Prominent residents of Duke Street petition for street to be macadamized
On 6 April 1846, prominent residents of Duke Street, including Thomas Harris, Thomas Ridout, and P. J. O’Neil, signed a petition asking that their street be macadamized.
Macadamization was a paving method that was state of the art in North America at the time. It involved placing multiple layers of crushed stone, beginning with a layer of the largest stones and ending with a layer of the smallest. Most of the city had yet to be paved – when Toronto was still the Town of York, it was known as ‘Muddy York’ due to the state of the roads.
Source:
Petition – Toronto City Archives, Fonds 200, Series 1081, Item 1404