This lot was part of the Crosby Farm, surveyed by Daniel P. Crosby in Plan 78, registered in 1887. Subdivided from the property for 2063 Caroline Street, built in 1890 for Ellis Hughes Cleaver, barrister, and Liberal candidate for the 1917 federal election. The low cobblestone wall for the original property still continues along Caroline Street to Emerald Street.
His older son and namesake Hughes Cleaver was also a lawyer and active Liberal (elected MP in 1935, 1940,1945, and 1949; he retired in 1953). In Ottawa he chaired the Banking and Commerce Committee, the War Expenditures Committee, and the Railroad and Trans-Canada Airways Committee. Earlier he was elected reeve of Burlington in 1918-19 and mayor in 1920.
Cleaver was also the partner with English Inns in the building of the Pig & Whistle Inn (see 5527 Lakeshore Road) in 1929. His other business ventures included the Bluebird Bus Line (its office building still stands at 2015 Lakeshore Road); a fox farm on Caroline Street; and a cure-all remedy called “radium water”, which is said to have ended one patient’s troubles altogether. The 1929 financial crash left him financially embarrassed, and he was disbarred by the Law Society for misuse of his clients’ funds. At the federal Liberal nomination meeting in 1935, he spoke effectively, saying that since his disbarment he had no other way of making a living. Having been nominated and elected, he paid back his creditors and was reinstated by the Law Society in 1952. He then gave up his seat in Parliament to return to law practice.
He and his wife, Ariel Shapland, first lived in a nearby house at 524 Pearl Street, and then at 2085 Caroline Street, across Emerald Street from this property. Cleaver’s development plan for this area (Plan 134, Crescent Survey, 1911) included the Emerald Street Boulevard, which is a prototype of Rossmore Boulevard in his later Roseland development.
In 1916 Ellis Hughes Cleaver bought this property from the estate of Daniel Perry Crosby; in 1928 it was sold to Arthu Hale Munson & Jessie Hope Munson; in 1937 it was sold by the City of Burlington by tax deed to Oreland McIntyre & his wife. The house and property were sold in 1964 to Donald & Dorothy Johnston and again to Alfred & Esther Burman; in 1988 to Beverley Anne Batten Simpson.
The present owners are also active in the Liberal party and have hosted events for MP Paddy Torsney and Cabinet minister Art Eggleton on this property, continuing a tradition begun by Ellis Hughes Cleaver, whose house was a meeting place for political celebrities of the era.
