Barber House

The Barber family emigrated from Ireland to Canada in 1822, and in 1837 the four brothers established a mill complex in Georgetown. In 1844, William Barber and Robert Barber purchased William Comfort's saw and grist mill in the Streetsville area along with additional land on the Credit River. With their brother-in-law Bennett Franklin, they built a mill town called Barberton that by 1856 included a foundry, dye house, saw mill, carpenter's shop, wool house, and multiple private residences, and employed ninety workers in its first decade. The Toronto Woollen Mills, named for Toronto Township, prospered in the 1860s and 1870s before declining in the 1880s with the rise of synthetic textiles, and the business closed in 1885. During the First World War, the mill was converted to flour production and it still operated in 2020. After a fire in 1862, the brothers undertook a substantial rebuilding effort in the 1860s and constructed large houses for themselves. William's surviving house was a two storey red brick dwelling, now painted white, in the vernacular Regular Villa style, likely built from a pattern book and credited to local builder Robert Leslie, who also built Benares on Clarkson Road and the Hammond House in the Erindale area. Robert's house to the east was a wood frame Second Empire house that burned down at the turn of the 20th century. William's house had extensive gardens and, through its varying projections, was designed to blend into the landscape for a picturesque effect. A remnant outbuilding has been relocated and repurposed as a bike shed. Later owners included Barbara Riches by 1919, likely living there with her family including her father Lieutenant Colonel Charles Henry Reid Riches, a prominent attorney who founded one of Canada's first patent law practices in Toronto in 1887 and was instrumental in patenting insulin discovered by Banting and Best. The house later became a private home for the Townsend family, was designated under the Ontario Heritage Act in 1982, served for a time as the Old Barber House Restaurant, and has since returned to residential use with its exterior restored to an original 1870s appearance.

Ontario · Canada