House and business.
Details of Site Location: 54 Eastern Avenue at Sumach Street, at the southeast corner of the playground of Sackville Street School.
Current Use of Property:
The actual site is still in the playground of the Sackville Street School; built in 1887, it has been in use by the Inglenook Wandering Spirit School since 1985.
Historical Description: Born a Negro slave, Thornton Blackburn and his wife, Lucy, escaped from Kentucky in 1834 via the Underground Railway. They were captured in Detroit but were freed by an abolitionist mob. In Upper Canada, Lieutenant-Governor Colborne refused extradition back to the United States, noting that a person could not steal himself. After working several years as a waiter in Osgoode Hall, Thornton built their one-storey frame house. Hearing of taxicabs being used in Montreal, in 1837 he ordered one from a shop on the corner of Sherbourne Street and Duke Street from the owner, Paul Bishop. This one-horse cab called the “City” was the first one in Upper Canada. It was painted yellow and red, was entered from the back, and accommodated four passengers. The cab business was very successful. Many entrepreneurs followed his example. At his death in 1890, he left Lucy $17,000, which was a considerable sum in those days. Many people remembered and wrote about special trips they took in the “City.”
Relative Importance: This site was fully excavated by the Archaeological Resource Centre under the Board of Education, SEED, Ministry of Citizenship and Culture, and the Ontario Heritage Foundation in the summer of 1985.
Planning Implications: A large plaque should commemorate the early black entrepreneurs and Upper Canada’s first cab, the “City.” [Note: Subsequent to publication of Lost Sites, plaques regarding the Blackburns have in fact been installed at Inglenook Community High School]
Reference Sources: Slinger, “The Blackburns have left a glorious green legacy,” Toronto Star, 11 June 1986; Toronto Telegram article reprinted in John Ross Robertson, Landmarks of Toronto (1897)