Part 17 (1/2)
Furthermore, china-ware is to be had in small boxes and in sets; also, Suwarrow boots, bootees, and an a.s.sortment of men's, women's and children's shoes, j.a.panned quart mugs, do. tumblers, tipped flutes, violin bows, bra.s.s wire, sickles, iron candlesticks, shoe-makers'
hammers, knives, pincers, pegging awls and tacks, awl-blades, shoe-brushes, copper tea-kettles, snaffle-bits, leather shot belts, horn powder flasks, ivory, horn and crooked combs, mathematical instruments, knives and forks, suspenders, fish-hooks, sleeve-links, sportsmen's knives, lockets, earrings, gold topaz, do., gold watch-chains, gold seals, gold brooches, cut gold rings, plain do., pearl do., silver thimbles, do. teaspoons, sh.e.l.l sleeve b.u.t.tons, silver watches, beads. In stationery there was to be had paste-board, foolscap paper, second do., letter paper, black and red ink powder and wafers.
There was also the following supply of Literature:--Telemachus, Volney's Views, Public Characters, Dr. Whitman's Egypt, Evelina, Cecilia, Lady's Library, Ready Reckoner, Looking Gla.s.s, Franklin's Fair s.e.x, Camilla, Don Raphael, Night Thoughts, Winter Evenings, Voltaire's Life, Joseph Andrews, Walker's Geography, Bonaparte and the French People, Voltaire's Tales, Fisher's Companion, Modern Literature, Eccentric Biography, Naval do., Martial do., Fun, Criminal Records, Entick's Dictionary, Gordon's America, Thompson's Family Physician, Sheridan's Dictionary, Johnson's do., Wilson's Egypt, Denon's Travels, Travels of Cyrus, Stephani de Bourbon, Alexis, Pocket Library, Every Man's Physician, Citizen of the World, Taplin's Farriery, Farmer's Boy, Romance of the Forest, Grandison, Campbell's Narrative, Paul and Virginia, Adelaide de Sincere, Emelini, Monk, Abbess, Evening Amus.e.m.e.nt, Children of the Abbey, Tom Jones, Vicar of Wakefield, Sterne's Journey, Abelard and Eloisa, Ormond, Caroline, Mercutio, Julia and Baron, Minstrel, H. Villars, De Valcourt, J. Smith, Charlotte Temple, Theodore Chypon, What has Been, Elegant Extracts in Prose and Verse, J. and J. Jessamy, Chinese Tales, New Gazetteer, Smollett's Works, Cabinet of Knowledge, Devil on Sticks, Arabian Tales, Goldsmith's Essays, Bragg's Cookery, Tooke's Pantheon, Boyle's Voyage, Roderick Random, Jonathan Wild, Louisa Solomon's Guide to Health, Spelling-books, Bibles and Primers.
Our extracts have extended to a great length: but the animated picture of Upper Canadian life at a primitive era, which such an enumeration of items, in some sort affords, must be our apology.
In the _Gazette_ of July 4, 1807, Mr. St. George complains of a protested bill; but consoles himself with a quotation--
Celui qui met un frein a la fureur des flots, Sait aussi des mechants arreter des complots.
Rendered rich in money and lands by his extemporized mercantile operations, Mr. St. George returned to his native France soon after the restoration of Louis XVIII., and pa.s.sed the rest of his days partly in Paris and partly on estates in the neighbourhood of Montpellier. During his stay in Canada he formed a close friends.h.i.+p with the Baldwins of York; and on his departure, the house on King Street, which has given rise to these reminiscences of him, together with the valuable commercial interests connected with it, pa.s.sed into the hands of a junior member of that family, Mr. John Spread Baldwin, who himself, on the same spot, subsequently laid the foundation of an ample fortune.
(It is a phenomenon not uninteresting to the retrospective mind, to observe, in 1869, after the lapse of half a century, the name of Quetton St. George reappearing in the field of Canadian Commerce.)
Advancing now on our way eastward, we soon came in front of the abode of Dr. Burnside, a New-England medical man of tall figure, upright carriage, and bluff, benevolent countenance, an early promoter of the Mechanics'-Inst.i.tute movement, and an encourager of church-music, vocal and instrumental. Dying without a family dependent on him, he bequeathed his property partly to Charities in the town, and partly to the University of Trinity College, where two scholars.h.i.+ps perpetuate his memory.
Just opposite was the residence of the venerable Mrs. Gamble, widow of Dr. Gamble, formerly a surgeon attached to the Queen's Rangers. This lady died in 1859, in her 92nd year, leaving living descendants to the number of two hundred and four. To the west of this house was a well-remembered little parterre, always at the proper season gay with flowers.
At the next corner, on the north side, a house now totally demolished, was the original home of the millionaire Cawthra family, already once alluded to. In the _Gazette and Oracle_ of June 21, 1806, Mr. Cawthra, senior, thus advertises:--”J. Cawthra wishes to inform the inhabitants of York and the adjacent country, that he has opened an Apothecary Store in the house of A. Cameron, opposite Stoyell's Tavern in York, where the Public can be supplied with most articles in that line. He has on hand also, a quant.i.ty of Men's, Women's, and Children's shoes and Men's hats.
