u/Grahamthicke

Standing at the terminus of the bend in Yonge Street around Bond Lake, is a little stone cottage, a landmark building that has been passed by many each day. Located at 12761 Yonge Street, it stands on a portion of the former ''Craigmore'' estate of John H. C. Durham, who was general manager of the Merchant's Life Insurance Company of Toronto. Durham purchased the Thompson farm in Oak Ridges in 1908, and remodelled the existing farmhouse on the property in 1912. About 1915, he hired Willaim H. Graham, Richmond Hill’s most sought-after builders to built the cobblestone cottage for the use of the farm manager. In the 1940's, Craigmore was sold to the Gamble family to add to their Bond Lake holdings.

The one storey cobblestone cottage is faced with rounded natural riverstone, trimmed with informal quoining and rough hewn voussoirs. The main building is square in plan, with a pyramidal roof, and there are exterior stone chimneys on the east and west walls, and a frame addition on the south wall. Windows which were typically double hung with 6 over 6 glazing on the main house and 3 over 2 and 2 over 1 on the addition, also boasts an open-framed sheltered door.

Land grants were distributed in groups a few miles apart by the Governor of Upper Canada to encourage settlement around the northern stretch of Yonge Street. William Bond, a most enterprising pioneer, petitioned Governor Simcoe for a Crown grant stating that he wanted to live in the province and could bring in four good and industrious families. He was allotted the land in which Bond Lake is situated and by 1795 cleared a stretch of land, built several buildings and extended Yonge Street by eight miles. By 1804, he advertised it as for sale, and advertising it as most favourable for orchard, pasture and grain “with an abundance of fish and fowl”.

During the 1850’s the Bells acquired part of this land that was sold to the Metropolitan Railway and converted into a park. Today the Bond Lake site contains a number of historic buildings, including this one. Yonge Street, which was once nothing more than a dirt track and one lane in each direction, also includes the gateway house that is located across the street, and would become the oldest surviving stone house in the present-day Oak Ridges.