Part 19 (1/2)
In 1836, he appears to have been visited in Pickering by Dr. Thomas Rolph, when making notes for his ”Statistical Account of Upper Canada.”
”The Towns.h.i.+p of Pickering,” Dr. Rolph says, ”is well settled and contains some fine land, and well watered. Mr. Fothergill,” he continues, ”has an extensive and most valuable museum of natural curiosities at his residence in this towns.h.i.+p, which he has collected with great industry and the most refined taste. He is a person of superior acquirements, and ardently devoted to the pursuit of natural philosophy.” P. 189.
It was Mr. Fothergill's misfortune to have lived too early in Upper Canada. Many plans of his in the interests of literature and science came to nothing for the want of a sufficient body of seconders. In conjunction with Dr. Dunlop and Dr. Rees, it was the intention of Mr.
Fothergill to establish at York a Museum of Natural and Civil History, with a Botanical and Zoological Garden attached; and a grant of land on the Government Reserve between the Garrison and Farr's Brewery was actually secured as a site for the buildings and grounds of the proposed inst.i.tution.
A prospectus now before us sets forth in detail a very comprehensive scheme for this Museum or Lyceum, which embraced also a picture gallery, ”for subjects connected with Science and Portraits of individuals,” and did not omit ”Indian antiquities, arms, dresses, utensils, and whatever might ill.u.s.trate and make permanent all that we can know of the Aborigines of this great Continent, a people who are rapidly pa.s.sing away and becoming as though they had never been.”
For several years Mr. Fothergill published ”The York Almanac and Royal Calendar,” which gradually became a volume of between four and five hundred duodecimo pages, filled with practical and official information on the subject of Canada and the other British American Colonies. This work is still often resorted to for information.
Hanging in his study we remember noticing a large engraved map of ”Cabotia.” It was a delineation of the British Possessions in North America--the present Dominion of Canada in fact. It had been his purpose in 1823 to publish a ”Canadian Annual Register;” but this he never accomplished. While printing the _Upper Canada Gazette_, he edited in conjunction with that periodical and on the same sheet, the ”Weekly Register,” bearing the motto, ”Our endeavour will be to stamp the very body of the time--its its form and pressure: we shall extenuate nothing, nor shall we set down aught in malice.” From this publication may be gathered much of the current history of the period. In it are given many curious scientific excerpts from his Common Place Book. At a later period, he published, at Toronto, a weekly paper in quarto shape, named the ”Palladium.”
Among the non-official advertis.e.m.e.nts in the _Upper Canada Gazette_, in the year 1823, we observe one signed ”Charles Fothergill,” offering a reward ”even to the full value of the volumes,” for the recovery of missing portions of several English standard works which had belonged formerly, the advertis.e.m.e.nt stated, to the ”Toronto Library,” broken up ”by the Americans at the taking of York.” It was suggested that probably the missing books were still scattered about, up and down, in the town.
It is odd to see the name of ”Toronto” cropping out in 1823, in connection with a library. (In a much earlier York paper we notice the ”Toronto Coffee House” advertised.)
Mr. Fothergill belonged to the distinguished Quaker family of that name in Yorks.h.i.+re. A rather good idea of his character of countenance may be derived from the portrait of Dr. Arnold, prefixed to Stanley's Memoir.
An oil painting of him exists in the possession of some of his descendants.
We observe in Leigh Hunt's _London Journal_, i. 172, a reference to ”Fothergill's Essay on the Philosophy, Study and Use of Natural History;” and we have been a.s.sured that it is our Canadian Fothergill who was its author. We give a pathetic extract from a specimen of the production, in the work just referred to: ”Never shall I forget,” says the essayist, ”the remembrance of a little incident which many will deem trifling and unimportant, but which has been peculiarly interesting to my heart, as giving origin to sentiments and rules of action which have since been very dear to me.”
