Willowdale
This graveyard is a rare remnant of the time when Willowdale was a small agricultural community centred around this stretch of Yonge Street. Aboriginal peoples hunted, fished, and camped on this land for thousands of years before European settlement began in the late 1790s. The area then became known as "Cummer's Settlement" after the pioneering family of Jacob Cummer (Kummer). The name "Willowdale" appeared after the opening of the area's first post office, named "Willow Dale," in 1855.
Largely unchanged until early in the 20th century, Willowdale then began to expand with the development of new residential streets, at first stretching out on either side of Yonge Street. In 1923, it became the site of the new offices of the Township of North York. Beginning in the 1950s and 1960s, residential development rapidly replaced the earlier farmsteads as widened roads and new expressways provided better access from North York to the City of Toronto.
Plaque via Alan L. Brown's site Toronto Plaques. Full page here.