Toronto of Old Part 36

Northward, a little beyond where Grosvenor Street leads into what was Elmsley Villa, and is now Knox College, was a solitary green field with a screen of lofty trees on three of its sides. In its midst was a Dutch barn, or hay-barrack, with movable top. The sward on the northern side of the building was ever eyed by the pa.s.ser-by with a degree of awe. It was the exact spot where a fatal duel had been fought.

We have seen in repeated instances that the so-called code of honour was in force at York from the era of its foundation. "Without it,"

Mandeville had said, "there would be no living in a populous nation. It is the tie of society; and although we are beholden to our frailties for the chief ingredient of it, there has been no virtue, at least that I am acquainted with, which has proved half so instrumental to the civilizing of mankind, who, in great societies, would soon degenerate into cruel villains and treacherous slaves, were honour to be removed from among them." Mandeville's sophistical dictum was blindly accepted, and trifles light as air gave rise to the conventional hostile meeting. The merest accident at a dance, a look, a jest, a few words of unconsidered talk, of youthful chaff, were every now and then sufficient to force persons who previously, perhaps, had been bosom friends, companions from childhood, along with others sometimes, in no wise concerned in the quarrel at first, to put on an unnatural show of thirst for each other's blood. The victim of the social usage of the day, in the case now referred to, was a youthful son of Surveyor-General Ridout.

Some years after the event, the public attention was drawn afresh to it.

The surviving princ.i.p.al in the affair, Mr. Samuel Jarvis, underwent a trial at the time and was acquitted. But the seconds were not arraigned.

It happened in 1828, eleven years after the incident (the duel took place July 12, 1817), that Francis Collins, editor of the _Canadian Freeman_, a paper of which we have before spoken, was imprisoned and fined for libel. As an act of retaliation on at least some of those who had promoted the prosecution, which ended in his being thus sentenced, he set himself to work to bring the seconds into court. He succeeded.

One of them, Mr. Henry John Boulton, was now Solicitor-General, and the other, Mr. James E. Small, an eminent member of the Bar. All the particulars of the fatal encounter, were once more gone over in the evidence. But the jury did not convict.

Modern society, here and elsewhere, is to be congratulated on the change which has come over its ideas in regard to duelling. Apart from the considerations dictated by morals and religion, common sense, as we suppose, has had its effect in checking the practice. York, in its infancy, was no better and no worse in this respect than other places.

It took its cue in this as in some other matters, from very high quarters. The Duke of York, from whom York derived its name, had himself narrowly escaped a bullet from the pistol of Colonel Lennox: "it pa.s.sed so near to the ear as to discommode the side-curl," the report said; but our Duke's action, or rather inaction, on the occasion helped perhaps to impress on the public mind the irrationality of duelling: he did not return the fire. "He came out," he said, "to give Colonel Lennox satisfaction, and did not mean to fire at him; if Colonel Lennox was not satisfied, he might fire again."

Just to the north of the scene of the fatal duel, which has led to this digression, was the portion of Yonge Street where a wooden tramway was once laid down for a short distance; an experiment interesting to be remembered now, as an early foreshadowing of the existing convenient street railway, if not of the great Northern Railway itself.

Subterranean springs and quicksands hereabout rendered the primitive roadmaker's occupation no easy one; and previous to the application of macadam, the tramway, while it lasted, was a boon to the farmers after heavy rains.

Mr. Durand's modest cottage and bowery grounds, near here, recall at the present day, an early praiseworthy effort of its owner to establish a local periodical devoted to Literature and Natural History, in conjunction with an advocacy of the cause of Temperance. A diligent attention to his profession as a lawyer did not hinder the editor of the _Literary Gem_ from giving some of his leisure time to the observation and study of Nature. We accordingly have in the columns of that periodical numerous notes of the fauna and flora of the surrounding neighbourhood, which for their appreciativeness, simplicity, and minuteness, remind us of the pleasant pages of White's "Natural History of Selborne." The _Gem_ appeared in 1851-2, and had an extensive circulation. It was ill.u.s.trated with good wood-cuts, and its motto was "Humanity, Temperance, Progress." The place of its publication was indicated by a square label suspended on one side of the front entrance of a small white office still to be seen adjoining the cottage which we are now pa.s.sing.

