Toronto of Old Part 20

We transcribe the full list of the appointments at the Town Meeting of 1799, for the sake of the old locally familiar names therein embodied; and also as showing the curious and almost incredible fact that in the language of the people, York at that early period, 1799, was beginning to be ent.i.tled "the City of York!"

"Persons elected at the Town Meeting held at the City of York on the 4th day of March, 1799, pursuant to an Act of Parliament of the Province, ent.i.tled an Act to provide for the nomination and appointment of Parish and Town Officers within this Province. Clerk of the Town and Towns.h.i.+p,--Mr. Edward Hayward. a.s.sessors,--(including also the Towns.h.i.+ps of Markham and Vaughan) Mr. George Playter and Mr. Thomas Stoyles.

Collector,--Mr. Archibald Cameron. Overseers of the Highways and Roads, and Fence-viewers,--Benjamin Morley, from Scadding's Bridge to Scarborough; James Playter, from the Bay Road to the Mills; Abraham Devans, circle of the Humber; Paul Wilcot, from Big-Creek to No. 25, inclusive, on Yonge Street, and half Big-Creek Bridge; Daniel Dehart, from Big-Creek to No. 1 inclusive, on Yonge Street, and half Big-Creek Bridge. Mr. McDougal and Mr. Clarke for the district of the city of York. Pound Keepers: Circle of the Don, Parshall Terry, junr.; Circle of the Humber, Benjamin Davis; Circle of Yonge Street, No. 1 to 25, James Everson; Circle of the City, etc., James Nash. Townwardens, Mr.

Archibald Thompson and Mr. Samuel Heron. Other officers, elected pursuant to the 12th clause of the said Act: Pathmasters and Fence-viewers, Yonge Street, in Markham and Vaughan, Mr. Stilwell Wilson, lots 26 to 40, Yonge Street; Mr. John H. Hudrux, 41 to 51, Yonge Street, John Lyons, lots 26 to 35. John Stulz, Pathmaster and Fence-viewer in the German Settlement of Markham. David Thompson, do.

for Scarborough."

It is then added:--"N. B.--Conformably to the resolutions of the inhabitants, no hogs to run at large above three months old, and lawful fences to be five feet and a half high. Nicholas Klingenbrumer, constable, presiding." Furthermore, the information is given that "the following are Constables appointed by the Justices: John Rock, Daniel Tiers and John Matchefosky, for the city, etc. Levi Devans for the District of the Humber, Thomas Hill from No. 1 to 25, Yonge Street; Balser Munshaw, for Vaughan and first Concession of Markham; ---- Squantz for the German settlement of Markham. By order of the Magistrates: D. W. Smith." Also notice is given that "Such of the above officers as have not yet taken the oath, are warned hereby to do so without loss of time. The constables are to take notice that although for their own ease they are selected from particular districts, they are liable to serve process generally in the county."

When, in 1799, staid inhabitants were found seriously dignifying the group of buildings then to be seen on the borders of the bay, with the magnificent appellation of the "City of York," it is no wonder that at a later period indignation is frequently expressed at the ignominious epithet of "Little," which persons in the United States were fond of prefixing to the name of the place. Thus for example, in the _Weekly Register_ so late as June, 1822, we have the editor speaking thus in a notice to a correspondent: "Our friends on the banks of the Ohio, 45 miles below Pittsburg, will perceive," the editor remarks, "that notwithstanding he has made us pay postage [and postage in those days was heavy], we have not been unmindful of his request. We shall always be ready at the call of charity when not misapplied; and we hope the family in question will be successful in their object.--There is one hint, however," the editor goes on to say, "we wish to give Mr. W.

Patton, P. M.; which is, although there may be many "_Little_" Yorks in the United States, we know of no place called "_Little York_" in Canada; and beg that he will bear this _little_ circ.u.mstance in his recollection when he again addresses us."

Gourlay also, as we have seen, when he wished to speak cuttingly of the authorities at York, used the same epithet. In gubernatorial proclamations, the phrase modestly employed is--"Our Town of York."

A short distance east from the bridge a road turned northward, known as the "Mill road." This communication was open in 1799. It led originally to the Mills of Parshall Terry, of whose accidental drowning in the Don there is a notice in the _Gazette_ of July 23, 1808. In 1800, Parshall Terry is "Overseer of Ways from the Bay Road to the Mills." In 1802 the language is "from the Bay Road to the Don Mills," and in that year, Mr.

