Mount Pleasant Cemetery

An Illustrated Guide: Second Edition, Revised and Expanded

Mike Filey

• Publisher: Dundurn Press
• Year: 1999
• ISBN:
  9781459713109
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Social History
• Index: History

Established in 1876, Mount Pleasant Cemetery has a rich and textured history. It is the keeper of thousands of stories, each of which has contributed to the history of our city, province, and country.

Many of Canada's most beloved figures rest there - William Lyon Mackenzie King, Foster Hewitt, Glenn Gould, and Timothy Eaton are just a few. Other, less known historical figures are buried there also - the first Canadian soldier killed in First World War and victims of the 1949 Noronic disaster.

Along with a fascinating account of the cemetery's history, this illustrated guide includes descriptions of the remarkable monuments and the beautiful horticultural features. Accompanying maps detailing their locations make this book a perfect companion for a walking tour through the grounds.

People

Harry Addison

Plot 15, Lot 12

Harry Addison was born in Toronto in 1905 and at the age of 31 established Addison Industries, a company that sold a still relatively new home appliance called a refrigerator that was manufactured by Frigidaire, a subsidiary of General Motors. During the Second World War the Toronto company pioneered the development of the walkie-talkie. In 1955 he founded Addison Cadillac on Bay (Street) which grew to become Canada’s largest Cadillac dealership. In the 1960s Addison lived on his Elhara Farm in rural Don Mills where he kept a number of very successful racehorses. Addison died on August 2, 1985.

James Aikenhead

Plot F, Circle, Lot 8

Born in County Kilkenny, Ireland in 1816, James Aikenhead came to Toronto in 1847. Soon thereafter, he joined the firm of Joseph D. Ridout and Company, Ironmongers whose store was located at the northeast corner of Yonge and King Streets. In 1868, Aikenhead and Alexander Crombie became full partners in the business which then changed its name to Ridout, Aikenhead and Crombie. Aikenhead and Crombie acquired control in 1876 and fifteen years later relocated the business to 6 Adelaide Street East. In 1893, James Aikenhead’s son Thomas, who had begun his apprenticeship with the firm twenty years before, bought the business and again the name was changed, this time to Aikenhead Hardware Company. Reorganized and renamed Aikenhead Hardware Ltd. in 1901, the company moved four years later to 17–21 Temperance Street. (James Aikenhead, the founder died on April 11, 1903 at the age of 87.)

In 1944, James T.E. Aikenhead, the eldest son of Thomas Aikenhead, became president, a position he held until his death on January 7, 1948. John Wilfred, T.E.’s brother then assumed the presidency to be followed in 1972 by T.E.’s nephew James M. Aikenhead. In that same year, the company passed out of the family’s control and is now part of Molson Industries. All five members of the Aikenhead family mentioned in this article are buried in the Aikenhead family plot.

James C. Aikins

Plot V, Lot 2

Born in the township of Toronto on March 30, 1823 young Aikins was educated in the local schools and then at Victoria College, which was at that time still located in Cobourg, Ontario. He received his law degree, but decided that he’d rather be a farmer, at least until 1854 when he represented the county of Peel in the legislative assembly. Defeated in the general election of 1861, he returned the following year to represent the Home District, a position he held until Canadian Confederation in 1867. He was then appointed to the Senate, but he soon retired from that position to assume the post of lieutenant-governor of Manitoba.

In 1869 he returned to a life of politics and served under Sir John A. Macdonald as secretary of state until Macdonald’s defeat in 1873. With the re-election of the Conservative Party in 1878, Aikins again served as secretary of state holding the position until 1880 when he became minister of inland revenue. Resigning from the Cabinet in 1882, Aikins was again appointed lieutenant-governor of Manitoba and the district of Keewatin. Following the expiration of his term in office, Aikins returned to Toronto where he took up residence at 29 Wellesley Street East, Toronto and in 1894 was appointed a trustee of the Toronto General Burying Grounds (now Mount Pleasant Group of Cemeteries), a position he held until 1904. James Cox Aikins died at his Wellesley Street home on August 6, 1904.

