Daniel Webster Clendenan (or Clendennan), commonly known as D. W. Clendenan (1851–1913) was a US-born, Canadian barrister and land speculator who founded the village of West Toronto Junction. He became the first mayor of the town of the Junction and is namesake for a local street. Born in

Detroit, Michigan Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

to travelling ministers of the

Disciples of Christ Church The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination in the United States and Canada. The denomination started with the Restoration Movement during the Second Great Awakening, first existing during the 19th ...

, he lived in Toronto but later moved to various cities where his father was called to preach. He returned to Canada to study law. In 1876, after graduation, he was called to the bar and soon joined a law firm downtown Toronto. He eventually moved to the city's western outskirts with his wife Clarinda (née McMillan). In 1882, through business partnership, D. W. Clendenan purchased tracts of land from

William Conway Keele William Conway Keele (1798–1872) was a lawyer, author and farmer in the 19th century and is the namesake for Toronto's Keele Street. Born in Southampton, England, he emigrated to Canada in 1832 and moved with his wife Anne-Sophia (née Moore) a ...

in anticipation of the completion of the intercity suburban rail lines. Clendenan subdivided the Keele estate, site of the former Carlton Race Course, into lots for sale. The village, then known as West Toronto Junction after the Canadian Pacific Railways station, rapidly grew in population and industrialized. In 1885, he was elected deputy reeve and became reeve of the village three years later. He also served as chairman of the school board. By spring of 1889, the village was chartered into a town. Clendenan was elected as the founding mayor of

Toronto Junction The Junction is a neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, that is near the West Toronto Diamond, a junction of four railway lines in the area. The neighbourhood was previously an independent city called West Toronto, that was also its own f ...

. A Conservative-Equal Rights politician, he became a prominent early figure before the Junction was amalgamated into the city of Toronto. By the late 1890s, he relocated to the US after he was involved in a domestic affairs scandal that broke in public. He continued to work as a lawyer in Nebraska, where he married again and had a son. In 1913, Clendenan died in

Lincoln, Nebraska Lincoln is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Nebraska. The city covers and had a population of 291,082 as of the 2020 census. It is the state's List of cities in Nebraska, second-most populous city a ...

at 61 years old. He was buried in Wyuka Cemetery. In his lifetime, while facing court charges, Clendenan's cousin Dr. George Washington Cledenan served as mayor of the Junction. Clendenan Avenue, running north–south from the Canadian Pacific tracks to Bloor Street and ending at the northwest corner of High Park, continues to bear the family's name.

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