John Denison was born in Yorkshire, England in 1755 and married his wife, Sophia Taylor, in 1782. John was a militia officer and a grain farmer, miller, and brewer by trade.[i] The Denisons were family friends of Peter Russell, who would succeed John Graves Simcoe as administrator of Upper Canada in 1796, and it was Russell who convinced John to move his family to Canada.[ii] In 1792 John and his wife moved with their three young sons, George Taylor, Thomas John, and Charles, to Upper Canada (modern Ontario), initially settling in Kingston. With money loaned from Russell, John set out to establish a brewery.[iii] When the venture failed, he considered returning to England but, instead, was convinced to relocate to York where Russell hired John to manage his farm.[iv]
Largely undeveloped and divided into land grants, called park lots, York was a combination of open meadows and thick forests.[vii] The area that is now Kensington Market had Russell Creek running through it and was divided into park lots 17 and 18, one owned by Alexander Grant and the other by Major E. B. Littlehayes, the namesake of Littlehayes Lane which still runs between Nassau and Baldwin, just east of Augusta.[viii]
Over time, John was able to “transition from unhappy immigrant to gentleman farmer.”[ix] The family purchased their own property near Ossington, as well as Black Creek farm near Weston, and the family expanded.[x] Socially and economically, they benefited from their connection to the Russells; Sophia Denison even received a slave as a Christmas gift from Russell’s wife, reported to be that last legally owned slave in Upper Canada.[xi] (Sophia apparently freed her.[xii]) During the War of 1812, John served as captain of his regiment and his sons, George, Thomas, and Charles, fought as privates at the front.[xiii] John Denison died in 1824; as a result of an error in his will, his eldest son, George Taylor Denison, inherited very nearly the entirety of his estate.[xiv]
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