TORONTO OF OLD

I.

PALACE STREET TO THE MARKET PLACE.

n Rome, at the present day, the parts that are the most attractive to the tourist of archæological tastes, are those that are the most desolate; quarters that, apart from their associations, are the most uninviting. It is the same with many another venerable town of the world beyond the Atlantic, of far less note than the old Imperial capital, with Avignon, for example; with Nismes and Vienne in France; with Paris itself, also, to some extent; with Chester, and York, and St. Albans, the Verulam of the Roman period, in England.

It is the same with our American towns, wherever any relics of their brief past are extant. Detroit, we remember, had once a quaint, dilapidated, primæval quarter. It is the same with our own Toronto. He that would examine the vestiges of the original settlement, out of which the actual town has grown, must betake himself, in the first instance, to localities now deserted by fashion, and be content to contemplate objects that, to the indifferent eye, will seem commonplace and insignificant.

To invest such places and things with any degree of interest will appear difficult. An attempt in that direction may even be pronounced visionary. Nevertheless, it is a duty which we owe to our forefathers to take what note we can of the labours of their hands; to forbid, so far as we may, the utter oblivion of their early efforts, and deeds, and sayings, the outcome of their ideas, of their humours and anxieties; to forbid, even, so far as we may, the utter oblivion of the form and fashion of their persons.

The excavations which the first inhabitants made in the construction of their dwellings and in engineering operations, civil and military, were neither deep nor extensive; the materials which they employed were, for the most part, soft and perishable. In a few years all the original edifices of York, the infant Toronto, together with all the primitive delvings and cuttings, will, of necessity, have vanished. Natural decay will have destroyed some. Winds, fires, and floods will have removed others. The rest will have been deliberately taken out of the way, or obliterated in the accomplishment of modern improvements, the rude and fragile giving way before the commodious and enduring.

At St. Petersburg, we believe, the original log-hut of Peter the Great is preserved to the present day, in a casing of stone, with a kind of religious reverence. And in Rome of old, through the influence of a similar sacred regard for the past, the lowly cottage of Romulus was long protected in a similar manner. There are probably no material relics of our founders and forefathers which we should care to invest with a like forced and artificial permanence. But memorials of those relics, and records of the associations that may here and there be found to cluster round them,—these we may think it worth our while to collect and cherish.

Overlooking the harbour of the modern Toronto, far down in the east, there stands at the present day, a large structure of grey cut-stone. Its radiating wings, the turret placed at a central point aloft, evidently for the ready oversight of the subjacent premises; the unornamented blank walls, pierced high up in each storey with a row of circular-heading openings, suggestive of shadowy corridors and cells within, all help to give to this pile an unmistakable prison-aspect.

It was very nearly on the site of this rather hard-featured building that the first Houses of Parliament of Upper Canada were placed—humble but commodious structures of wood, built before the close of the eighteenth century, and destroyed by the incendiary hand of the invader in 1813. "They consisted," as a contemporary document sets forth, "of two elegant Halls, with convenient offices, for the accommodation of the Legislature and the Courts of Justice."—"The Library, and all the papers and records belonging to these institutions were consumed, and, at the same time," the document adds, "the Church was robbed, and the Town Library totally pillaged."—The injuries thus inflicted were a few months afterwards avenged by the destruction of the Public Buildings at Washington, by a British force. "We consider," said an Address of the Legislative Council of Lower Canada to Sir George Prevost, "the destruction of the Public Buildings at Washington as a just retribution for the outrages committed by an American force at the seat of Government of Upper Canada."

On the same site succeeded the more conspicuous and more capacious, but still plain and simply cubical brick block erected for legislative purposes in 1818, and accidentally burned in 1824. The conflagration on this occasion entailed a loss which, the Canadian Review of the period, published at Montreal, observes, "in the present state of the finances and debt of the Province, cannot be considered a trifling affair." That loss, we are informed by the same authority, amounted to the sum of two thousand pounds.

Hereabout the Westminster of the new capital was expected to be. It is not improbable that the position at the head, rather than the entrance, of the harbour was preferred, as being at once commanding and secure.

The appearance of the spot in its primæval condition, was doubtless more prepossessing than we can now conceive it ever to have been. Fine groves of forest trees may have given it a sheltered look, and, at the same time, have screened off from view the adjoining swamps.

The language of the early Provincial Gazetteer, published by authority, is as follows: "The Don empties itself into the harbour, a little above the Town, running through a marsh, which when drained, will afford most beautiful and fruitful meadows." In the early manuscript Plans, the same sanguine opinion is recorded, in regard to the morasses in this locality. On one, of 1810, now before us, we have the inscription: "Natural Meadow which may be mown." On another, the legend runs: "Large Marsh, and will in time make good Meadows." On a third it is: "Large Marsh and Good Grass."

At all events, hereabout it was that York, capital of Upper Canada, began to rise. To the west and north of the site of the Houses of Parliament, the officials of the Government, with merchants and tradesmen in the usual variety, began to select lots and put up convenient dwellings; whilst close by, at Berkeley Street or Parliament Street as the southern portion of the modern Berkeley Street was then named, the chief thoroughfare of the town had its commencing-point. Growing slowly westward from here, King Street developed in its course, in the customary American way, its hotel, its tavern, its boarding-house, its waggon-factory, its tinsmith shop, its bakery, its general store, its lawyer's office, its printing office, its places of worship.

Eastward of Berkeley Street, King Street became the Kingston road, trending slightly to the north, and then proceeding in a straight line to a bridge over the Don. This divergency in the highway caused a number of the lots on its northern side to be awkwardly bounded on their southern ends by lines that formed with their sides, alternately obtuse and acute angles, productive of corresponding inconveniencies in the shapes of the buildings afterwards erected thereon; and in the position of some of them. At one particular point the houses looked as if they had been separated from each other and partially twisted round, by the jolt of an earthquake.

At the Bridge, the lower Kingston road, if produced westward in a right line, would have been Queen Street, or Lot Street, had it been deemed expedient to clear a passage in that direction through the forest. But some way westward from the Bridge, in this line, a ravine was encountered lengthwise, which was held to present great engineering difficulties. A road cut diagonally from the Bridge to the opening of King Street, at once avoided this natural impediment, and also led to a point where an easy connection was made with the track for wheels, which ran along the shore of the harbour to the Garrison. But for the ravine alluded to, which now appears to the south of Moss Park, Lot Street, or, which is the same thing, Queen Street, would at an early period, have begun to dispute with King Street, its claim to be the chief thoroughfare of York.

But to come back to our original unpromising stand-point.

Objectionable as the first site of the Legislative Buildings at York may appear to ourselves, and alienated as it now is to lower uses, we cannot but gaze upon it with a certain degree of emotion, when we remember that here it was the first skirmishes took place in the great war of principles which afterwards with such determination and effect was fought out in Canada. Here it was that first loomed up before the minds of our early law-makers the ecclesiastical question, the educational question, the constitutional question. Here it was that first was heard the open discussion, childlike, indeed, and vague, but pregnant with very weighty consequences, of topics, social and national, which, at the time, even in the parent state itself, were mastered but by few.

Here it was, during a period of twenty-seven years (1797-1824), at each opening and closing of the annual session, amidst the firing of cannon and the commotion of a crowd, the cavalcade drew up that is wont, from the banks of the Thames to the remotest colony of England, to mark the solemn progress of the sovereign or the sovereign's representative, to and from the other Estates in Parliament assembled. Here, amidst such fitting surroundings of state, as the circumstances of the times and the place admitted, came and went personages of eminence, whose names are now familiar in Canadian story: never, indeed, the founder and organiser of Upper Canada, Governor Simcoe himself, in this formal and ceremonious manner; although often must he have visited the spot otherwise, in his personal examinations of every portion of his young capital and its environs. But here, immediately after him, however, came and went repeatedly, in due succession, President Russell, Governor Hunter, Governor Gore, General Brock, General Sheaffe, Sir Gordon Drummond, Sir Peregrine Maitland.

And, while contemplating the scene of our earliest political conflicts, the scene of our earliest known state pageants in these parts, with their modest means and appliances, our minds intuitively recur to a period farther removed still, when under even yet more primitive conditions the Parliament of Upper Canada assembled at Newark, just across the Lake. We picture to ourselves the group of seven crown-appointed Councillors and five representatives of the Commons, assembled there, with the first Speaker, McDonell, of Glengary; all plain, unassuming, prosaic men, listening, at their first session, to the opening speech of their frank and honoured Governor. We see them adjourning to the open air from their straightened chamber at Navy Hall, and conducting the business of the young Province under the shade of a spreading tree, introducing the English Code and Trial by Jury, decreeing Roads, and prohibiting the spread of Slavery; while a boulder of the drift, lifting itself up through the natural turf, serves as a desk for the recording clerk. Below them, in the magnificent estuary of the river Niagara, the waters of all the Upper Lakes are swirling by, not yet recovered from the agonies of the long gorge above, and the leap at Table Rock.—Even here, at the opening and close of this primæval Legislature, some of the decent ceremonial was observed with which, as we have just said, the sadly inferior site at the embouchure of the Don became afterwards familiar. We learn this from the narrative of the French Duke de Liancourt, who affords us a glimpse of the scene at Newark on the occasion of a Parliament there in 1795. "The whole retinue of the Governor," he says, "consisted in a guard of fifty men of the garrison of the fort. Draped in silk, he entered the Hall with his hat on his head, attended by his adjutant and two secretaries. The two members of the Legislative Council gave, by their speaker, notice of it to the Assembly. Five members of the latter having appeared at the bar, the Governor delivered a speech, modelled after that of the King, on the political affairs of Europe, on the treaty concluded with the United States (Jay's treaty of 1794), which he mentioned in expressions very favourable to the Union; and on the peculiar concerns of Canada." (Travels, i. 258.)

