Part 3 (1/2)

”January 2nd, 1830.”

The foregoing is clipped from an old number of the Christian Guardian.]

Marshall Spring Bidwell was Speaker to the a.s.sembly, and the following formed the Executive Council:-J. Baby, Inspector-General; John H. Dunn, Receiver-General; Henry John Boulton, Attorney-General; and Christopher A. Hagerman, Solicitor-General. On the opening of the House, the address was replied to by the Governor in one of the briefest speeches ever listened to on the floor of the Legislative a.s.sembly: ”Gentlemen of the House of a.s.sembly, I thank you for your Address.” The expense of Hansards would not be very considerable if the legislators of the present day followed the example of such brevity as this.

Any one looking over the Journals of the Second Session of the Tenth Parliament will see that there was a liberal bill of fare provided. Every member had at least one pet.i.tion to present, and altogether there were one hundred and fifty-one presented, some of which read strangely in the light of the present day. Among them was one from Addington, praying that means might be adopted ”to secure these Provinces the trade of the West Indies, free from the United States compet.i.tion.” Another was from the Midland District, praying that an Act be pa.s.sed to prevent itinerant preachers from coming over from the United States and spreading sedition, &c.; and another from Hastings, to dispose of the Clergy Reserves. ”Mr. McKenzie gives notice that he will to-morrow move for leave to bring in a bill to establish finger posts;” and a few years later these ”finger posts” could be seen at all the princ.i.p.al cross- roads in the Province. Among the bills there was a tavern and shop license bill; a bill establis.h.i.+ng the Kingston Bank with a capital of L100,000; a bill authorizing a grant of L57,412 10s, for the relief of sufferers in the American War; and one authorizing a grant to the Kingston Benevolent Society, and also to the York Hospital and Dispensary established the year before. Among the one hundred and thirty-seven bills pa.s.sed by the House of a.s.sembly, nearly one hundred were rejected by the Legislative Council, which shows how near the two Houses had come to a dead-lock. In other respects there was nothing remarkable about the session. The really most important thing done was the formation of Agricultural Societies, and the aid granted them. But in looking over the returns asked for, and the grievance motions brought forward from time to time, one can see the gathering of the storm that broke upon the country in 1837-8, and, however much that outbreak is to be deplored, it hastened, no doubt, the settlement of the vexed questions which had agitated the public mind for years. The union of the two Provinces, Upper and Lower Canada, followed in 1841, and in 1867 Confederation took place, when our Province lost its old appellation, and has ever since been known as the Province of Ontario-the keystone Province of the Confederation.

It was in 1830 that the name of Robert Baldwin first appeared in the list of members, and of the forty-five persons who represented the Province at that time I do not know that one survives. The death of George IV. brought about a dissolution, and an election took place in October. There was considerable excitement, and a good many seats changed occupants, but the Family Compact party were returned to power.

A general election in those days was a weighty matter, because of the large extent of the const.i.tuencies, and the distance the widely- scattered electors had to travel-often over roads that were almost impa.s.sable-to exercise their franchise. There was but one polling place in each county, and that was made as central as possible for the convenience of the people. Often two weeks elapsed before all the votes could be got in, and during the contest it was not an uncommon thing for one side or the other to make an effort to get possession of the poll, and keep their opponents from voting. This frequently led to disgraceful fights, when sticks and stones were used with a freedom that would have done no discredit to Irish faction fights in their palmiest days. Happily, this is all changed now. The numerous polling places prevent a crowd of excited men from collecting together. Voters have but a short distance to go, and the whole thing is accomplished with ease in a day. Our representation, both for the Dominion and Provincial Parliaments, is now based upon population, and the older and more densely-populated counties are divided into ridings, so that the forty-eight counties and some cities and towns return to the Ontario Government eighty-eight members.