John Playter is elected to the office held in the preceding year by Parshall Terry. (In regard to Mr. John Playter:--The solitary house which overlooked the original Don Bridge and Ferry was occupied by him during the absence of its builder and owner in England; and here, Mr.

Emanuel Playter, his eldest son, was born.)

In 1821, and down to 1849, the Mill road was regarded chiefly as an approach to the multifarious works, flour-mills, saw-mills, fulling-mills, carding-mills, paper-mills and breweries, founded near the site of Parshall Terry's Mills, by the h.e.l.liwells, a vigorous and substantial Yorks.h.i.+re family, whose heads first settled and commenced operations on the brink of Niagara Falls, on the Canadian side, in 1818, but then in 1821 transferred themselves to the upper valley of the Don, where that river becomes a shallow, rapid stream, and where the surroundings are, on a small scale, quite Alpine in character--a secluded spot at the time, in the rudest state of nature, a favourite haunt of wolves, bears and deer; a spot presenting difficulties peculiarly formidable for the new settler to grapple with, from the loftiness and steepness of the hills and the kind of timber growing thereabout, ma.s.sive pines for the most part. a.s.sociated with the h.e.l.liwells in their various enterprises, and allied to them by copartners.h.i.+ps and intermarriage, were the Skinners and Eastwoods, all shrewd and persevering folk of the Midland and North-country English stock.--It was Mr. Eastwood who gave the name of Todmorden to the village overlooking the mills. Todmorden, partly in Yorks.h.i.+re, and partly in Lancas.h.i.+re, was the old home of the h.e.l.liwells.

Farther up the river, on the hills to the right, were the Sinclairs, very early settlers from New England; and beyond, descending again into the vale, the Taylors and Leas, substantial and enterprising emigrants from England.

Hereabout were the "Forks of the Don," where the west branch of that stream, seen at York Mills, enters. The hills in this neighbourhood are lofty and precipitous, and the pines that clothed them were of a remarkably fine growth. The tedious circuit which teams were obliged to make in order to get into the town from these regions by the Don bridge has since been, to some extent, obviated by the erection of two additional bridges at points higher up the stream, north of the Kingston road.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

XVII.

THE VALLEY OF THE DON.

_I.--From the Bridge on the Kingston Road to Tyler's._

Retracing our steps; placing ourselves again on the bridge, and, turning northwards, we see on the right, near by, a field or rough s.p.a.ce, which has undergone excavation, looking as though the brick-maker or potter had been at work on it: and we may observe that large quant.i.ty of the displaced material has been spread out over a portion of the marshy tract enclosed here by a bend of the river westward. What we see is a relic of an effort made long ago, by Mr. Washburn, a barrister of York, to whom reference has been made before, to bring this piece of land into cultivation. In its natural state the property was all but useless, from the steepness of the hill-side on the one hand, and from the ever wet condition of the central portion of the flat below on the other. By grading down the hill and filling in the marsh, and establis.h.i.+ng a gentle slope from the margin of the stream to the level of the top of the bank on the right, it was easy to see that a large piece of solid land in an eligible position might be secured. The undertaking, however, was abandoned before the work was finished, the expense probably being found heavy, and the prospect of a return for the outlay remote.

At a later period Mr. O'Neill, with greater success and completeness, cut down the steep ridges of the bank at Don Mount, a short distance up, and filled in the marsh below. These experiments show how the valley of the Don, along the eastern outskirts of the town, will ultimately be turned to account, when the necessities of the population demand the outlay. At present such improvements are discouraged by the length of time required to cover large surfaces of new clay with vegetable mould.

But in future years it will be for mills and factories, and not for suburban and villa purposes, that the parts referred to will be held valuable.

These marshes along the sides of the Don, from the point where its current ceases to be perceptible, appear to be remains of the river as it was at an epoch long ago. The rim or levee that now, on the right and left, confines and defines the meanderings of the stream in the midst of the marshes, has been formed by the alluvial matter deposited in the annual overflowings. The bed of the stream has probably in the same manner been by degrees slightly raised. The solid tow-path, as it were, thus created on each side of the river-channel, affords at present a great convenience to the angler and fowler. It forms, moreover, as shown by the experiments above alluded to, a capital breastwork, towards which the engineer may advance, when cutting down the adjoining hills, and disposing of their material on the drowned land below.

