Part 4 (1/2)

Mr. Miles' house was a rendezvous for various purposes. In a _Gazette and Oracle_ of Dec 8, 1798, we read--”The gentlemen of the Town and Garrison are requested to meet at one o'clock, on Monday next, the 10th instant, at Miles' Hotel, in order to arrange the place of the York a.s.semblies for the season. York, Dec 8, 1798.” In another number of the same paper an auction is advertised to take place at Miles' Tavern.

In the _Gazette and Oracle_ of July 13th, 1799, we read the following advertis.e.m.e.nt: ”O. Pierce and Co. have for sale: Best spirits by the puncheon, barrel, or ten gallons, 20s. per gal. Do. by the single gallon, 22s. Rum by the puncheon, barrel, or ten gallons, 18s. per gal.

Brandy by the barrel, 20s. per gal. Port wine by the barrel, 18s. per gal. Do. by single gallon, 20s. per gal. Gin, by the barrel, 18s. per gal. Teas--Hyson, 19s. per lb.; Souchong, 14s. do.; Bohea, 8s. do.

Sugar, best loaf, 3s. 9d. per lb. Lump, 3s. 6d. Raisins, 3s. Figs, 3s.

Salt six dollars per barrel or 12s. per bushel. Also, a few dry goods, shoes, leather, hats, tobacco, snuff, &c., &c. York, July 6, 1799.” These prices appear to be in Halifax currency.

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II.

FRONT STREET, FROM THE MARKET PLACE TO BROCK STREET.

The corner we approach after pa.s.sing the Market Square, was occupied by an inn with a sign-board sustained on a high post inserted at the outer edge of the foot-path, in country roadside fas.h.i.+on. This was Hamilton's, or the White Swan. It was here, we believe, or in an adjoining house, that a travelling citizen of the United States, in possession of a collection of stuffed birds and similar objects, endeavoured at an early period to establish a kind of Natural History Museum. To the collection here was once rashly added figures, in wax, of General Jackson and some other United States notabilities, all in grand costume. Several of these were one night abstracted from the Museum by some over-patriotic youths, and suspended by the neck from the limbs of one of the large trees that over-looked the harbour.

Just beyond was the Steamboat Hotel, long known as Ulick Howard's, remarkable for the spirited delineation of a steam-packet of vast dimensions, extending the whole length of the building, just over the upper verandah of the hotel. In 1828, Mr. Howard is offering to let his hotel, in the following terms:--”Steamboat Hotel, York, U. C.--The proprietor of this elegant establishment, now unrivalled in this part of the country, being desirous of retiring from Public Business, on account of ill-health in his family, will let the same for a term of years to be agreed on, either with or without the furniture. The Establishment is now too well-known to require comment. N. B. Security will be required for the payment of the Rent, and the fulfilment of the contract in every respect. Apply to the subscriber on the premises. U. Howard, York, Oct 8th, 1828.”

A little further on was the Ontario House, a hotel built in a style common then at the Falls of Niagara and in the United States. A row of lofty pillars, well-grown pines in fact, stripped and smoothly planed, reached from the ground to the eaves, and supported two tiers of galleries, which, running behind the columns, did not interrupt their vertical lines.

Close by the Ontario House, Market Street from the west entered Front Street at an acute angle. In the gore between the two streets, a building sprang up, which, in conforming to its site, a.s.sumed the shape of a coffin. The foot of this ominous structure was the office where travellers booked themselves for various parts in the stages that from time to time started from York. It took four days to reach Niagara in 1816. We are informed by a contemporary advertis.e.m.e.nt now before us, that ”on the 20th of September next [1816], a stage will commence running between York and Niagara: it will leave York every Monday, and arrive at Niagara on Thursday; and leave Queenston every Friday. The baggage is to be considered at the risk of the owner, and the fare to be paid in advance.” In 1824, the mails were conveyed the same distance, _via_ Ancaster, in three days. In a post-office advertis.e.m.e.nt for tenders, signed ”William Allan, P. M.,” we have the statement: ”The mails are made up here [York] on the afternoon of Monday and Thursday, and must be delivered at Niagara on the Wednesday and Sat.u.r.day following; and within the same period in returning.” In 1835, Mr.

William Weller was the proprietor of a line of stages between Toronto and Hamilton, known as the ”Telegraph Line.” In an advertis.e.m.e.nt before us, he engages to take pa.s.sengers ”through by daylight, on the Lake Road, during the winter season.”

Communication with England was at this period a tedious process. So late as 1836, Mrs. Jameson thus writes in her Journal at Toronto (i. 182): ”It is now seven weeks since the date of the last letters from my dear far-distant home. The Archdeacon,” she adds, ”told me, by way of comfort, that when he came to settle in this country, there was only one mail-post from England in the course of a whole year, and it was called, as if in mockery, the Express.” To this ”Express” we have a reference in a post-office advertis.e.m.e.nt to be seen in a _Quebec Gazette_ of 1792: ”A mail for the Upper Countries, comprehending Niagara and Detroit, will be closed,” it says, ”at this office, on Monday, the 30th inst., at 4 o'clock in the evening, to be forwarded from Montreal by the annual winter Express, on Thursday, the 3rd of Feb. next.” From the same paper we learn that on the 10th of November, the latest date from Philadelphia and New York was Oct. 8th: also, that a weekly conveyance had lately been established between Montreal and Burlington, Vermont. In the _Gazette_ of Jan. 13, 1808, we have the following: ”For the information of the Public.--York, 12th Jan., 1808.--The first mail from Lower Canada is arrived, and letters are ready to be delivered by W. Allan, Acting-Deputy-Postmaster.”