The father of Mr. Durand was an Englishman of Huguenot descent, who emigrated hither from Abergavenny at a very early period. Having been previously engaged in the East India mercantile service, he undertook the importation of East India produce. After reaching Quebec and Montreal in safety, his first consignments, embarked in batteaux, were swallowed up bodily in the rapids of the St. Lawrence. He nevertheless afterwards prospered in his enterprise, and acquired property. Nearly the whole of the eastern moiety of the present city of Hamilton was originally his. He represented the united counties of Wentworth and Halton in several parliaments up to 1822. A political journal, ent.i.tled _The Bee_, moderate and reasonable in tone, was, up to 1812, edited and published by him in the Niagara District. Mr. Durand, senior, died in 1833, at Hamilton, where he filled the post of County Registrar. His eldest son, Mr. James Durand, when, in 1817, member for Halton, enjoyed the distinction of being expelled from the House of a.s.sembly. A Parliament had just expired. He offered some strictures on its proceedings, in an address to his late const.i.tuents. The new House, which embraced many persons who had been members of the previous Parliament, was persuaded to vote the Address to the electors of Halton a libel, to exclude its author from the House, and to commit him to prison. His instant re-election by the county of Halton was of course secured. We observe from the evidence of Mr. James Durand before the celebrated Grievance Committee of 1835, that he was an early advocate of a number of the changes which have since been carried into effect. This Mr. Durand died in 1872 at Kingston, where he was Registrar for the County of Frontenac.

We have been enabled to present these facts, through the kindness of Mr.

Charles Durand, who, in a valuable communication, further informs us that besides being among the earliest to engage in mercantile enterprises in Upper Canada, his father had also in 1805, a large interest in the extensive flour mills in Chippawa, known as the Bridgewater Mills: mills burnt by the retreating American army in 1812, at which period Mr. Durand, senior, was in the command of one of the flank companies of Militia, composed of the first settlers in the neighbourhood of the modern Hamilton: moreover he was the first who ever imported foxhounds into Upper Canada, a pack of which animals he caused to be sent out to him from England, being fond of the hunter's sport.

With these he hunted near Long Point, on Lake Erie, in 1805, over a region teeming at the time with deer, bears, wolves and wild turkeys.

Mr. Peter Des Jardins, from whom the Dundas Ca.n.a.l has its name, was, in 1805, a clerk in the employment of Mr. Durand. (Omitted elsewhere, we insert here a pa.s.sing notice of Mr. J. M. Cawdell, another well-remembered local pioneer of literature. He published for a short time a magazine of light reading, ent.i.tled the _Rose harp_, the bulk of which consisted of graceful compositions in verse and prose by himself.

Mr. Cawdell had been an officer in the army. Through the friends.h.i.+p of Mr. Justice Macaulay (afterwards Sir James), he was appointed librarian and secretary to the Law Society of Osgoode Hall. He died in 1842.)

Proceeding now onward a few yards, we arrived, in former times, at what was popularly called the Sandhill--a moderate rise, showing where, in by-gone ages, the lake began to shoal. An object of interest in the woods here, at the top of the rise, on the west side, was the "Indian's Grave," made noticeable to the traveller by a little civilized railing surrounding it.

The story connected therewith was this: When the United States forces were landing in 1813, near the Humber Bay, with the intention of attacking the Fort and taking York, one of Major Givins' Indians, concealed himself in a tree, and from that position fired into the boats with fatal effect repeatedly. He was soon discovered, and speedily shot.

The body was afterwards found, and deposited with respect in a little grave here on the crest of the Sandhill, where an ancient Indian burying ground had existed, though long abandoned. It would seem that by some means, the scalp of this poor Indian was packed up with the trophies of the capture of York, conveyed by Lieut. Dudley to Was.h.i.+ngton. From being found in company with the Speaker's Mace on that occasion, the foolish story arose of its having been discovered over the Speaker's chair in the Parliament building that was destroyed.

"With the exception," says Ingersoll, in his History of the War of 1812-14, "of the English general's musical snuff-box, which was an object of much interest to some of our officers, and a scalp which Major Forsyth found suspended over the Speaker's chair, we gained but barren honour by the capture of York, of which no permanent possession was taken."

Auchinleck, in his History of the same war, very reasonably observes, that "from the expertness of the backwoodsmen in scalping (of which he gives two or three instances), it is not at all unlikely that the scalp in question was that of an unfortunate Indian who was shot while in a tree by the Americans, in their advance on the town." It was rejected with disgust by the authorities at Was.h.i.+ngton, Ingersoll informs us, and was not allowed to decorate the walls of the War Office there. Colonel W. F. Coffin, in his "1812: The War and its Moral," a.s.serts that a peruke or scratch-wig, found in the Parliament House, was mistaken for a scalp.

Building requirements have at the present day occasioned the almost complete obliteration of the Sandhill. Innumerable loads of the loose silex of which it was composed have been removed. The bones of the Indian brave, and of his forefathers, have been carried away. In a triturated condition, they mingle now, perhaps, in the mortar of many a wall in the vicinity.