Air Canada Flight 621 Memorial

Section 24, Lot 1

Early Sunday morning, July 5, 1970 Air Canada’s Montreal to Los Angeles via Toronto Flight 621, dubbed the “California Galaxy,” was making its final approach to Toronto International Airport’s runway 32. As the four-engine DC-8-63 jet cleared the end of the runway, it suddenly dropped, hitting the tarmac with a stomach-wrenching thud, rebounded, powered up and roared into the morning sky desperately seeking a second try. Unknown to the flight crew, the outboard engine on the right wing had broken off and cartwheeled down the runway. Now working with just three engines, the captain was able to keep the plane in the air for another few minutes before it crashed into a farmer’s field north of the airport. All 108 on board Flight 621 were killed.

A special memorial service was held on this spot on July 30, 1970 and in May of the following year the stone monument (a replica of the one erected to the memory of those lost in the Ste. Therese, Quebec crash seven years earlier) was erected. It is inscribed with the names of all 109 victims. A total of forty-nine identified and three unidentified victims of the ill-fated Flight 621 are buried here.

Leonard Allan

Plot 9, Lot 3253

On September 1, 1919 five-month-old Leonard Allan died at Sick Children’s Hospital on College Street. After a brief funeral service at the youngster’s residence at 105 Trinity Street, friends and family went by motor hearse to Mount Pleasant Cemetery while the youngster’s casket was taken to the foot of Bathurst Street where it was strapped in front of the pilot of a Curtis biplane and flown to a field just east of the cemetery. From here, the casket was taken by hearse to the gravesite.

When asked why this procedure was followed, funeral director Robert Stone stated that the day would come when aerial funerals would be common place. So it was that the funeral of little Leonard Allan was the first aerial funeral conducted anywhere in the world.

Alfred E. Ames

Plot 2, Lot 8

A.E. Ames was born in Lambeth, Ontario in 1867 and commenced his business career in the Merchants Bank in Owen Sound. Over the next few years he held various positions in a number of banks, returning to Toronto in 1889 where he started his own financial business which he called A.E. Ames Company.

Investment banking was comparatively new at that time and Ames was a pioneer in the field. Soon he became involved in the brokerage business entering the area of municipal and government bonds early in this century. Again he was a pioneer. It was due in large measure to Ames’ diligence that Canada’s first Victory Loan in 1917 was an unqualified success.

Ames’ large estate on the Kingston Road, complete with a nine-hole golf course was called Glen Stewart and it was here that he passed away September 20, 1934. Two streets in the area recall Alfred Ernest Ames, Glen Stewart Avenue and Glen Ames Road.

David Archibald

Section 21, Lot 57

Born in Ireland in 1842, Archibald was nineteen years old when he “signed on” with the Royal Irish Constabulary. In 1864, he resigned and immigrated to Toronto where he joined the Toronto Police Department in 1865. After twenty-one years on the job, Archibald was appointed staff inspector heading up the newly created Morals Division where he received the unofficial title of “first guardian of the city’s moral welfare.” His department was charged with the responsibility of “suppressing immorality in the city, to prevent the holding of prize cock and dog fights and a hundred and one other infractions of the law.” In 1907, the six-foot-three policeman, dubbed “the moral man” was promoted to the rank of chief inspector and six years later to deputy chief.

Archibald retired in 1918 at the age of 76 after fifty-two years of service. Early in 1938 he was stricken with pneumonia and died from resulting complications on January 15, 1938.

Richard Ardagh

Plot F, Section 7, Lot 9

One of this city’s most serious fires erupted early Sunday morning, January 6, 1895. Within twenty minutes the entire Globe newspaper building at the northwest corner of Yonge and Melinda Streets was in flames. In the course of fighting the fire, fireman Robert Bowery was killed and his chief, Richard Ardagh seriously injured. The latter’s injuries were sustained when he was forced to jump from the third floor of a building next to the Globe.

Ardagh and two firemen were inspecting the neighbouring building when the south wall of the Globe structure gave way, striking the building in which the firemen were located. Forced to get out fast, all three jumped to safety. While the two firemen recovered from injuries sustained from their 45-foot leap, the chief was not so fortunate and died three weeks later on January 27, 1895. Because frost was in the ground making the digging of his grave impossible, Ardagh was placed in a vault at Mount Pleasant Cemetery and buried on April 19, 1895. Ardagh Street in west Toronto was named for this valiant firefighter.

Sir Frank Baillie

(See Just Family Plot 2, Lot 10)

James Bain, Jr.

Plot R, Lot 32

James Bain, Jr. was born in London, England on August 2, 1842 and came to Canada with his parents while still a child. He was educated in Toronto and then entered his father’s stationery business. As the years went by, Bain worked for several other stationery firms establishing a London, England office for one of them.

