Area Description

Box Grove (2006 Population 13,023) is an original community in Markham, Ontario.

A Middle Iroquian settlement existed on the west bank of a tributory of the Little Rouge Creek in the fourteenth century in the area which is today called Box Grove. In 1815, William Beebe was the first European settler in this area; Sparta or Sparty-Wharf (later Box Grove) was registered as a hamlet in 1850. The name suggests that at an early date there was boat traffic on the Rouge River. The hamlet changed to its present name during Canada's Confederation in 1867 when it was granted a post office. The origin of the name is unclear; it may be due to the activity at the box-making woodworking factory, a reference to the many boxwood trees around the hamlet, or linked to the hamlet of Box Grove in West Sussex, England. In 1867 the hamlet had "a Church, a schoolhouse, two taverns, woolen mill, sawmill, a store, a blacksmith and two axe-makers shops capable of supplying the whole country with axes and augurs on short notice."

The hamlet was the centre of local and small-scale industrial activity. A saw mill, cotton mill wool factory, and "shoddy mill" (for shredding old woolen fabrics for cheaper cloth and stuffing) along the banks of the Rouge River appeared after 1815. The working hamlet had a cheese factory, hotel, and three taverns for a population of 150 (1880); some neighbouring Mennonites had a "pessimistic" view of worldly Sparta, and sought to avoid travel in the hamlet. A Temperance House was opened in the 1860s by Joseph Lathrop on 14th Avenue. By the end of the nineteenth century the mills had closed (victims of floods and fire), and the White Rose Hotel and Tavern also closed its doors by 1910. While industry disappeared in Box Grove, the hamlet remained. The Box Grove Church and Box Grove Schoolhouse, S.S. #18 (1870), are the only reminders of the once-vibrant hamlet (the Tomlinson family is buried in the church's graveyard). The area of the mills later became part of the IBM golf course (now Markham Green Golf Club), and more recently a residential development.

Today, Box Grove has undergone a transformation from protected agricultural land to residential use. Box Grove is located in the area around Ninth Line (also known as Box Grove By-Pass) and 14th Avenue. Residential development began in the late 1990s and continues today.

The Box Grove post office was lost in the early 20th century. The current post office is located inside the Rexall pharmacy at Ninth Line and Copper Creek Drive.