Part 3 (1/2)

On our first visit to Southampton, many years ago, we remember observing a resemblance between the walk to the river Itchen, shaded by trees and commanding a wide water-view on the south, and the margin of the harbour of York.

In the interval between the points where now Princes Street and Caroline Street descend to the water's edge, was a favourite landing-place for the small craft of the bay--a wide and clean gravelly beach, with a convenient ascent to the cliff above. Here, on fine mornings, at the proper season, skiffs and canoes, log and birch-bark were to be seen putting in, weighed heavily down with fish, speared or otherwise taken during the preceding night, in the lake, bay, or neighbouring river.

Occasionally a huge sturgeon would be landed, one struggle of which might suffice to upset a small boat. Here were to be purchased in quant.i.ties, salmon, pickerel, masquelonge, whitefish and herrings; with the smaller fry of perch, ba.s.s and sunfish. Here, too, would be displayed unsightly catfish, suckers, lampreys, and other eels; and sometimes lizards, young alligators for size. Specimens, also, of the curious steel-clad, inflexible, vicious-looking pipe-fish were not uncommon. About the submerged timbers of the wharves this creature was often to be seen--at one moment stationary and still, like the dragon-fly or humming-bird poised on the wing, then, like those nervous denizens of the air, giving a sudden dart off to the right or left, without curving its body.

Across the bay, from this landing-place, a little to the eastward, was the narrowest part of the peninsula, a neck of sand, dest.i.tute of trees, known as the portage or carrying-place, where, from time immemorial, canoes and small boats were wont to be transferred to and from the lake.

Along the bank, above the landing-place, Indian encampments were occasionally set up. Here, in comfortless wigwams, we have seen Dr. Lee, a medical man attached to the Indian department, administering from an ordinary tin cup, nauseous but salutary draughts to sick and convalescent squaws. It was the duty of Dr. Lee to visit Indian settlements and prescribe for the sick. In the discharge of his duty he performed long journeys, on horseback, to Penetanguishene and other distant posts, carrying with him his drugs and apparatus in saddle-bags.

When advanced in years, and somewhat disabled in regard to activity of movement, Dr. Lee was attached to the Parliamentary staff as Usher of the Black Rod.--The locality at which we are glancing suggests the name of another never-to-be-forgotten medical man, whose home and property were close at hand. This is the eminent surgeon and physician, Christopher Widmer.

It is to be regretted that Dr. Widmer left behind him no written memorials of his long and varied experience. Before his settlement in York, he had been a staff cavalry surgeon, on active service during the campaigns in the Peninsula. A personal narrative of his public life would have been full of interest. But his ambition was content with the homage of his contemporaries, rich and poor, rendered with sincerity to his pre-eminent abilities and inextinguishable zeal as a surgeon and physician. Long after his retirement from general practice, he was every day to be seen pa.s.sing to and from the old Hospital on King Street, conveyed in his well-known cabriolet, and guiding with his own hand the reins conducted in through the front window of the vehicle. He had now attained a great age; but his slender form continued erect; the hat was worn jauntily, as in other days, and the dress was ever scrupulously exact; the expression of the face in repose was somewhat abstracted and sad, but a quick smile appeared at the recognition of friends. The ordinary engravings of Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, recall in some degree the countenance of Dr. Widmer. Within the General Hospital, a portrait of him is appropriately preserved. One of the earliest, and at the same time one of the most graceful lady-equestrians ever seen in York was this gentleman's accomplished wife. At a later period a sister of Mr. Justice Willis was also conspicuous as a skilful and fearless horse-woman. The description in the Percy Anecdotes of the Princess Amelia, youngest daughter of George II., is curiously applicable to the last-named lady, who united to the amiable peculiarities indicated, talents and virtues of the highest order. ”She,” the brothers Sholto and Reuben say, ”was of a masculine turn of mind, and evinced this strikingly enough in her dress and manners: she generally wore a riding-habit in the German fas.h.i.+on with a round hat; and delighted very much in attending her stables, particularly when any of the horses were out of order.” At a phenomenon such as this, suddenly appearing in their midst, the staid and simple-minded society of York stood for a while aghast.

In the _Loyalist_ of Nov. 15, 1828, we have the announcement of a Medical partners.h.i.+p entered into between Dr. Widmer and Dr. Diehl. It reads thus: ”Doctor Widmer, finding his professional engagements much extended of late, and occasionally too arduous for one person, has been induced to enter into partners.h.i.+p with Doctor Diehl, a respectable pract.i.tioner, late of Montreal. It is expected that their united exertions will prevent in future any disappointment to Dr. Widmer's friends, both in Town and Country. Dr. Diehl's residence is at present at Mr. Hayes' Boarding-house. York, Oct. 28, 1828.” Dr. Diehl died at Toronto, March 5, 1868.