Fifty years ago the Post Office Department was under the control of the British Government, and Thomas A. Stayner was Deputy Postmaster General of British North America. Whatever else the Deputy may have had to complain of, he certainly could not grumble at the extent of territory under his jurisdiction. The gross receipts of the Department were L8,029 2s 6d. [Footnote: I am indebted to W.H. Griffin, Esq., Deputy Postmaster General, for information, kindly furnished, respecting the Post Office Department, &c.] There were ninety-one post offices in Upper Canada. On the main line between York and Montreal the mails were carried by a public stage, and in spring and fall, owing to the bad roads, and even in winter, with its storms and snow-drifts, its progress was slow, and often difficult. There are persons still living who remember many a weary hour and trying adventure between these points. Pa.s.sengers, almost perished with cold or famished with hunger, were often forced to trudge through mud and slush up to their knees, because the jaded horses could barely pull the empty vehicle through the mire or up the weary hill. They were frequently compelled to alight and grope around in impenetrable darkness and beating storm for rails from a neighbouring fence, with which to pry the wheels out of a mud-hole, into which they had, to all appearance, hopelessly sunk, or to dig themselves out of snow banks in which both horses and stage were firmly wedged. If they were so fortunate as to escape these mishaps, the deep ruts and corduroy bridges tried their powers of endurance to the utmost, and made the old coach creak and groan under the strain. Sometimes it toppled over with a crash, leaving the worried pa.s.sengers to find shelter, if they could, in the nearest farm-house, until the damage was repaired. But with good roads and no break-downs they were enabled to spank along at the rate of seventy-five miles in a day, which was considered rapid travelling. Four-and-a-half days were required, and often more; to reach Montreal from York. A merchant posting a letter from the latter place, under the most favourable circ.u.mstances, could not get a reply from Montreal in less than ten days, or sometimes fifteen; and from Quebec the time required was from three weeks to a month. The English mails were brought by sailing vessels. Everything moved in those days with slow and uneven pace. The other parts of the Province were served by couriers on horseback, who announced their approach with blast of tin horn. That the offices were widely separated in most cases may be judged from their number. I recently came upon an entry made by my father in an old account book against his father's estate: ”To one day going to the post office, 3s 9d.” The charge, looked at in the light of these days, certainly is not large, but the idea of taking a day to go to and from a post office struck me as a good ill.u.s.tration of the inconveniences endured in those days. The correspondent, at that time, had never been blessed with a vision of the coming envelope, but carefully folded his sheet of paper into the desired shape, pushed one end of the fold into the other, and secured it with a wafer or sealing-wax. Envelopes, now universally used, were not introduced until about 1845-50, and even blotting paper, that indispensable requisite on every writing-table, was unknown. Every desk had its sand-box, filled with fine dry sand, which the writer sprinkled over his sheet to absorb the ink. Sometimes, at a pinch, ashes were used. Goose quill was the only pen. There was not such a thing, I suppose, as a steel pen in the Province. Gillott and Perry had invented them in 1828; but they were sold at $36 a gross, and were too expensive to come into general use. Neither was there such a thing as a bit of india rubber, so very common now. Erasures had to be made with a knife. Single rates of letter postage were, for distances not exceeding 60 miles, 4 1/2 d; not exceeding 100 miles, 7d; and not over 200 miles, 9d, increasing 2 1/4 d on every additional 100 miles. Letters weighing less than one ounce were rated as single, double or treble, as they consisted of one, two or more sheets. If weighing an ounce, or over, the charge was a single rate for every quarter of an ounce in weight.

