HomeMy WebLinkAbout209Duotang bound book compiled by K.H.J. Clarke at Pickering. Ont, July 20, 1971.
It is a brief history of the Jordan and Mathida Post and the home they built in Pickering in c.1840.
"POST MANOR
Built in 1841 by Jordan and Matilda Post and located on the northwest corner of Brock Road
and Kingston Road or #2 Highway opposite the Pickering Township Municipal Building in the
midst of a heavily wooded 14-acre property, Post Manor is an outstanding example of the
substantial field stone houses beautifully constructed and joined in native pine and cedar by
the superb workmanship of the early 19th Century. It is constructed in the Classical or Greek
Revival style of architecture with heavy cornices and gables. The fancy twin brick chimneys
are also typical of the early 1800's. This style, imported into Canada by the United Empire
Loyalists, was adopted by American architects who saw in the ancient Greek Republics a style
expressive of the New Democracy of the New World. The house was constructed by Scottish
stone masons and the fine carpentry was done by ships cabinetmakers, while their schooners
wintered at Frenchmen's Bay nearby. The most famous joiner of the day was John Pearce.
The wide baseboards and door trim are constructed for the most part from white cedar
stripped and processed to a golden glow. Floor boards are heavy tongue and grooved white
pine and the graceful front stairs have a curving banister of native black walnut, reminiscent of
some of the fine examples of 18th Century banisters to be seen in Historic Virginia.
The stone walls were built with deep window recesses panelled in white cedar,
while in the dining room and front sitting room, the recesses are open to give a graceful
window line. Upstairs the window sills are set low to the floor to form ledge seats."
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Mr. & Mrs. Kenneth H. J. Clarke, the present owners since 1945, are the fifth in over 150 years.
They have farmed the property and have carried out considerable restoration.
The house is authentically furnished in the period which is mainly Georgian.
Of considerable interest are the original 19th Century driveway gas lamps and standards
imported from Harrow, England, and an outstanding collection of cast iron garden furniture and
urns of the same period. After the Posts, subsequent owners were: 1886-1908, the Deverells;
1908-1926, the Hursts; and 1926-1945, the MacGregor-Hettgers.
The story of the Post family in microcosm is the history of North America itself.
The name Post is of German origin and was taken by its first bearers because of their
residence in a place so called. It has been found in Nettelburg, Germany, as early as 9 80 A.D.
in the form of Von Post. It also appears in ancient European and early American records in the
various forms of Pos, Poest, Poast and Poste, but the Post spelling is that in most general use in
Canada and the U.S. The first Post to enter the New World was Stephen, son of Richard, and his
wife Eleanor who left Gravesend, England, with a Higgison fleet in 1630 in the ""Griffin""
which landed, in Massachusetts after a very difficult voyage. The Post family produced a large
number of distinguished descendents who made and continue to make many important
contributions to the arts, sciences, and jurisprudence. The beginning of the Post family in
Canada was the arrival of Jordan Post and his wife Abigail in York in 1782 from Hebron,
Connecticut. United Empire Loyalists, they arrived just before the England-United States of
America Peace Treaty of 1783. Six"
"— 3 —
children arrived with them and two others were subsequently born in York. His oldest son,
Jordan who was born in 1767, married Melinda, daughter of Harvey Woodruff of Pickering in
Toronto, February 3, 1807. This Jordan became the first clockmaker in York, and owned a
considerable amount of property in the southern part of Toronto. Jordan and Melinda Streets in
the city were named after Mr. & Mrs. Post. It is said that he traded 15 acres in the area of
Melinda, Jordan and Bay Streets for 3 00 acres in Scarborough. A very early retreat to suburbia.
His brother, George Washington Post who was born August 26, 1779, also in Hebron,
Connecticut, is mentioned in records as an original Patentee of Markham Township.
He kept a tavern in Scarborough in 1811 where he was active as a juror, pathmaster and a
member of the Masonic Order. In 1812, he moved to Pickering early in the history of the
Township and located in Lot 4, Concession 2. He married Anna Knowles who bore ten children:
Asa, Hiram, Jordan, George, John, Robert, Henry, Sybil, Anna and Sahrah. It was this latter
Jordan, son of George Washington Post who built Post Manor. He was born in 1813 and first
ventured into business shortly after his marriage to Matilda Bates in 1838 as propietor of a tavern
about 3 miles cast of Pickering Village on Kingston Road. This Post's Tavern became a famous
stopping place for the coaches travelling between Toronto and Kingston.
In 1840, at the relatively young age of 27, he purchased 136 acres on the northwest corner of
Brock Road and Kingston Road which became known to the early settlers in that district as
""Post's Corners""."
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He established a sawmill on Duffin's Creek and farmed on the side.
Pine locally cut, the main product of the sawmill was shipped by wagon to Frenchmen's Bay and
thence across the lake. The spring ice jams at the bridges at Duffin's Creek and Brock Road
and at Duffin's Creek and Kingston Road were famous during Jordan Post's time and can still be
remembered well by longtime Pickering residents. Jordan Post used to gather his workers from
the sawmill and the farm to try to break the jams and save the bridges, but not always
successfully. Construction of Post Manor began in 1841 and took some years to complete.
Jordan died in 1868 at 47 years of age. His widow, Matilda and her young family, her oldest
child Elizabeth was 21 and her youngest Hattie was but 1 year old at the time, continued to live in
the house until 1886. Jordan and Matilda Post had eight children: Elizabeth, born 1839; Robert,
1841; Charles, 1844; Ardelia, 1847; John, 1849; Walter, 1851; Matilda, 1854; and Hattie
1859. Their many descendents in Canada and the United States attest to the sturdy characters
of their forebears. The Church of Christ's Disciples to which the Posts adhered, was located on
the southwest corner of Brock Road and Kingston Road. It was a wooden structure then brick and
had about 300 members. Although the church has long since disappeared, the cemetery
remains, and buried in it side by side with a marble obelisk to mark their graves are Jordan and
Matilda Post, within a few hundred yards of the beautiful house which together they built and
loved.
K. H. J. Clarke
Pickering, Ontario
July 20, 1971"
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