A n.o.ble race! but they are gone, With their old forests wide and deep, And we have built our houses on Fields where their generations sleep.

Their fountains slake our thirst at noon, Upon their fields our harvest waves, Our lovers woo beneath their moon-- Then let us spare at least their graves!

Vain, however, was the poet's appeal. Even the prosaic proclamations of the civil power had but temporary effect. We quote one of them of the date of Dec. 14th, 1797, having for its object the protection of the fis.h.i.+ng places and burying grounds of the Mississaga Indians:

"Proclamation. Upper Canada. Whereas, many heavy and grievous complaints have of late been made by the Mississaga Indians, of depredations committed by some of his Majesty's subjects and others upon their fisheries and burial places, and of other annoyances suffered by them by uncivil treatment, in violation of the friends.h.i.+p existing between his Majesty and the Mississaga Indians, as well as in violation of decency and good order: Be it known, therefore, that if any complaint shall hereafter be made of injuries done to the fisheries and to the burial places of the said Indians, or either of them, and the persons can be ascertained who misbehaved himself or themselves in manner aforesaid, such person or persons shall be proceeded against with the utmost severity, and a proper example made of any herein offending. Given under my hand and seal of arms, at York, this fourteenth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and ninety-seven, and in the thirty-eighth year of his Majesty's reign. Peter Russell, President, administering the government. By his Honour's command, Alex. Burns, Secretary."

As to the particular ancient burial-plot on the Sandhill north of York, however, it may perhaps be conjectured that prior to 1813 the Mississagas had transferred to other resting places the bulk of the relics which had been deposited there.

Off to the eastward of the sandy rise which we are ascending, was one of the early public nursery gardens of York, Mr. Frank's. Further to the North on the same side was another, Mr. Adams'. Mr. Adams was a tall, oval-faced, fair-complexioned Scotchman. An establishment of the same kind at York more primitive still, was that of Mr. Bond, of whom we shall have occasion to speak by and by.

Kearsny House, Mr. Proudfoot's, the grounds of which occupy the site of Frank's nursery garden, is a comparatively modern erection, dating from about 1845; an architectural object regarded with no kindly glance by the final holders of shares in the Bank of Upper Canada--an inst.i.tution which in the infancy of the country had a mission and fulfilled it, but which grievously betrayed those of the second generation who, relying on its traditionary sterling repute, continued to trust it. With Kearsny House, too, is a.s.sociated the recollection, not only of the president, so long identified with the Bank of Upper Canada, but of the financier, Mr. Ca.s.sells, who, as a kind of _deus ex machina_, engaged at an annual salary of ten thousand dollars, was expected to retrieve the fortunes of the inst.i.tution, but in vain, although for a series of years after being p.r.o.nounced moribund it continued to yield a handsome addition to the income of a number of persons.

Mr. Alexander Murray, subsequently of Yorkville, and a merchant of the olden time at York, occupied the residence which preceded Kearsny House, on the Frank property. One desires, in pa.s.sing, to offer a tribute to the memory of a man of such genuine worth as was Mr. Murray, although the singular un.o.btrusiveness which characterized him when living seems almost to forbid the act.

The residue of the Sandhill rise that is still to be discerned westward of Yonge Street has its winsome name, Clover Hill, from the designation borne by the home of Captain Elmsley, son of the Chief Justice, situate here. The house still stands, overshadowed by some fine oaks, relics of the natural wood. The rustic cottage lodge, with diamond lattice windows, at the gate leading in to the original Clover Hill, was on the street a little further on. At the time of his decease, Captain Elmsley had taken up his abode in a building apart from the princ.i.p.al residence of the Clover Hill estate; a building to which he had pleasantly given the name of Barnstable, as being in fact a portion of the outbuildings of the homestead turned into a modest dwelling.

Barnstable was subsequently occupied by Mr. Maurice Scollard, a veteran attache of the Bank of Upper Canada, of Irish birth, remembered by all frequenters of that inst.i.tution, and by others for numerous estimable traits of character, but especially for a gift of genuine quiet humour and wit, which at a touch was ever unfailingly ready to manifest itself in word or act, in some unexpected, amusing, genial way. Persons transacting business at the India House in London, when Charles Lamb was a book-keeper there, must have had the solemn routine of the place now and then curiously varied by a dry "aside" from the direction of his desk. Just so the habitues of the old Bank, when absorbed in a knotty question of finance, affecting themselves individually, or the inst.i.tution, would oftentimes find themselves startled from their propriety by a droll view of the case, gravely suggested by a venerable personage sure to be somewhere near at hand busily engaged over a huge ledger.

