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 Helliwells, a vigorous and
substantial Yorkshire 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, massive pines for the most part. Associated with the
Helliwells in their various enterprises, and allied to them by
copartnerships 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 Yorkshire, and
partly in Lancashire, was the old home of the Helliwells.
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.
[Illustration]
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 space, which
has undergone excavation, looking as though the brick-maker or potter
had been at work on it: and we may observe that large quantity 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 establishing 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 passing 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 basswood, and the sycamore or
button-wood.--At a very early period, we have been assured 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
passed westward towards the track now known as Yonge-street: they there
were taken ashore 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 shifted 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 passage.
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-fishing 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 Washington.
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" passes,
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.
Helliwell 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 Helliwell, 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 assistant 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 Sussex, this graceful and useful plant was here
for several seasons to be seen passing 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 clusters; 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 pronounced 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 racoons
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 titanic confusion worthy of a sketch by Dore in
illustration 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
masses, 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 passing 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 accumulated 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 passed 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 ship 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 God.
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 sturdy 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.
And still what changes wait thee,
When at no distant day,
The ships of far off nations,
Shall anchor in your bay;
When one vast chain of railroad,
Stretching from shore to shore,
Shall bear the wealth of India,
And land it at your door.
A short distance above the hop ground of which we have spoken, the Don
passed immediately underneath a high sandy bluff. Where, after a long
reach in its downward course, it first impinged against the steep cliff,
it was very deep. Here was the only point in its route, so far as we
recall, where the epithet was applicable which Milton gives to its
English namesake, when he speaks of--
"Utmost Tweed, or Ouse, or _gulphy_ Don."
This very noticeable portion of the river was known as the "Big Bend."
(We may observe here that in retaining its English name, the Don has
lost the appellation assigned to it by the French, if they ever
distinguished it by a name. The Grand River, on the contrary, has
retained its French name, notwithstanding its English official
designation, which was the Ouse. The Rouge, too, has kept its French
name. It was the Nen. The Indians styled this, or a neighbouring stream,
Katabokokonk, "The River of Easy Entrance." The Thames, however, has
wholly dropped its French title, LaTranche. We may subjoin that the
Humber was anciently called by some, St John's River, from a trader
named St. John; and by some, as we have already learnt, Toronto River.
In Lahontan's map it is marked Tanaouate. No interpretation is
given.--Augustus Jones, the early surveyor of whom we shall have
occasion frequently to speak, notes in one of his letters that the
Indian name for the Don was Wonscoteonach, "Back burnt grounds;" that
is, the river coming down from the back burnt country, meaning probably
the so-called Poplar Plains to the north, liable to be swept by casual
fires in the woods. The term is simply descriptive, and not, in the
modern sense, a proper name.)
Towards the summit of the high bluff just mentioned, the holes made by
the sand-martins were numerous. Hereabout we have met with the snapping
turtle. This creature has not the power of withdrawing itself wholly
within a shell. A part of its protection consists in the loud
threatening snap of its strong horny jaws, armed in front with a
beak-like hook bent downwards. What the creature lays hold of, it will
not let go. Let it grasp the end of a stout stick, and the sportsman may
sling it over his shoulder, and so carry it home with him. When allowed
to reach its natural term of life, it probably attains a very great age.
We remember a specimen captured near the spot at which we are pausing,
which, from its vast size, and the rough, lichen-covered condition of
its shell, must have been extremely old. We also once found near here a
numerous deposit of this animal's eggs; all white and spherical, of the
diameter of about an inch, and covered with a tough parchment-like skin.
The ordinary lesser tortoises of the marsh were of course plentiful
along the Don: their young frequently to be met with creeping about,
were curious and ever-interesting little objects. Snakes too there were
about here, of several kinds: one, often very large and
dangerous-looking, the copper-head, of a greenish brown colour, and
covered with oblong and rather loose scales. The striped garter-snake of
all sizes, was very common. Though reported to be harmless, it always
indulged, when interfered with, in the menacing action and savage
attempts to strike, of the most venomous of its genus.--Then there was
the beautiful grass-green snake; and in large numbers, the black
water-snake. In the rank herbage along the river's edge, the terrified
piping of a pursued frog was often heard.