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William Warren Baldwin emigrated from Cork, Ireland, to Upper Canada with his widower father Robert in 1798, eventually settling in York and marrying Phoebe Willcocks of the influential Irish-Canadian Willcocks family.
In 1813, the couple inherited Lot 24, the 100-acre park lot spanning from modern-day Bloor Street to St. Clair Avenue bequeathed to the Willcocks family by Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe two decades earlier. They built a succession of homes which Baldwin called "Spadina" after the Anishinaabemowin word ishpadinaa, meaning "high hill" or "going up the hill".
In 1865, another Irish emigrant named James Austin bought the Spadina Estate for £3,550, demolished Baldwin's existing house, and constructed the present Spadina House a year later. The family enlarged the building in 1898 and 1913. Today, it's home to a municipal museum.
(Research and text by Alessandro Tersigni.)