In 1882, he became manager of the Canadian Publishing Company, a position he left the following year to accept the position of chief librarian for the newly established Toronto Public Library which opened to the public in the old Mechanic’s Institute building at the northeast corner of Church and Adelaide Streets on March 10, 1884. Bain remained chief librarian up until his death, caused by liver disease, on May 22, 1908. Interestingly, James Bain, Jr. survived his father, James Bain, Sr. by a mere four days.

Frederick Banting

Section 29, Lot 29

Born in Alliston, Ontario in 1891, Frederick Banting received his early education in that small town, west of Toronto. Moving to Toronto in 1911, he attended Victoria College graduating in medicine from the University of Toronto in late 1916. He served overseas during the First World War winning the Military Cross and was wounded in France while serving as medical officer with the 44th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force.

In the years following the war Banting gave up a promising medical practice in London, Ontario to commence his quest to find a cure for diabetes at the University of Toronto. In 1921, assisted by Charles Best and J.B. Collip and under the supervision of J.R.R. Macleod, Banting managed to isolate and purify insulin which, while not a cure for diabetes, helped stricken patients live a near normal life. Banting and Macleod were awarded the Nobel Prize for the most important medical discovery of 1923. Annoyed that Best was overlooked by the selection committee, Banting decided to share his half of the $11 200 award with his colleague and friend. Following Banting’s lead, Macleod did the same with Collip.

On February 21, 1941, while flying to Great Britain on “a mission of high national and scientific importance” the Hudson aircraft in which Banting was a passenger crashed near Musgrave Harbour, Newfoundland. The doctor died of his injuries before rescue crews arrived. The body was brought back to Toronto for burial which took place on March 4, 1941 following a service at the University of Toronto’s Convocation Hall and funeral procession to Mount Pleasant Cemetery.

William G. Barker

Mausoleum: Room B, Crypt B

One of Canada’s greatest war heroes, Colonel Barker destroyed fifty enemy aircraft during the First World War becoming Canada’s second ranking air ace. In addition to being awarded the Distinguished Service Order and Military Cross and Bars, Barker also received the coveted Victoria Cross.

Born in Dauphin, Manitoba in 1894, Barker was killed on March 12, 1930 when a Fairchild biplane he was testing crashed at the Ottawa Airport. Burial took place on the 15th from Barker’s father-in-law’s residence at 355 St. Clair Avenue West. During the actual service six Toronto Flying Club aircraft flown by First World War pilots skimmed over the grave site and released thousands of rose petals as their tribute to one of the nation’s most distinguished war heroes. In 1931, a small airfield on the west side of Dufferin Street, north of Lawrence Avenue, was named Barker Field in memory of Colonel William Barker.

Steele Basil

Section 39, Lot 69

Arriving in Toronto from his native Greece at the tender age of fourteen, it took Steele Basil just three years to open his first restaurant, the Green Lantern Tea Room on Bloor Street West. In 1936, Basil opened Steele’s Tavern at 349 Yonge Street and for the next thirty-seven years it was one of the most popular restaurants in the city and one of the firsts to be licensed. In 1960, Basil introduced live entertainment and one of his first performers was an unknown twenty-one-year-old singer from Orillia, Ontario by the name of Gordon Lightfoot. Steele Basil died November 7, 1981 at the age of 74.

Michael Basso

Plot Y, Lot 39

Born in Genoa, Italy in 1839, Italy Michael Basso emigrated to the United States when he was twenty-two years old. He spent the next ten years as an animal trainer with Barnum’s Circus. One evening he was attacked by a lion and suffered severe injuries. Deciding to change jobs, he moved to Toronto where he went into the tailoring business in a small shop on King Street East. He was soon appointed Italian police court interpreter, a position he held for almost forty years. His obituary described him as “an outstanding figure in Toronto’s Italian colony who, in his long years of interpreting in Ontario courts, was never frightened away from his duty. His unquestioned integrity won for him the respect of Police Magistrates and High Court judges alike.” He died in Toronto at the age of 81.

George W. Beardmore

Plot L, Section 4, Lot 4

Born in Hamilton, Ontario in 1851, Beardmore was educated at Upper Canada College, then located on King Street West in downtown Toronto. He was the founder of Beardmore and Company, Tanners and Leather Merchants on Fron...