By the Quebec Act, passed in 1791, it was enacted that the Legislative Council for Upper Canada should consist of not fewer than seven members, and the Assembly of not less than sixteen members, who were to be called together at least once in every year. To account for the smallness of the attendance on the occasion just described, the Duke explains that the Governor had deferred the session "on account of the expected arrival of a Chief Justice, who was to come from England: and from a hope that he should be able to acquaint the members with the particulars of the Treaty with the United States. But the harvest had now begun, which, in a higher degree than elsewhere, engages in Canada the public attention, far beyond what state affairs can do. Two members of the Legislative Council were present, instead of seven; no Chief Justice appeared, who was to act as Speaker; instead of sixteen members of the Assembly, five only attended; and this was the whole number that could be collected at this time. The law required a greater number of members for each house, to discuss and determine upon any business; but within two days a year would have expired since the last session. The Governor, therefore, thought it right to open the session, reserving, however, to either house the right of proroguing the sitting, from one day to another, in expectation that the ships from Detroit and Kingston would either bring the members who were yet wanting, or certain intelligence of their not being able to attend."

But again to return to the Houses of Parliament at York.—Extending from the grounds which surrounded the buildings, in the east, all the way to the fort at the entrance of the harbour, in the west, there was a succession of fine forest trees, especially oak; underneath and by the side of which the upper surface of the precipitous but nowhere very elevated cliff was carpeted with thick green-sward, such as is still to be seen between the old and new garrisons, or at Mississaga Point at Niagara. A fragment, happily preserved, of the ancient bank, is to be seen in the ornamental piece of ground known as the Fair-green; a strip of land first protected by a fence, and planted with shrubbery at the instance of Mr. George Monro, when Mayor, who also, in front of his property some distance further on, long guarded from harm a solitary survivor of the grove that once fringed the harbour.

On our first visit to Southampton, many years ago, we remember observing a resemblance between the walk to the river Itchen, shaded by trees and commanding a wide water-view on the south, and the margin of the harbour of York.

In the interval between the points where now Princes Street and Caroline Street descend to the water's edge, was a favourite landing-place for the small craft of the bay—a wide and clean gravelly beach, with a convenient ascent to the cliff above. Here, on fine mornings, at the proper season, skiffs and canoes, log and birch-bark were to be seen putting in, weighed heavily down with fish, speared or otherwise taken during the preceding night, in the lake, bay, or neighbouring river. Occasionally a huge sturgeon would be landed, one struggle of which might suffice to upset a small boat. Here were to be purchased in quantities, salmon, pickerel, masquelonge, whitefish and herrings; with the smaller fry of perch, bass and sunfish. Here, too, would be displayed unsightly catfish, suckers, lampreys, and other eels; and sometimes lizards, young alligators for size. Specimens, also, of the curious steel-clad, inflexible, vicious-looking pipe-fish were not uncommon. About the submerged timbers of the wharves this creature was often to be seen—at one moment stationary and still, like the dragon-fly or humming-bird poised on the wing, then, like those nervous denizens of the air, giving a sudden dart off to the right or left, without curving its body.

Across the bay, from this landing-place, a little to the eastward, was the narrowest part of the peninsula, a neck of sand, destitute of trees, known as the portage or carrying-place, where, from time immemorial, canoes and small boats were wont to be transferred to and from the lake.

Along the bank, above the landing-place, Indian encampments were occasionally set up. Here, in comfortless wigwams, we have seen Dr. Lee, a medical man attached to the Indian department, administering from an ordinary tin cup, nauseous but salutary draughts to sick and convalescent squaws. It was the duty of Dr. Lee to visit Indian settlements and prescribe for the sick. In the discharge of his duty he performed long journeys, on horseback, to Penetanguishene and other distant posts, carrying with him his drugs and apparatus in saddle-bags. When advanced in years, and somewhat disabled in regard to activity of movement, Dr. Lee was attached to the Parliamentary staff as Usher of the Black Rod.—The locality at which we are glancing suggests the name of another never-to-be-forgotten medical man, whose home and property were close at hand. This is the eminent surgeon and physician, Christopher Widmer.

It is to be regretted that Dr. Widmer left behind him no written memorials of his long and varied experience. Before his settlement in York, he had been a staff cavalry surgeon, on active service during the campaigns in the Peninsula. A personal narrative of his public life would have been full of interest. But his ambition was content with the homage of his contemporaries, rich and poor, rendered with sincerity to his pre-eminent abilities and inextinguishable zeal as a surgeon and physician. Long after his retirement from general practice, he was every day to be seen passing to and from the old Hospital on King Street, conveyed in his well-known cabriolet, and guiding with his own hand the reins conducted in through the front window of the vehicle. He had now attained a great age; but his slender form continued erect; the hat was worn jauntily, as in other days, and the dress was ever scrupulously exact; the expression of the face in repose was somewhat abstracted and sad, but a quick smile appeared at the recognition of friends. The ordinary engravings of Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, recall in some degree the countenance of Dr. Widmer. Within the General Hospital, a portrait of him is appropriately preserved. One of the earliest, and at the same time one of the most graceful lady-equestrians ever seen in York was this gentleman's accomplished wife. At a later period a sister of Mr. Justice Willis was also conspicuous as a skilful and fearless horse-woman. The description in the Percy Anecdotes of the Princess Amelia, youngest daughter of George II., is curiously applicable to the last-named lady, who united to the amiable peculiarities indicated, talents and virtues of the highest order. "She," the brothers Sholto and Reuben say, "was of a masculine turn of mind, and evinced this strikingly enough in her dress and manners: she generally wore a riding-habit in the German fashion with a round hat; and delighted very much in attending her stables, particularly when any of the horses were out of order." At a phenomenon such as this, suddenly appearing in their midst, the staid and simple-minded society of York stood for a while aghast.

In the Loyalist of Nov. 15, 1828, we have the announcement of a Medical partnership entered into between Dr. Widmer and Dr. Diehl. It reads thus: "Doctor Widmer, finding his professional engagements much extended of late, and occasionally too arduous for one person, has been induced to enter into partnership with Doctor Diehl, a respectable practitioner, late of Montreal. It is expected that their united exertions will prevent in future any disappointment to Dr. Widmer's friends, both in Town and Country. Dr. Diehl's residence is at present at Mr. Hayes' Boarding-house. York, Oct. 28, 1828." Dr. Diehl died at Toronto, March 5, 1868.

At the south-west corner of Princes Street, near where we are now supposing ourselves to be, was a building popularly known as Russell Abbey. It was the house of the Hon. Peter Russell, and, after his decease, of his maiden sister, Miss Elizabeth Russell, a lady of great refinement, who survived her brother many years. The edifice, like most of the early homes of York, was of one storey only; but it exhibited in its design a degree of elegance and some peculiarities. To a central building were attached wings with gables to the south: the windows had each an architectural decoration or pediment over it. It was this feature, we believe, that was supposed to give to the place something of a monastic air; to entitle it even to the name of "Abbey." In front, a dwarf stone wall with a light wooden paling surrounded a lawn, on which grew tall acacias or locusts. Mr. Russell was a remote scion of the Bedford Russells. He apparently desired to lay the foundation of a solid landed estate in Upper Canada. His position as Administrator, on the departure of the first Governor of the Province, gave him facilities for the selection and acquisition of wild lands. The duality necessarily assumed in the wording of the Patents by which the Administrator made grants to himself, seems to have been regarded by some as having a touch of the comic in it. Hence among the early people of these parts the name of Peter Russell was occasionally to be heard quoted good-humouredly, not malignantly, as an example of "the man who would do well unto himself." On the death of Mr. Russell, his property passed into the hands of his sister, who bequeathed the whole to Dr. William Warren Baldwin, into whose possession also came the valuable family plate, elaborately embossed with the armorial bearings of the Russells. Russell Hill, long the residence of Admiral Augustus Baldwin, had its name from Mr. Russell, and in one of the elder branches of the Baldwin family, Russell is continued as a baptismal name. In the same family is also preserved an interesting portrait of Mr. Peter Russell himself, from which we can see that he was a gentleman of portly presence, of strongly marked features, of the Thomas Jefferson type. We shall have occasion hereafter to speak frequently of Mr. Russell.

Russell Abbey became afterwards the residence of Bishop Macdonell, a universally-respected Scottish Roman Catholic ecclesiastic, whose episcopal title was at first derived from Rhesina in partibus, but afterwards from our Canadian Kingston, where his home usually was. His civil duties, as a member of the Legislative Council of Upper Canada, required his presence in York during the Parliamentary sessions. We have in our possession a fine mezzotint of Sir M. A. Shee's portrait of Bishop Macdonell. It used to be supposed by some that the occupancy of Russell Abbey by the Bishop caused the portion of Front Street which lies eastward of the Market-place, to be denominated Palace Street. But the name appears in plans of York of a date many years anterior to that occupancy.

In connection with this mention of Bishop Macdonell, it may be of some interest to add that, in 1826, Thomas Weld, of Lulworth Castle, Dorsetshire, was consecrated as his coadjutor, in England, under the title of Bishop of Amylæ. But it does not appear that he ever came out to Canada. (This was afterwards the well-known English Cardinal.) He had been a layman, and married, up to the year 1825; when, on the death of his wife, he took orders; and in one year he was, as just stated, made a Bishop.

Russell Abbey may indeed have been styled the "Palace"; but it was probably from being the residence of one who for three years administered the Government; or the name "Palace Street" itself may have suggested the appellation. "Palace Street" was no doubt intended to indicate the fact that it led directly to the Government reservation at the end of the Town on which the Parliament houses were erected, and where it was supposed the "Palais du Gouvernement," the official residence of the representative of the Sovereign in the Province would eventually be. On an Official Plan of this region, of the year 1810, the Parliament Buildings themselves are styled "Government House."