Compare all this with advertis.e.m.e.nts in Toronto daily papers now, from agencies in the town, of ”Through Lines” weekly, to California, Vancouver's, China and j.a.pan, connecting with Lines to Australia and New Zealand.

On the beach below the Steamboat Hotel was, at a late period, a market for the sale of fish. It was from this spot that Bartlett, in his ”Canadian Scenery,” made one of the sketches intended to convey to the English eye an impression of the town. In the foreground are groups of conventional, and altogether too picturesque, fishwives and squaws: in the distance is the junction of Hospital Street and Front Street, with the tapering building between. On the right are the galleries of what had been the Steamboat Hotel; it here bears another name.

Bartlett's second sketch is from the end of a long wharf or jetty to the west. The large building in front, with a covered pa.s.sage through it for vehicles, is the warehouse or freight depot of Mr. William Cooper, long the owner of this favourite landing place. Westwards, the pillared front of the Ontario house is to be seen. Both of these views already look quaint, and possess a value as preserving a shadow of much that no longer exists.

Where Mr. Cooper's Wharf joined the sh.o.r.e there was a s.h.i.+p-building yard. We have a recollection of a launch that strangely took place here on a Sunday. An attempt to get the s.h.i.+p into the water on the preceding day had failed. Delay would have occasioned an awkward settling of the ponderous ma.s.s. We shall have occasion hereafter to speak of the early s.h.i.+pping of the harbour.

The lot extending northward from the Ontario House corner to King street was the property of Attorney-General Macdonell, who, while in attendance on General Brock as Provincial aide-de-camp, was slain in the engagement on Queenston Heights. His death created the vacancy to which, at an unusually early age, succeeded Mr. John Beverley Robinson, afterwards the distinguished Chief Justice of Upper Canada. Mr. Macdonell's remains are deposited with those of his military chief under the column on Queenston Heights. He bequeathed the property to which our attention has been directed, to a youthful nephew, Mr. James Macdonell, on certain conditions, one of which was that he should be educated in the tenets of the Anglican Church, notwithstanding the Roman Catholic persuasion of the rest of the family.

The track for wheels that here descended to the water's edge from the north, Church Street subsequently, was long considered a road remote from the business part of the town, like the road leading southward from Charing-cross, as shewn in Ralph Aggas' early map of London. A row of frame buildings on its eastern side, in the direction of King Street, perched high on cedar posts over excavations generally filled with water, remained in an unfinished state until the whole began to be out of the perpendicular and to become gray with the action of the weather.

It was evidently a premature undertaking; the folly of an over-sanguine speculator. Yonge street beyond, where it approached the sh.o.r.e of the harbour, was unfrequented. In spring and autumn it was a notorious slough. In 1830, a small sum would have purchased any of the building lots on either side of Yonge Street, between Front Street and Market Street.

Between Church Street and Yonge Street, now, we pa.s.s a short street uniting Front Street with Wellington Street. Like Salisbury, Cecil, Craven and other short but famous streets off the Strand, it retains the name of the distinguished person whose property it traversed in the first instance. It is called Scott Street, from Chief Justice Thomas Scott, whose residence and grounds were here.

Mr. Scott was one of the venerable group of early personages of whom we shall have occasion to speak. He was a man of fine culture, and is spoken of affectionately by those who knew him. His stature was below the average. A heavy, overhanging forehead intensified the thoughtful expression of his countenance, which belonged to the cla.s.s suggested by the current portraits of the United States jurist, Kent. We sometimes, to this day, fall in with books from his library, bearing his familiar autograph.

Mr. Scott was the first chairman and president of the ”Loyal and Patriotic Society of Upper Canada,” organized at York in 1812. His name consequently appears often in the Report of that a.s.sociation, printed by William Gray in Montreal in 1817. The objects of the Society were ”to afford relief and aid to disabled militiamen and their families: to reward merit, excite emulation, and commemorate glorious exploits, by bestowing medals and other honorary marks of public approbation and distinction for extraordinary instances of personal courage and fidelity in defence of the Province.” The preface to the Report mentions that ”the sister-colony of Nova Scotia, excited by the barbarous conflagration of the town of Newark and the devastation on that frontier, had, by a legislative act, contributed largely to the relief of this Province.”

In an appeal to the British public, signed by Chief Justice Scott, it is stated that ”the subscription of the town of York amounted in a few days to eight hundred and seventy-five pounds five s.h.i.+llings, Provincial currency, dollars at five s.h.i.+llings each, to be paid annually during the war; and that at Kingston to upwards of four hundred pounds.”

Medals were struck in London by order of the Loyal and Patriotic Society of Upper Canada; but they were never distributed. The difficulty of deciding who were to receive them was found to be too great. They were defaced and broken up in York, with such rigour that not a solitary specimen is known to exist. Rumours of one lurking somewhere, continue to this day, to tantalize local numismatists. What became of the bullion of which they were composed used to be one of the favourite vexed questions among the old people of York. Its value doubtless was added to the surplus that remained of the funds of the Society, which, after the year 1817, were devoted to benevolent objects. To the building fund of the York General Hospital, we believe, a considerable donation was made.

The medal, we are told, was two and one-half inches in diameter. On the obverse, within a wreath of laurel, were the words ”FOR MERIT.” On this side was also the legend: ”PRESENTED BY A GRATEFUL COUNTRY.” On the reverse was the following elaborate device: A strait between two lakes: on the North side a beaver (emblem of peaceful industry), the ancient cognizance of Canada: in the background an English Lion slumbering. On the South side of the Strait, the American eagle planing in the air, as if checked from seizing the Beaver by the presence of the Lion. Legend on this side: ”UPPER CANADA PRESERVED.”

Scott Street conducts to the site, on the north side of Hospital Street, westward of the home of Mr. James Baby, and, eastward, to that of Mr.