{"id":23432,"date":"2019-04-04T19:29:50","date_gmt":"2019-04-04T23:29:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23432"},"modified":"2019-04-04T19:29:59","modified_gmt":"2019-04-04T23:29:59","slug":"time-travellers-diary-lodging-with-the-lemons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/time-travellers-diary-lodging-with-the-lemons\/","title":{"rendered":"TIME TRAVELLER&#8217;S DIARY: Lodging with the Lemons"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>By Michelle Johnson<br \/>Aurora Museum &amp; Archives<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 1868, the\nsoutheast corner of Yonge and Mosley Streets became home to the Royal Hotel,\naffectionately known as Lemon\u2019s Hotel after the innkeeper, George Lemon\n(1842-1923). Lemon was born in Markham and started his career as an innkeeper\nin Richmond Hill, before moving to Aurora where he operated the Royal Hotel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 1867, he married\nSophia Meek and together they had four daughters.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Lemon\u2019s Hotel went\nthrough many transformations and during the early years, a tin shop stood\ndirectly beside it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 1872, the tin shop\nwas destroyed by fire along with the hotel\u2019s stables and shed.&nbsp; That would not be the only time that smoke\npoured from the building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 1877, another fire\nseverely damaged the hotel, but remarkably, Mr. Lemon was able to re-open it\nonly three months later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 1888, the hotel\nwas extensively enlarged and a three-storey addition was constructed behind the\nmain building, which dramatically increased its size.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Before the\nconstruction of community centres, the Royal Hotel provided an important space\nfor the community to organize. Residents would visit the hotel for club\nmeetings, celebrations and to conduct business transactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The stables of the\nhotel also acted as a venue for horse breeding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For example, in June\nof 1905, a registered trotting stallion, named The Duke 25375, stopped in at\nthe Royal Hotel for two nights after traveling through Ballantrae, Udora,\nPefferlaw, Sutton, Keswick and Newmarket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Duke was\nadvertised as weighing 1,300 pounds with a race record of 2.29 and clients were\nguaranteed a quality colt or their bill would be waived. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During the 1880s and\n1890s, the local lacrosse, hockey, baseball and football associations often\nheld their annual meetings at Lemon\u2019s Hotel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Victory celebrations\ntook place in the dining room, including one in 1902, after a friendly game of\ncurling between the Aurora and Newmarket clubs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The wager was an\noyster dinner, which the Aurora club was treated to \u2013 on Newmarket\u2019s tab, of\ncourse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 1911, George Lemon\nsold the Royal Hotel to Mr. Fred D. O\u2019Leary who operated it for another 16\nyears under the name, The Club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 1927, the local paper lamented its\ndemolition: \u201canother old land mark on Yonge Street in this municipality is\ndisappearing with the tearing down of the Club Hotel, formerly the old Royal\nHotel\u201d (Aurora Banner,&nbsp; July 15 1927). In\nits place, Aurora gained Cousins Dairy and Bell telecommunication offices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Michelle JohnsonAurora Museum &amp; Archives In 1868, the southeast corner of Yonge and Mosley Streets became home to the Royal Hotel, affectionately known as Lemon\u2019s Hotel after the innkeeper, George Lemon (1842-1923). Lemon was born in Markham and started his career as an innkeeper in Richmond Hill, before moving to Aurora where he operated [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23432","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=23432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23432\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}