of York, advertising as "agent for purchases" for pork and beef to be
supplied to the troops stationed "at Kingston, York, Fort George, Fort
Chippewa, Fort Erie, and Amherstburg." In 1818 he is Receiver-General,
and Auditor-General of land patents. He had formerly been an officer in
the Queen's Rangers, and his name repeatedly occurs in "Simcoe's
History" of the operations of that corps during the war of the American
Revolution.
From that work we learn that in 1779 he, with the commander himself of
the corps, then Lieut.-Col. Simcoe, fell into the hands of the
revolutionary authorities, and was treated with great harshness in the
common jail of Burlington, New Jersey; and when a plan was devised for
the Colonel's escape, Mr. McGill volunteered, in order to further its
success, to personate his commanding officer in bed, and to take the
consequences, while the latter was to make his way out.
The whole project was frustrated by the breaking of a false key in the
lock of a door which would have admitted the confined soldiers to a room
where "carbines and ammunition" were stored away. Lieut.-Col. Simcoe, it
is added in the history just named, afterwards offered Mr. McGill an
annuity, or to make him Quartermaster of Cavalry; the latter, we are
told, he accepted of, as his grandfather had been an officer in King
William's army; and "no man," Col. Simcoe himself notes, "ever executed
the office with greater integrity, courage and conduct."
The southern portion of Mr. McGill's park-lot has, in the course of
modern events, come to be assigned to religious uses. McGill Square,
which contained the old homestead and its surroundings, and which was at
one period intended, as its name indicates, to be an open public square,
was secured in 1870 by the Wesleyan Methodist body and made the site of
its principal place of worship and of various establishments connected
therewith.
Immediately north, on the same property, the Roman Catholics had
previously built their principal place of worship and numerous
appurtenances, attracted possibly to the spot by the expectation that
McGill Square would continue for ever an open ornamental piece of
ground.
A little farther to the north a cross-street, leading from Yonge Street
eastward, bears the name of McGill. An intervening cross-street
preserves the name of Mr. Crookshank, who was Mr. McGill's
brother-in-law.
The name that appears on the original survey of York and its suburbs as
first occupant of the park-lot westward of Mr. McGill's, is that of Mr.
George Playter. This is the Captain Playter, senior, of whom we have
already spoken in our excursion up the valley of the Don. We have named
him also among the forms of a past age whom we ourselves remember often
seeing in the congregation assembled of old in the wooden St. James'.
Mr. Playter was an Englishman by birth, but had passed many of his early
years in Philadelphia, where for a time he attached himself to the
Society of Friends, having selected as a wife a member of that body. But
on the breaking out of the troubles that led to the independence of the
United States, his patriotic attachment to old far-off England compelled
him, in spite of the peaceful theories of the denomination to which he
had united himself, promptly to join the Royalist forces.
He used to give a somewhat humorous account of his sudden return to the
military creed of ordinary mundane men. "Lie there, Quaker!" cried he to
his cutaway, buttonless, formal coat, as he stripped it off and flung it
down, for the purpose of donning the soldier's habiliments. But some of
the Quaker observances were never relinquished in his family. We well
remember, in the old homestead on the Don, and afterwards at his
residence on Caroline Street, a silent mental thanksgiving before meals,
that always took place after every one had taken his seat at the table;
a brief pause was made, and all bent for a moment slightly forwards. The
act was solemn and impressive.
Old Mr. Playter was a man of sprightly and humorous temperament, and his
society was accordingly much enjoyed by those who knew him. A precise
attention to his dress and person rendered him an excellent type in
which to study the costume and style of the ordinary unofficial citizen
of a past generation. Colonel M. F. Whitehead, of Port Hope, in a letter
kindly expressive of his interest in these reminiscences of York,
incidentally furnished a little sketch that will not be out of place
here. "My visits to York, after I was articled to Mr. Ward, in 1819,"
Colonel Whitehead says, "were frequent. I usually lodged at old Mr.
Playter's, Mrs. Ward's father. [This was when he was still living at the
homestead on the Don.] The old gentleman often walked into town with me,
by Castle Frank; his three-cornered hat, silver knee-buckles, broad-toed
shoes and large buckles, were always carefully arranged."--To the
equipments, so well described by Colonel Whitehead, we add from our own
boyish recollection of Sunday sights, white stockings and a gold-headed
cane of a length unusual now.
