Introduction
Pleasant Valley - Home at Last Two Very Special Homes
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Family HistoryTwo Very Special HomesAs we read earlier, Martin Snider’s homestead in New Brunswick was large and comfortable, with several fireplaces, scrolled interior trim and handmade exterior clapboard. When Martin's son, William, built a home for Nancy Cummer Snider and himself, it was designed in the popular Regency style; rather elegant for a farmhouse. Later, when the property was sold out of the family, additions created an even more elaborate Victorian-era dwelling. William’s house at 744 Duplex Avenue was listed on the City of Toronto Inventory of Heritage properties (1976) and designated under the Ontario Heritage Act (1979) for architectural reasons. Meanwhile, around the same time that William was constructing his house, his brother Thomas also needed a new home. His farm house on Lot 4, Concession 2 West, facing what is now Bathurst Street, was also designed in the Regency style, often called an "Ontario Cottage". An architect’s report of 1978 describes Thomas’s house as follows:
The Thomas Snider House was endorsed by the Toronto Preservation Board on June 13 2000, and was designated to the Toronto Heritage Properties Inventory on October 5, 2000. Thomas Snider was a Lieutenant in the Fort York Militia until his untimely death in September of 1856, leaving his widow, Catherine Grafton, with several young boys to raise. Fortunately, the eldest sons, Joshua and George, were twenty-three and twenty at the time of their father’s death, and were able to help their mother with the farm and family. Only the Beginning (Family History continued)
Patricia Snider Armstrong © July 2000
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