Something Spooky at Guild Park: History, Mystery — and a Ghost Story?
Guild Park's architectural fragments come with stories. One of the strangest involves the remnants of the former Canadian Bank of Commerce at Yonge and Bloor — and a cemetery that once occupied the site. Friends of Guild Park directors Audrea Porter and Isaiah Thomas explore one of the park's spooky stories.
Do the fragments from the Canadian Bank of Commerce really hold paranormal activity from a 200-year-old cemetery as some park visitors believe, or is this just an interesting Guild Park urban legend?
The Canadian Bank of Commerce was constructed in 1899 on the northwest corner of Yonge and Bloor Streets. When the building was demolished in 1972, pieces were saved by Rosa and Spencer Clark and relocated to Guild Park as part of their architectural collection.
Until 1855, this was the site of the first Strangers' Burying Ground, also known as a Potter's Field. The burial site was opened in 1825 as Toronto's first nondenominational cemetery. It was a six-acre cemetery that spanned westward along the north side of Bloor Street to approximately Bay Street, then extended north to Cumberland Street.
People with no religious affiliation, people of modest means, transients without family members or people who committed serious crimes were buried in this cemetery.
In the mid-19th century, there was also a typhoid, cholera and diphtheria epidemic. Many victims were hastily buried, usually in shallow graves and without coffins, to prevent the germs from spreading. Some of the people in this cemetery were also interred without headstones, grave markers or proper documentation.
When the cemetery closed in 1855 due to overcrowding and city expansion, there were 6,685 bodies. Remains that could be identified through cemetery records or claimed by family members were reinterred in the Necropolis, a 15-acre cemetery that opened during the 1850s to replace the Strangers' Burying Ground. Other bodies were relocated to Mount Pleasant Cemetery.
Of the 6,685 bodies in Potter's Field, 984 were relocated to the Necropolis in a section named “The Resting Place of Pioneers” and 364 were relocated to Mount Pleasant Cemetery.
What happened to the remaining 5,337 bodies? These numbers may not be accurate. There were gaps in information, unreliable documents and inaccurate archival records. Unfortunately, no one may be able to determine exactly what happened to the unclaimed bodies.
And that brings the story back to Guild Park. Over the years, visitors have shared stories of unexplained experiences around the park and its historic buildings and architectural fragments. Are the old Bank of Commerce stones — relocated here from the former cemetery site at Bloor and Yonge — part of Guild Park's mystery? Or is it simply a good ghost story that has grown around a fascinating piece of Toronto history?
Either way, the next time you pass these old stones at Guild Park, take a closer look. Or close your eyes and see if the spirits move you. You never know what mysteries might have travelled with the stones….
By Audrea Porter and Isaiah Thomas,
Directors, Friends of Guild Park
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