According to a common custom prevalent at an early time, Mr. Playter set
apart on his estate on the Don a family burial-plot, where his own
remains and those of several members of his family and their descendants
were deposited. Mr. George Playter, son of Captain George Playter, was
some time Deputy Sheriff of the Home District; and Mr. Eli Playter,
another son, represented for some sessions in the Provincial Parliament
the North Riding of York. A daughter, who died unmarried in 1832, Miss
Hannah Playter, "Aunt Hannah," as she was styled in the family, is
pleasantly remembered as well for the genuine kindness of her character,
as also for the persistency with which, like her father, she carried
forward into a new and changed generation, and retained to the last, the
costume and manners of the reign of King George the Third.
Immediately in front of the extreme westerly portion of the park lot
which we are now passing, and on the south side of the present Queen
Street in that direction, was situated an early Court House of York,
associated in the memories of most of the early people with their first
acquaintance with forensic pleadings and law proceedings.
This building was a notable object in its day. In an old plan of the
town we observe it conspicuously delineated in the locality
mentioned--the _other_ public buildings of the place, viz., the
Commissariat Stores, the Government House, the Council Chamber (at the
present north-west corner of York and Wellington Streets), the District
School, St. James's Church, and the Parliament House (by the Little
Don), being marked in the same distinguished manner. It was a plain
two-storey frame building, erected in the first instance as an ordinary
place of abode by Mr. Montgomery, father of the Montgomerys, once of the
neighbourhood of Eglinton, on Yonge Street. It stood in a space defined
by the present line of Yonge Street on the west, by nearly the present
line of Victoria Street on the east, by Queen Street on the north and by
Richmond Street on the south. Though situated nearer Queen Street than
Richmond Street, it faced the latter, and was approached from the
latter.--It was Mr. Montgomery who obtained by legal process the opening
of Queen Street in the rear of his property. In consequence of the
ravine of which we have had occasion so often to speak, the allowance
for this street as laid down in the first plans of York had been closed
up by authority from Yonge Street to Caroline Street.
It was seriously proposed in 1800 to close up Queen Street to the
westward also from Yonge Street "so far as the Common," that is, the
Garrison Reserve, on the ground that such street was wholly unnecessary,
there being in that direction already one highway into the town, namely,
Richmond Street, situated only ten rods to the south. In 1800 the
southern termination of Yonge Street was where we are now passing, at
the corner of Montgomery's lot. At this point the farmers' waggons from
the north turned off to the eastward, proceeding as far as Toronto
Street, down which they wended their way to Richmond Street, and so on
to Church Street and King Street, finally reaching the Market Place.
Of the opening of Yonge Street through a range of building lots which in
1800 blocked the way from Queen Street southwards, we shall speak
hereafter in the excursion which we propose to make through Yonge Street
from south to north, the moment we have finished recording our
collections and recollections in relation to Queen Street.
_Memories of the Old Court House._
In the old Court House, situated as we have described, we received our
first boyish impressions of the solemnities and forms observed in Courts
of Law. In paying a visit of curiosity subsequently to the singular
series of Law Courts which are to be found ranged along one side of
Westminster Hall in London--each one of them in succession entered
through the heavy folds of lofty mysterious-looking curtains, each one
of them crowded with earnest pleaders and anxious suitors, each one of
them provided with a judge elevated in solitary majesty on high, each
one of them seeming to the passing stranger more like a scene in a drama
than a prosaic reality--we could not but revert in memory to the old
upper chamber at York where the remote shadows of such things were for
the first time encountered.
It was startling to remember of a sudden that our early Upper Canadian
Judges, our early Upper Canadian Barristers, came fresh from these
Westminster Hall Courts! What a contrast must have been presented to
these men in the rude wilds to which they found themselves transported.
Riding the Circuit in the Home, Midland, Eastern and Western Districts
at the beginning of the present century was no trivial undertaking.
Accommodation for man and horse was for the most part scant and
comfortless. Locomotion by land and water was perilous and slow, and
racking to the frame. The apartments procurable for the purposes of the
Court were of the humblest kind.