They who in the mere fraction of a lifetime have seen in so many places the desert blossom as the rose, can with a degree of certainty, realize in their imagination what the whole country will one day be, even portions of it which to the new comer seem at the first glance very unpromising. Our Sandhill here, which but as yesterday we beheld in its primeval condition, with no trace of human labour upon it except a few square yards cleared round a solitary Indian grave, to-day we see crowned along its crest for many a rood eastward and westward with comfortable villas and graceful pleasure-grounds. The history of this spot may serve to encourage all who at any time or anywhere are called in the way of duty to be the first to attack and rough-hew a forest-wild for the benefit of another generation.

If need were to stay the mind of a newly-arrived immigrant friend wavering as to whether or not he should venture permanently to cast in his lot with us, we should be inclined to direct his regards, for one thing, to the gardens of an amateur, on the southern slope of the rise, at which we are pausing, where choice fruits and flowers are year after year produced equal to those grown in Kent or Devon; we should be inclined to direct his regards, likewise, to the amateur cultivator himself of those fruits and flowers, Mr. Phipps--a typical Englishman after a residenters.h.i.+p in York and Toronto of half a century.

But we must push on.--To the north of our Sandhill, a short distance, on the east side, was a sylvan halting place for weary teams, known as the Gardeners' Arms. It was an unpretending rural wayside inn, furnished with troughs and pump. The house lay a little way back from the road.

Its sign exhibited an heraldic arrangement of horticultural implements.

Another rural inn, with homely name, might have been noted, while we were nearer Lot Street: the Green Bush Tavern. But this was a name transferred from another spot, far to the north on Yonge Street, when the landlord, Mr. Abrahams, moved into town. In the original locality, the sign was a painted pine-tree or spruce of formal shape--not the ivy-bush, the sign referred to by the ancient proverb when it said, "Wine needeth it not"--"Vino vendibili non opus est suspensa hedera."

On the right, beyond the Gardeners' Arms, appeared in this region at an early date, at a considerable distance from each other, two or perhaps three flat, single-storey square cottages, clapboarded and painted white, with flat four-sided roofs, door in the centre and one window on either side: little wooden boxes set down on the surface of the soil apparently, and capable, as it might seem, of being readily lifted up and transported to any other locality. They were the first of such structures in the outskirts of York, and were speedily copied and repeated in various directions, being thought models of neatness and convenience.

Opposite the quarter where these little square hutches were to be seen, there are to be found at the present day, the vineyards of Mr. Bevan; to be found, we say, for they are concealed from the view of the transient pa.s.senger by intervening buildings. Here again we have a scene presenting a telling contrast to the same spot and its surroundings within the memory of living men: a considerable area covered with a labyrinth of trellis work, all overspread with hardy grapes in great variety and steadily productive. To this sight likewise we should introduce our timid, hesitating new comer, as also to the originator of the spectacle--Mr. Bevan, who after a forty years' sojourn in the vicinity of York and Toronto, continues as genuinely English in spirit and tone now as when he first left the quay of his native Bristol for his venture westward. While engaged largely in the manufacture of various articles of wooden ware, Mr. Bevan adopted as a recreation the cultivation of the grape, and the making of a good and wholesome wine.

It is known in commerce and to physicians, who recommend it to invalids for its real purity, as Clintona.

Just before reaching the first concession-road, where Yorkville now begins, a family residence of an ornamental suburban character, put up on the left by Mr. Lardner Bostwick, was the first of that cla.s.s of building in the neighbourhood. His descendants still occupy it. Mr.

Bostwick was an early property owner in York. The now important square acre at the south-east angle of the intersection of King Street and Yonge Street, regarded probably when selected, as a mere site for a house and garden in the outskirts of the town, was his. The price paid for it was 100. Its value in 1873 may be 100,000.

The house of comparatively modern date, seen next after Mr. Bostwick, is a.s.sociated with the memory of Mr. de Blaquiere, who occupied it before building for himself the tasteful residence--The Pines--not far off, where he died; now the abode of Mr. John Heward.

Mr. de Blaquiere was the youngest son of the first Lord de Blaquiere, of Ardkill, in Ireland. He emigrated in 1837, and was subsequently appointed to a seat in the Legislative Council of Upper Canada. In his youth he had seen active service as a mids.h.i.+pman. He was present at the battle of Camperdown in the Bounty, commanded by Captain Bligh. He was also in the Fleet at the Nore during the mutiny. He died suddenly here in his new house in 1860, aged 76. His fine character and prepossessing outward physique are freshly remembered.