Once more imagining ourselves on the bridge, and looking obliquely to the north-west, we may still discern close by some remains of the short, shallow, winding ravine, by which in winter the sleighs used to ascend from the level of the river, and regain, through a grove of pines and hemlocks, the high road into the town. As soon as the steady cold set in, every year, the long reaches and grand sweeps of the river Don became peculiarly interesting. Firmly frozen over everywhere, and coated with a good depth of snow, bordered on each side by a high shrubbery of wild willow, alder, wych-hazel, dog-wood, tree-cranberry and other specimens of the lesser brushwood of the forest, plentifully overspread and interwoven in numerous places with the vine of wild grape, the whole had the appearance of a fine, clear, level English coach-road or highway, bounded throughout its winding course by a luxuriant hedge, seen as such English roads and their surroundings were wont to be, all snow-clad, at Christmas-tide, from the top of the fast mail to Exeter, for example, in the old coaching days.

Down the river, thus conveniently paved over, every day came a cavalcade of strong sleighs, heavily laden, some with cordwood, some with sawn lumber, some with hay, a whole stack of which at once, sometimes, would seem to be on the move.

After a light fall of snow in the night, the surface of the frozen stream would be marked all over with foot-prints innumerable of animals, small and great, that had been early out a-foraging: tracks of field-mice, minks and martens, of land-rats, water-rats and muskrats; of the wild-cat sometimes, and of the fox; and sometimes of the wolf. Up this valley we have heard at night the howling of the wolf; and in the snow of the meadows that skirt the stream, we have seen the blood-stained spots where sheep had been worried and killed by that ravenous animal.

In one or two places where the bends of the river touched the inner high bank, and where diggings had abortively been made with a view to the erection of a factory of some kind, beautiful frozen gushes of water from springs in the hill-side were every winter to be seen, looking, at a distance, like small motionless Niagaras. At one sheltered spot, we remember, where a tannery was begun but never finished, solid ice was sometimes to be found far on in the summer.

In the spring and summer, a pull up the Don, while yet its banks were in their primeval state was something to be enjoyed. After pa.s.sing certain potasheries and distilleries that at an early period were erected a short distance northward of the bridge, the meadow land at the base of the hills began to widen out; and numerous elm trees, very lofty, with gracefully-drooping branches, made their appearance, with other very handsome trees, as the lime or ba.s.swood, and the sycamore or b.u.t.ton-wood.--At a very early period, we have been a.s.sured that brigades of North-west Company boats, _en route_ to Lake Huron, used to make their way up the Don as far as the "Forks," by one of which they then pa.s.sed westward towards the track now known as Yonge-street: they there were taken ash.o.r.e and carried on trucks to the Holland river. The help gained by utilizing this piece of water-way must have been slight, when the difficulties to be overcome high up the stream were taken into account. We have conversed with an early inhabitant who, at a more recent period, had seen the North-west Company's boats drawn on trucks by oxen up the line of modern Yonge-street, but, in his day, starting, mounted in this manner, from the edge of the bay. In both cases they were s.h.i.+fted across from the Lake into the harbour at the "Carrying-place"--the narrow neck or isthmus a little to the west of the mouth of the Don proper, where the lake has now made a pa.s.sage.

We add one more of the spectacles which, in the olden time, gave animation to the scene before us. Along the winding stream, where in winter the sleighs were to be seen coming down, every summer at night would be observed a succession of moving lights, each repeated in the dark water below. These were the iron cressets, filled with unctuous pine knots all ablaze, suspended from short poles at the bows of the fishermen's skiffs, out in quest of salmon and such other large fish as might be deemed worth a thrust of the long-handled, sharply-barbed trident used in such operations. Before the establishment of mills and factories, many hundreds of salmon were annually taken in the Don, as in all the other streams emptying into Lake Ontario. We have ourselves been out on a night-fis.h.i.+ng excursion on the Don, when in the course of an hour some twenty heavy salmon were speared; and we have a distinct recollection of the conspicuous appearance of the great fish, as seen by the aid of the blazing "jack" at the bow, nozzling about at the bottom of the stream.

