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In 1815, Joseph Tomlinson purchased the east 175 acres of Lot 5, Concession 8, and in 1850 created Plan 19 in cooperation with William Beebe. Through this plan of subdivision, village lots were formalized in a series of blocks. Since the plan shows the outlines of buildings that were already standing at the time the plan was created, many of these lots had been sold off the farm properties at an earlier date. One of the buildings shown on Plan 19 is on Lot 9, Block A, in the same location as the existing house at 7662 Ninth Line. James Barry, a shoemaker, or Edward Doherty, a labourer, may have been Tomlinson’s tenants in the mid 1850s.
In 1857, Joseph Tomlinson sold the property containing this house to Thomas Speight of Markham Village. The house was therefore constructed during the Tomlinson period of ownership. It was rented to tenants, including school teachers Judith Jones and Julia Mins, according to the 1861 census. The census includes the date of construction of the house, 1841. The schoolhouse serving the Sparta (later named Box Grove) area was located next door to the south during this period, before a new brick school was built across the road in 1877.
According to assessment records and Mitchell’s Township Directory of 1866, Thomas Speight rented the house to Edward Smith, a tailor. He lived there with his wife, Mary Jane and their children. Smith continued as a tenant until he purchased the property from Martha Speight in 1877. The family lived here until about 1910. The next owner was Anthony Graham. Owen Graham purchased the property from Anthony Graham’s executors in 1930, but it seems that he lost the property in the early 1930s, during the time of the Great Depression.
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