Queen St. – west side, across the Humber River

Thomas Curliss: Albion Hotel
   Queen Street west side, across the river 

  • Thomas Curliss, a younger brother of Masonic Arms Hotel owner William Curliss, built the Albion Hotel possibly as early as 1860
  • The 2 storey frame building with roughcast plaster exterior was Neoclassical in style
  • Thomas and William were married to sisters Eliza and Jane Shore, daughters of John Shore 1
  • Thomas is described as Hotel Keeper starting in the 1861 census and for successive censuses until 1901 2
  • The Albion Hotel and its bar were popular with farmers; wagons and rigs lined the road around the hotel during the fall harvest as grain was being transported to the mill 3
  • The barns and stables which stretched behind the hotel could hold up to 150 teams of horses.  This changed dramatically after the railway arrived in 1871
  • The hotel was also known as the Curliss Hotel or Curliss’s Hotel and was operating into the early 1900s
  • After it ceased being a hotel, the building became the Curliss family home
Curliss Hotel (marked B) in the photo, as seen from the north hill in 1897. Extensive sheds for wagons and stables for horses can be seen at the rear.  The river is visible to the rear of the house (marked A), built by Robert McAffe, brother-in-law of Thomas Curliss.  The mill pond lies in front of the iron bridge across the Humber River.

And the building?

The building was demolished in 1962 in preparation for straightening the Humber River.  Removing the sharp curve in the river prevented ice jams from forming under the bridge

 

  1. ancestry.ca
  2. ancestry.ca. Census Records 1851, Albion Township
  3. Esther Heyes, The Story of Albion, published by the Bolton Enterprise 1968, p.333