Thus again and again have we to content ourselves with the interest that attaches, not to the birth-places of men of note, as would be the case in older towns, but to their death-places. Who of those that have been born in the numerous domiciles which we pa.s.s are finally to be ranked as men of note, and as creators consequently of a sentimental interest in their respective birth-places, remains to be seen. In our portion of Canada there has been time for the application of the requisite test in only a very few instances.

The First Concession Road-line derived its modern name of Bloor Street from a former resident on its southern side, eastward of Yonge Street.

Mr. Bloor, as we have previously narrated, was for many years the landlord of the Farmers' Arms, near the market place of York, an inn conveniently situated for the accommodation of the agricultural public.

On retiring from this occupation with a good competency, he established a Brewery on an extensive scale in the ravine north of the first concession road. In conjunction with Mr. Sheriff Jarvis, he entered successfully into a speculation on land, projecting and laying out the village of Yorkville, which narrowly escaped being Bloorville. That name was proposed: as also was Rosedale, after the Sheriff's homestead; and likewise "c.u.mberland," from the county of some of the surrounding inhabitants. The monosyllable "Blore" would have sufficed, without having recourse to a hackeyned suffix. That is the name of a spot in Staffords.h.i.+re, famous for a great engagement in the wars between the Houses of Lancaster and York. But Yorkville was at last decided on, an appellation preservative in part of the name just discarded in 1834 by Toronto.

Mr. Bloor was an Englishman, respected by every one. That his name should have become permanently attached to the Northern Boulevard of the City of Toronto, a favourite thoroughfare, several miles in extent, is a curious fact which may be compared with the case of Pimlico, the famous west-end quarter of London. Pimlico has its name, it is said, from Mr.

Benjamin Pimlico, for many years the popular landlord of a hotel in the neighbourhood. Bloor Street was for a time known as St. Paul's road: also as the Sydenham road.

While crossing the First Concession Line, now in our northward journey, the moment comes back to us when on glancing along the vista to the eastward, formed by the road in that direction, we first noticed a church-spire on the right-hand or southern side. We had pa.s.sed that way a day or two before, and we were sure no such object was to be seen there then; and yet, unmistakeably now, there rose up before the eye a rather graceful tower and spire, of considerable alt.i.tude, complete from base to apex, and coloured white.

The fact was: Mr. J. G. Howard, a well-known local architect, had ingeniously constructed a tower of wood in a horizontal, or nearly horizontal, position in the ground close by, somewhat as a s.h.i.+pbuilder puts together "the mast of some vast ammiral," and then, after attending to the external finish of, at least, the higher portion of it, even to a coating of lime wash, had, in the s.p.a.ce of a few hours, by means of convenient machinery raised it on end, and secured it, permanently, in a vertical position.

We gather some further particulars of the achievement from a contemporary account. The Yorkville spire was raised on the 4th of August, 1841. It was 85 feet high, composed of four entire trees or pieces of timber, each of that length, bound together pyramidically, tapering from ten feet base to one foot at top, and made to receive a turned ball and weather-c.o.c.k. The base was sunk in the ground until the apex was raised ten feet from the ground; and about thirty feet of the upper part of the spire was completed, coloured and painted before the raising. The operation of raising commenced about two o'clock p.m., and about eight in the evening, the spire and vane were seen erect, and appeared to those unacquainted with what was going on, to have risen amongst the trees, as if by magic. The work was performed by Mr. John Richey; the framing by Mr. Wetherell, and the raising was superintended by Mr. Joseph Hill.

The plan adopted was this: three gin-poles, as they are called, were erected in the form of a triangle; each of them was well braced, and tackles were rove at their tops: the tackles were hooked to strong straps about fifty feet up the spire, with nine men to each tackle, and four men to steady the end with following poles. It was raised in about four hours from the commencement of the straining of the tackles, and had a very beautiful appearance while rising. The whole operation, we have been told, was conducted as nearly as possible in silence, the architect himself regulating by signs the action of the groups at the gin-poles, being himself governed by the plumb-line suspended in a high frame before him.

"No workman steel, no ponderous axes rung; Like some tall palm, the noiseless fabric sprung."

Perhaps Fontana's exploit of setting on end the obelisk in front of St.

Peter's, in Rome, suggested the possibility of causing a tower and spire complete to be suddenly seen rising above the roof of the Yorkville St.

Paul's. On an humble scale we have Fontana's arrangements reproduced.

While in the men at the gin-poles worked in obedience to signs, we have the old Egyptians over again--a very small detachment of them indeed--as seen in the old sculptures on the banks of the Nile.