Newmarket History

Ontario Real Estate --> Ontario Real Estate Listings --> Newmarket --> Newmarket History

History

In 1793 John Graves Simcoe traveled the Trail, northward along the main route to the west, and south to York (now known as Toronto) along the lesser-used eastern route though Newmarket. Selecting the eastern route as the better of the two, Simcoe started construction of Yonge Street along the former Trail in late 1795, starting in York in Toronto Bay, and ending at the newly-named St. Albans (today's Holland Landing) just to the north of Newmarket.



Newmarket was incorporated as a village in 1857 with a population of 700. In 1880, with a population of 2,000, Newmarket became a town and William Cane was elected as its first Mayor.



Newmarket developed along the east-west Davis Drive axis, limited to the area between Yonge Street on the west and between Bayview and Leslie Streets in the east, and running from just north of Davis on the north to the Fairy Lake area on the south. Newmarket had a suburban building boom due to its proximity to Toronto.