Also for a few days will be sold the following articles, Table Knives and Forks, Scissors, Silver Watches, Maps and Prints, Profiles, some Linen, and a few Bed-Ticks, Teas, Tobacco, a few casks of fourth proof Cognac Brandy, and a small quant.i.ty of Lime Juice, and about twenty thousand Whitechapel Needles. York, June 14, 1806.” And again, on the 27th of the following November, he informs the inhabitants of York and the neighbouring country that he had just arrived from New York with a general a.s.sortment of ”apothecary articles;” and that the public can be supplied with everything in that line genuine: also patent medicines: he likewise intimates that he has brought a general a.s.sortment of Dry Goods, consisting of ”broad cloths, duffils, flannels, swansdown, corduroys, printed calicoes, ginghams, cambrick muslins, s.h.i.+rting, muslin, men and women's stockings, silk handkerchiefs, bandana shawls, pulicat and pocket handkerchiefs, calimancoes, dimity and check; also a large a.s.sortment of men's, women's, and children's shoes, hardware, coffee, tea and chocolate, lump and loaf sugar, tobacco, &c., with many other articles: which he is determined to sell on very low terms at his store opposite Stoyell's tavern.” York, Nov. 27, 1806. (The Stoyell's Tavern here named, had previously been the Inn of Mr. Abner Miles.)
Immediately across, at the corner on the south side, was a depot, insignificant enough, no doubt, to the indifferent pa.s.ser-by, but invested with much importance in the eyes of many of the early infantiles of York. Its windows exhibited, in addition to a scattering of white clay pipes, and papers of pins suspended open against the panes for the public inspection, a display of circular discs of gingerbread, some with plain, some with scalloped edge; also hearts, fishes, little prancing ponies, parrots and dogs of the same tawny-hued material; also endwise in tumblers and other gla.s.s vessels, numerous lengths or stems of prepared saccharine matter, brittle in substance, white-looking, but streaked and slightly penetrated with some rich crimson pigment; likewise on plates and oval dishes, a collection of quadrangular viscous lumps, buff-coloured and clammy, each showing at its ends the bold gas.h.i.+ng cut of a stout knife which must have been used in dividing a rope, as it were, of the tenacious substance into inch-sections or parts.
In the wrapping paper about all articles purchased here, there was always a soupcon of the homely odors of boiled sugar and peppermint. The tariff of the various comestibles just enumerated was well known; it was precisely for each severally, one half-penny. The mistress of this establishment bore the Scottish name of Lumsden--a name familiar to us lads in another way also, being constantly seen by us on the t.i.tle-pages of school-books, many of which, at the time referred to, were imported from Glasgow, from the publis.h.i.+ng-house of Lumsden and Son.
A little way down the street which crosses here, was Major Heward's house, long Clerk of the Peace for the Home District, of whom we had occasion to speak before. Several of his sons, while pursuing their legal and other studies, became also ”mighty hunters;” distinguished, we mean, as enthusiastic sportsmen. Many were the exploits reported of them, in this line.
We give here an extract from Mr. McGrath's lively work, published in 1833, ent.i.tled ”Authentic letters from Upper Canada, with an Account of Canadian Field Sports.” ”Ireland,” he says, ”is, in many places, remarkable for excellent c.o.c.k-shooting, which I have myself experienced in the most favourable situations: not, however, to be compared with this country, where the numbers are truly wonderful. Were I to mention,”
Mr. McGrath continues, ”what I have seen in this respect, or heard from others, it might bring my graver statements into disrepute.”
”As a specimen of the sport,” he says, ”I will merely give a fact or two of, not unusual success; bearing, however, no proportion to the quant.i.ty of game. I have known Mr. Charles Heward, of York,” he proceeds to state, ”to have shot in one day thirty brace at Chippewa, close to the Falls of Niagara--and I myself,” Mr. McGrath continues, ”who am far from being a first-rate shot, have frequently brought home from twelve to fourteen brace, my brothers performing their part with equal success.”
But the younger Messrs. Heward had a field for the exercise of their sportsman skill nearer home than Chippewa. The Island, just across the Bay, where the black-heart plover were said always to arrive on a particular day, the 23rd of May, every year, and the marshes about Ashbridge's bay and York harbour itself, all abounded with wild fowl.
Here, loons of a magnificent size used to be seen and heard; and vast flocks of wild geese, pa.s.sing and re-pa.s.sing, high in air, in their periodical migrations. The wild swan, too, was an occasional frequenter of the ponds of the Island.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
[Ill.u.s.tration]
XV.
KING STREET, FROM CAROLINE STREET TO BERKELEY STREET.
Returning again to King Street: At the corner of Caroline Street, diagonally across from the Cawthra homestead, was the abode, when ash.o.r.e, of Captain Oates, commander of the _Duke of Richmond_ sloop, the fas.h.i.+onable packet plying between Niagara and York.
Mr. Oates was nearly connected with the family of President Russell, but curiously obtained no share in the broad acres which were, in the early day, so plentifully distributed to all comers. By being unluckily out of the way, too, at a critical moment, subsequently, he missed a bequest at the hands of the sole inheritor of the possessions of his relative.
Capt. Oates was a man of dignified bearing, of more than the ordinary height. He had seen service on the ocean as master and owner of a merchantman. His portrait, which is still preserved in Toronto, somewhat resembles that of George IV.
A spot pa.s.sed, a few moments since, on King Street, is a.s.sociated with a story in which the _Richmond_ sloop comes up. It happened that the nuptials of a neighbouring merchant had lately taken place. Some youths, employed in an adjoining warehouse or law-office, took it into their heads that a _feu de joie_ should be fired on the occasion. To carry out the idea they proceeded, under cover of the night, to the _Richmond_ sloop, where she lay frozen in by the Frederick Street wharf, and removed from her deck, without asking leave, a small piece of ordnance with which she was provided. They convey it with some difficulty, carriage and all, up into King Street, and place it in front of the bridegroom's house; run it back, as we have understood, even into the recess underneath the double steps of the porch: when duly ensconced there, as within the port of a man-of-war, they contrived to fire it off, decamping, however, immediately after the exploit, and leaving behind them the source of the deafening explosion.