Our pioneer jurisconsults in their several degrees, however, like our
pioneers generally, unofficial as well as official, did their duty. They
quietly initiated in the country, customs of gravity and order which
have now become traditional; and we see the result in the decent dignity
which surrounds, at the present day, the administration of justice in
Canada in the Courts of every grade.
Prior to the occupation of Mr. Montgomery's house as the Court House at
York, the Court of King's Bench held its sessions in a portion of the
Government Buildings at the east end of the town, destroyed in the war
of 1813. On June 25, 1812, the Sheriff, John Beikie, advertises in the
_Gazette_ that "a Court of General Quarter Sessions of the Peace for the
Home District will be holden at the Government Buildings in the town of
York on Tuesday, the fourteenth day of July now next ensuing, at the
hour of ten o'clock in the forenoon, of which all Justices of the
Peace, Coroners, Gaolers, High Constables, Constables and Bailiffs are
desired to take notice, and that they be then and there present with
their Rolls, Records, and other Memoranda to do and perform those things
which by reason of their respective offices shall be to be done."
It is with the Court Room in the Government Buildings that the Judge,
Sheriff and Crown Counsel were familiar, who were engulfed in Lake
Ontario in 1805. The story of the total loss of the government schooner
Speedy, Captain Thomas Paxton, is widely known. In that ill-fated vessel
suddenly went down in a gale in the dead of night, along with its
commander and crew, Judge Cochrane, Solicitor-General Gray, Mr. Angus
McDonell, Sheriff of York, Mr. Fishe, the High Bailiff, an Indian
prisoner about to be tried at Presqu'Isle for murder, two interpreters,
Cowan and Ruggles, several witnesses, and Mr. Herchmer, a merchant of
York; in all thirty-nine persons, of whom no trace was ever afterwards
discovered.
The weather was threatening, the season of the year stormy (7th
October), and the schooner was suspected not to be sea-worthy. But the
orders of the Governor, General Peter Hunter, were peremptory. Mr.
Weekes, of whom we have heard before, escaped the fate that befel so
many connected with his profession, by deciding to make the journey to
Presqu'Isle on horseback. (For the seat in the House rendered vacant by
the sudden removal of Mr. McDonell, Mr. Weekes was the successful
candidate.)
The name of the Indian who was on his way to be tried was Ogetonicut.
His brother, Whistling Duck, had been killed by a white man, and he took
his revenge on John Sharp, another white man. The deed was done at Ball
Point on Lake Scugog, where John Sharp was in charge of a trading-post
for furs belonging to the Messrs. Farewell. The Governor had promised,
so it was alleged, that the slayer of Whistling Duck should be punished.
But a twelvemonth had elapsed and nothing had been done. The whole
tribe, the Muskrat branch of the Chippewas, with their Chief
Wabbekisheco at their head, came up in canoes to York on this occasion,
starting from the mouth of Annis's creek, near Port Oshawa, and
encamping at Gibraltar Point on the peninsula in front of York. A guard
of soldiers went over to assist in the arrest of Ogetonicut, who, it
appears, had arrived with the rest. The Chief Wabbekisheco, took the
culprit by the shoulder and delivered him up. He was lodged in the jail
at York.
During the summer it was proved by means of a survey that the spot where
Sharp had been killed was within the District of Newcastle. It was held
necessary, therefore, that the trial should take place in that District.
Sellick's, at the Carrying Place, was to have been the scene of the
investigation, and thither the _Speedy_ was bound when she foundered.
Mr. Justice Cochrane was a most estimable character personally, and a
man of distinguished ability. He was only in his 28th year, and had been
Chief Justice of Prince Edward Island before his arrival in Upper
Canada. He was a native of Halifax, in Nova Scotia, but had studied law
in Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the Bar in England.
In the old Court House, near which we are now passing, were assigned to
convicted culprits, with unflinching severity and in a no inconsiderable
number of instances, all the penalties enjoined in the criminal code of
the day--the lash, the pillory, the stocks, the gallows. We have
conversed with an old inhabitant of Toronto, who had not only here heard
the penalty of branding ordered by the Judge, but had actually seen it
in open court inflicted, the iron being heated in the great wood-stove
that warmed the room, and the culprit made to stretch out his hand and
have burnt thereon the initial letter of the offence committed.
