I have wondered for almost four years about Brick Street. Where is it? How did it get its name? Why is there a cemetery and a school named as Brick Street. There certainly is no Brick Street anywhere in the area to be found.or is there?
Brick Street was originally a street in the former Township of Westminster which in due time was annexed by the City of London many years ago, well before the last annexation of the Township of Westminster which saw the entire township disappear into the City of London and the Municipality of Thames Centre (formerly North Dorchester Township).
Brick Street existed along what is now known as Commissioners Road in the section located between Wharnecliffe Road and Wonderland Road, which co-incidentally is where the Brick Street Cemetery is located and the former Brick Street Public School was located. As an aside, the former church, now a Montessori House, located immediately east of Brick Street Cemetery is the second oldest church to have been founded in what is now the City of London.
Commissioners Road (Brick Street) was part of a link in the road route between Burlington Bay (Hamilton) and Detroit (a British territory at the time). The route was used by British General Henry Proctor after the British defeat at the Battle of the Thames as the British troops retreated towards London from the Thamesville area.
The Brick Street Cemetery was established sometime between 1813 and 1819 with the first gravestone being dated 1819. Among those buried in the Brick Street Cemetery is one Phobe McNames, who lived to be the London area's Laura Secord by handing out ammunition and providing aid to the wounded during skirmishes in the area during the War of 1812 including the Battle of Hungerford Hill. The former church sits on property once owned by Phobe McNames and her husband.
Also buried in the Brick Street Cemetery are many of those killed during the tragic capsizing of the S.S.Victoria when that vessel capsized on the Thames River on May 24, 1881 while returning from Springbank Park to the area of the Forks of the Thames which was in the City of London. Springbank Park was located outside the city at that time.
It is recorded that the first brickyard in Middlesex County was founded in 1816 by a settler in this area.
During the 1890's there were as many as twenty brickyards located on farms along Brick Street so it is apparent why this stretch of roadway came to be called Brick Street..
The first settlers arrived in the area in 1810. Local families included Dale, Griffith, Jarvis, Teeple and Topping with Griffith Street in Byron memorializing that family and Teeple Terrace located a couple of blocks north of the former Brick Street school and Topping Lane running north from today's Commissioners Road adjacent to the former Brick Street Public School in memory of those early families who helped settle the area.
As a little bit of background on Brick Street School: I have found that beginning sometime in the early 1800's there was a one room schoolhouse located on the property until 1954 when the former Brick Street Public School was built. At that time the bell from the former one room school was moved to the Brick Street school. At the end of the 2010 school year the students from Brick Street Public School were almalgamated at another school. Alas, that historic school bell was STOLEN after the closure of the school.
Hope you enjoy your visit to Brick Street along with today's history lesson.