THE "BIRTH" OF ROCKWOOD VILLAGE

Author: Steve Pascoe, 2014/15 Director, Rockwood Homeowners' Association
Article originally published in The Rockwood Times Spring 2015 issue linked here. 

​Our Rockwood neighbourhood was built, for the most part, in the ten years between 1975 and 1985. Shortly after the City of Mississauga was incorporated, developers purchased the farms and built the homes and businesses that are here today. Prior to then, north of Burnhamthorpe Road and west of the Etobicoke Creek it was all rural farm country with a small village providing the community centre. Since 1805 this area was part of the Township of Toronto when it was purchased by the City of York from the original native Mississauga people that inhabited the area. Over 100 years ago there was a hamlet or small village originally called Sand Hill, with about 100 people, at the intersection of Dixie and Burnhamthorpe Roads. The name was changed to Burnhamthorpe in honour of the birthplace of Lord Nelson of England.

The first store and post office in Burnhamthorpe were originally located in a series of buildings, which from 1840 to 1876 included a Sons of Temperance Hall, where church services were held, and an Orange Lodge. In 1876 James Curry purchased the buildings. He turned the hall into living quarters for his family, with a store in the front as well as a post office. Another of the larger buildings he turned into a mill. Then in 1893 Curry rented out the store and mill to Fred Gill for five dollars a month. When Fred Gill emigrated here from England at the age of thirteen, the hamlet had only eight houses, a small store and a school.

Robert Stanfield bought the post office, store and stone steam grist mill from Curry in 1913. He turned the grist mill into a dance hall, where Saturday night dances were held. They became quite well known and members from other nearby villages, such as Dixie and Summerville, would attend. When the mill was destroyed by the hamlet’s biggest fire in 1927 a school bought the stones from the mill for a building and a well.

Fred Gill also operated the second store and post office in Burnhamthorpe. In 1912 Fred Gill bought two houses on a corner property, at the southeast corner of Burnhamthorpe Road and Dixie Road, and built a new store -- Burnhamthorpe’s third store and post office. From 1925 to 1973 the store was known as Gill’s Groceteria and was run by Fred’s son, George Gill, and his wife Annie. The building was later modernized, and although much altered, it was used for a time as the Aurora Meat & Cheese market. Today none of the original building remains. A new Aurora Meat Store was built recently.

In 1874 a new church was built on the northwest corner of Dixie and Burnhamthorpe Roads, replacing the original Methodist chapel. This third church, known originally as the Burnhamthorpe Methodist Church, and after 1925 as the Burnhamthorpe United Church, served the community until it closed in 1978. This historic building is home today to the St. Apostle Andrew Romanian Orthodox Church, and remains one of the more visible reminders of the hamlet of Burnhamthorpe.

The only lasting farm complex of old Burnhamthorpe, surviving from the nineteenth century is the Moore-Stanfield house. It was built in 1882, and is located at the corner of Burnhamthorpe Road and Hickory Drive. Another visible reminder of Burnhamthorpe is the pioneer cemetery, known as the Burnhamthorpe Primitive Methodist Cemetery, located at the southwest corner of Burnhamthorpe and Dixie Roads.