For the upwardly mobile Harris family in Clarkson, life meant hawking apples by day while dining with royalty at night.
From their 300+ acre estate Benares on Clarkson Road North, now a City museum, four generations of Harris women and men actively participated in the social and economic evolution that saw Canada’s sixth largest city sprout from the fertile ground leading up from Lake Ontario’s western shore.
This real-life family saga had it all: a dashing military officer and his Irish bride, society private schools and picnics on the front lawn, gentlemen farmers and genteel poverty, single women of independent means and tragic stories of young men who died too soon.
No wonder the Harrises and their two-storey Georgian mansion were the inspiration for neighbour Mazo de la Roche – the Jilly Cooper of her day – spinning tales of hot-blooded passions of rural Ontario’s rural upper crust in her blockbuster 13-book Jalna series.
Let’s set the scene. It’s 1836, Montreal.
Benares, the Clarkson estate where four generations of the Harris family from the mid-1800s through to the 1960s. (photo courtesy Museums of Mississauga)
Captain James Harris and his wife, Elizabeth Malony, are contemplating their future.
After 20 years of service with stops in India and Malta, Capt. Harris is ready to put down roots and peruse the land notices in Upper Canada.
He purchases a 287-acre parcel of land for £800. It’s about 30 kilometres west of the provincial capital, recently renamed Toronto, and includes a home, farmland, woods and creek.
Within a year, they are settled, and Capt. Harris quickly begins to wield influence.
He works with Mississaugas of the Credit chief and serial entrepreneur Peter Jones, reporting to Ontario’s lieutenant governor on the operations of the Port Credit Harbour Company, a joint partnership between the Government and the majority owner Mississaugas.
Captain Harris becomes a justice of the peace, and overseer of highways, which authorizes him to hire crews to lay concession roads.
However, the Harrises life is not without its tragedies; three of their four sons, John, James and Charley, die in their teens.
By the 1860s, Benares is a large, thriving rural estate, expanding to include 342 acres, 105 acres of it cultivated, with crops of wheat, rye and oat. About 20 acres are reserved for pasture and 10 for an apple orchard.
Each Saturday, the Capt. Harris and his only surviving son and heir, Arthur, sell their goods at the St. Lawrence Market at the foot of Jarvis Street in Toronto.
While the days are devoted to work, the nights are reserved for parties and balls, such as in 1860 when Arthur and his sister dined with the Prince of Wales and future King George VII.
Arthur becomes the master of Benares in the 1870s, just as the colonial economy suffers a downturn. While outwardly, Benares remained an impressive estate, in truth, the Harrises rely heavily on the generosity of well-off relatives in Scotland to keep them solvent.
During this time, Arthur marries Mary Magrath, granddaughter of the rector of St. Peter’s, a match that links two prominent families.
By the late 1880s, Arthur and his four sisters are financially stable again, largely thanks to significant inheritances from those Scottish relatives and the death of their parents, six weeks apart in 1884.
Arthur and Mary invest in Benares, raise exotic birds such as Muscovy ducks, peacocks and peahens, and send their two daughters, Annie and Naomi, to Miss Dupont’s, a private school for girls on John Street in Toronto.
His two unmarried middle-aged sisters, Bessie and Lucy, use their inheritance to carve out independent lives.
They purchase a home on St. George Street, near the University of Toronto, where their nieces stay while at school, and hosted teas and garden parties that make the society pages of the Globe and Mail.
When Arthur dies in 1932, he leaves Benares to Naomi, who, despite several besotted suitors, never marries and lives her entire life in the home on Clarkson Road.
Annie marries Beverly Sayers, another prominent family match, and lives nearby. Her children, Geoffrey, Barbara and Dora, grow up exploring the same wood trails that three generations of Harrises have walked.
Naomi bequeaths them Benares upon her death in 1968.
A weekend party at Benares, with Naomi on the far right. (photo courtesy Museums of Mississauga)
The following year, the trio donate the house and its contents to the Ontario Heritage Foundation. Geoffrey and his wife Kay lived there as caretakers until 1981, opening the home once a year for public visits.
Benares became a City museum in 1995 and today welcomes visitors to explore the world of the Harrises and life in rural Ontario circa 1918.
Benares is a popular destination for visitors who want to view unique artifacts original to the house, including letters and photographs.
It’s also a popular location for film crews, proof that the stately home on Clarkson Road has many more stories to tell.
You can hear more stories about the people and events that helped shape Mississauga via our podcast, We Built This City: Tales of Mississauga, available on your favourite podcast platform or from our website.