At the laying out of York, however, we find, from the plans, that the name given in the first instance to the Front street of the town was, not Palace Street, but King Street. Modern King Street was then Duke Street, and modern Duke Street, Duchess Street. These street names were intended as loyal compliments to members of the reigning family; to George the Third; to his son the popular Duke of York, from whom, as we shall learn hereafter, the town itself was named; to the Duchess of York, the eldest daughter of the King of Prussia. In the cross streets the same chivalrous devotion to the Hanoverian dynasty was exhibited. George street, the boundary westward of the first nucleus of York, bore the name of the heir-apparent, George, Prince of Wales. The next street eastward was honoured with the name of his next brother, Frederick, the Duke of York himself. And the succeeding street eastward, Caroline Street, had imposed upon it that of the Princess of Wales, afterwards so unhappily famous as George the Fourth's Queen Caroline. Whilst in Princes Street (for such is the correct orthography, as the old plans show, and not Princess Street, as is generally seen now,) the rest of the male members of the royal family were collectively commemorated, namely, the Duke of Clarence, the Duke of Kent, the Duke of Cumberland, the Duke of Sussex, and the Duke of Cambridge.

When the Canadian town of York was first projected, the marriage of the Duke of York with the daughter of the King of Prussia, Frederica Charlotta Ulrica, had only recently been celebrated at Berlin. It was considered at the time an event of importance, and the ceremonies on the occasion are given with some minuteness in the Annual Register for 1791. We are there informed that "the supper was served at six tables; that the first was placed under a canopy of crimson velvet, and the victuals (as the record terms them) served on gold dishes and plates; that Lieutenant-General Bornstedt and Count Bruhl had the honour to carve, without being seated, that the other five tables, at which sat the generals, ministers, ambassadors, all the officers of the Court, and the high nobility, were served in other apartments; that supper being over, the assembly repaired to the White Hall, where the trumpet, timbrel, and other music, were playing; that the flambeau dance was then began, at which the ministers of state carried the torches; that the new couple were attended to their apartment by the reigning Queen and the Queen dowager; that the Duke of York wore on this day the English uniform, and the Princess Frederica a suit of drap d'argent, ornamented with diamonds." In Ashburton's "New and Complete History of England, from the first settlement of Brutus, upwards of one thousand years before Julius Cæsar, to the year 1793," now lying before us, two full-length portraits of the Duke and Duchess are given.—New York and Albany, in the adjoining State, had their names from titles of a Duke of York in 1664, afterwards James II. His brother, Charles II., made him a present, by Letters Patent, of all the territory, from the western side of the Connecticut river to the east side of Delaware Bay; that is, of the present States of Connecticut, New York, Delaware, and New Jersey.

On the green sward of the bank between Princes street and George Street, the annual military "Trainings" on the Fourth of June, "the old King's birthday," were wont to take place. At a later period the day of meeting was the 23rd of April, St. George's day, the fête of George IV. Military displays on a grand scale in and about Toronto have not been uncommon in modern times, exciting the enthusiasm of the multitude that usually assembles on such occasions. But in no way inferior in point of interest to the unsophisticated youthful eye, half a century ago, unaccustomed to anything more elaborate, were those motley musterings of the militia companies. The costume of the men may have been various, the fire-arms only partially distributed, and those that were to be had not of the brightest hue, nor of the most scientific make; the lines may not always have been perfectly straight, nor their constituents well matched in height; the obedience to the word of command may not have been rendered with the mechanical precision which we admire at reviews now, nor with that total suppression of dialogue in undertone in the ranks, nor with that absence of remark interchanged between the men and their officers that are customary now. Nevertheless, as a military spectacle, these gatherings and manoeuvres on the grassy bank here, were effective; they were always anticipated with pleasure and contemplated with satisfaction. The officers on these occasions,—some of them mounted—were arrayed in uniforms of antique cut; in red coats with wide black breast lappets and broad tail flaps; high collars, tight sleeves and large cuffs; on the head a black hat, the ordinary high-crowned civilian hat, with a cylindrical feather some eighteen inches high inserted at the top, not in front, but on the left side (whalebone surrounded with feathers from the barnyard, scarlet at the base, white above). Animation was added to the scene by a drum and a few fifes executing with liveliness "The York Quickstep," "The Reconciliation," and "The British Grenadiers." And then, in addition to the local cavalry corps, there were the clattering scabbards, the blue jackets, and bear-skin helmets of Captain Button's dragoons from Markham and Whitchurch.

Numerously, in the rank and file at these musterings—as well as among the officers, commissioned and non-commissioned—were to be seen men who had quite recently jeopardized their lives in the defence of the country. At the period we are speaking of, only some six or seven years had elapsed since an invasion of Canada from the south. "The late war," for a long while, very naturally, formed a fixed point in local chronology, from which times and seasons were calculated; a fixed point, however, which, to the indifferent new-comer, and even to the indigenous, who, when "the late war" was in progress, were not in bodily existence, seemed already to belong to a remote past. An impression of the miseries of war, derived from the talk of those who had actually felt them, was very strongly stamped in the minds of the rising generation; an impression accompanied also at the same time with the uncomfortable persuasion derived from the same source, that another conflict was inevitable in due time. The musterings on "Training-day" were thus invested with interest and importance in the minds of those who were summoned to appear on these occasions, as also in the minds of the boyish looker-on, who was aware that ere long he would himself be required by law to turn out and take his part in the annual militia evolutions, and perhaps afterwards, possibly at no distant hour, to handle the musket or wield the sword in earnest.

A little further on, in a house at the north-west corner of Frederick Street, a building afterwards utterly destroyed by fire, was born, in 1804, the Hon. Robert Baldwin, son of Dr. William Warren Baldwin, already referred to, and Attorney-General in 1842 for Upper Canada. In the same building, at a later period, (and previously in an humble edifice, at the north-west corner of King Street and Caroline Street, now likewise wholly destroyed,) the foundation was laid, by well-directed and far-sighted ventures in commerce, of the great wealth (locally proverbial) of the Cawthra family, the Astors of Upper Canada, of whom more hereafter. It was also in the same house, prior to its occupation by Mr. Cawthra, senior, that the printing operations of Mr. William Lyon Mackenzie were carried on at the time of the destruction of his press by a party of young men, who considered it proper to take some spirited notice of the criticisms on the public acts of their fathers, uncles and superiors generally, that appeared every week in the columns of the Colonial Advocate; a violent act memorable in the annals of Western Canada, not simply as having been the means of establishing the fortunes of an indefatigable and powerful journalist, but more notably as presenting an unconscious illustration of a general law, observable in the early development of communities, whereby an element destined to elevate and regenerate is, on its first introduction, resisted, and sought to be crushed physically, not morally; somewhat as the white man's watch was dashed to pieces by the Indian, as though it had been a sentient thing, conspiring in some mysterious way with other things, to promote the ascendancy of the stranger.

The youthful perpetrators of the violence referred to were not long in learning practically the futility of such exploits. Good old Mr. James Baby, on handing to his son Raymond the amount which that youth was required to pay as his share of the heavy damages awarded, as a matter of course, by the jury on the occasion, is said to have added:—"There! go and make one great fool of yourself again!"—a sarcastic piece of advice that might have been offered to each of the parties concerned.

A few steps northward, on the east side of Frederick Street, was the first Post Office, on the premises of Mr. Allan, who was postmaster; and southward, where this street touches the water, was the Merchants' Wharf, also the property of Mr. Allan; and the Custom House, where Mr. Allan was the Collector. We gather also from Calendars of the day that Mr. Allan was likewise Inspector of Flour, Pot and Pearl Ash; and Inspector of Shop, Still and Tavern Duties. In an early, limited condition of society, a man of more than the ordinary aptitude for affairs is required to act in many capacities.

The Merchants' Wharf was the earliest landing-place for the larger craft of the lake. At a later period other wharves or long wooden jetties, extending out into deep water, one of them named the Farmers' Wharf, were built westward. In the shoal water between the several wharves, for a long period, there was annually a dense crop of rushes or flags. The town or county authorities incurred considerable expense, year after year, in endeavouring to eradicate them—but, like the heads of the hydra, they were always re-appearing. In July, 1821, a "Mr. Coles' account for his assistants' labour in destroying rushes in front of the Market Square," was laid before the County magistrates, and audited, amounting to £13 6s. 3d. In August of the same year, the minutes of the County Court record that "Capt. Macaulay, Royal Engineers, offered to cut down the rushes in front of the town between the Merchants' Wharf and Cooper's Wharf, for a sum not to exceed ninety dollars, which would merely be the expense of the men and materials in executing the undertaking: his own time he would give to the public on this occasion, as encouragement to others to endeavour to destroy the rushes when they become a nuisance;" it was accordingly ordered "that ninety dollars be paid to Capt. Macaulay or his order, for the purpose of cutting down the rushes, according to his verbal undertaking to cut down the same, to be paid out of the Police or District funds in the hands of the Treasurer of the District."

We have understood that Capt. Macaulay's measures for the extinction of the rank vegetation in the shallow waters of the harbour, proved to be very efficient. The instrument used was a kind of screw grapnel, which, let down from the side of a large scow, laid hold of the rushes at their root and forcibly wrenched them out of the bed of mud below. The entire plant was thus lifted up, and drawn by a windlass into the scow. When a full load of the aquatic weed was collected, it was taken out into the open water of the Lake, and there disposed of.

Passing on our way, we soon came to the Market Square. This was a large open space, with wooden shambles in the middle of it, thirty-six feet long and twenty-four wide, running north and south.

By a Proclamation in the Gazette of Nov. 3, 1803, Governor Hunter appointed a weekly market day for the Town of York, and also a place where the market should be held.

