Summit INN Motel

11610 Young Street,

L4E 3N7 Richmond Hill,

Tel: (905) 884-9011

Fax: (905) 884-9408

Toll Free: 1-866-886-9017

Factory buildings of Patterson Brothers, manufacturers of agricultural implements, located three kilometres west of Richmond Hill, along today's Major Mackenzie Drive.

The "firm" was Patterson Brothers, and its factory was located along the Vaughan Sideroad(Major Mackenzie Drive) about three kilometres, or two miles, west of Richmond Hill. It was a major employer of village labor, and by the early 1880s it was one of Ontario's most successful farm equipment manufacturers... more

Business on the Hill

The churches might have their Sundays, their Christmases and their Easters, but Victoria Day, the 24th of May, was easily Richmond Hill's grandest secular holiday during the 1880s.

Everywhere in late-nineteenth-century Ontario, the 24th of May was celebrated as Queen Victoria's Birthday, but Richmond Hill went one better, for the 24th was also the day of the annual Spring Fair sponsored by the Richmond Hill Agricultural Society.

Children celebrated a school holiday, their more sombre elders worshiped at the shrine of Empire - and everyone went to the fair.

Victoria Day and Spring Fair celebrations in 1884 were highlighted by a grand parade along Yonge Street, led by a loud and enthusiastic brass band.

This was a most unusual march, for it featured a quarter-kilometer procession of self-binders and other agricultural implements owned by York County farmers. "It was certainly the finest display of harvesting machinery ever witnessed in Richmond Hill," commented The Liberal, "and the feeling among the crowd of farmers who witnessed it was general that it reflected great credit on the firm represented."