Dentonia Park History

Opened in 1967, Dentonia Park Golf Course was named after Susan Marie Denton, who came from Boston in 1888 to marry Walter Massey. The Masseys were an established Toronto family, best known for their farm implement company Massey-Harris (later Massey-Ferguson) and their philanthropy, which included the construction of Massey Hall.

In 1897, as a source of relaxation and partly to fulfil a dream of owning a farm, Walter Massey bought 100 hectares of table and valley land just outside the city limits and named it Dentonia Park. The farm began to produce fresh eggs and milk, that were used to help combat the thousands of deaths occurring from typhoid fever, which especially afflicted small children. Due to the success of the farm within its first years of operation, Massey formed the City Dairy Company.

In 1901, Walter Massey died after contracting the disease he was trying to fight. Susan Massey continued to live at the farm. In 1926, she donated part of the land to the City of Toronto for public parkland on the condition that it remain known as Dentonia Park. She built an enormous 100 room house which was given to the Crescent School for boys in 1933.