"Peter Hunter, Esquire, Lieutenant-Governor, &c. Whereas great prejudice hath arisen to the inhabitants of the Town and Township of York, and of other adjoining Townships, from no place or day having been set apart or appointed for exposing publicly for sale, cattle, sheep, poultry, and other provisions, goods, and merchandize, brought by merchants, farmers, and others, for the necessary supply of the said Town of York; and, whereas, great benefit and advantage might be derived to the said inhabitants and others, by establishing a weekly market within that Town, at a place and on a day certain for the purpose aforesaid;

"Know all men, That I, Peter Hunter, Esquire, Lieutenant-Governor of the said Province, taking the premises into consideration, and willing to promote the interest, and advantage, and accommodation of the inhabitants of the Town and Township aforesaid, and of others, His Majesty's subjects, within the said Province, by and with the advice of the Executive Council thereof, have ordained, erected, established and appointed, and do hereby ordain, erect, establish and appoint, a Public Open Market, to be held on Saturday in each and every week during the year, within the said Town of York:—(The first market to be held therein on Saturday, the 5th day of November next after the date of these presents), on a certain piece or plot of land within that Town, consisting of five acres and a half, commencing at the south-east angle of the said plot, at the corner of Market Street and New Street, then north sixteen degrees, west five chains seventeen links, more or less, to King Street; then along King Street south seventy-four degrees west nine chains fifty-one links, more or less, to Church Street; then south sixteen degrees east six chains thirty-four links, more or less, to Market Street; then along Market Street north seventy-four degrees east two chains; then north sixty-four degrees, east along Market Street seven chains sixty links, more or less, to the place of beginning, for the purpose of exposing for sale cattle, sheep, poultry, and other provisions, goods and merchandize, as aforesaid. Given under my hand and seal at arms, at York, this twenty-sixth day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and three, and in the forty-fourth year of His Majesty's reign. P. Hunter, Esquire, Lieutenant-Governor. By His Excellency's command, Wm. Jarvis, Secretary."

In 1824, the Market Square was, by the direction of the County magistrates, closed in on the east, west, and south sides, "with a picketting and oak ribbon, the pickets at ten feet distance from each other, with three openings or foot-paths on each side."

The digging of a public well here, in the direction of King Street, was an event of considerable interest in the town. Groups of school-boys every day scanned narrowly the progress of the undertaking; a cap of one or the other of them, mischievously precipitated to the depths where the labourers' mattocks were to be heard pecking at the shale below, may have impressed the execution of this public work all the more indelibly on the recollection of some of them. By referring to a volume of the Upper Canada Gazette, we find that this was in 1823. An unofficial advertisement in that periodical, dated June the 9th, 1823, calls for proposals to be sent in to the office of the Clerk of the Peace, "for the sinking a well, stoning and sinking a pump therein, in the most approved manner, at the Market Square of the said town (of York), for the convenience of the Public." It is added that persons desirous of contracting for the same, must give in their proposals on or before Tuesday, the first day of July next ensuing; and the signature, "by the order of the Court," is that of "S. Heward, Clerk of the Peace, H. D." (Home District).

The tender of John Hutchison and George Hetherington was accepted. They offered to do the work "for the sum of £25 currency on coming to the rock, with the addition of seven shillings and sixpence per foot for boring into the rock until a sufficient supply of water can be got, should it be required." The work was done and the account paid July 30th, 1823. The charge for boring eight feet two inches through the rock was £3 1s. 3d. The whole well and pump thus cost the County the modest sum of only £28 1s. 3d. The charge for flagging round the pump, for "logs, stone and workmanship," was £5 2s. 4½d., paid to Mr. Hugh Carfrae, pathmaster.

Near the public pump, auctions in the open air occasionally took place. A humourous chapman in that line, Mr. Patrick Handy, used often here to be seen and heard, disposing of his miscellaneous wares. With Mr. Handy was associated for a time, in this business, Mr. Patrick McGann. And here we once witnessed the horrid exhibition of a public whipping, in the case of two culprits whose offence is forgotten. A discharged regimental drummer, a native African, administered the lash. The sheriff stood by, keeping count of the stripes. The senior of the two unfortunates bore his punishment with stoicism, encouraging the negro to strike with more force. The other, a young man, endeavoured for a little while to imitate his companion in this respect; but soon was obliged to evince by fearful cries the torture endured. Similar scenes were elsewhere to be witnessed in Canada. In the Montreal Herald of September 16th, 1815, we have the following item of city news, given without comment: "Yesterday, between the hours of 9 and 10, pursuant to their sentences, André Latulippe, Henry Leopard, and John Quin, received 39 lashes each, in the New Market Place." The practice of whipping and even branding of culprits in public had begun at York in 1798. In the Gazette and Oracle of Dec. 1st, 1798, printed at York, we have the note: "Last Monday William Hawkins was publicly whipped, and Joseph McCarthy burned in the hand, at the Market Place, pursuant to their sentence." The crimes are not named.

In the Market Square at York, the pillory and the stocks were also from time to time set up. The latter were seen in use for the last time in 1834. In 1804, a certain Elizabeth Ellis was, for "being a nuisance," sentenced by Chief Justice Allcock to be imprisoned for six months, and "to stand in the pillory twice during the said imprisonment, on two different market days, opposite the Market House in the town of York, for the space of two hours each time." In the same year, the same sentence was passed on one Campbell, for using "seditious words."

In 1831 the wooden shambles were removed, and replaced in 1833 by a collegiate-looking building of red brick, quadrangular in its arrangement, with arched gateway entrances on King Street and Front Street. This edifice filled the whole square, with the exception of roadways on the east and west sides. The public well was now concealed from view. It doubtless exists still, to be discovered and gloated over by the antiquarian of another century.

Round the four sides of the new brick Market ran a wooden gallery, which served to shade the Butchers' stalls below. It was here that a fearful casualty occurred in 1834. A concourse of people were being addressed after the adjournment of a meeting on an electional question, when a portion of the overcrowded gallery fell, and several persons were caught on the sharp iron hooks of the stalls underneath, and so received fatal injuries. The killed and wounded on this memorable occasion were:—Son of Col. Fitz Gibbon, killed; Mr. Hutton, killed; Col. Fitz Gibbon, injured severely; Mr. Mountjoy, thigh broken; Mr. Cochrane, injured severely; Mr. Charles Daly, thigh broken; Mr. George Gurnett, wound in the head; Mr. Keating, injured internally; Mr. Fenton, injured; Master Gooderham, thigh broken; Dr. Lithgow, contused severely; Mr. Morrison, contused severely; Mr. Alderman Denison, cut on the head; Mr. Thornhill, thigh broken; Mr. Street, arm broken; Mr. Deese, thigh broken; another Mr. Deese, leg and arm broken; Mr. Sheppard, injured internally; Mr. Clieve, Mr. Mingle, Mr. Preston, Mr. Armstrong, Mr. Leslie (of the Garrison), Master Billings, Mr. Duggan, Mr. Thomas Ridout, Mr. Brock, Mr. Turner, Mr. Hood (since dead), severely injured, &c.

The damage done to the northern end of the quadrangle during the great fire of 1849 led to the demolition of the whole building, and the erection of the St. Lawrence Hall and Market. Over windows on the second storey at the south east corner of the red brick structure now removed, there appeared, for several years, two signs, united at the angle of the building, each indicating by its inscription the place of "The Huron and Ontario Railway" office.

This was while the Northern Railway of Canada was yet existing simply as a project.

In connection with our notice of the Market, we give some collection which may serve to illustrate—

EARLY PRICES AT YORK.

During the war it was found expedient by the civil authorities to interfere, in some degree, with the law of supply and demand. The Magistrates, in Quarter Sessions assembled, agreed, in 1814, upon the following prices, as in their opinion fair and equitable to be paid by the military authorities for provisions:—Flour, per barrel, £3 10s. Wheat, per bushel, 10s. Pease, per bushel, 7s. 6d. Barley and Rye, the same. Oats, per bushel, 5s. Hay, per ton, £5. Straw, £3. Beef, on foot, per cwt. £2 5s.; slaughtered, per lb., 7½d. Pork, salted, per barrel, £7 10s.; per carcass, 7½d. Mutton, per lb., 9d. Veal, 8d. Butter, 1s. 3d. Bread, per loaf of 4 lbs., 1s. 6d. In April, 1822, peace then reigning, York prices were:—Beef, per lb., 2d. a 4d. Mutton, 4d. a 5d. Veal, 4d. a 5d. Pork, 2d. a 2½d. Fowls, per pair, 1s. 3d. Turkeys, each, 3s. 9d. Geese, 2s. 6d. Ducks, per pair, 1s. 10d. Cheese, per lb., 5d. Butter, 7½d. Eggs, per doz., 5d. Wheat, per bushel, 2s. 6d. Barley, 48 lbs., 2s. Oats, 1s. Pease, 1s. 1½d. Potatoes, per bushel, 1s. 3d. Turnips, 1s. Cabbages, per head, 2d. Flour, per cwt., 6s. 3d. Flour, per barrel, 12s. 6d. Tallow, per lb., 5d. Lard, per lb., 5d. Hay, per ton, £2 10s. Pork, per barrel, £2 10s. Wood, per cord, 10s.

As allied to the subject of early prices at York, we add some excerpts from the day-book of Mr. Abner Miles, conductor of the chief hotel of the place, in 1798. It would appear that the resident gentry and others occasionally gave and partook of little dinners at Mr. Miles', for which the charges are roughly minuted on some long, narrow pages of folded foolscap now lying before us. It will be seen from the record that the local "table-traits," as Dr. Doran would speak, were, as nearly as practicable those of the rest of the Empire at the period. At the new capital, however, in 1798, hosts and guests must have laboured under serious difficulties.

