Collection F0450 - York University historical collection

The York University historical collection is an assembly of documents in a number of formats accumulated by York University Archives to document the ongoing history of the university. The early part of the collection is made up of material acquired from the Stong Historical Society and from John Becker who joined the staff of York University in 1966 as assistant to the dean of Atkinson College. Becker later served as assistant vice president (Student affairs) and assistant vice-president (business operations). The collection has since expanded to include other sources such as artwork, oral histories and audio-visual recordings of special events. Much of the material received from the Stong Historical Society concerns the history of the land and community on which the main campus of the university is located in Toronto (formerly North York) Ontario. The original community, Kaiserville (later Elia), established circa 1800, was home to German loyalist settlers who had left Pennsylvania following the American Revolutionary War. The first settler in the area was Peter Erlin Kaiser who is buried on what is now the grounds of York University. When the University purchased its Keele Street land, there were extant buildings on the site. Among these, the principal buildings were the Jacob Stong house and the Abraham Hoover house. The Stong house was built on a parcel of land sold to Jacob by his father Daniel (d. 1868) and was constructed in the 1850s. Descendants of Jacob Stong sold the house in 1951. The Stong lands now form the central part of Black Creek Pioneer Village as well as forming the northern portion of the University property. The Hoover residence, built on a plot purchased by Christian Hoover in 1826, was constructed in 1848 by Christian and his son Abraham (1821-1905). The land (buildings and farm) was held by the Hoover family until the 1930s when it was purchased by a Mrs. Hart. In 1958 the house was purchased by Claude Passy, who resided in it for a period of time before selling it to York University ca. 1964. The Stong Historical Society was established in 1979 at Stong College, York University. Its purpose was to discover the history of the area on which the university was built, and it proposed that the houses of the Stong College residence bear the names of the pioneer families of the area. The society was begun by Olga Cirak, the college's administrative assistant. It is currently inactive.