Here cases came up repeatedly, arising out of the system of slavery
which at the beginning was received in Canada, apparently as an
inevitable part and parcel of the social arrangements of a colony on
this continent.
On the first of March, 1811, we have it on the record, "William Jarvis,
of the Town of York, Esq. (this is the Secretary again), informed the
Court that a negro boy and girl, his slaves, had the evening before been
committed to prison for having stolen gold and silver out of his desk in
his dwelling-house, and escaped from their said master; and prayed that
the Court would order that the said prisoners, with one Coachly, a free
negro, also committed to prison on suspicion of having advised and aided
the said boy and girl in eloping with their master's property."
Thereupon it was "Ordered,--That the said negro boy, named Henry,
commonly called Prince, be re-committed to prison, and there safely kept
till delivered according to law, and that the girl do return to her said
master; and Coachly be discharged."
At the date just mentioned Slavery was being gradually extinguished by
an Act of the Provincial Legislature of Upper Canada, passed at Newark
in 1793, which forbade the further introduction of slaves, and ordered
that all slave children born after the 9th of July in that year should
be free on attaining the age of twenty-five.
Most gentlemen, from the Administrator of the Government downwards,
possessed some slaves. Peter Russell, in 1806, was anxious to dispose of
two of his, and thus advertised in the _Gazette and Oracle_, mentioning
his prices:--"To be sold: a Black Woman named Peggy, aged forty years,
and a Black Boy, her son, named Jupiter, aged about fifteen years, both
of them the property of the subscriber. The woman is a tolerable cook
and washerwoman, and perfectly understands making soap and candles. The
boy is tall and strong for his age, and has been employed in the country
business, but brought up principally as a house servant. They are each
of them servants for life. The price of the woman is one hundred and
fifty dollars. For the boy two hundred dollars, payable in three years,
with interest from the day of sale, and to be secured by bond, &c. But
one-fourth less will be taken for ready money. York, Feb. 19th, 1806.
Peter Russell."
According to our ideas at the present moment, such an advertisement as
this is shocking enough. But we must judge the words and deeds of men by
the spirit of the age in which they lived and moved.
Similar notices were common a century since in the English newspapers.
It is in fact asserted that at that period there were probably more
slaves in England than in Virginia. In the London _Public Advertiser_,
of March 28th, 1769, we have, for example, the following: "To be sold, a
Black Girl, the property of J. B----, eleven years of age, who is
extremely handy, works at her needle tolerably, and speaks English
perfectly well; is of an excellent temper, and willing disposition.
Enquire of Mr. Owen, at the Angel Inn, behind St. Clement's Church, in
the Strand." And again, in the Edinburgh _Evening Courant_ of April
18th, 1768, we have, "A Black Boy to sell. To be sold a Black Boy with
long hair, stout made and well limbed; is good tempered; can dress hair,
and take care of a horse indifferently. He has been in Britain near
three years. Any person that inclines to purchase him may have him for
L40. He belongs to Captain Abercrombie, at Brighton. This advertisement
not to be repeated."
The poet sings--
"Slaves cannot breathe in England: if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free;
They touch our country and their shackles fall."
But this was not true until Lord Mansfield, in 1772, uttered his famous
judgment in the case of James Somerset, a slave brought over by a Mr.
Stewart from Jamaica. Cowper's lines are in reality a versification of a
portion of Lord Mansfield's words. A plea had been set up that
villeinage had never been abolished by law in England; _ergo_, the
possession of slaves was not illegal. But Lord Mansfield ruled:
"Villeinage has ceased in England, and it cannot be revived. The air of
England," he said, " has long been too pure for a slave, and every man
is free who breathes it. Every man who comes into England," Lord
Mansfield continued, "is entitled to the protection of English law,
whatever oppression he may heretofore have suffered, and whatever may be
the colour of his skin: _Quamvis ille niger, quamvis tu candidus esses._
Let the negro be discharged." But this is a digression.