In July, 1798, the following items appear against the names, conjointly of Messrs. Baby, Hamilton, and Commodore Grant:—Twenty-two dinners at Eight shillings, £8 16s. Sixteen to Coffee, £1 12s. Eight Suppers, 16s. Twenty-three quarts and one pint of wine, £10 11s. 6d. Eight bottles of porter, £2 8s. Two bottles of syrup-punch, £1 4s. One bottle of brandy and one bottle of rum, 18s. Altogether amounting to £26 5s. 6d. (The currency throughout Mr. Miles' books is that of New York, in which the shilling was seven pence half-penny. The total just given denoted between £16 and £17 of modern Canadian money. It is observable that in the entries of which we give specimens, whiskey, the deadly bane of later years, in not named.) On the 17th June, Thomas Ridout, Jonathan Scott, Col. Fortune, Surveyor Jones, Samuel Heron, Mr. Jarvis [the Secretary], Adjutant McGill, and Mr. Crawford are each charged 16s. as his quota of a "St. John's dinner." On the 4th of June, an entry against "the Chief Justice" [Elmsley], runs thus: Eighteen dinners at Eight shillings, £7 4s. Three bottles Madeira, £1 7s. One bottle brandy, 10s. Five bottles of port wine, four bottles of porter and one pint of rum are charged, but the value is not given. The defect is supplied in a later entry against the Chief Justice, of seven dinners (42s.); where two pints of port wine are charged 9s.; one pint of brandy, 5s.; two bottles port wine, 18s.; one bottle white wine, 9s.; one bottle of porter, 6s. On this occasion "four took coffee," at a cost of 8s. Elsewhere, three dinners are charged to the Chief Justice, when three bottles of wine were required; one pint of brandy, and two bottles of porter, all at the rates already quoted. A "mess dinner" is mentioned, for which the Chief Justice, Mr. Hallowell, and Mr. Cartwright pay 6s. each. One bottle of port, one of Madeira, and one of brandy were ordered, and the "three took coffee," as before at 2s. a head. Again, at a "mess dinner," of four, the names not given, two bottles of port and one bottle of porter were taken. A "club" appears to have met here. In July, 1798, a charge against the names of "Esq. Weekes," "Esq. Rogers," and Col. Fortune, respectively, is "liquor in club the 11th at dinner, 1s. 6d." On July 6th "Judge Powell" is charged for supper, 2s.; for one quart of wine, 9s. On the same day "Judge Powell's servant" had a "gill brandy, 1s. 3d. and one glass do., 8d." A few days afterwards, a reverend wayfarer calls at the inn; baits his beast, and modestly refreshes himself. The entry runs:—"Priest from River La Tranche, 3 quarts corn and half-pint of wine. Breakfast, 2s 6d." On another day, Capt. Herrick has a "gill gin sling, 1s. 3d.; also immediately afterwards a "half-pint of gin sling, 3s." At the same time Capt. Demont has "gill rum sling, 1s. 3d.," and "gill rum, 1s." Capt. Fortune has "half-pint wine, 2s.," and "Esq. Weekes," "gill brandy, 1s. 3d." Col. Fortune has "gill sour punch, 2s." This sour punch is approved of by "Dunlap"—who at one place four times in immediate succession, and frequently elsewhere, is charged with "glass sour punch, 2s." Jacob Cozens takes "one bottle Madeira wine, 10s.;" Samuel Cozens, "one bottle Madeira wine, 10s., and bread and cheese, 1s.;" and Shivers Cozens, "bottle of wine, 10s., and bread and cheese, 1s. Conets Cozens has "dinner, 2s., a gill of brandy, 1s., and half a bushel of seed corn, 7s." On the 5th of July, Josiah Phelps has placed opposite his name, "one glass punch, 3s.; three bowls sour punch, 9s.; gill rum, 1s.; two gin slings, 2s. 6d.; bowl punch, 3s.; gill rum, 1s.; two gills syrup punch, 4s.; supper, 2s." About the same time Corporal Wilson had "two mugs beer, 4s." On the 6th of July Commodore Grant had "half-pint rum, for medson, 2s.; and immediately after another half-pint rum, for do., 2s." One "Billy Whitney" figures often; his purchases one day were: "gill rum sling, 1s. 6d.; do., 1s. 6d.; half-pound butter, 1s. 3d." Capt. Hall takes "one gill punch, 2s.; glass rum, 6d., and half-gallon punch, 7s." He at the same time has two dollars in cash advanced to him by the obliging landlord, 16s.

Mr. Abner Miles supplied customers with general provisions as well as liquors. On one occasion he sells, "White, Attorney-General," three pounds of butter for 7s. 6d., and six eggs for 1s. 6d. He also sells "President Russell" forty-nine pounds and three-fourths, of beef at 1s. per pound; Mr. Attorney-General White took twenty-three pounds and a half at the same price. That sold to "Robert Gray, Esq.," is described as "a choice piece," and is charged two pence extra per pound. The piece, however, weighed only seven pounds, and the cost was just eight shillings and two pence. Other things are supplied by Mr. Miles. Gideon Badger buys of him "one yard red spotted cassimere, 20s.; one and a-half dozen buttons, 3s; and a pair shears, 3s." At the same time Mr. Badger is credited with "one dollar, 8s." Joseph Kendrick gets "sole leather for pair of shoes for self, by old Mr. Ketchum, 6s." Mr. Miles moreover furnishes Mr. Allan with "237 feet of inch-and-half plank at 12s., 33s.; two rod of garden fence at 10s., 20s." We suppose the moneys received were recorded elsewhere generally; but on the pages before us we have such entries as the following: "Messrs. Hamilton, Baby and Grant settled up to 4th of July, after breakfast." "Dr. Gamble, at Garrison," obtained ten bushels of oats and is to pay therefor £4. A mem. is entered of "Angus McDonell, dr., Dinner sent to his tent." and "Capt. Demont, cr. By note of hand for £26 5s. Halifax currency, £42 York." On the same day the Captain indulges in "a five dollar cap, 40s.," and "one gill rum, 1s." That some of Mr. Miles' customers required to be reminded of their indebtedness to him, we learn from an advertisement in the Gazette and Oracle of August 31, 1799. It says: "The Subscriber informs all those indebted to him by note or book, to make payment by the 20th September next, or he will be under the disagreeable necessity of putting them into the hands of an attorney. Abner Miles, York, August 28th, 1799." Mr. Miles' house was a rendezvous for various purposes. In a Gazette and Oracle of Dec 8, 1798, we read—"The gentlemen of the Town and Garrison are requested to meet at one o'clock, on Monday next, the 10th instant, at Miles' Hotel, in order to arrange the place of the York Assemblies for the season. York, Dec 8, 1798." In another number of the same paper an auction is advertised to take place at Miles' Tavern.

In the Gazette and Oracle of July 13th, 1799, we read the following advertisement: "O. Pierce and Co. have for sale: Best spirits by the puncheon, barrel, or ten gallons, 20s. per gal. Do. by the single gallon, 22s. Rum by the puncheon, barrel, or ten gallons, 18s. per gal. Brandy by the barrel, 20s. per gal. Port wine by the barrel, 18s. per gal. Do. by single gallon, 20s. per gal. Gin, by the barrel, 18s. per gal. Teas—Hyson, 19s. per lb.; Souchong, 14s. do.; Bohea, 8s. do. Sugar, best loaf, 3s. 9d. per lb. Lump, 3s. 6d. Raisins, 3s. Figs, 3s. Salt six dollars per barrel or 12s. per bushel. Also, a few dry goods, shoes, leather, hats, tobacco, snuff, &c., &c. York, July 6, 1799." These prices appear to be in Halifax currency.

II.

FRONT STREET, FROM THE MARKET PLACE TO BROCK STREET.

he corner we approach after passing the Market Square, was occupied by an inn with a sign-board sustained on a high post inserted at the outer edge of the foot-path, in country roadside fashion. This was Hamilton's, or the White Swan. It was here, we believe, or in an adjoining house, that a travelling citizen of the United States, in possession of a collection of stuffed birds and similar objects, endeavoured at an early period to establish a kind of Natural History Museum. To the collection here was once rashly added figures, in wax, of General Jackson and some other United States notabilities, all in grand costume. Several of these were one night abstracted from the Museum by some over-patriotic youths, and suspended by the neck from the limbs of one of the large trees that over-looked the harbour.

Just beyond was the Steamboat Hotel, long known as Ulick Howard's, remarkable for the spirited delineation of a steam-packet of vast dimensions, extending the whole length of the building, just over the upper verandah of the hotel. In 1828, Mr. Howard is offering to let his hotel, in the following terms:—"Steamboat Hotel, York, U. C.—The proprietor of this elegant establishment, now unrivalled in this part of the country, being desirous of retiring from Public Business, on account of ill-health in his family, will let the same for a term of years to be agreed on, either with or without the furniture. The Establishment is now too well-known to require comment. N. B. Security will be required for the payment of the Rent, and the fulfilment of the contract in every respect. Apply to the subscriber on the premises. U. Howard, York, Oct 8th, 1828."

A little further on was the Ontario House, a hotel built in a style common then at the Falls of Niagara and in the United States. A row of lofty pillars, well-grown pines in fact, stripped and smoothly planed, reached from the ground to the eaves, and supported two tiers of galleries, which, running behind the columns, did not interrupt their vertical lines.

Close by the Ontario House, Market Street from the west entered Front Street at an acute angle. In the gore between the two streets, a building sprang up, which, in conforming to its site, assumed the shape of a coffin. The foot of this ominous structure was the office where travellers booked themselves for various parts in the stages that from time to time started from York. It took four days to reach Niagara in 1816. We are informed by a contemporary advertisement now before us, that "on the 20th of September next [1816], a stage will commence running between York and Niagara: it will leave York every Monday, and arrive at Niagara on Thursday; and leave Queenston every Friday. The baggage is to be considered at the risk of the owner, and the fare to be paid in advance." In 1824, the mails were conveyed the same distance, via Ancaster, in three days. In a post-office advertisement for tenders, signed "William Allan, P. M.," we have the statement: "The mails are made up here [York] on the afternoon of Monday and Thursday, and must be delivered at Niagara on the Wednesday and Saturday following; and within the same period in returning." In 1835, Mr. William Weller was the proprietor of a line of stages between Toronto and Hamilton, known as the "Telegraph Line." In an advertisement before us, he engages to take passengers "through by daylight, on the Lake Road, during the winter season."

