NATURAL HISTORY, TORONTO REGION 
the bottom of a pothole, by the advancing icecap of 
a new commercial age.* 
The Peabody of “Little York” was Jesse 
Ketchum, a Buffalo tanner whose memory should 
serve as a bond between these sister cities so nearly 
akin in all but nationality. He owned the land 
between Yonge, Adelaide (then Newgate), Bay and 
Queen (then Lot) Streets, and supplied sites for 
eight or ten churches and other religious edifices 
within this district. All are now gone—the last to 
be removed being Knox Church from Queen Street 
West to its present beautiful building on Spadina 
Avenue. The failure to secure the former site and 
the rest of the block as a Court Square was one of 
the most extraordinary oversights in town-planning 
that even Toronto can show. Opposite to St. An- 
drew’s Presbyterian Church on King Street West 
another opportunity was lost. Here three squares 
were public property and were largely free from 
buildings. A site for a Court of Honour like that 
which Cleveland is spending millions to acquire lay 
ready to hand and might have been secured for a 
few hundred thousands. But Jesse Ketchum died in 
1867 and his example has been followed by few of 
Toronto’s wealthy citizens. A Guild of Civic Art 
exists, and, with the aid of one public-spirited alder- 
man, has made a start in restoring the old lake-side 
* A boulder of the drift, lifting itself up through the 
natural turf, served as a desk for the recording clerk of 
the first Parliament of Upper Canada.—Scadding, “ Toronto 
of Old,” p. 29. 
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