_2.--From Tyler's to the Big Bend._

Not far from the spot where, at present, the Don-street bridge crosses the river, on the west side and to the north, lived for a long time a hermit-squatter, named Joseph Tyler, an old New Jersey man, of picturesque aspect. With his rather fine, sharp, shrewd features, set off by an abundance of white hair and beard, he was the counterpart of an Italian artist's stock-model. The mystery attendant on his choice of a life of complete solitude, his careful reserve, his perfect self-reliance in regard to domestic matters, and, at the same time, the evident wisdom of his contrivances and ways, and the propriety and sagacity of his few words, all helped to render him a good specimen in actual life of a secular anchorite. He had been in fact a soldier in the United States army, in the war of Independence, and was in the receipt of a pension from the other side of the lakes. He was familiar, he alleged, with the personal appearance of Was.h.i.+ngton.

His abode on the Don was an excavation in the side of the steep hill, a little way above the level of the river-bank. The flue of his winter fire-place was a tubular channel, bored up through the clay of the hill-side. His sleeping-place or berth was exactly like one of the receptacles for human remains in the Roman catacombs, an oblong recess, likewise carved in the dry material of the hill. To the south of his cave he cultivated a large garden, and raised among other things, the white sweet edible Indian corn, a novelty here at the time; and very excellent tobacco. He moreover manufactured pitch and tar, in a little kiln or pit dug for the purpose close by his house.

He built for himself a magnificent canoe, locally famous. It consisted of two large pine logs, each about forty feet long, well shaped and deftly hollowed out, fastened together by cross dove-tail pieces let in at regular distances along the interior of its bottom. While in process of construction in the pine woods through which the "Mill road" pa.s.ses, on the high bank eastward of the river, it was a wonderment to all the inquisitive youth of the neighbourhood, and was accordingly often visited and inspected by them.

In this craft he used to pole himself down the windings of the stream, all the way round into the bay, and on to the landing-place at the foot of Caroline-street, bringing with him the produce of his garden, and neat stacks of pine knots, ready split for the fishermen's lightjacks.

He would also on occasion undertake the office of ferryman. On being hailed for the purpose, he would put across the river persons anxious to make a short cut into the town from the eastward. Just opposite his den there was for a time a rude causeway over the marsh.

At the season of the year when the roads through the woods were impracticable, Tyler's famous canoe was employed by the Messrs.

h.e.l.liwell for conveying into town, from a point high up the stream, the beer manufactured at their Breweries on the Don. We are informed by Mr.

William h.e.l.liwell, of the Highland Creek, that twenty-two barrels at a time could be placed in it, in two rows of eleven each, laid lengthwise side by side, still leaving room for Tyler and an a.s.sistant to navigate the boat.

The large piece of meadow land on the east side of the river, above Tyler's abode, enclosed by a curve which the stream makes towards the west, has a certain interest attached to it from the fact that therein was reproduced, for the first time in these parts, that peculiarly pleasant English scene, a hop-garden. Under the care of Mr. James Case, familiar with the hop in Suss.e.x, this graceful and useful plant was here for several seasons to be seen pa.s.sing through the successive stages of its scientific cultivation; in early spring sprouting from the surface of the rich black vegetable mould; then trained gradually over, and at length clothing richly the poles or groups of poles set at regular distances throughout the enclosure; overtopping these supports; by and by loading them heavily with a plentiful crop of swaying cl.u.s.ters; and then finally, when in a sufficiently mature state, prostrated, props and all, upon the ground, and stripped of their fragrant burden, the real object of all the pains taken.--From this field many valuable pockets of hops were gathered; and the quality of the plant was p.r.o.nounced to be good. Mr. Case afterwards engaged extensively in the same occupation in the neighbourhood of Newmarket.