Communication with England was at this period a tedious process. So late as 1836, Mrs. Jameson thus writes in her Journal at Toronto (i. 182): "It is now seven weeks since the date of the last letters from my dear far-distant home. The Archdeacon," she adds, "told me, by way of comfort, that when he came to settle in this country, there was only one mail-post from England in the course of a whole year, and it was called, as if in mockery, the Express." To this "Express" we have a reference in a post-office advertisement to be seen in a Quebec Gazette of 1792: "A mail for the Upper Countries, comprehending Niagara and Detroit, will be closed," it says, "at this office, on Monday, the 30th inst., at 4 o'clock in the evening, to be forwarded from Montreal by the annual winter Express, on Thursday, the 3rd of Feb. next." From the same paper we learn that on the 10th of November, the latest date from Philadelphia and New York was Oct. 8th: also, that a weekly conveyance had lately been established between Montreal and Burlington, Vermont. In the Gazette of Jan. 13, 1808, we have the following: "For the information of the Public.—York, 12th Jan., 1808.—The first mail from Lower Canada is arrived, and letters are ready to be delivered by W. Allan, Acting-Deputy-Postmaster."

Compare all this with advertisements in Toronto daily papers now, from agencies in the town, of "Through Lines" weekly, to California, Vancouver's, China and Japan, connecting with Lines to Australia and New Zealand.

On the beach below the Steamboat Hotel was, at a late period, a market for the sale of fish. It was from this spot that Bartlett, in his "Canadian Scenery," made one of the sketches intended to convey to the English eye an impression of the town. In the foreground are groups of conventional, and altogether too picturesque, fishwives and squaws: in the distance is the junction of Hospital Street and Front Street, with the tapering building between. On the right are the galleries of what had been the Steamboat Hotel; it here bears another name.

Bartlett's second sketch is from the end of a long wharf or jetty to the west. The large building in front, with a covered passage through it for vehicles, is the warehouse or freight depot of Mr. William Cooper, long the owner of this favourite landing place. Westwards, the pillared front of the Ontario house is to be seen. Both of these views already look quaint, and possess a value as preserving a shadow of much that no longer exists.

Where Mr. Cooper's Wharf joined the shore there was a ship-building yard. We have a recollection of a launch that strangely took place here on a Sunday. An attempt to get the ship into the water on the preceding day had failed. Delay would have occasioned an awkward settling of the ponderous mass. We shall have occasion hereafter to speak of the early shipping of the harbour.

The lot extending northward from the Ontario House corner to King street was the property of Attorney-General Macdonell, who, while in attendance on General Brock as Provincial aide-de-camp, was slain in the engagement on Queenston Heights. His death created the vacancy to which, at an unusually early age, succeeded Mr. John Beverley Robinson, afterwards the distinguished Chief Justice of Upper Canada. Mr. Macdonell's remains are deposited with those of his military chief under the column on Queenston Heights. He bequeathed the property to which our attention has been directed, to a youthful nephew, Mr. James Macdonell, on certain conditions, one of which was that he should be educated in the tenets of the Anglican Church, notwithstanding the Roman Catholic persuasion of the rest of the family.

The track for wheels that here descended to the water's edge from the north, Church Street subsequently, was long considered a road remote from the business part of the town, like the road leading southward from Charing-cross, as shewn in Ralph Aggas' early map of London. A row of frame buildings on its eastern side, in the direction of King Street, perched high on cedar posts over excavations generally filled with water, remained in an unfinished state until the whole began to be out of the perpendicular and to become gray with the action of the weather. It was evidently a premature undertaking; the folly of an over-sanguine speculator. Yonge street beyond, where it approached the shore of the harbour, was unfrequented. In spring and autumn it was a notorious slough. In 1830, a small sum would have purchased any of the building lots on either side of Yonge Street, between Front Street and Market Street.

Between Church Street and Yonge Street, now, we pass a short street uniting Front Street with Wellington Street. Like Salisbury, Cecil, Craven and other short but famous streets off the Strand, it retains the name of the distinguished person whose property it traversed in the first instance. It is called Scott Street, from Chief Justice Thomas Scott, whose residence and grounds were here.

Mr. Scott was one of the venerable group of early personages of whom we shall have occasion to speak. He was a man of fine culture, and is spoken of affectionately by those who knew him. His stature was below the average. A heavy, overhanging forehead intensified the thoughtful expression of his countenance, which belonged to the class suggested by the current portraits of the United States jurist, Kent. We sometimes, to this day, fall in with books from his library, bearing his familiar autograph.

Mr. Scott was the first chairman and president of the "Loyal and Patriotic Society of Upper Canada," organized at York in 1812. His name consequently appears often in the Report of that Association, printed by William Gray in Montreal in 1817. The objects of the Society were "to afford relief and aid to disabled militiamen and their families: to reward merit, excite emulation, and commemorate glorious exploits, by bestowing medals and other honorary marks of public approbation and distinction for extraordinary instances of personal courage and fidelity in defence of the Province." The preface to the Report mentions that "the sister-colony of Nova Scotia, excited by the barbarous conflagration of the town of Newark and the devastation on that frontier, had, by a legislative act, contributed largely to the relief of this Province."

In an appeal to the British public, signed by Chief Justice Scott, it is stated that "the subscription of the town of York amounted in a few days to eight hundred and seventy-five pounds five shillings, Provincial currency, dollars at five shillings each, to be paid annually during the war; and that at Kingston to upwards of four hundred pounds."

Medals were struck in London by order of the Loyal and Patriotic Society of Upper Canada; but they were never distributed. The difficulty of deciding who were to receive them was found to be too great. They were defaced and broken up in York, with such rigour that not a solitary specimen is known to exist. Rumours of one lurking somewhere, continue to this day, to tantalize local numismatists. What became of the bullion of which they were composed used to be one of the favourite vexed questions among the old people of York. Its value doubtless was added to the surplus that remained of the funds of the Society, which, after the year 1817, were devoted to benevolent objects. To the building fund of the York General Hospital, we believe, a considerable donation was made. The medal, we are told, was two and one-half inches in diameter. On the obverse, within a wreath of laurel, were the words "FOR MERIT." On this side was also the legend: "PRESENTED BY A GRATEFUL COUNTRY." On the reverse was the following elaborate device: A strait between two lakes: on the North side a beaver (emblem of peaceful industry), the ancient cognizance of Canada: in the background an English Lion slumbering. On the South side of the Strait, the American eagle planing in the air, as if checked from seizing the Beaver by the presence of the Lion. Legend on this side: "UPPER CANADA PRESERVED."

Scott Street conducts to the site, on the north side of Hospital Street, westward of the home of Mr. James Baby, and, eastward, to that of Mr. Peter Macdougall, two notable citizens of York.

A notice of Mr. Baby occurs in Sibbald's Canadian Magazine for March, 1833. The following is an extract: "James Baby was born at Detroit in 1762. His family was one of the most ancient in the colony; and it was noble. His father had removed from Lower Canada to the neighbourhood of Detroit before the conquest of Quebec, where, in addition to the cultivation of lands, he was connected with the fur-trade, at that time, and for many years after, the great staple of the country. James was educated at the Roman Catholic Seminary of Quebec, and returned to the paternal roof soon after the peace of 1783. The family had ever been distinguished (and indeed all the higher French families) for their adherence to the British crown; and to this, more than to any other cause, are we to attribute the conduct of the Province of Quebec during the American War. Being a great favourite with his father, James was permitted to make an excursion to Europe, before engaging steadily in business; and after spending some time, especially in England, rejoined his family. * * * There was a primitive simplicity in Mr. Baby's character, which, added to his polished manners and benignity of disposition, threw a moral beauty around him which is very seldom beheld."

In the history of the Indian chief Pontiac, who, in 1763, aimed at extirpating the English, the name of Mr. Baby's father repeatedly occurs. The Canadian habitans of the neighbourhood of Detroit, being of French origin, were unmolested by the Indians; but a rumour had reached the great Ottawa chief, while the memorable siege of Detroit was in progress, that the Canadians had accepted a bribe from the English to induce them to attack the Indians. "Pontiac," we read in Parkman's History, p. 227, "had been an old friend of Baby; and one evening, at an early period of the siege, he entered his house, and, seating himself by the fire, looked for some time steadily at the embers. At length, raising his head, he said he had heard that the English had offered the Canadian a bushel of silver for the scalp of his friend. Baby declared that the story was false, and protested that he never would betray him. Pontiac for a moment keenly studied his features. 'My brother has spoken the truth,' he said, 'and I will show that I believe him.' He remained in the house through the evening, and, at its close, wrapped himself in his blanket and lay down upon a bench, where he slept in full confidence till morning." Note that the name Baby is to be pronounced Baw-bee.

Mr. Macdougall was a gentleman of Scottish descent, but, like his compatriots in the neighbourhood of Murray Bay, so thoroughly Lower-Canadianized as to be imperfectly acquainted with the English language to the last. He was a successful merchant of the town of York, and filled a place in the old local conversational talk, in which he was sometimes spoken of as "Wholesale, Retail, Pete McDoug,"—an expression adopted by himself on some occasion. He is said once to have been much perplexed by the item "ditto" occurring in a bill of lading furnished of goods under way; he could not remember having given orders for any such article. He was a shrewd business man. An impression prevailed in certain quarters that his profits were now and then extravagant. While he was living at Niagara, some burglars from Youngstown broke into his warehouse; and after helping themselves to whatever they pleased, they left a written memorandum accounting for their not having taken with them certain other articles: it was "because they were marked too high."

That he was accustomed to affix a somewhat arbitrary value to his merchandise, seems to be shown by another story that was told of him. He was said, one day, when trade in general was very dull, to have boasted that he had that very morning made £400 by a single operation. On being questioned, it appeared that it had been simply a sudden enlargement of the figure marked on all his stock to the extent of £400.

