Scadding Cabin (Heritage Walk)

saw this cute little critter on the fence

The Scadding cabin is Toronto's oldest surviving house.  It was built in 1794 for John Scadding during the first years of the British settlement.  He was a government clerk and a good friend of Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe.  He also accompanied Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe to Upper Canada in 1792.

A lakeview

The original location of the cabin was on the east bank of the Don River on a 253-acre land grant that stretched from present day Lake Ontario to present day Danforth Avenue.  John had lived there until he went back to England with the Simcoes in 1796.

When he returned to York in 1818, he sold the cabin and the land to a farmer named William Smith who then used it as an outbuilding.  In 1879 the cabin was offered to the York Pioneer Association.

In an early act of Toronto heritage preservation, the York Pioneers dismantled the cabin and then reassembled it on the exhibition grounds as part of the celebrations marking the inauguration of the Toronto Industrial Exhibition (now the Canadian National Exhibition). In 1986, the cabin was designated as historically significant under the Ontario Heritage Act.