Peter Russell's Peggy had been giving him uneasiness a few years
previous to the advertisement copied above. She had been absenting
herself without leave. Of this we are apprised in an advertisement dated
York, September 2nd, 1803. It runs as follows: "The subscriber's black
servant Peggy, not having his permission to absent herself from his
service, the public are hereby cautioned from employing or harbouring
her without the owner's leave. Whoever will do so after this notice may
expect to be treated as the law directs. Peter Russell."
In the papers published at Niagara advertisements similar to those just
given are to be seen. In the Niagara _Herald_ of January 2nd, 1802, we
have, "For sale: A negro man slave, 18 years of age, stout and healthy;
has had the small pox and is capable of service either in the house or
out-doors. The terms will be made easy to the purchaser, and cash or new
lands received in payment. Enquire of the printer." And again in the
_Herald_ of January 18th: "For sale: the negro man and woman, the
property of Mrs. Widow Clement. They have been bred to the business of a
farm; will be sold on highly advantageous terms for cash or lands. Apply
to Mrs. Clement."
Cash and lands were plainly beginning to be regarded as less precarious
property than human chattels. In 1797 purchasers, however, were still
advertising. In the _Gazette and Oracle_ of October 11th, in that year,
we read; "Wanted to purchase, a negro girl from seven to twelve years of
age, of good disposition. For fuller particulars apply to the
subscribers, W. and J. Crooks, West Niagara, Oct. 4th." At York, in
1800, the _Gazette_ announces as "to be sold"--"A healthy strong negro
woman, about thirty years of age; understands cooking, laundry and the
taking care of poultry. N.B.--She can dress ladies' hair. Enquire of the
Printers. York, Dec 20, 1800."
In respect to the following notice some explanation is needed. We
presume the "Indian slave" spoken of must have been only part Indian.
The detention of a native as a slave, if legal, would have been
difficult. Mr. Charles Field, of Niagara, on the 28th of August, 1802,
gave notice in the _Herald_: "All persons are forbidden harbouring,
employing, or concealing my Indian slave Sal, as I am determined to
prosecute any offender to the extremity of the law; and persons who may
suffer her to remain in or upon their premises for the space of
half-an-hour, without my written consent, will be taken as offending,
and dealt with accordingly."
In the early volumes of the _Quebec Gazette_ these slave advertisements
are common. A rough wood-cut of a black figure running frequently
precedes them. It appropriately illustrates the following one: "Run away
from the subscriber on Tuesday, the 25th ult., a negro man, named
Drummond, near six feet high, walks heavily; had on when he went away a
dark coloured cloth coat and leather breeches. Whoever takes up and
secures the said negro, so that his master may have him again, shall
have Four Dollars reward, and all reasonable charges paid by John
McCord. Speaks very bad English and next to no French." Another reads
thus: "To be sold, a healthy Negro Boy, about fifteen years of age, well
qualified to wait on a gentleman as a Body Servant. For further
particulars inquire of the Printers."
Mr. Sol.-General Gray, lost in the _Speedy_, manumitted by his will,
dated August 27th, 1803, and discharged from the state of slavery in
which, as that document speaks, "she now is," his "faithful black woman
servant, Dorinda," and gave her and her children their freedom; and that
they might not want, directed that L1200 should be invested and the
interest applied to their maintenance. To his black servants, Simon and
John Baker, he gave, besides their freedom, 200 acres of land each, and
pecuniary legacies. The Simon here named went down with his master in
the _Speedy_; but John long survived. He used to state that his mother
Dorinda, was a native of Guinea, and to describe Governor Hunter as a
rough old warrior, who carried snuff in an outside pocket, whence he
took it in handfuls, to the great disfigurement of his ruffled
shirt-bosoms. His death was announced in the public papers by telegram
from Cornwall, Ontario, bearing date January 17, 1871. "A coloured man,"
it said, "named John Baker, who attained his 105th year on the 25th
ult., died here to-day. He came here as a chattel of the late Colonel
Gray, in 1792, having seen service in the Revolutionary war.
Subsequently he served throughout the war of 1812. He was wounded at
Lundy's Lane, and has drawn a pension for fifty-seven years." Mr. Gray,
it may be added, was a native of our Canadian town of Cornwall. His
place of abode in York was in what is now Wellington Street, on the lot
immediately to the west of the old "Council Chamber" (subsequently the
residence of Chief Justice Draper.)