One other story of him is this: On hearing a brother dealer lament that by a certain speculation he should, after all, make only 5 per cent., he expressed his surprise, adding that he himself would be satisfied with 3, or even 2, (taking the figures 2, 3, &c., to mean 2 hundred, 3 hundred, &c.)—We shall hear of Mr. Macdougall again in connection with the marine of the harbour.

Of Yonge Street itself, at which we now arrive, we propose to speak at large hereafter. Just westward from Yonge Street was the abode, surrounded by pleasant grounds and trees, of Mr. Macaulay, at a later period Sir James Macaulay, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, a man beloved and honoured for his sterling excellence in every relation. A full-length portrait of him is preserved in Osgoode Hall. His peculiar profile, not discernable in that painting, is recalled by the engraving of Capt. Starky, which some readers will remember in Hone's Every-Day Book.

Advancing a little further, we came in front of one of the earliest examples, in these parts, of an English-looking rustic cottage, with verandah and sloping lawn. This was occupied for a time by Major Hillier, of the 74th regiment, aide-de-camp and military secretary to Sir Peregrine Maitland. The well-developed native thorn-tree, to the north of the site of this cottage, on the property of Mr. Andrew Mercer, is a relic of the woods that once ornamented this locality.

Next came the residence of Mr. Justice Boulton, a spacious family domicile of wood, painted white, situated in an extensive area, and placed far back from the road. The Judge was an English gentleman of spare Wellington physique; like many of his descendants, a lover of horses and a spirited rider; a man of wit, too, and humour, fond of listening to and narrating anecdotes of the ben trovato class. The successor to this family home was Holland House, a structure of a baronial cast, round which one might expect to find the remains of a moat; a reproduction, in some points, as in name, of the building in the suburbs of London, in which was born the Judge's immediate heir, Mr. H. J. Boulton, successively Solicitor-General for Upper Canada, and Chief Justice of Newfoundland.

When Holland House passed out of the hands of its original possessor, it became the property of Mr. Alexander Manning, an Alderman of Toronto.

It was at Holland House that the Earl and Countess of Dufferin kept high festival during a brief sojourn in the capital of Ontario, in 1872. Suggested by public addresses received in infinite variety, within Holland House was written or thought out that remarkable cycle of rescripts and replies which rendered the vice-regal visit to Toronto so memorable,—a cycle of rescripts and replies exceedingly wide in its scope, but in which each requisite topic was touched with consummate skill, and in such a way as to show in each direction genuine human sympathy and heartiness of feeling, and a sincere desire to cheer and strengthen the endeavour after the Good, the Beautiful and the True, in every quarter.

Whilst making his visit to Quebec, before coming to Toronto, Lord Dufferin, acting doubtless on a chivalrous and poetical impulse, took up his abode in the Citadel, notwithstanding the absence of worthy arrangements for his accommodation there.

Will not this bold and original step on the part of Lord Dufferin lead hereafter to the conversion of the Fortress that crowns Cape Diamond into a Rheinstein for the St. Lawrence—into an appropriately designed castellated habitation, to be reserved as an occasional retreat, nobly-seated and grandly historic, for the Viceroys of Canada?

We now passed the grounds and house of Chief-Justice Powell. In this place we shall only record our recollection of the profound sensation created far and wide by the loss of the Chief-Justice's daughter in the packet ship Albion, wrecked off the Head of Kinsale, on the 22nd of April, 1822. A voyage to the mother country at that period was still a serious undertaking. We copy a contemporaneous extract from the Cork Southern Reporter:—"The Albion, whose loss at Garrettstown Bay we first mentioned in our paper of Tuesday, was one of the finest class of ships between Liverpool and New York, and was 500 tons burden. We have since learned some further particulars, by which it appears that her loss was attended with circumstances of a peculiarly afflicting nature. She had lived out the tremendous gale of the entire day on Sunday, and Captain Williams consoled the passengers, at eight o'clock in the evening, with the hope of being able to reach Liverpool on the day but one after, which cheering expectation induced almost all of the passengers, particularly the females, to retire to rest. In some short time, however, a violent squall came on, which in a moment carried away the masts, and, there being no possibility of disengaging them from the rigging, encumbered the hull so that she became unmanageable, and drifted at the mercy of the waves, till the light-house of the Old Head was discovered, the wreck still nearing in; when the Captain told the sad news to the passengers, that there was no longer any hope; and, soon after she struck. From thenceforward all was distress and confusion. The vessel soon went to pieces, and, of the crew and passengers, only six of the former and nine of the latter were saved." The names of the passengers are added, as follows: "Mr. Benyon, a London gentleman; Mr. N. Ross, of Troy, near New York; Mr. Conyers, and his brother-in-law, Major Gough, 68th regiment; Mr. and Mrs. Clarke, Americans; Madame Gardinier and son, a boy about eight years of age; Col. Prevost; Mr. Dwight, of Boston; Mrs. Mary Pye, of New York; Miss Powell, daughter of the Honourable William Dummer Powell, Chief-Justice of Upper Canada; Rev. Mr. Hill, Jamaica, coming home by the way of the United States; Professor Fisher, of New Haven, Connecticut; Mr. Gurnee, New York; Mr. Proctor, New York; Mr. Dupont, and five other Frenchmen; Mrs. Mary Brewster; Mr. Hirst, Mr. Morrison, and Stephen Chase."

The Weekly Register of York, of June 13, 1822, the number that contains the announcement of the wreck of the Albion packet, has also the following paragraph: "Our Attorney-General arrived in London about the 22nd of March, and up to the 11th of April had daily interviews of great length with ministers. It gives us real pleasure to announce,"—so continues the editorial of the Weekly Register—"that his mission is likely to be attended with the most complete success, and that our relations with the Lower Provinces will be put on a firm and advantageous footing. We have no doubt that Mr. Robinson will deserve the general thanks of the country." A family party from York had embarked in the packet of the preceding month, and were, as this paragraph intimates, safe in London on the 22nd of March. The disastrous fate of the lady above named was thus rendered the more distressing to friends and relatives, as she was present in New York when that packet sailed, but for some obscure reason, she did not desire to embark therein along with her more fortunate fellow townsfolk.

After the house and grounds of Chief-Justice Powell came the property of Dr. Strachan, of whom much hereafter. In view of the probable future requirements of his position in a growing town and growing country, Dr. Strachan built, in 1818, a residence here of capacious dimensions and good design, with extensive and very complete appurtenances. A brother of the Doctor's, Mr. James Strachan, an intelligent bookseller of Aberdeen, visited York in 1819, soon after the first occupation of the new house by its owners. The two brothers, John and James, had not seen each other since 1799, when John, a young man just twenty-one, was setting out for Canada, to undertake a tutorship in a family at Kingston; setting out with scant money outfit, but provided with what was of more value, a sound constitution, a clear head, and a good strong understanding trained in Scottish schools and colleges, and by familiar intercourse with shrewd Scottish folk.

As James entered the gates leading into the new mansion, and cast a comprehensive glance at the fine façade of the building before him and over its pleasant and handsome surroundings, he suddenly paused; and indulging in a stroke of sly humour, addressed his brother with the words, spoken in grave confidential undertone,—"I hope it's a' come by honestly, John!"

On his return to Scotland, Mr. James Strachan published "A Visit to the Province of Upper Canada in 1819," an interesting book, now scarce and desired by Canadian collectors. The bulk of the information contained in this volume was confessedly derived from Dr. Strachan.

The bricks used in the construction of the house here in 1818 were manufactured on the spot. One or two earlier brick buildings at York were composed of materials brought from Kingston or Montreal; recalling the parallel fact that the first bricks used for building in New York were imported from Holland; just as in the present day, (though now, of course, for a different reason,) houses are occasionally constructed at Quebec with white brick manufactured in England.

We next arrived at a large open space, much broken up by a rivulet—"Russell's Creek,"—that meandered most recklessly through it. This piece of ground was long known as Simcoe Place, and was set apart in the later plan for the extension of York westward, as a Public Square. Overlooking this area from the north-west, at the present day, is one of the elms of the original forest—an unnoticeable sapling at the period referred to, but now a tree of stately dimensions and of very graceful form, resembling that of the Greek letter Psi. It will be a matter of regret when the necessities of the case shall render the removal of this relic indispensable.

At the corner to the south of this conspicuous tree, was an inn long known as the Greenland Fishery. Its sign bore on one side, quite passably done, an Arctic or Greenland scene; and on the other, vessels and boats engaged in the capture of the whale. A travelling sailor, familiar with whalers, and additionally a man of some artistic taste and skill, paid his reckoning in labour, by executing for the landlord, Mr. Wright, these spirited paintings, which proved an attraction to the house.

John Street, which passes north, by the Greenland Fishery, bears one of the Christian names of the first Governor of Upper Canada. Graves Street, on the east side of the adjoining Square, bore his second Christian name; but Graves Street has, in recent times, been transformed into Simcoe Street.

When the Houses of Parliament, now to be seen stretching across Simcoe Place, were first built, a part of the design was a central pediment supported by four stone columns. This would have relieved and given dignity to the long front. The stone platform before the principal entrance was constructed with a flight of steps leading thereto; but the rather graceful portico which it was intended to sustain, was never added. The monoliths for the pillars were duly cut out at a quarry near Hamilton. They long remained lying there, in an unfinished state. In the lithographic view of the Parliament Buildings, published by J. Young, their architect, in 1836, the pediment of the original design is given as though it existed.

Along the edge of the water, below the properties, spaces and objects which we have been engaged in noticing, once ran a shingly beach of a width sufficient to admit of the passage of vehicles. A succession of dry seasons must then have kept the waters low. In 1815, however, the waters of the Lake appear to have been unusually high. An almanac of that year, published by John Cameron, at York, offers, seriously as it would seem, the subjoined explanation of the phenomenon: "The comet which passed to the northward three years since," the writer suggests, "has sensibly affected our seasons: they have become colder; the snows fall deeper; and from lesser exhalation, and other causes, the Lakes rise much higher than usual."

