“The History of Gibbon Road (and My Home in Particular)” by Robert Taylor

Gibbon Road was named after Spencer Gibbon, who owned much of its land in the 1940’s. His grand-nephew (James, I think) currently lives at 26 Scovil Road. My parents bought our double lot (at the corner of Gibbon and Bannister) from Spencer in 1945 for $1200. For a further $125 they had a cabin towed onto it the next summer. The cabin was, I have been given to understand, one of two tourist cabins that were across the Post (Rothesay) Road from the Riverside train station of the day. My parents, Gordon and Clendon Taylor, summered in this cabin until 1949, and then moved out from the city (Horsefield Street) full-time in December 1949, when I was nine months old. Five of us (I being the youngest) occupied that space, adding first a front entryway and then two back bedrooms and a foundation by 1955. The house remained that way until 1985, when we added a second storey to be able to accommodate my late brother’s family for a time. They have since moved on, and my wife Jean and I have owned the home since 1989 (we married in 1988). I have purposely retained one spot in the downstairs bathroom that shows the height of all the ceilings in the original house. that height being six feet and six inches. My late brother Roland (nicknamed “Tree”) was six feet four inches tall, so you can imagine that he had to duck through all the doorways.