Historical Richmond Hill: 4 places where history lies beneath your feet

YorkRegion.com
Sept. 13, 2016
By Kim Zarzour

Ever wonder who came here before you?

Beneath the ground, below the bustling pavement and sidewalks and subdivisions of booming Richmond Hill, lies a world of hidden history - and starting this weekend, you can learn all about it.

Over four Saturdays, four troves of historic treasure will be unveiled as part of a speaker series at the Richmond Hill Public Library.

“Archeology in York Region” will feature four veteran Ontario archaeologists who will share what they know about digs and excavations that have taken place in Richmond Hill and the surrounding area.

Ronald Williamson, chief architect at Archeological Services Inc. in Toronto, will be talking about the ossuary - a burial site for 15th century native Canadians - uncovered at Teston Road and Jane Street in nearby Vaughan.

“Indigenous history is invisible to most people and most people like to connect to the land they live on,” he said.

Newcomers, he said, seem to be particularly interested in learning about the history of their chosen community.

“I’ve found immigrants care more deeply even than long-term residents, because they are very connected to the land and have a stronger sense of the land around them.”

Participants in the lecture series will gain insight into early history, from communities built centuries ago, to local life in the 19th century, focusing on these four locations:

• Teston Road Ossuary: When construction workers expanded Teston Road in Vaughan in 2005, they unearthed human remains that turned out to be part of a burial site for a Huron-Wendat village, circa 1450. These First Nation people lived in large communities for 20 or more years and when they moved on, they put the bodies of all those who’d died into a large pit, a kind of “community of the dead,” Williamson said, “and they cared for the landscape because these are places where the souls of their ancestors are.”

• The Over Site: In the early 15th century, an Iroquoian village was located near Yonge Street and Hwy. 7. Dana Poulton, the consulting archaeologist on the site’s 1993 excavation, will describe what was found at the site, including long houses, and explain what life was like.

• The Wise Family Cemetery: This burial area, located at Boake Trail and Mandarin Court, was discovered in 1986, before the Bayview Hills subdivision was built. Dr. Robert Pearce, who directed the excavation, will talk about what archeologists do when they find historic family cemeteries.

• The Vanderburgh House: This home was relocated from its original site east of Yonge on Observatory Lane in 1987. Archeologists involved in the dig found evidence of former noteworthy inhabitants, including Captain James Fulton, along with animal burial sites and artifacts from homesteading in the 1830s.