The Commissariat store-houses were situated here, just beyond the broken ground of Simcoe Place; long white structures of wood, with the shutters of the windows always closed; built on a level with the bay, yet having an entrance in the rear by a narrow gangway from the cliff above, on which, close by, was the guard-house, a small building, painted of a dun colour, with a roof of one slope, inclining to the south, and an arched stoup or verandah open to the north. Here a sentry was ever to be seen, pacing up and down. A light bridge over a deep water-course led up to the guard-house.

Over other depressions or ravines, close by here, were long to be seen some platforms or floored areas of stout plank. These were said to be spaces occupied by different portions of the renowned canvas-house of the first Governor, a structure manufactured in London and imported. The convenience of its plan, and the hospitality for which it afforded room, were favourite topics among the early people of the country. We have it in Bouchette's British North America a reference to this famous canvas house. "In the spring (i. e. of 1793)," that writer says, "the Lieutenant-Governor moved to the site of the new capital (York), attended by the regiment of the Queen's Rangers, and commenced at once the realization of his favourite project. His Excellency inhabited, during the summer, and through the winter, a canvas-house, which he imported expressly for the occasion; but, frail as was its substance, it was rendered exceedingly comfortable, and soon became as distinguished for the social and urbane hospitality of its venerable and gracious host, as for the peculiarity of its structure," vol. i. 80. After this allusion to the home Canadian life of the first Governor, the following remarks of de Liancourt, on the same subject, will not appear out of place:—"In his private life," the Duke says, "Gov. Simcoe is simple, plain and obliging. He inhabits [the reference now is to Newark or Niagara] a small, miserable wooden house, which formerly was occupied by the Commissaries, who resided here on account of the navigation of the Lake. His guard consist of four soldiers, who every morning come from the fort [across the river], and return thither in the evening. He lives in a noble and hospitable manner, without pride; his mind is enlightened, his character mild and obliging; he discourses with much good sense on all subjects; but his favourite topics are his projects, and war, which seem to be the objects of his leading passions. He is acquainted with the military history of all countries: no hillock catches his eye without exciting in his mind the idea of a fort which might be constructed on the spot; and with the construction of this fort he associates the plan of operations for a campaign, especially of that which is to lead him to Philadelphia. [Gen. Simcoe appears to have been strongly of the opinion that the United States were not going to be a permanency.] On hearing his professions of an earnest desire of peace, you cannot but suppose, either that his reason must hold an absolute sway over his passion, or that he deceives himself." Travels, i. 241.

Other traits, which doubtless at this time gave a charm to the home-life of the accomplished Governor, may be gathered from a passage in the correspondence, at a later period, of Polwhele, the historian of Cornwall, who says, in a letter addressed to the General himself, dated Manaccan, Nov. 5th, 1803:—"I have been sorely disappointed, once or twice, in missing you, whilst you were inspecting Cornwall. It was not long after your visit at my friend Mr. Hoblyn's, but I slept also at Nanswhydden. Had I met you there, the Noctes Atticæ, the Coenæ Deorum, would have been renewed, if peradventure the chess-board intervened not; for rooks and pawns, I think, would have frightened away the Muses, familiar as rooks and pawns might have been to the suitors of Penelope." Polwhele, 544.

The canvas-house above spoken of, had been the property of Capt. Cook the circumnavigator. On its being offered for sale in London, Gov. Simcoe, seeing its possible usefulness to himself as a moveable government-house purchased it.

Some way to the east of the Commissariat store-houses was the site of the Naval Building Yard, where an unfinished ship-of-war and the materials collected for the construction of others, were destroyed, when the United States forces took possession of York in 1813.

It appears that Col. Joseph Bouchette had just been pointing out to the Government the exposed condition of the public property here. In a note at p. 89 of his British North America that officer remarks: "The defenceless situation of York, the mode of its capture, and the destruction of the large ship then on the stocks, were but too prophetically demonstrated in my report to headquarters in Lower Canada, on my return from a responsible mission to the capital of the Upper Province, in the early part of April. Indeed the communication of the result of my reconnoitering operations, and the intelligence of the successful invasion of York, and the firing of the new ship by the enemy, were received almost simultaneously."

The Governor-in-Chief, Sir George Prevost, was blamed for having permitted a frigate to be laid down in an unprotected position. There was a "striking impropriety," as the Third Letter of Veritas, a celebrated correspondent of the Montreal Herald in 1815, points out, "in building at York, without providing the means of security there, as the works of defence, projected by General Brock, (when he contemplated, before the war, the removal of the naval depot from Kingston to York, by reason of the proximity of the former to the States in water by the ice), were discontinued by orders from below, [from Sir George Prevost, that is], and never resumed. The position intended to have been fortified by General Brock, near York, was," Veritas continues, "capable of being made very strong, had his plan been executed; but as it was not, nor any other plan of defence adopted, a ship-yard without protection became an allurement to the enemy, as was felt to the cost of the inhabitants of York."

In the year 1832, the interior of the Commissariat-store, decorated with flags, was the scene of the first charitable bazaar held in these parts. It was for the relief of distress occasioned by a recent visitation of cholera. The enterprise appears to have been remarkably successful. We have a notice of it in Sibbald's Canadian Magazine of January, 1833, in the following terms: "All the fashionable and well-disposed attended; the band of the gallant 79th played, at each table stood a lady; and in a very short time all the articles were sold to gentlemen,—who will keep 'as the apple of their eye' the things made and presented by such hands." The sum collected on the occasion, it is added, was three hundred and eleven pounds.

Where Windsor Street now appears—with its grand iron gates at either end, inviting or forbidding the entrance of the stranger to the prim, quaint, self-contained little village of villas inside—formerly stood the abode of Mr. John Beikie, whose tall, upright, staidly-moving form, generally enveloped in a long snuff-coloured overcoat, was one of the dramatis personæ of York. He had been, at an early period, sheriff of the Home District; at a later time his signature was familiar to every eye, attached in the Gazette to notices put forth by the Executive Council of the day, of which rather aristocratic body he was the Clerk.

Passing westward, we had on the right the spacious home of Mr. Crookshank, a benevolent and excellent man, sometime Receiver-General of the Province, of whom we shall again have occasion to speak; and on the left, on a promontory suddenly jutting out into the harbour, "Captain Bonnycastle's cottage," with garden and picturesque grove attached; all Ordnance property in reality, and once occupied by Col. Coffin. The whole has now been literally eaten away by the ruthless tooth of the steam excavator. On the beach to the west of this promontory was a much frequented bathing-place. Captain Bonnycastle, just named, was afterwards Sir Richard, and the author of "Canada as it was, is, and may be," and "Canada and the Canadians in 1846."

The name "Peter," attached to the street which flanks on the west the ancient homestead and extensive outbuildings of Mr. Crookshank, is a memento of the president or administrator, Peter Russell. It led directly up to Petersfield, Mr. Russell's park lot on Queen Street.

We come here to the western boundary of the so-called New Town—the limit of the first important extension of York westward. The limit, eastward, of the New Town, was a thoroughfare known in the former day as Toronto Street, which was one street east of Yonge Street, represented now by Victoria Street. At the period when the plan was designed for this grand western and north-western suburb of York, Yonge Street was not opened southward farther than Lot [Queen] Street. The roadway there suddenly veered to the eastward, and then, after a short interval, passed down Toronto Street, a roadway a little to the west of the existing Victoria Street.

The tradition in Boston used to be, that some of the streets there followed the line of accidental cow-paths formed in the olden time in the uncleared bush; and no doubt other old American towns, like ancient European towns generally, exhibit, in the direction of their thoroughfares, occasionally, traces of casual circumstances in the history of the first settlers on their respective sites. The practice at later periods has been to make all ways run as nearly as possible in right lines. In one or two "jogs" or irregularities, observable in the streets of the Toronto of to-day, we have memorials of early waggon tracks which ran where they most conveniently could. The slight meandering of Front Street in its course from the garrison to the site of the first Parliament Buildings, and of Britain Street, (an obscure passage between George Street and Caroline Street), may be thus explained; as also the fact that the southern end of the present Victoria Street does not connect immediately with the present Toronto Street. This last-mentioned irregularity is a relic of the time when the great road from the north, namely, Yonge Street, on reaching Queen Street, slanted off to the eastward across vacant lots and open ground, making by the nearest and most convenient route for the market and the heart of the town.

After the laying-out in lots of the region comprehended in the first great expansion of York, of which we have spoken, inquiries were instituted by the authorities as to the improvements made by the holders of each. In the chart accompanying the report of Mr. Stegman, the surveyor appointed to make the examination, the lots are coloured according to the condition of each, and appended are the following curious particulars, which smack somewhat of the ever-memorable town-plot of Eden, to which Martin Chuzzlewit was induced to repair, and which offered a lively picture of an infant metropolis in the rough. (We must represent to ourselves a chequered diagram; some of the squares white or blank; some tinted blue; some shaded black; the whole entitled "Sketch of the Part of the Town of York west of Toronto Street.")—"Explanation: The blank lots are cleared, agreeable to the notice issued from His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor, bearing date September the fourth, 1800. The lots shaded blue are chiefly cut, but the brush not burnt; and those marked with the letter A, the brush only cut. The lots shaded black, no work done. The survey made by order of the Surveyor-General's office, bearing date April the 23rd, 1801." A more precise examination appears to have been demanded. The explanations appended to the second plan, which has squares shaded brown, in addition to those coloured blue and black, are: "1st. The blank lots are cleared. 2nd. The lots shaded black, no work done. 3rd. The lots shaded brown, the brush cut and burnt. 4th. The lots shaded blue, the brush cut and not burnt. N.B. The lots 1 and 2 on the north side of Newgate Street [the site subsequently of the dwelling-house of Jesse Ketchum, of whom hereafter], are mostly clear of the large timber, and some brush cut also, but not burnt; therefore omitted in the first report. This second examination done by order of the Honourable John Elmsley, Esq."