At the south-west corner of Princes Street, near where we are now supposing ourselves to be, was a building popularly known as Russell Abbey. It was the house of the Hon. Peter Russell, and, after his decease, of his maiden sister, Miss Elizabeth Russell, a lady of great refinement, who survived her brother many years. The edifice, like most of the early homes of York, was of one storey only; but it exhibited in its design a degree of elegance and some peculiarities. To a central building were attached wings with gables to the south: the windows had each an architectural decoration or pediment over it. It was this feature, we believe, that was supposed to give to the place something of a monastic air; to ent.i.tle it even to the name of ”Abbey.” In front, a dwarf stone wall with a light wooden paling surrounded a lawn, on which grew tall acacias or locusts. Mr. Russell was a remote scion of the Bedford Russells. He apparently desired to lay the foundation of a solid landed estate in Upper Canada. His position as Administrator, on the departure of the first Governor of the Province, gave him facilities for the selection and acquisition of wild lands. The duality necessarily a.s.sumed in the wording of the Patents by which the Administrator made grants to himself, seems to have been regarded by some as having a touch of the comic in it. Hence among the early people of these parts the name of Peter Russell was occasionally to be heard quoted good-humouredly, not malignantly, as an example of ”the man who would do well unto himself.” On the death of Mr. Russell, his property pa.s.sed into the hands of his sister, who bequeathed the whole to Dr. William Warren Baldwin, into whose possession also came the valuable family plate, elaborately embossed with the armorial bearings of the Russells. Russell Hill, long the residence of Admiral Augustus Baldwin, had its name from Mr. Russell, and in one of the elder branches of the Baldwin family, Russell is continued as a baptismal name. In the same family is also preserved an interesting portrait of Mr. Peter Russell himself, from which we can see that he was a gentleman of portly presence, of strongly marked features, of the Thomas Jefferson type. We shall have occasion hereafter to speak frequently of Mr. Russell.

Russell Abbey became afterwards the residence of Bishop Macdonell, a universally-respected Scottish Roman Catholic ecclesiastic, whose episcopal t.i.tle was at first derived from Rhesina _in partibus_, but afterwards from our Canadian Kingston, where his home usually was. His civil duties, as a member of the Legislative Council of Upper Canada, required his presence in York during the Parliamentary sessions. We have in our possession a fine mezzotint of Sir M. A. Shee's portrait of Bishop Macdonell. It used to be supposed by some that the occupancy of Russell Abbey by the Bishop caused the portion of Front Street which lies eastward of the Market-place, to be denominated Palace Street. But the name appears in plans of York of a date many years anterior to that occupancy.

In connection with this mention of Bishop Macdonell, it may be of some interest to add that, in 1826, Thomas Weld, of Lulworth Castle, Dorsets.h.i.+re, was consecrated as his coadjutor, in England, under the t.i.tle of Bishop of Amylae. But it does not appear that he ever came out to Canada. (This was afterwards the well-known English Cardinal.) He had been a layman, and married, up to the year 1825; when, on the death of his wife, he took orders; and in one year he was, as just stated, made a Bishop.

Russell Abbey may indeed have been styled the ”Palace”; but it was probably from being the residence of one who for three years administered the Government; or the name ”Palace Street” itself may have suggested the appellation. ”Palace Street” was no doubt intended to indicate the fact that it led directly to the Government reservation at the end of the Town on which the Parliament houses were erected, and where it was supposed the ”Palais du Gouvernement,” the official residence of the representative of the Sovereign in the Province would eventually be. On an Official Plan of this region, of the year 1810, the Parliament Buildings themselves are styled ”Government House.”

At the laying out of York, however, we find, from the plans, that the name given in the first instance to the Front street of the town was, not Palace Street, but King Street. Modern King Street was then Duke Street, and modern Duke Street, d.u.c.h.ess Street. These street names were intended as loyal compliments to members of the reigning family; to George the Third; to his son the popular Duke of York, from whom, as we shall learn hereafter, the town itself was named; to the d.u.c.h.ess of York, the eldest daughter of the King of Prussia. In the cross streets the same chivalrous devotion to the Hanoverian dynasty was exhibited.