About the dry, sandy table-land that overlooked the river on each side in this neighbourhood, the burrows of the fox, often with little families within, were plentifully to be met with. The marmot too, popularly known as the woodchuck, was to be seen on sunny days sitting up upon its haunches at holes in the hill-side. We could at this moment point out the ancient home of a particular animal of this species, whose ways we used to note with some curiosity.--Here were to be found rac.o.o.ns also; but these, like the numerous squirrels, black, red, flying and striped, were visible only towards the decline of summer, when the maize and the nuts began to ripen. At that period also, bears, he-bears and she-bears, accompanied by their cubs, were not unfamiliar objects, wherever the blackberry and raspberry grew. In the forest, moreover, hereabout, a rustle in the underbrush, and something white seen dancing up and down in the distance like the plume of a mounted knight, might at any moment indicate that a group of deer had caught sight of one of the dreaded human race, and, with tails uplifted, had bounded incontinently away.

Pines of a great height and thickness crowded the tops of these hills.

The paths of hurricanes could be traced over extensive tracts by the fallen trunks of trees of this species, their huge bulks lying one over the other in a t.i.tanic confusion worthy of a sketch by Dore in ill.u.s.tration of Dante; their heads all in one direction, their upturned roots, vast mats of woody ramifications and earth, presented sometimes a perpendicular wall of a great height. Occasionally one of these upright ma.s.ses, originating in the habit of the pine to send out a wide-spread but shallow rootage, would unexpectedly fall back into its original place, when, in the clearing of the land, the bole of the tree to which it appertained came to be gashed through. In this case it would sometimes happen that a considerable portion of the trunk would appear again in a perpendicular position. As its top would of course show that human hands had been at work there, the question would be propounded to the new comer as to how the axe could have reached to such a height. The suppositions usually encouraged in him were, either that the snow must have been wonderfully deep when that particular tree was felled, or else that some one of the very early settlers must have been a man of exceptional stature.

Among the lofty pines, here and there, one more exposed than the rest would be seen, with a piece of the thickness of a strong fence-rail stripped out of its side, from its extreme apex to its very root, spirally, like the groove of a rifle-bore. It in this manner showed that at some moment it had been the swift conductor down into the earth of the contents of a pa.s.sing electric cloud. One tree of the pine species, we remember, that had been severed in the midst by lightning, so suddenly, that the upper half had descended with perfect perpendicularity and such force that it planted itself upright in the earth by the side of the trunk from which it had been smitten.

Nor may we omit from our remembered phenomena of the pine forests hereabout, the bee-trees. Now and then a huge pine would fall, or be intentionally cut down, which would exhibit in cavernous recesses at a great distance from what had been its root end, the acc.u.mulated combs of, it might be, a half century; those of them that were of recent construction, filled with honey.

A solitary survivor of the forest of towering pines which, at the period to which we are adverting, covered the hills on both sides of the Don was long to be seen towards the northern limit of the Moss Park property. In the columns of a local paper this particular tree was thus gracefully commemorated:--

Oh! tell to me, thou old pine tree, Oh! tell to me thy tale, For long hast thou the thunder braved, And long withstood the gale; The last of all thy hardy race, Thy tale now tell to me, For sure I am, it must be strange, Thou lonely forest tree.

Yes, strange it is, this bending trunk, So withered now and grey, Stood once among the forest trees Which long have pa.s.sed away: They fell in strength and beauty, Nor have they left a trace, Save my old trunk and withered limbs To show their former place.

Countless and lofty once we stood; Beneath our ample shade His forest home of boughs and bark The hardy red man made.

Child of the forest, here he roamed, Nor spoke nor thought of fear, As he trapped the beaver in his dam, And chased the bounding deer.

No gallant s.h.i.+p with spreading sail Then ploughed those waters blue, Nor craft had old Ontario then, But the Indians' birch canoe; No path was through the forest, Save that the red man trod; Here, by your home, was his dwelling place, And the temple of his G.o.d.

Now where the busy city stands, Hard by that graceful spire, The proud Ojibeway smoked his pipe Beside his camping fire.

And there, where those marts of commerce are Extending east and west, Amid the rushes in the marsh The wild fowl had its nest.

But the pale face came, our ranks were thinn'd, And the loftiest were brought low, And the forest faded far and wide, Beneath his st.u.r.dy blow; And the steamer on the quiet lake, Then ploughed its way of foam, And the red man fled from the scene of strife To find a wilder home.

And many who in childhood's days Around my trunk have played, Are resting like the Indian now Beneath the cedar's shade; And I, like one bereft of friends, With winter whitened o'er, But wait the hour that I must fall, As others fell before.