Part 33 (1/2)
”Say, power of Truth, so great, so unconfined, And solve the doubt which so distracts my mind-- Why Strength to Weakness is so near allied?
Perhaps 'tis given to humble human pride.
At times perchance frail Nature held the sway, Yet dimm'd not it the intellectual ray: Reason and Truth triumphant held their course, And list'ning hearers felt conviction's force: No precept mangled, text misunderstood, He thought and acted but for public good: His reasoning pure, his mind all manly light, Made day of that which else appear'd as night.
In him instruction aim'd at this great end-- Our fates to soften and our lives amend.
Yet he was man, and man's the child of woe: Who seeks perfection, seeks not here below.”
From the paper of September, 1806, it appears that numerous books were missing out of the library of the deceased gentleman. His administrator, Alexander Burns, advertises: ”The following books, with many others, being lent by the deceased, it is particularly entreated that they may be immediately returned:--Plutarch's Lives, 1st volume; Voltaire's Works, 11th do., in French, half-bound; t.i.ti Livii, Latin, 1st do.; Guthrie's History of Scotland, 1st and 2nd do.; Rollin's Ancient History, 1st do.; Pope's Works, 5th do.; Swift's Works, 5th and 8th do., half-bound; Moliere's, 6th do., French.”
Of Col. W. Chewett, whose name appears next, we have made mention more than once. His name, like that of his son, J. G. Chewett, is very familiar to those who have to examine the plans and charts connected with early Upper Canadian history. Both were long distinguished _attaches_ of the Surveyor-General's department. In 1802, Col. W.
Chewett was Registrar of the Home District.
Alexander Macnab, whose name occurs next in succession, was afterwards Capt. Macnab, who fell at Waterloo, the only instance, as is supposed, of a Canadian slain on that occasion. In 1868, his nephew, the Rev. Dr.
Macnab, of Bowmanville, was presented by the Duke of Cambridge in person with the Waterloo medal due to the family of Capt. Macnab.
Alexander Macnab was also the first patentee of the plot of ground whereon stands the house on Bay Street noted, in our account of the early press, as being the place of publication of the _Upper Canada Gazette_ at the time of the taking of York, and subsequently owned and occupied by Mr. Andrew Mercer up to the time of his decease in 1871.
Of Messrs. Ridout and Allan, whose names are inscribed conjointly on the following park lot, we have already spoken; and Angus Macdonell, who took up the next lot, was the barrister who perished, along with the whole court, in the _Speedy_.
The name that appears on the westernmost lot of the range along which we have been pa.s.sing is that of Benjamin Hallowell. He was a near connection of Chief Justice Elmsley's, and father of the Admiral, Sir Benjamin Hallowell, K.C.B. We observe the notice of Mr. Hallowell's death in the _Gazette and Oracle_ of the day, in the following terms:--”Died, on Thursday last (March 28th, 1799), Benjamin Hallowell, Esq., in the 75th year of his age. The funeral will be on Tuesday next, and will proceed from the house of the Chief Justice to the Garrison Burying Ground at one o'clock precisely. The attendance of his friends is requested.”
a.s.sociated at a later period with the memories of this locality is the name of Col. Walter O'Hara.--In 1808 an immense enthusiasm sprang up in England in behalf of the Spaniards, who were beginning to rise in spirited style against the domination of Napoleon and his family. Walter Savage Landor, for one, the distinguished scholar, philosopher and poet, determined to a.s.sist them in person as a volunteer. In a letter to Southey, in August, 1808, he says: ”At Brighton, I preached a crusade to two auditors: _i. e._, a crusade against the French in Spain: Inclination,” he continues, ”was not wanting, and in a few minutes everything was fixed.” The two auditors, we are afterwards told, were both Irishmen, an O'Hara and a Fitzgerald. Landor did not himself remain long in Spain, although long enough to expend, out of his own resources, a very large sum of money; but his companions continued to do good service in the Peninsula, in a military capacity, to the close of the war.
In a subsequent communication to Southey, Landor speaks of a letter just received from his friend O'Hara. ”This morning,” he says, ”I had a letter from Portugal, from a sensible man and excellent officer, Walter O'Hara. The officers do not appear,” he continues, ”to entertain very sanguine hopes of success. We have lost a vast number of brave men, and the French have gained a vast number, and fight as well as under the republic.”
