{"id":23328,"date":"2019-03-21T18:32:20","date_gmt":"2019-03-21T22:32:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23328"},"modified":"2019-03-21T18:32:29","modified_gmt":"2019-03-21T22:32:29","slug":"time-travellers-diary-a-most-desirable-residence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/time-travellers-diary-a-most-desirable-residence\/","title":{"rendered":"TIME TRAVELLER’S DIARY: A most desirable residence"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Jacqueline Stuart<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other day, the\nTime Traveller threw down his newspaper in despair and decided to read\nsomething less worrying. In a moment it was March of 1894 and he was sitting in\nthe Mechanics Institute reading room on Yonge Street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He picked up the\nlocal paper and noticed an unusually long advertisement on the front page.\nOffered for sale was the home of the late David W. Doan, just east of Yonge on\nthe north side of Wellington Street, opposite the Baptist church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the main floor\nthere were three \u201cnice\u201d rooms and a kitchen and scullery. Upstairs there were\nsix bedrooms, along with (politely put) \u201cevery convenience without going out of\ndoors.\u201d It was indeed \u201cone of the most desirable residences in Aurora.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David W. Doan\n(1838\u20131892) was a son of Charles Doan, one of Aurora\u2019s founding fathers. The\nyounger Mr. Doan was involved in the Doan general store and in due course\nsucceeded his father as postmaster, serving from 1882 until 1892. The\nWellington Street house had been built for David Doan about 1866.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Aurora\u2019s early\ndays there had been a deep rivalry between Charles Doan and another merchant,\nRichard Machell of \u201cMachell\u2019s Corners,\u201d Aurora\u2019s first name. Both men may have\nat least trembled in their graves when the Wellington Street house finally\nsold. The purchaser of the Doan house was Lillian Machell Taylor, a\ngranddaughter of Richard Machell. Lillie and her husband, a lawyer, owned the\nproperty from 1898 until 1905 when they moved to Lambton county where Albert\nTaylor had been appointed a judge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judgment was likely\nseen by the school children of York County as part of the job description of\nthe next owner of the house, Charles W. Mulloy. He was principal of the Aurora\nhigh school from 1896 until 1906 and went on to serve as the county public\nschool inspector until 1929. All school children just knew that he was\ninspecting them, not the teachers or the general management of the schools. One\nof Charles and Gertrude Mulloy\u2019s children, Harold, had the sad distinction of\nbeing the first man from Aurora to be killed in action in World War One.\nAnother had a happier claim to fame: daughter Edna married local boy H. R.\nMacMillan, who would be co-founder of the gigantic MacMillan-Bloedel forestry\ncompany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the deaths\nof the senior Mulloys the house became home and office (in a small addition)\nfor two physicians in succession: Charles Boulding (also mayor 1933\u20131939) and\nDonald Hutchins. The house later accommodated the Sormeh day spa for several\nyears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2013 plans to\nredevelop the property were announced. It was agreed that the front of the old\nhouse, with its columned porch, would be retained as the facade of the new\nmulti-unit accommodation. This proved to be structurally impossible, but the\nporch was reconstructed with close attention to detail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Time Traveller, now calmed down and back in\nthe present, hopes that the new occupants will find their residences as\ndesirable as in the past, but for himself he can\u2019t decide: should one copy that\nattractive past, or introduce good twenty-first century architecture?<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jacqueline Stuart The other day, the Time Traveller threw down his newspaper in despair and decided to read something less worrying. In a moment it was March of 1894 and he was sitting in the Mechanics Institute reading room on Yonge Street. He picked up the local paper and noticed an unusually long advertisement […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-64g","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-25 23:24:31","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23328\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}