Following the First World War, waves of newcomers came to Canada, and many came to call the Lakeview area of Mississauga home. In the years immediately following the war, small subdivisions along the north side of Lakeshore Road began to spring up. Between 1918 and 1923, a dozen or more subdivision plans were registered, perhaps looking to take advantage of the economic boom brought on by the need for housing within proximity to the rapidly growing City of Toronto.

One such plan was H23, registered on September 13, 1923 by James Joseph Walsh on part of Lot 6, Concession 2, SDS (South of Dundas Street). To place the historic lot in geographic context, Lot 6, Concession 2 was bordered by Lakeshore Road to the south, Dixie Road to the east, and the former Middle Road (now QEW) to the north, and on the west to what is now Orchard Road. Originally it was a long, narrow 200-acre lot. The property was first granted by The Crown in 1843 to James Buchanan. It changed hands multiple times over the years: Edward Burns (1847), Robert Campbell (1851), Richard Harrison (1857) and Alex Griffith (1870), to name a few. Reuben Dunn acquired 100 acres in the south half of the former 200-acre property in 1874. In 1907 Reuben Dunn sold 97 ½ acres to the High Park Golf & Country Club. In 1911 the golf club sold part of their lot that was located south of the railway line to Mary McEvoy. (The High Park Golf & Country Club would become the Lakeview Golf Course.)

In 1911, Mary McEvay (1889-1978), a stenographer, married widower James Joseph Walsh (1862-1937), who was a real estate broker from Toronto. In 1923 James J. Walsh registered Plan H23, which was a comparatively small subdivision. The plan laid out three streets: St. Mary Avenue (renamed St. Marys Avenue in 1962), St. James Avenue, and Fergus Avenue. In 1923 a large lot within the subdivision was granted to School Section #7 in Lakeview. The new Lakeview Park Public School was built in 1923 and formally opened for students in September of 1924.

Through the mid-to-late 1920s several residential lots within the subdivision were sold, but things slowed down during the Depression years. After James passed away in 1937, his wife Mary sold several lots along Lakeshore Road to Elmer Thomson in 1938, which in turn were expropriated in 1942 for Wartime Housing – this made way for the Small Arms Ltd. Dormitory at the northwest corner of Lakeshore and Dixie roads. Land was also sold to the Proudfoot family, who operated a motel. Some of the early families who settled within the Walsh subdivision included the Armstrong, Buck, Haslett, Poole, Ramm, Rubidge, Sherratt, Spaulding, Trumble and Turner families, amongst many others.

But back to Walsh’s Plan H23, or specifically the road names. I have had several perplexed inquires over the years regarding the name origins of St. Marys and St. James avenues (along with Fergus Avenue), and they are rather unique in our city given the possible religious references. Only, they are not quite what they seem. When James Joseph Walsh registered his subdivision plan in 1923, the three streets were named in reference to his three children with his second wife, Mary Elizabeth McEvay: James Joseph Walsh Jr. (1912-1992), Mary Antionette Walsh (1914-2000), and Fergus Patrick Walsh (1916-1998). Mary and James Sr. also had two younger children who are not referenced in road names: Bette Walsh and John Francis Walsh (1923-2006).

Reverend James Joseph Walsh Jr., after whom St. James Avenue was named, worked with the Scarborough Foreign Mission Society and served as a Priest in the Dominican Republic. Brothers Fergus (after whom Fergus Avenue is named) and John Francis Walsh were lawyers and formed the firm Walsh & Walsh over 60 years ago. St. Mary Avenue (later St. Marys Avenue) was named for their sister, Mary Antionette Walsh, who married legal clerk George Martin Noll in April of 1937, just a few months after her father passed away. The March 19, 1937 edition of The Globe and Mail highlighted the many parties that were planned by family and friends for Mary’s upcoming nuptials, and the wedding was highlighted in the April 24, 1937 edition of The Globe and Mail.

From the 1921 Census, the family appears to have been well-to-do within the historic Lakeview community. Their household also included domestic help (Rosa and Victoria), and a gardener (Thomas Fuller and his wife Lydia, and their son Thomas).

But back to the street names, while we know that St. Mary (St. Marys) Avenue and St. James Avenue take their name references from two of the Walsh children, we do not know why the St. (Saint) reference was chosen.

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The history of two "Saint" roads in Mississauga

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