Albion and Martin Grove Was a Farming Service Centre
The Village of Smithfield on Albion Road, looking southeast towards Martin Grove Road, ca. 1912. (Courtesy: Montgomery’s Inn)
The intersection of Albion Road and Martin Grove Road was once the heart of a busy crossroads village named Smithfield. Today, however, it’s more like a ghost town - a place whose original reason for being has ceased to exist. Only one small fragment of its past remains intact, and it’s behind closed doors.
Smithfield began in the 1830s as a service centre for the surrounding farming community. People came to town to sell or trade goods, purchase supplies, pick up mail, go to church, attend school and hear the latest news. At its peak, Smithville had two churches, a school, a post office, two blacksmiths, a tailor, a carpenter, a wagon maker, two butchers, a dairy, a general store, a toll gate, and a “temperance house for the accommodation of travellers.”
The village is named after Robert Smith and his three sons - Eli, Thomas and Levi - who farmed 200 acres of land at the village’s main intersection. The photo is looking southeast down Albion Road, from just west of Martin Grove. The land you see on both sides of Albion Road once belonged to the Smiths. Holding the two work horses is Garnet Anderson, a young bachelor who lives with his parents, John and Sarah, on a farm they leased just south of the village.
In 1886, the Methodists built the new church seen on the left of the photo. As the village dwindled and farmland became subdivisions, the church was closed and demolished in the 1960s. The fence to the left of the church surrounds Smithfield School, built in 1874 as “School Section 7”. It was used as a “Model School” by the Toronto Normal School, giving student teachers practice in a one-room rural setting. The school closed in 1954 when the children were bussed to a larger school in Thistletown. The building was burned down by vandals in 1957.
Today, post-World War II development has superseded all signs of Smithfield as a farming service centre. Nothing remains to remind us of the past but one small relic from the school: the shield saying “School Section No. 7” that hung above its front door. This shield now hangs in the lobby of the 1966 Smithfield Middle School on Mount Olive Drive, accompanied by a plaque and some old photos - all that remains to pay homage to this once-vital farming village.
Researched & Written by Denise Harris, originally published by the Etobicoke Guardian and reprinted with permission.
Smithfield began in the 1830s as a service centre for the surrounding farming community. People came to town to sell or trade goods, purchase supplies, pick up mail, go to church, attend school and hear the latest news. At its peak, Smithville had two churches, a school, a post office, two blacksmiths, a tailor, a carpenter, a wagon maker, two butchers, a dairy, a general store, a toll gate, and a “temperance house for the accommodation of travellers.”
The village is named after Robert Smith and his three sons - Eli, Thomas and Levi - who farmed 200 acres of land at the village’s main intersection. The photo is looking southeast down Albion Road, from just west of Martin Grove. The land you see on both sides of Albion Road once belonged to the Smiths. Holding the two work horses is Garnet Anderson, a young bachelor who lives with his parents, John and Sarah, on a farm they leased just south of the village.
In 1886, the Methodists built the new church seen on the left of the photo. As the village dwindled and farmland became subdivisions, the church was closed and demolished in the 1960s. The fence to the left of the church surrounds Smithfield School, built in 1874 as “School Section 7”. It was used as a “Model School” by the Toronto Normal School, giving student teachers practice in a one-room rural setting. The school closed in 1954 when the children were bussed to a larger school in Thistletown. The building was burned down by vandals in 1957.
Today, post-World War II development has superseded all signs of Smithfield as a farming service centre. Nothing remains to remind us of the past but one small relic from the school: the shield saying “School Section No. 7” that hung above its front door. This shield now hangs in the lobby of the 1966 Smithfield Middle School on Mount Olive Drive, accompanied by a plaque and some old photos - all that remains to pay homage to this once-vital farming village.
Researched & Written by Denise Harris, originally published by the Etobicoke Guardian and reprinted with permission.