How is it now? The Post Office Department has been for many years under the control of our Government. There are in Ontario 2,353 Post-Offices, with a revenue of $914,382. The mails are carried by rail to all the princ.i.p.al points, and to outlying places and country villages by stage, and by couriers in light vehicles, with much greater despatch, owing to the improved condition of the highways. A letter of not over half an ounce in weight can be sent from Halifax to Vancouver for three cents. A book weighing five pounds can be sent the same distance for twenty cents, and parcels and samples at equally low rates. To England the rate for half an ounce is five cents, and for every additional half-ounce a single rate is added. Postage stamps and cards, the money order system, and Post Office savings banks have all been added since 1851. The merchant of Toronto can post a letter to-day, and get a reply from London; England, in less time than he could in the old days from Quebec. In 1830 correspondence was expensive and tedious. Letters were written only under the pressure of necessity. Now every one writes, and the number of letters and the revenue have increased a thousand fold. The steams.h.i.+p, locomotive and telegraph, all the growth of the last half century, have not only almost annihilated time and s.p.a.ce, but have changed the face of the world. It is true there were steamboats running between York and Kingston on the Bay of Quinte and the St. Lawrence prior to 1830; but after that date they increased rapidly in number, and were greatly improved. It was on the 15th of September of that year that George Stephenson ran the first locomotive over the line between Liverpool and Manchester-a distance of thirty miles-so that fifty years ago this was the only railway with a locomotive in the world-a fact that can hardly be realised when the number of miles now in operation, and the vast sums of money expended in their construction, are considered. What have these agents done for us, apart from the wonderful impetus given to trade and commerce? You can post to your correspondent at Montreal at 6 p.m., and your letter is delivered at 11 a.m., and the next day at noon you have your answer. You take up your morning's paper, and you have the news from the very antipodes every day. The merchant has quotations placed before him, daily and hourly, from every great commercial centre in the world; and even the sporting man can deposit his money here, and have his bet booked in London the day before.

From the first discovery of the country up to 1800, a period of about three hundred years, the bark canoe was the only mode of conveyance for long distances. Governor Simcoe made his journeys from Kingston to Detroit in a large bark canoe, rowed by twelve cha.s.seurs, followed by another containing the tents and provisions. The cost of conveying merchandise between Kingston and Montreal before the Rideau and St. Lawrence ca.n.a.ls were built is hardly credible to people of this day. Sir J. Murray stated in the House of Commons, in 1828, that the carriage of a twenty-four pound cannon cost between L150 and L200 sterling. In the early days of the Talbot Settlement (about 1817), Mr. Ermatinger states that eighteen bushels of wheat were required to pay for one barrel of salt, and that one bushel of wheat would no more than pay for one yard of cotton.

Our fathers did not travel much, and there was a good reason, as we have seen, why they did not. The ordinary means of transit was the stage, which Mrs. Jameson describes as a ”heavy lumbering vehicle, well calculated to live in roads where any decent carriage must needs founder.” Another kind, used on rougher roads, consisted of ”large oblong wooden boxes, formed of a few planks nailed together, and placed on wheels, in which you enter by the window, there being no door to open or shut, and no springs.” On two or three wooden seats, suspended in leather straps, the pa.s.sengers were perched. The behaviour of the better sort, in a journey from Niagara to Hamilton, is described by this writer as consisting of a ”rolling and tumbling along the detestable road, pitching like a scow among the breakers of a lake storm.” The road was knee-deep in mud, the ”forest on either side dark, grim, and impenetrable.” There were but three or four steamboats in existence, and these were not much more expeditious. Fares were high. The rate from York to Montreal was about $24. Nearly the only people who travelled were the merchants and officials, and they were not numerous. The former often took pa.s.sage on sailing vessels or batteaux, and if engaged in the lumber trade, as many of them were, they went down on board their rafts and returned in the batteaux. ”These boats were flat-bottomed, and made of pine boards, narrowed at bow and stern, forty feet by six, with a crew of four men and a pilot, provided with oars, sails, and iron-shod poles for pus.h.i.+ng. They continued to carry, in cargoes of five tons, all the merchandise that pa.s.sed to Upper Canada. Sometimes these boats were provided with a makes.h.i.+ft upper cabin, which consisted of an awning of oilcloth, supported on hoops like the roof of an American, Quaker, or gipsy waggon. If further provided with half a dozen chairs and a table, this cabin was deemed the height of primitive luxury. The batteaux went in brigades, which generally consisted of five boats. Against the swiftest currents and rapids the men poled their way up; and when the resisting element was too much for their strength, they fastened a rope to the bow, and, plunging into the water, dragged her by main strength up the boiling cataract. From Lachine to Kingston, the average voyage was ten to twelve days, though it was occasionally made in seven; an average as long as a voyage across the Atlantic now. The Durham boat, also then doing duty on this route, was a flat-bottomed barge, but it differed from the batteaux in having a slip-keel and nearly twice its capacity. This primitive mode of travelling had its poetic side. Amid all the hards.h.i.+ps of their vocation, the French Canadian boatmen were ever light of spirit, and they enlivened the pa.s.sage by carolling their boat songs; one of which inspired Moore to write his immortal ballad.” [Footnote: Trout's Railways of Canada, 1870-1.]

