Thornhill Real Estate & Homes for Sale

Thornhill, Ontario

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thornhill (2006 population 106,394) is a suburban neighbourhood in the Greater Toronto Area of Southern Ontario, Canada, located on the northern border of the city of Toronto. Once a municipal village, Thornhill is now a community and postal designation geographically split into two municipalities along Yonge Street, the city of Vaughan to the west and the city ofMarkham to the east. According to the 2001 Census, the population of Thornhill-Vaughan was 56,361, and the population of Thornhill-Markham was 47,333.

It is immediately south of Richmond Hill.

Demographics

Thornhill has a very ethnically diverse population. It is home to significant visible minorities communities, but is particularly known for its large Jewish community: 36.6% of the population of Thornhill is Jewish, the highest in Canada. It is home to numerous Jewish synagogues and schools, particularly Ashkenazi and Sephardic Orthodox Jewish synagogues such as the Thornhill Community Shul, Westmount Shul and Learning Centre, the Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto,Sephardic Kehilla Centre, and Chabad centres such as the Jewish Russian Community Centre, as well as Conservative synagogues such as Beit Rayim as well as Reform Jewish institutions such as Temple Har Zion, Temple Kol Ami, and the Leo Baeck Day School, a major Reform Jewish primary school.

According to 2001 Federal Census data, the electoral district of Thornhill (which is not entirely congruent with the community) consists of Chinese, the largest visible minority, accounting for almost 11% of total residents (12,610), followed by South Asian (6,595), Black (2,665), Korean (2,660), Filipino (2,535), and West Asian (2,355).

History

Thornhill was founded in 1794. Its first settlers on Yonge Street in Thornhill were Asa Johnson (who settled on the Vaughan side) and Nicholas Miller (who settled on the Markham side). Of particular importance was the arrival of Benjamin Thorne in 1820, who was operating a gristmill, a sawmill, and a tannery in the community. The settlement came to be known as Thorne's Mills, and later, Thorne's Hill, from which its current name is derived. (Thorne committed suicide in 1848, after a serious wheat market crash.)

Between 1830 and 1848, Thornhill experienced a period of continued growth and prosperity. The business district of Thornhill developed on its portion of Yonge Street, between Centre Street and John Street. Stagecoaches travelled between Holland Landing (Lake Simcoe) and York (Toronto) as Yonge Street's road conditions improved with new stonework. During this prosperous period, several churches, many of which are still standing today, were constructed.

Thornhill's location along Yonge Street, a major transportation route, proved to be beneficial to the community's growth throughout much of the twentieth century. The implementation of an electric street railway along Yonge Street in 1898 towards Kleinburg, Georgina, King and Toronto meant that, for the first time, it was possible for people to reside in Thornhill and work in Toronto. By the 1920s, the prevalence of the automobile further facilitated travel along Yonge Street.