Meet the Howards of High Park: John and Jemima
Meet John and Jemima Howard who deeded the land to the City of Toronto to found High Park as a public park in 1873.
In 1836, John and Jemima Howard purchased 165 acres of land, stretching from Lakeshore Road to Bloor Street, with plans to establish a sheep farm. On this property, they built their country home, Colborne Lodge. Decades later, in 1873, the Howards deeded most of the land to the City of Toronto, forming the foundation of what is now High Park.
Professional Work and Art
The Howards immigrated to Canada from England in 1832. John accepted a position as drawing master at Upper Canada College, a role he held for 23 years while simultaneously establishing himself as Toronto’s first professional architect and one of its earliest official surveyors. His contributions shaped the city’s infrastructure: he laid out Toronto’s harbour, waterfront, and islands, and engineered its first sewers, bridges, streets, and sidewalks. For two decades, John worked tirelessly, often to the point of exhaustion. Jemima played a key role in his success by preparing meticulous copies of specifications for his projects.
Beyond his professional achievements, John left a rich artistic legacy. His amateur watercolours offer a vivid glimpse into 19th-century Toronto life: one painting, for instance, depicts cows being herded down King Street past landmarks such as the jail, fire hall, courthouse, and St. James Anglican Church. Jemima, also an amateur painter, favored romantic themes in her work.
Learn More: John Howard’s Watercolours | Textures of a Lost Toronto
Colborne Lodge
As an architect, John Howard is best remembered for his elegant Regency Picturesque-style homes, most notably the Howards’ own High Park residence, Colborne Lodge. Designed to harmonize with its natural surroundings, the house was named in honour of Sir John Colborne, the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada who helped launch John’s professional career in Toronto. Perched on a hill overlooking Humber Bay, the sweeping view from inspired the name of the estate: High Park.
Colborne Lodge began modestly with just three rooms in 1837 and evolved over time to meet changing needs. For the first few years, the Howards lived there full-time, later returning to the city and using the lodge as a country retreat. Initially, the space that later became the library served as their bedroom. The eventual dining room was originally the kitchen, but in the summer, cooking was done under an overhang off the back of the house. A trap door in the dining room once led to a cellar, and the servants’ room occupied what is now the bathroom. In the 1850s, a full basement was added to accommodate the servants’ quarters and a winter kitchen.
In time, the servants hired would include an entire family: the husband cared for livestock, the wife managed cooking and cleaning, and the children helped with chores. To brighten their basement quarters with sunlight, John designed special windows and window wells. The greenhouse, added in the 1860s, was the final addition to the house. By then, Colborne Lodge had grown from just three rooms to 22.
John Howard embraced innovation, reading popular science magazines like Scientific American, and eagerly adopted new ideas and inventions. The icehouse north of the coach house suggests the family used an icebox. The dining room fireplace mantel was crafted from a new composite stone material, while the “marble” fireplace in the drawing room was actually hand-painted by John to mimic marble. His enthusiasm for modern conveniences is most evident in the Howards’ bathroom.
The Howards’ bathroom offers the clearest example of John’s enthusiasm for modern innovations. In 1850—long before there was plumbing in their house, the Howards installed a shower and one of Toronto’s earliest (and last surviving) indoor flush toilets. The shower operated by gravity, drawing water from a second-floor tank. Over time, systems for heating and transporting water evolved, but initially, water was heated on the stove and carried upstairs by servants. Waste from the toilet emptied into a septic tank outside the house. At the time, however, indoor toilets were viewed as a source of disease rather than a household convenience. This likely explains why the bathroom door lacked handles and was cleverly disguised as part of a wallpapered wall.
Life at High Park
The Howards preserved much of the land in its natural wooded state, while cultivating orchards and gardens around their home and tomb site. South of what is now the Grenadier Restaurant, they rented land to tenant farmers. The current park office, also designed by John Howard, originally served as a residence for these farmers. At the time, alfalfa and wheat fields stretched up the slope where today’s iconic Maple Leaf flower bed garden rests.
John Howard welcomed soldiers and officers from Fort York to fish in Grenadier Pond and gather greenery for Christmas decorations. He and Jemima hosted Toronto’s gentry for carriage rides, picnics, boating, fishing, hunting, and leisurely walks. The Howards also built a modest boathouse along the shores of the southeastern cove of Grenadier Pond. During winter, they skated and harvested ice blocks from the pond. The couple also formed close bonds with two of their live-in servant families, the Duffs and the Hills. With the intent of allowing all Torontonians to use High Park, the Howards organized charity events such as the Oddfellows Picnic for the poor.
Although John and Jemima had no children together, John fathered three children with his long-time mistress, Mary Williams. Howard’s papers reveal an ongoing relationship with his clandestine family. He provided money and ideas for their Christmas celebrations, saved the children’s drawings in his sketchbooks. He even provided for them in his will. While having a mistress was not uncommon for the time, it was typically kept discreet. With Toronto being such a small town back then, Jemima may have been aware of the affair. Interestingly, John himself (originally known as John Corby) once claimed to be the illegitimate son of a man with the surname Howard.