The country squire, if he had occasion to go from home, mounted his horse, and, with his saddle-bags strapped behind him, jogged along the highway or through the bush at the rate of forty or fifty miles a day. I remember my father going to New York in 1839. He crossed by steamboat from Kingston to Oswego; thence to Rome, in New York State, by ca.n.a.l- boat, and thence by rail and steamer to New York.

CHAPTER VI.

ROAD-MAKING-WELLER'S LINE OF STAGES AND STEAMBOATS-MY TRIP FROM HAMILTON TO NIAGARA-SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES-PIONEER METHODIST PREACHERS -SOLEMNIZATION OF MATRIMONY-LITERATURE AND LIBRARIES-WEEKLY NEWSPAPERS -PRIMITIVE EDITORIAL ARTICLES.

The people were alive at a very early date to the importance of improving the roads; and as far back as 1793 an Act was pa.s.sed at Niagara, then the seat of government, placing the roads under overseers or road-masters, as they were called, appointed by the ratepaying inhabitants at their annual town meetings. Every man was required to bring tools, and to work from three to twelve days. There was no property distinction, and the time was at the discretion of the roadmaster. This soon gave cause for dissatisfaction, and reasonably, for it was hardly fair to expect a poor man to contribute as much toward the improvement of highways as his rich neighbour. The Act was amended, and the number of days' work determined by the a.s.sessment roll. The power of opening new roads, or altering the course of old ones, was vested in the Quarter Sessions. This matter is now under the control of the County Councils. The first government appropriation for roads was made in 1804, when L1,000 was granted; but between 1830-33, $512,000 was provided for the improvement and opening up of new roads. The road from Kingston to York was contracted for by Dantford, an American, in 1800, at $90 per mile, two rods wide. The first Act required that every man should clear a road across his own lot, but it made no provision for the Clergy Reserves and Crown Lands, and hence the crooked roads that existed at one time in the Province. Originally the roads were marked out by blazing the trees through the woods as a guide for the pedestrian. Then the boughs were cut away, so that a man could ride through on horseback. Then followed the sleighs; and finally the trees were cleared off, so that a waggon could pa.s.s. ”The great leading roads of the Province had received little improvement beyond being graded, and the swamps [had been] made pa.s.sable by laying the round trunks of trees side by side across the roadway. Their supposed resemblance to the king's corduroy cloth gained for these crossways the name of corduroy roads. The earth roads were pa.s.sably good when covered with the snows of winter, or when dried up in the summer sun; but even then a thaw or rain made them all but impa.s.sable. The rains of autumn and the thaws of spring converted them into a ma.s.s of liquid mud, such as amphibious animals might delight to revel in. Except an occasional legislative grant of a few thousand pounds for the whole Province, which was ill- expended, and often not accounted for at all, the great leading roads, as well as all other roads, depended, in Upper Canada, for their improvement on statute labour.” [Footnote: II.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE OLD SCHOOL HOUSE.]

