Chapter 5

JOSEPH BLOORE’S BREWERY, 1830–1864

Joseph Bloore was born in 1789 in Staffordshire, England, and while it’s difficult to say which of the Potteries he hailed from, we know that it was one of those towns that now make up Stoke-on-Trent. His wife, Sarah Lees, was from Burslem and was born the following year. What industry there was in Stoke-on-Trent had to do with potting. The likelihood of being able to rise through the ranks of the industry was slim due to the amount of capital required. In 1818, at the age of twenty-nine, Joseph Bloore and his wife came to Upper Canada.

At that time, the population of the city was still very low, and Joseph Bloore had the opportunity to open a tavern called the Farmer’s Arms. It would have been just off the northwest corner of the market square on Stuart’s Lane. The area at the time was known as the Devil’s Half Acre, presumably because it served as a centre of vice for those farmers who did not frequently make it to town. The Farmer’s Arms likely served beer from the Helliwell Brewery at Todmorden Mills up the Don River. For one thing, the Helliwell’s off-site shop was also located on Market Square, making it the most convenient product. For another thing, the families appear to have enjoyed a special relationship.

William Helliwell, writing at the end of his life, thought back fondly on picking strawberries with Bloore’s daughter, Sarah, when they were mere children in 1825. It appears as though the families acted as godparents for each other. One of Joseph Bloore’s sons was named John Helliwell Bloore, and one of Thomas Helliwell’s sons was named John Bloore Helliwell. It seems likely that Joseph Bloore learned the brewing trade from the Helliwells, although the land his brewery occupied was in his possession before the decision to take up the trade.

The Bloor Brewery sat at the bottom of the ravine that now houses the Rosedale Valley Road. In the foreground, you can see Bloor’s Pond, which powered the mill. In the background, you can see the Sherbourne Street Blockhouse. Bloor’s brewery was of low-slung red brick construction, as you can see here. Toronto Public Library.

Bloore’s brewery was located in the Rosedale Valley. The waterway that ran through the ravine at that time was called Castle Frank Brook. The valley was the perfect spot for a brewery, being unoccupied by homes or other businesses, and the creek could be manipulated for more efficient use. Joseph Bloore built a dam of fairly significant size, creating a pond several acres in size that would back up all the way from the location of the brewery near Sherbourne to Yonge Street during the spring rains. The water for grinding grain and malting barley came from this pond to the brewery through a two-hundred-foot sluice. The pond was a favourite of local boys for bathing in the summer and ice skating in the winter.

The brewery itself was of wood and red brick construction, approximately one hundred by sixty, sitting on the south bank of the creek just below the pond. The access point by road was from Huntley Street and was one of the only significant drawbacks to the property. The creek was not wide enough to support shipment downstream, so full kegs would have to be loaded up the treacherous slope of the ravine on the back of a wagon. It was erected in the fall of 1830, and the malt mill and water wheel were completed in December of that year, just in time for the brewing season.

The blockhouses erected at the intersection of main thoroughfares like Sherbourne, Jarvis and Parliament were designed to provide warning of insurrection in the wake of the rebellion in Toronto in December 1837. Toronto Public Library.

By 1834, the combined proceeds from the Farmer’s Arms and the brewery were great enough that Bloore could enter into land speculation, which he did in partnership with William Botsford Jarvis. Jarvis was the sheriff of the Home District, which at the time ran all the way up Yonge Street to Georgian Bay. He is most famous for having given the order to fire at the rebels during the Battle of Montgomery’s Tavern.

The neighbourhood was named after Jarvis’s estate, Rosedale, which was considered one of the finest homes in Upper Canada for its chestnut panelled walls and impressive double staircase. The name came from the wild roses that grew on the north side of the ravine above Bloore’s brewery. Bloore and Jarvis came close to naming the new village Blooreville but eventually settled on Yorkville in tribute to York, which had been renamed Toronto that year. Bloore would instead have the first concession road named after him.

Bloore retired from the brewing trade in 1843 and spent the latter part of his life developing the real estate around Yorkville, laying out streets and lots for housing and business. He was also a philanthropist, and like the other Methodist brewers of early Toronto, he used his wealth to promote social change. The Yorkville Wesleyan Methodist Church, which has since been demolished, was built on land that he donated in 1850. Maps of Yorkville detail temperance halls, which suggests that the philanthropic model of community development amongst Methodists had carried north.

Joseph Bloore’s house was located on the south side of Bloor Street, approximately two blocks east of Yonge Street. It was more modest than one might assume, given the wealth Bloore’s land speculation generated in the 1830s and ’40s. From John Ross Robertson’s Landmarks of Toronto.

The Bloore Brewery was taken over by John Rose on Halloween in 1843, just in time for that year’s brewing season. It was renamed the Castle Frank Brewery, and an advertisement in the British Colonist read, “The subscriber begs respectfully to acquaint the inhabitants of Toronto, and this vicinity, that he purchased the above brewery from the original proprietor, Joseph Bloore, esquire, and from his competent knowledge of the business, and a determination to make a first rate article, he hopes to merit a share of public patronage.” Rose must have succeeded in his ambition, as the brewery operated until 1864.

A second view of Joseph Bloore’s brewery at the foot of the Rosedale Valley. While creating a pond to turn your mill was a benefit of the location, the steep track up which the wagons had to make their way would have been a perennial difficulty. From John Ross Robertson’s Landmarks of Toronto.

John Helliwell Bloore, Joseph’s son, would continue the family interest in the brewing trade, albeit in the form of cartage and freight for grain. The firm of Clemow and Bloore would ship barley, wheat and corn for the port of Oswego on the south side of Lake Ontario. This allowed them to take early advantage of the agricultural boom in Upper Canada, expanding their trade in the late 1850s all the way to Chicago. The Bloore family had, in the space of forty years from Joseph Bloore’s arrival in York, managed to accrue spectacular wealth. All of the business had surrounded beer, graduating from tavern keeper to brewer to handling ingredients.

The brewery is long gone, but if you stand in the middle of the Sherbourne Street bridge and look to your west, you can still make out the outline of Bloore’s pond on the north side of the ravine.