Streetsville, Ontario

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Streetsville (pop. 12,040) is a community located in the northeastern corner of Mississauga, Ontario, on the Credit River. Streetsville occupies both the west and east banks of the river, but the majority of it is located on the west bank of the river.

It is unique in that it has retained a variety of historical buildings and streetscapes, harkening to an era that has long since passed. While the village is surrounded by modern suburban development, it still has a unique “small town” charm.

1 History
2 The Bread and Honey Festival
3 See also

[edit] History

[edit] Pre-British Purchase

The area surrounding the Credit River was populated by the Iroquois peoples up until the early 1700s, when it was taken by the Ojibwa. European settlers came to know them specifically as the Mississaugas, which eventually became the name of the area itself. By 1805, the Natives had either ceded or sold most of this land over to British governance.

[edit] Settlement

The beginnings of Streetsville are interwoven with the history of its founder, Timothy Street. Street was born in 1778 to a British loyalist family in the United States. At the age of 23, he moved with his family from New York to St. David’s, a settlement off of the Niagra River in Upper Canada (now known as Ontario).

In 1818, the British offered up 648,000 acres of land to be surveyed, from their second purchase from the indigenous Mississauga peoples. Along with Richard Bristol, a qualified surveyor, Street applied for a contract to survey parts of the newly available land, which would enable him to eventually own parts of that same land as a sort of payment for his services. The two men were granted the contract and quickly Street began to realize the immense potential for settlement along the Credit River, making plans to erect both a saw and grist mill.

The first settler in the area now known as Streetsville was James Glendinning in April of 1819, who settled just along Mullet Creek. It was with the stones from his settlement that the grist and saw mill were constructed.

In 1821, Streetsville’s first general store, otherwise known as “the Montreal House,” was built and still stands to this day. Another landmark, Timothy Street’s house, was built in 1825 and is one of the oldest brick houses in the Peel region.

In 1858, Streetsville was incorporated as a village, with John Street as its first reeve.

[edit] Recent History

In January 1962, Streetsville was incorporated as a town when at that point, the town’s population had exceeded 5,000. The first Mayor was Frank Dowling. The Town of Mississauga was incorporated in 1968, joining together the settlements of Cooksville, Dixie, Erindale and Malton. While Port Credit and Streetsville were excluded from this, they were annexed, along with Clarkson, Erin Mills and Meadowvale Village, when Mississauga became a city in 1974. Hazel McCallion, who had been the mayor of Streetsville from 1970 to 1973, became the mayor of Mississauga in 1978, only the third in the city’s history, and is still serving at the time of this article revision (September 2006).

[edit] The Bread and Honey Festival

Since 1973, Streetsville has annually celebrated its Bread and Honey Festival, an acknowledgement to the town’s fine history and involvement with milling. The festival lasts the entire weekend (usually the first weekend of June) and takes place within Streetsville Memorial Park, near Vic Johnston Arena.