History of Richmond Hill, Ontario - Richmond Hill in The Middle of The Nineteenth Century

Richmond Hill in The Middle of The Nineteenth Century

The local preacher William Jenkins died in 1843. In 1847, the old log cabin schoolhouse of Richmond Hill Public School was replaced with a brick one. Reverend James Dick came to Richmond Hill in 1847 and took up a position as minister at the Richmond Hill Presbyterian Church. The same year Reverend Robert Campbell took up the same position at the still under construction Methodist Church. Both men were far more moderate than Jenkins, who had preached both political and religious radicalism. The community began to develop in earnest. The first Richmond Hill Spring Fair was sponsored by the Yonge Street Agricultural Society and held on May 24, 1849. Unlike most of the farming towns in the region, which developed around a main intersection, or "four corners", Richmond Hill began to stretch out along Yonge Street with no real downtown area. The little town had two to three hundred residents around this time, and in 1851 it boasted eight commercial stores, five inns, three blacksmiths, six woodworkers, three wagonmakers, a distiller and three doctors. Several Mills were located on creeks and streams nearby. In 1851, the first secondary school in Richmond Hill opened, the Richmond Hill Grammar School. Initial run in a private residence, the school obtained their own building in 1853, adjacent to the primary school. The Richmond Hill Library Association first met in December 1852, electing James Dick, the Presbyterian Minister as their president.

Through this time, travel up and down Yonge Street became increasingly important to the business of Richmond Hill. Inns and taverns opened and closed with some regularity. Richmond Hill found itself an ideal distance from Toronto, with the condition of Yonge Street meaning that travellers who departed from Toronto in the morning typically arrived in Richmond Hill hungry and looking for a rest. Continued attempts to improve the condition of Yonge Street through the area met with little success. The tolls collected on the road proved inadequate to even service the debt accumulated in its building. On May 16, 1853 the Ontario, Simcoe and Huron Railway opened a line from Toronto to Collingwood, which provided an alternate means of travelling north out of Toronto. Although it had a stop in Richmond Hill, the station was located some six kilometers east of Yonge Street on Major Mackenzie Drive, a long travel from the built-up area of Richmond Hill along the unpaved road. The ease of railway travel also impacted the traffic on Yonge Street. Between 1852 and 1854, the tolls collected on Yonge Street dropped twenty six percent. Although this hurt business in town, there remained a need for stagecoaches, especially among local residents, and the post office in town provided reason to travel to Richmond Hill. Neighbouring communities like Langstaff Corners, Dollar, Headford, Oak Ridges, North Gormley and Temperanceville threatened to eclipse Richmond Hill, but none ever succeeded.

As the town continued to grow more and more businesses and institutions sprang up. A Roman Catholic church was opened in 1857. 1857 also saw the founding of the town's first newspaper, the York Ridings Gazette and Richmond Hill Advertiser which published its first edition on June 12, 1857. The newspaper reformed as the York Herald on March 25, 1859 due to financial pressures. An Anglican church opened in 1871.