Friday, June 14, 2024.
Start your Conference weekend with a full day exploring two of Toronto’s wonderful historic museums – Fort York and Montgomery’s Inn.
Door-to-door return transportation, museum admission and a bag lunch are included in the cost of this tour.
The Museum Tour bus leaves the Conference hotel at 9:30 am, and will return you to the hotel from Montgomery’s Inn at 4:00 pm in plenty of time to prepare for the evening’s opening festivities. Your tour coordinator will travel with you throughout the day, and additional guides will be on hand at each stop.
Fort York
Spend the morning learning about the life of a soldier in the 1800s with the guidance of Fort York staff. The Fort served as the city’s primary harbour defense between the 1790s and the 1880s, and was the home of a military garrison until the 1930s. Fort York was built in 1793 to defend the new town of York. Soldiers from the Fort helped to lay out the town of York in a 10 block grid and also helped to build the Parliament building and St. James Church. The Battle of York in 1813 during the War of 1812, had a catastrophic end.
Lunch break: At 12:00 pm board the tour bus to travel to Montgomery’s Inn, where you’ll have a chance to relax and recharge with a tasty bag lunch.
Montgomery’s Inn
Spend the afternoon exploring the rich history of Montgomery’s Inn. In the early days of the Town of York, Dundas St. was a major transportation route. Hotels and inns sprang up along Dundas to provide a place for weary travellers to spend the night and obtain meals. And this is where Thomas Montgomery, who had immigrated to Upper Canada from Ireland, leased 200 acres of land, built his landmark inn in the 1830s, and enlarged it in 1836. Montgomery would go on to serve as a captain in the militia during the 1837 Rebellion. He also ran a successful farm, and one the farm workers he hired was Joshua Glover, an enslaved person who had travelled from Missouri via Wisconsin on the underground railroad to find freedom in Canada West. Glover and the Montgomerys would end up being lifelong friends.