When John retired in 1855, the Howards made High Park their full-time residence and John spent his time working on the grounds of their estate. Both John and Jemima were avid gardeners. Current garden restoration at Colborne Lodge is based on John’s journals and diaries.
A Park for the People
In 1873, The Globe and Mail published an article highlighting how parks could help address social challenges. John Howard designed public spaces thoughtfully with this in mind. He was aware of the pro-development ideas Frederick Olmsted applied when creating Central Park in New York City. However, while Olmsted sought to craft a manicured park from scratch in Manhattan, Howard aimed to keep High Park as natural as possible. He did not wish to have ornamental features such as fountains and arbours in High Park. His original 1870s plan for High Park can still be viewed in the Colborne Lodge library. The current layout with a ring road around the tableland, and the north and south entrances is fairly close to his original vision.
In 1876, the City expanded High Park by adding the 170-acre Ridout property and held a design competition for architects and surveyors. Howard rejected all proposals, deeming them too intrusive, and insisted on maintaining the park’s natural character. At his own request, he was appointed Forest Ranger of High Park in 1878.
Back in the late 1800s, Dufferin Street marked Toronto’s western boundary, and the roads beyond were rough. Yet, determined picnickers were willing to make the journey to High Park. Howard cleared brush and designed roads and drains. To ensure visitors enjoyed nature without the influence of “drinking booths or alehouses,” he banned alcohol in the park. High Park remains Toronto’s only “dry” area. By the time of John Howard’s death in 1890, streetcar routes had extended far enough to bring the park within easy reach of the growing city.
The Howards’ generous gift came with some strings:
- The park must be kept in a natural state
- It must be for the free use, benefit and enjoyment of all citizens
- Drinking alcohol must not be allowed in the park
- The name must remain “High Park”
- John and Jemima would receive $1200 a year and would live in High Park at Colborne Lodge on a private parcel of 45 acres. Upon the death of one, the other would receive an annual pension of $1200
- The City of Toronto must maintain the Howards’ burial site forever
The Howards’ Final Years
Under the terms of their agreement with the City, John and Jemima Howard spent their remaining years at Colborne Lodge in High Park. After a long struggle with illness, Jemima died of cancer in 1877. She was the first woman in Toronto known to be diagnosed with breast cancer — a diagnosis confirmed by a pathologist in England after receiving John Howard’s detailed sketch of a ruptured lesion. To ease her suffering, Jemima was given heavy doses of opioid painkillers, which profoundly affected her behavior and cognitive function. John’s journals describe her spilling and breaking things, and even wandering away to places where he had a hard time finding her.
Determined to provide the best care, John approached the Provincial Lunatic Asylum — a facility he had designed with advanced features — but the doctor advised against admitting her. So, reportedly for safety reasons, John put her in the guest room and converted it into a secure space — installing a door without an inside handle, adding bars to the windows, and hiring two live-in nurses. When Jemima passed away, John appeared to grieve her loss sincerely.
Some believe Jemima’s spirit still lingers at Colborne Lodge. In 1969, a police officer reported seeing a figure in a second-floor bedroom window, but upon investigation found no one. Some visitors to Colborne Lodge have reported getting prickly sensations, uneasy feelings, or glimpses of movement out of the corner of their eye.
John Howard died at Colborne Lodge in 1890, thirteen years after Jemima. Upon his death, the remaining 45 acres of his estate and Colborne Lodge became City property and officially part of High Park. (The City later added another 71 acres in 1930, bringing the park to roughly 400 acres, or 161 hectares.) John and Jemima are buried near Colborne Lodge in a ten-tonne tomb designed by John himself. Its base of boulders — meant to deter grave robbers — also symbolizes a Scottish cairn in honour of Jemima’s heritage. The marble Maltese cross atop the monument was brought from Vermont and reflects John’s membership in the Masonic Order. Surrounding the tomb is a historic iron fence that reportedly dates back to the 1700s. It is said to have been originally part of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and designed by Sir Christopher Wren. After the ship transporting the fence from London sank in the St. Lawrence River, Howard hired divers to salvage it.
Learn More: The Architect’s Tomb
Today, Colborne Lodge is a fully restored living history museum managed by the City of Toronto that’s open to visitors. Thanks to the Howards’ early foresight and generosity over a century ago, more than a million visitors each year enjoy High Park — an ecological gem in the heart of Canada’s largest city. Much of the park remains in its natural state and is easily accessible by public transit and bicycle — something the Howards orginally wished for and would surely have appreciated.
Special thanks to Kathleen Keefe for her valuable contributions to the content on this webpage.
Discover Related Topics
Uncover how High Park transitioned from a serene countryside estate to the vibrant Toronto public park that we know today.
Learn more about the tomb designed by the Howards for their final resting place, and the fascinating history of the fence that surrounds it.
Explore thousands of years of human history on the land we now call High Park — one of Toronto’s most iconic urban green spaces.
External Sources and Articles
- Colborne Lodge, Toronto History Museums, City of Toronto
- Historicist: John Howard’s Enduring Monument, David Wencer, Torontoist (2013)
- How High Park became Toronto’s “country” sanctuary, Valerie Hauch, Toronto Star (2016)
- John Howard’s High Park “A Square Mile or Two of Rough Ground…”, David Bain, Ontario Historical Society (2009)