The Rev. Isaac Fidler, writing in 1831, says: ”On our arrival at Oswego, I proceeded to the harbour in quest of a trading vessel bound for York, in Canada, and had the good fortune to find one that would sail in an hour. I agreed with the captain for nine dollars, for myself, family, and baggage, and he on his part a.s.sured me that he would land me safe in twenty-four hours. Our provision was included in the fare. Instead of reaching York in one day, we were five days on the lake. There were two pa.s.sengers, besides ourselves, equally disappointed and impatient. The cabin of the vessel served for the sitting, eating, and sleeping room of pa.s.sengers, captain and crew. I expostulated strongly on this usage, but the captain informed me he had no alternative. The place commonly a.s.signed to sailors had not been fitted up. We were forced to tolerate this inconvenience. The sailors slept on the floor, and a.s.signed the berths to the pa.s.sengers, but not from choice. The food generally placed before us for dinner was salt pork, potatoes, bread, water and salt; tea, bread and b.u.t.ter, and sometimes salt pork for breakfast and tea;” to which he adds, ”no supper.” One would think, under the circ.u.mstances, this privation would have been a cause for thankfulness.

The same writer speaks of a journey to Montreal the following year: ”From York to Montreal, we had three several alterations of steamboats and coaches. The steamboat we now entered was moored by a ledge of ice, of a thickness so great as to conceal entirely the vessel, till we approached close upon it. We embarked by steps excavated in the ice, for the convenience of the pa.s.sengers.”

The following advertis.e.m.e.nt, from the Christian Guardian of 1830, may prove not uninteresting as an evidence of the compet.i.tion then existing between the coach and steamboat, and is pretty conclusive that at that date the latter was not considered very much superior or more expeditious:

”NEW LINE OF STAGES AND STEAMBOATS FROM YORK TO PRESCOTT.

”The public are respectfully informed that a line of stages will run regularly between YORK and the CARRYING PLACE, [Footnote: The Carrying Place is at the head of the Bay of Quinte.] twice a week, the remainder of the season, leaving YORK every MONDAY and THURSDAY morning at 4 o'clock; pa.s.sing through the beautiful towns.h.i.+ps of Pickering, Whitby, Darlington and Clark, and the pleasant villages of Port Hope; Cobourg and Colborne, and arriving at the CARRYING PLACE the same evening. Will leave the CARRYING PLACE every TUESDAY and FRIDAY morning at 4 o'clock, and arrive at York the same evening.

”The above arrangements are made in connection with the steamboat Sir James Kempt, so that pa.s.sengers travelling this route will find a pleasant and speedy conveyance between York and Prescott, the road being very much repaired, and the line fitted up with good horses, new carriages, and careful drivers. Fare through from York to Prescott, L2 10s, the same as the lake boats. Intermediate distances, fare as usual. All baggage at the risk of the owner. N.B.-Extras furnished at York, Cobourg, or the Carrying Place, on reasonable terms.

”WILLIAM WELLER.

”York, June 9th. 1830.”

I remember travelling from Hamilton to Niagara in November, 1846. We left the hotel at 6 p.m. Our stage, for such it was called, was a lumber waggon, with a rude canvas cover to protect us from the rain, under which were four seats, and I have a distinct recollection that long before we got to our journey's end we discovered that they were not very comfortable. There were seven pa.s.sengers and the driver. The luggage was corded on behind in some fas.h.i.+on, and under the seats were crowded parcels, so that when we got in we found it difficult to move or to get out. One of our pa.s.sengers, a woman with a young child, did not contribute to our enjoyment, or make the ride any more pleasant, for the latter poor unfortunate screamed nearly the whole night through. Occasionally it would settle down into a low whine, when a sudden lurch of the waggon or a severe jolt would set it off again with full force. The night was very dark, and continued so throughout, with dashes of rain. The roads were very bad, and two or three times we had to get out and walk, a thing we did not relish, as it was almost impossible for us to pick our way, and the only thing for it was to push on as well as we could through the mud and darkness. We reached Niagara just as the sun was rising. Our appearance can readily be imagined.