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 illustrated 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 passing.
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, entitled
_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 Assembly. A
Parliament had just expired. He offered some strictures on its
proceedings, in an address to his late constituents. 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 Canal has its name, was, in
1805, a clerk in the employment of Mr. Durand. (Omitted elsewhere, we
insert here a passing notice of Mr. J. M. Cawdell, another
well-remembered local pioneer of literature. He published for a short
time a magazine of light reading, entitled 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 friendship 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 Washington. 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 Washington, 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," asserts 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 noble 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
fishing 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 friendship 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 institution
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 associated the recollection, not only of the president,
so long identified with the Bank of Upper Canada, but of the financier,
Mr. Cassells, 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 institution, but in vain, although for a series of years after being
pronounced 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 passing, to offer a tribute to
the memory of a man of such genuine worth as was Mr. Murray, although
the singular unobtrusiveness 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 principal 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 institution, 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
institution, 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 residentership 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
passenger 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 class 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 L100. Its value in 1873 may be L100,000.
The house of comparatively modern date, seen next after Mr. Bostwick, is
associated 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 midshipman. 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 pass 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 "Cumberland," 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
Staffordshire, 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 passed 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 altitude, 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 shipbuilder
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 space 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-cock. 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.
The original St. Paul's before it acquired in this singular manner the
dignified appurtenance of a steeple, was a long, low, barn-like, wooden
building. Mr. Howard otherwise improved it, enlarging it by the addition
of an aisle on the west side. When some twenty years later, viz., in
1861, the new stone church was erected, the old wooden structure was
removed bodily to the west side of Yonge Street, together with the
tower, curtailed, however, of its spire.
We have been informed that the four fine stems, each eighty-five feet
long, which formed the interior frame of the tower and spire of 1841,
were a present from Mr. Allan, of Moss Park; and that the Rev. Charles
Matthews, occasionally officiating in St. Paul's, gave one hundred
pounds in cash towards the expense of the ornamental addition now made
to the edifice.