”Besides a singular elegance of form and beauty of plumage,” continues the enthusiastic naturalist, ”the eye of the common lapwing is peculiarly soft and expressive; it is large, black, and full of l.u.s.tre, rolling, as it seems to do, in liquid gems of dew. I had shot a bird of this beautiful species; but, on taking it up, I found it was not dead. I had wounded its breast; and some big drops of blood stained the pure whiteness of its feathers. As I held the hapless bird in my hand, hundreds of its companions hovered round my head, uttering continued shrieks of distress, and, by their plaintive cries, appeared to bemoan the fate of one to whom they were connected by ties of the most tender and interesting nature; whilst the poor wounded bird continually moaned, with a kind of inward wailing note, expressive of the keenest anguish; and, ever and anon, it raised its drooping head, and turning towards the wound in its breast, touched it with its bill, and then looked up in my face, with an expression that I have no wish to forget, for it had power to touch my heart whilst yet a boy, when a thousand dry precepts in the academical closet would have been of no avail.”
The length of this extract will be pardoned for the sake of its deterrent drift in respect to the wanton maiming and ma.s.sacre of our feathered fellow-creatures by the firearms of sportsmen and missiles of thoughtless children.
Eastward from the house where we have been pausing, the road took a slight sweep to the south and then came back to its former course towards the Don bridge, descending in the meantime into the valley of a creek or watercourse, and ascending again from it on the other side.
Hereabout, to the left, standing on a picturesque knoll and surrounded by the natural woods of the region, was a good sized two-storey dwelling; this was the abode of Mr. David MacNab, sergeant-at-arms to the House of a.s.sembly, as his father had been before him. With him resided several accomplished, kind-hearted sisters, all of handsome and even stately presence; one of them the belle of the day in society at York.
Here were the quarters of the Chief MacNab, whenever he came up to York from his Canadian home on the Ottawa. It was not alone when present at church that this remarkable gentleman attracted the public gaze; but also, when surrounded or followed by a group of his fair kinsfolk of York, he marched with dignified steps along through the whole length of King Street, and down or up the Kingston road to and from the MacNab homestead here in the woods near the Don.
In his visits to the capital, the Chief always wore a modified highland costume, which well set off his stalwart, upright form: the blue bonnet and feather, and richly embossed dirk, always rendered him conspicuous, as well as the tartan of brilliant hues depending from his shoulder after obliquely swathing his capacious chest; a bright scarlet vest with ma.s.sive silver b.u.t.tons, and dress coat always jauntily thrown back, added to the picturesqueness of the figure.
It was always evident at a glance that the Chief set a high value on himself.--”May the MacNab of MacNabs have the pleasure of taking wine with Lady Sarah Maitland?” suddenly heard above the buzz of conversation, p.r.o.nounced in a very deep and measured tone, by his manly voice, made mute for a time, on one occasion, the dinner-table at Government House. So the gossip ran. Another story of the same cla.s.s, but less likely, we should think, to be true, was, that seating himself, without uncovering, in the Court-room one day, a messenger was sent to him by the Chief Justice, Sir William Campbell, on the Bench, requiring the removal of his cap; when the answer returned, as he instantly rose and left the building, was, that ”the MacNab of MacNabs doffs his bonnet to no man!”
At his home on the Chats the Emigrant Laird did his best to transplant the traditions and customs of by-gone days in the Highlands, but he found practical Canada an unfriendly soil for romance and sentiment.
Bouchette, in his _British Dominions_, i. 82, thus refers to the Canadian abode of the Chief and to the settlement formed by the clan MacNab. ”High up [the Ottawa],” he says, ”on the bold and abrupt sh.o.r.e of the broad and picturesque Lake of the Chats, the Highland Chief MacNab has selected a romantic residence, Kinnell Lodge, which he has succeeded, through the most unshaken perseverance, in rendering exceedingly comfortable. His unexampled exertions in forming and fostering the settlement of the towns.h.i.+p, of which he may be considered the founder and the leader, have not been attended with all the success that was desirable, or which he antic.i.p.ated.”
Bouchette then appends a note wherein we can see how readily his own demonstrative Gallic nature sympathized with the kindred Celtic spirit of the Highlander. ”The characteristic hospitality that distinguished our reception by the gallant Chief,” he says, ”when, in 1828, we were returning down the Ottawa, after having explored its rapids and lakes, as far up as Grand Calumet, we cannot pa.s.s over in silence. To voyageurs in the remote wilds of Canada,” he continues, ”necessarily strangers for the time to the sweets of civilization, the unexpected comforts of a well-furnished board, and the cordiality of a Highland welcome, are blessings that fall upon the soul like dew upon the flower. 'The sun was just resigning to the moon the empire of the skies,' when we took our leave of the n.o.ble chieftain,” he adds, ”to descend the formidable rapids of the Chats. As we glided from the foot of the bold bank, the gay plaid and cap of the n.o.ble Gael were seen waving on the proud eminence, and the shrill notes of the piper filled the air with their wild cadences. They died away as we approached the head of the rapids.
