Fensom Family tenure and elevator business
John Fensom appears on Duke Street in Toronto City Directories between 1883 and 1905.
John Fensom was born in England in 1829, and he moved around the United States and Canada with his family during his youth. In 1854 Fensom married Charlotte Key, also English. Later that year Fensom helped his father operate a grist and saw mill in southern Ontario. Afterwards he attempted to operate a dock in Collingwood, Ontario, but lost his business to a fire.
By the 1870s Fensom was working as a mechanic and engineer on Terauley Street, Toronto, designing engines in his spare time.
Fensom and his family lived on Adelaide Street until 1883, when they purchased the Campbell’s former house on Duke Street, now numbered 54 Duke Street. In 1885 Fensom constructed a two-story plant behind the house, and in 1890 the plant was expanded to four floors. According to D.S. Fensom, the Fensoms were friendly with the Eaton family, who would become famous across Canada for their eponymous department stores.
According to a letter that Campbell House Museum received from John Fensom’s granddaughter in 1972, the twelve members of the Fensom family lived in the Duke Street property from 1883 till roughly 1899. During this time the house apparently had an elevator installed (most likely installed in an addition to the original 1822 structure, not within the Georgian Era brick shell. A letter received from a different grandchild was “certain” that the Fensoms kept an alligator in the house during the 1880s. The alligator allegedly escaped the garden one day, and was never recovered.
Sources:
- The Otis Bulletin, July/August 1952 – Campbell House Archives, Campbell House 1844-1972 Binder
- Letter from Joyce Boyle, 21 Feburary 1972 – Campbell House Archives, Campbell House 1844-1972 Binder
- Letter from D.S. Fensom, 14 March 1972 – Campbell House Archives, Campbell House 1844-1972 Binder
- Images of Fensoms – Campbell House Archives, Campbell House 1844-1972 Binder
Directories – Toronto Public Library (http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?Entt=RDMDC-TCD1883&R=DC-TCD1883; https://archive.org/details/torontodirec190500midiuoft