park at 1007 Brimley Road a bit north of Lawrence Avenue. It's an Archaeological and Historic Sites Board of Ontario plaque near the parking lot. Here's what it says:

The first permanent resident in Scarborough Township was David Thomson, a Scot who came to Upper Canada with his brother Andrew in 1796. Each was granted 160 ha and David built a log cabin on his property that year. He was soon joined by other settlers, including his brothers Andrew and Archibald. The Thomsons, who were stone masons, worked on the first Parliament Buildings at York (Toronto). A road connecting the settlement with York was opened by 1799, and a sawmill was built by each of the brothers. A Presbyterian church, the first in the township, was built in 1819 on David's land and became the centre of the prospering 'Thomson Settlement'.

Location Co-ordinates: 43.757658 -79.254974

Photo by Alan L Brown - March 2004

The other plaque is not too far north, on St. Andrews Road in the cemetery of St. Andrew's Church (Scarborough) on a cairn erected by the Metropolitan Toronto and Region Conservation Authority is 1957. Here's what the plaque says:

The Thomson Settlement, the first in Scarborough, consisted of early mills & homesteads centred around this point. The library, fostered by the Thomsons and used by the Mechanics Institute from 1878, was housed in its present building in 1896.

Location Co-ordinates: 43.759968 -79.252281

Photo by Alan L Brown - October 2006

Also in the cemetery, in the south-west corner, is a plaque erected in 1996 by the Scarborough Historical Society. Here's what it says:

In memory of David Thomson of Westerkirk Dumfries-shire Scotland who was the First Settler in Scarborough, where his was the first land cleared. He had arrived in Upper Canada in 1796 and died on the 22nd of June 1834, aged 71, leaving his wife, eleven children and 53 grandchildren.

Photo by Alan L Brown - June 2008

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