George street, the boundary westward of the first nucleus of York, bore the name of the heir-apparent, George, Prince of Wales. The next street eastward was honoured with the name of his next brother, Frederick, the Duke of York himself. And the succeeding street eastward, Caroline Street, had imposed upon it that of the Princess of Wales, afterwards so unhappily famous as George the Fourth's Queen Caroline. Whilst in Princes Street (for such is the correct orthography, as the old plans show, and not Princess Street, as is generally seen now,) the rest of the male members of the royal family were collectively commemorated, namely, the Duke of Clarence, the Duke of Kent, the Duke of c.u.mberland, the Duke of Suss.e.x, and the Duke of Cambridge.

When the Canadian town of York was first projected, the marriage of the Duke of York with the daughter of the King of Prussia, Frederica Charlotta Ulrica, had only recently been celebrated at Berlin. It was considered at the time an event of importance, and the ceremonies on the occasion are given with some minuteness in the Annual Register for 1791.

We are there informed that ”the supper was served at six tables; that the first was placed under a canopy of crimson velvet, and the victuals (as the record terms them) served on gold dishes and plates; that Lieutenant-General Bornstedt and Count Bruhl had the honour to carve, without being seated, that the other five tables, at which sat the generals, ministers, amba.s.sadors, all the officers of the Court, and the high n.o.bility, were served in other apartments; that supper being over, the a.s.sembly repaired to the White Hall, where the trumpet, timbrel, and other music, were playing; that the flambeau dance was then began, at which the ministers of state carried the torches; that the new couple were attended to their apartment by the reigning Queen and the Queen dowager; that the Duke of York wore on this day the English uniform, and the Princess Frederica a suit of _drap d'argent_, ornamented with diamonds.” In Ashburton's ”New and Complete History of England, from the first settlement of Brutus, upwards of one thousand years before Julius Caesar, to the year 1793,” now lying before us, two full-length portraits of the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess are given.--New York and Albany, in the adjoining State, had their names from t.i.tles of a Duke of York in 1664, afterwards James II. His brother, Charles II., made him a present, by Letters Patent, of all the territory, from the western side of the Connecticut river to the east side of Delaware Bay; that is, of the present States of Connecticut, New York, Delaware, and New Jersey.

On the green sward of the bank between Princes street and George Street, the annual military ”Trainings” on the Fourth of June, ”the old King's birthday,” were wont to take place. At a later period the day of meeting was the 23rd of April, St. George's day, the fete of George IV. Military displays on a grand scale in and about Toronto have not been uncommon in modern times, exciting the enthusiasm of the mult.i.tude that usually a.s.sembles on such occasions. But in no way inferior in point of interest to the unsophisticated youthful eye, half a century ago, unaccustomed to anything more elaborate, were those motley musterings of the militia companies. The costume of the men may have been various, the fire-arms only partially distributed, and those that were to be had not of the brightest hue, nor of the most scientific make; the lines may not always have been perfectly straight, nor their const.i.tuents well matched in height; the obedience to the word of command may not have been rendered with the mechanical precision which we admire at reviews now, nor with that total suppression of dialogue in undertone in the ranks, nor with that absence of remark interchanged between the men and their officers that are customary now. Nevertheless, as a military spectacle, these gatherings and manoeuvres on the gra.s.sy bank here, were effective; they were always antic.i.p.ated with pleasure and contemplated with satisfaction. The officers on these occasions,--some of them mounted--were arrayed in uniforms of antique cut; in red coats with wide black breast lappets and broad tail flaps; high collars, tight sleeves and large cuffs; on the head a black hat, the ordinary high-crowned civilian hat, with a cylindrical feather some eighteen inches high inserted at the top, not in front, but on the left side (whalebone surrounded with feathers from the barnyard, scarlet at the base, white above). Animation was added to the scene by a drum and a few fifes executing with liveliness ”The York Quickstep,” ”The Reconciliation,”

and ”The British Grenadiers.” And then, in addition to the local cavalry corps, there were the clattering scabbards, the blue jackets, and bear-skin helmets of Captain b.u.t.ton's dragoons from Markham and Whitchurch.

Numerously, in the rank and file at these musterings--as well as among the officers, commissioned and non-commissioned--were to be seen men who had quite recently jeopardized their lives in the defence of the country. At the period we are speaking of, only some six or seven years had elapsed since an invasion of Canada from the south. ”The late war,”

for a long while, very naturally, formed a fixed point in local chronology, from which times and seasons were calculated; a fixed point, however, which, to the indifferent new-comer, and even to the indigenous, who, when ”the late war” was in progress, were not in bodily existence, seemed already to belong to a remote past. An impression of the miseries of war, derived from the talk of those who had actually felt them, was very strongly stamped in the minds of the rising generation; an impression accompanied also at the same time with the uncomfortable persuasion derived from the same source, that another conflict was inevitable in due time. The musterings on ”Training-day”

were thus invested with interest and importance in the minds of those who were summoned to appear on these occasions, as also in the minds of the boyish looker-on, who was aware that ere long he would himself be required by law to turn out and take his part in the annual militia evolutions, and perhaps afterwards, possibly at no distant hour, to handle the musket or wield the sword in earnest.