Our caps were flourished, and the flags (for our canoe was gaily decorated with them) waved in adieu, and we entered the vortex of the swift and whirling stream.”
In 1836, Rolph, in his ”Statistical Account of Upper Canada,” p. 146, also speaks of the site of Kinnell Lodge as ”greatly resembling in its bold, sombre and majestic aspect, the wildest and most romantic scenery”
of Scotland. ”This distinguished Chieftain,” the writer then informs us, ”has received permission to raise a militia corps of 800 Highlanders, a cla.s.s of British subjects always distinguished for their devoted and chivalrous attachment to the laws and inst.i.tutions of their n.o.ble progenitors, and who would prove a rampart of living bodies in defence of British supremacy whenever and wherever a.s.sailed.”
The reference in Dean Ramsay's interesting ”Reminiscences of Scottish life and Character,” to ”the last Laird of MacNab,” is perhaps to the father of the gentleman familiar to us here in York, and who filled so large a s.p.a.ce in the recollections of visitors to the Upper Ottawa. ”The last Laird of MacNab before the clan finally broke up and emigrated to Canada was,” says the Dean in the work just named, ”a well-known character in the country; and, being poor, used to ride about on a most wretched horse, which gave occasion to many jibes at his expense. The Laird,” this writer continues, ”was in the constant habit of riding up from the country to attend the Musselburgh races [near Edinburgh].” A young wit, by way of playing him off on the race course, asked him in a contemptuous tone, ”Is that the same horse you had last year, Laird?”--”Na,” said the Laird, brandis.h.i.+ng his whip in the interrogator's face in so emphatic a manner as to preclude further questioning, ”Na! but it's the same _whup_!” (p. 216, 9th ed.)
We do not doubt but that the MacNabs have ever been a spirited race.
Their representatives here have always been such; and like their kinsmen in the old home, too, they have had, during their brief history in Canada, their share of the hereditary vicissitudes. We owe to a Sheriff's advertis.e.m.e.nt in the _Upper Canada Gazette or American Oracle_ of the 14th of April, 1798, published at Niagara, some biographical particulars and a minute description of the person of the Mr. MacNab who was afterwards, as we have already stated, Usher of the Black Rod to the House of a.s.sembly and father of his successor, Mr. David MacNab, in the same post; father also of the Allan MacNab, whose history forms part of that of Upper Canada.
In 1798, imprisonment for debt was the rigorously enforced law of the land. The prominent MacNab of that date had, it would appear, become obnoxious to the law on the score of indebtedness: but finding the restraint imposed irksome, he had relieved himself of it without asking leave. The hue and cry for his re-capture proceeded as follows: ”Two hundred dollars reward! Home District, Upper Canada, Newark, April 2, 1798. Broke the gaol of this District on the night of the 1st instant, [the 1st of April, be it observed,] Allan MacNab, a confined debtor. He is a reduced lieutenant of horse,” proceeds the Sheriff, ”on the half-pay list of the late corps of Queen's Rangers; aged 38 years or thereabouts; five feet three inches high; fair complexion; light hair; red beard; much marked with the small-pox; the middle finger of one of his hands remarkable for an overgrown nail; round shouldered; stoops a little in walking; and although a native of the Highlands of Scotland, affects much in speaking the Irish dialect. Whoever will apprehend, &c., &c., shall receive the above reward, with all reasonable expenses.”
The escape of the prisoner on the first of April was probably felt by the Sheriff to be a practical joke played off on himself personally. We think we detect personal spleen in the terms of the advertis.e.m.e.nt: in the minuteness of the description of Mr. MacNab's physique, which never claimed to be that of an Adonis; in the biographical particulars, which, however interesting they chance to prove to later generations, were somewhat out of place on such an occasion: as also in a postscript calling on ”the printers within His Majesty's Governments in America, and those of the United States to give circulation in their respective papers to the above advertis.e.m.e.nt,” &c.