Queen and King, SW corner

• Around 1848, James Johnston built a two-storey inn/tavern at the southeast corner of King Street East and Queen.  James, who had been living in Bolton since 1840, purchased the site from Samuel Walford in 1848 ¹ 
• The 1851 Albion Township census describes him as an innkeeper ²
• Western Light Lodge, a masonic group, regularly held meetings at the hotel, in a large room above the stables 
• True Blue Masonic Lodge, formed by a break-away group from Western Light, met in an upstairs room in the hotel.  Their first initiate was innkeeper William Curliss ³
  
• The inn is marked on Tremaine’s 1859 Map as are the stables and drivesheds to the rear ⁴.  At that point in time, it was owned by Thomas C. Starrett ⁵
• It is unclear whether the name Masonic Arms was given to the hotel by Western Light member T.C. Starrett in the mid-1850s or by William Curliss when he purchased it in 1860
• William, a stone mason by trade, built the John Shore house, boarding with the family for a year. But on completion, John didn’t have the funds.  William offered to take his daughter Jane in return and the debt was considered paid ⁶
• The hotel was quiet with a small bar which offered the best quality liquor
• In 1899, T.D. Elliott bought the hotel, re-naming it the Balmoral Hotel.  Innkeeper Thomas Gillies operated it until 1905

 

And the building?

• The hotel was demolished in 1908 to making way for a branch of the Imperial Bank of Canada which opened in 1909 ⁷.  That bank later merged with the Bank of Commerce, becoming the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) ⁸
  
• The current CIBC branch was built in 1975