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| Foundation - 1887 | |
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Walter Page, expert stonemason, has just completed a day of hard work on the site
of another new building in the thriving young city of Toronto. Queen Victoria is on the
throne, the sun never sets on the British Empire, and there is hardly a better place to be in
all that wide Empire than Toronto. Prosperous and bustling, the city is the financial and
cultural hub of the twenty-one-year-old country of Canada. Walter has come a long way since he arrived in Canada as a boy with a heart full of dreams. Apprenticed to a stonemason when he came to Toronto, he has become an expert in his craft and is well-connected in the healthy Toronto building trade. In 1875 Walter and John married two sisters, also immigrants from England. John married Sarah Cundell, and Walter married her sister Betsy Cundell. Walter is now a respectable family man with six daughters and a son. It's time for the next step. That night after dinner, when the children have gone to bed, he discusses his new dream with Betsy. Putting together his own savings and some investment from the bank, Walter has the capital to set tip his own construction business. As she listens to him set out his plan, Betsy gets caught up in the excitement too. With his expertise and his wide network of contacts in the city, Walter is well placed to make the most of Toronto's building boom, and establish a secure future for his family. And indeed, in the next decades Walter Page will become one of Toronto's most successful builders, working on the magnificent estates of Toronto's most privileged, and such landmarks as Saint Paul's Cathedral, the University of Toronto's Hart House, and the stables at Henry Mill Pellat's fabulous Casa Loma. | |
Next, Vision 1898 | |
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THE MAN - THE LEGEND - THE PRODUCT SITE MAP | |