A little further on, in a house at the north-west corner of Frederick Street, a building afterwards utterly destroyed by fire, was born, in 1804, the Hon. Robert Baldwin, son of Dr. William Warren Baldwin, already referred to, and Attorney-General in 1842 for Upper Canada. In the same building, at a later period, (and previously in an humble edifice, at the north-west corner of King Street and Caroline Street, now likewise wholly destroyed,) the foundation was laid, by well-directed and far-sighted ventures in commerce, of the great wealth (locally proverbial) of the Cawthra family, the Astors of Upper Canada, of whom more hereafter. It was also in the same house, prior to its occupation by Mr. Cawthra, senior, that the printing operations of Mr.

William Lyon Mackenzie were carried on at the time of the destruction of his press by a party of young men, who considered it proper to take some spirited notice of the criticisms on the public acts of their fathers, uncles and superiors generally, that appeared every week in the columns of the _Colonial Advocate_; a violent act memorable in the annals of Western Canada, not simply as having been the means of establis.h.i.+ng the fortunes of an indefatigable and powerful journalist, but more notably as presenting an unconscious ill.u.s.tration of a general law, observable in the early development of communities, whereby an element destined to elevate and regenerate is, on its first introduction, resisted, and sought to be crushed physically, not morally; somewhat as the white man's watch was dashed to pieces by the Indian, as though it had been a sentient thing, conspiring in some mysterious way with other things, to promote the ascendancy of the stranger.

The youthful perpetrators of the violence referred to were not long in learning practically the futility of such exploits. Good old Mr. James Baby, on handing to his son Raymond the amount which that youth was required to pay as his share of the heavy damages awarded, as a matter of course, by the jury on the occasion, is said to have added:--”There!

go and make one great fool of yourself again!”--a sarcastic piece of advice that might have been offered to each of the parties concerned.

A few steps northward, on the east side of Frederick Street, was the first Post Office, on the premises of Mr. Allan, who was postmaster; and southward, where this street touches the water, was the Merchants'

Wharf, also the property of Mr. Allan; and the Custom House, where Mr.

Allan was the Collector. We gather also from Calendars of the day that Mr. Allan was likewise Inspector of Flour, Pot and Pearl Ash; and Inspector of Shop, Still and Tavern Duties. In an early, limited condition of society, a man of more than the ordinary apt.i.tude for affairs is required to act in many capacities.

The Merchants' Wharf was the earliest landing-place for the larger craft of the lake. At a later period other wharves or long wooden jetties, extending out into deep water, one of them named the Farmers' Wharf, were built westward. In the shoal water between the several wharves, for a long period, there was annually a dense crop of rushes or flags. The town or county authorities incurred considerable expense, year after year, in endeavouring to eradicate them--but, like the heads of the hydra, they were always re-appearing. In July, 1821, a ”Mr. Coles'

account for his a.s.sistants' labour in destroying rushes in front of the Market Square,” was laid before the County magistrates, and audited, amounting to 13 6_s._ 3_d._ In August of the same year, the minutes of the County Court record that ”Capt. Macaulay, Royal Engineers, offered to cut down the rushes in front of the town between the Merchants' Wharf and Cooper's Wharf, for a sum not to exceed ninety dollars, which would merely be the expense of the men and materials in executing the undertaking: his own time he would give to the public on this occasion, as encouragement to others to endeavour to destroy the rushes when they become a nuisance;” it was accordingly ordered ”that ninety dollars be paid to Capt. Macaulay or his order, for the purpose of cutting down the rushes, according to his verbal undertaking to cut down the same, to be paid out of the Police or District funds in the hands of the Treasurer of the District.”

We have understood that Capt. Macaulay's measures for the extinction of the rank vegetation in the shallow waters of the harbour, proved to be very efficient. The instrument used was a kind of screw grapnel, which, let down from the side of a large scow, laid hold of the rushes at their root and forcibly wrenched them out of the bed of mud below. The entire plant was thus lifted up, and drawn by a windla.s.s into the scow. When a full load of the aquatic weed was collected, it was taken out into the open water of the Lake, and there disposed of.

Pa.s.sing on our way, we soon came to the Market Square. This was a large open s.p.a.ce, with wooden shambles in the middle of it, thirty-six feet long and twenty-four wide, running north and south.