The Walter O'Hara whom we here have Landor speaking of as ”a sensible man and excellent officer” is the Col. O'Hara at whose homestead, on a portion of the Hallowell park-lot, we have arrived, and whose name is one of our household words. Colonel O'Hara built on this spot in 1831, at which date the surrounding region was in a state of nature. The area cleared for the reception of the still existing s.p.a.cious residence, with its lawn, garden and orchards, remained for a number of years an oasis in the midst of a grand forest. A brief memorandum which we are enabled to give from his own pen of the Peninsular portion of his military career, will be here in place, and will be deemed of interest.
”I joined,” he says, ”the Peninsular army in the year 1811, having obtained leave of absence from my British Regiment quartered at Canterbury, for the purpose of volunteering into the Portuguese army, then commanded by Lord Beresford. I remained in that force until the end of the war, and witnessed all the varieties of service during that interesting period, during which time I was twice wounded, and once fell into the hands of a brave and generous enemy.”
From 1831 Col. O'Hara held the post of Adjutant-General in Upper Canada.
His contemporaries will always think of him as a chivalrous, high-spirited, warm-hearted gentleman; and in our annals hereafter he will be named among the friends of Canadian progress, at a period when enlightened ideas in regard to government and social life, derived from a wide intercourse with man in large and ancient communities, were, amongst us, considerably misunderstood.
After pa.s.sing the long range of suburban properties on which we have been annotating, the continuation, in a right line westward, of Lot Street, used to be known as the Lake Sh.o.r.e Road. This Lake Sh.o.r.e Road, after pa.s.sing the dugway, or steep descent to the sands that form the margin of the Lake, first skirted the graceful curve of Humber Bay, and then followed the irregular line of the sh.o.r.e all the way to the head of the Lake. It was a mere track, representing, doubtless, a trail trodden by the aborigines from time immemorial.
So late as 1813 all that could be said of the region traversed by the Lake Sh.o.r.e Road was the following, which we read in the ”Topographical Description of Upper Canada,” issued in London in that year, under the authority of Governor Gore:--”Further to the westward (_i. e._ of the river Humber),” we are told, ”the Etobic.o.ke, the Credit, and two other rivers, with a great many smaller streams, join the main waters of the Lake; they all abound in fish, particularly salmon......the Credit is the most noted; here is a small house of entertainment for pa.s.sengers.
The tract between the Etobic.o.ke and the head of the Lake,” the Topographical Description then goes on to say, ”is frequented only by wandering tribes of Mississaguas.”
”At the head of Lake Ontario,” we are then told, ”there is a smaller Lake, within a long beach, of about five miles, from whence there is an outlet to Lake Ontario, over which there is a bridge. At the south end of the beach,” it is added, ”is the King's Head, a good inn, erected for the accommodation of travellers, by order of his Excellency Major-General Simcoe, the Lieutenant-Governor. It is beautifully situated at a small portage which leads from the head of a natural ca.n.a.l connecting Burlington Bay with Lake Ontario, and is a good landmark.
Burlington Bay,” it is then rather boldly a.s.serted, ”is perhaps as beautiful and romantic a situation as any in interior America, particularly if we include with it a marshy lake which falls into it, and a n.o.ble promontory that divides them. This lake is called Coote's Paradise, and abounds with game.” (Coote's Paradise had its name from Capt. Coote, of the 8th, a keen sportsman.)
As to ”the wandering tribes of Mississaguas,” who in 1813 were still the only noticeable human beings west of the Etobic.o.ke, they were in fact a portion of the great Otchibway nation. From time to time, previous and subsequent to 1813, and for pecuniary considerations of various amounts they surrendered to the local Government their nominal right over the regions which they still occupied in a scattered way. In 1792 they surrendered 3,000,000 acres, commencing four miles west of Mississagua point, at the mouth of the river Niagara for the sum of 1,180 7s. 4d.
On the 8th of August, 1797, they surrendered 3,450 acres in Burlington Bay for the sum of 65 2s. 6d. On the 6th September, 1806, 85,000 acres, commencing on the east bank of the Etobic.o.ke river, brought them 1,000 5s. On the 28th of October, 1818, ”the Mississagua tract Home District,”
consisting of 648,000 acres, went for the respectable sum of 8,500. On the 8th of February, 1820, 2,000 acres, east of the Credit reserve, brought in 50.
All circ.u.mstances at the respective dates considered, the values received for the tracts surrendered as thus duly enumerated may, by possibility, have been reasonable. Lord Carteret, it is stated, proposed to sell all New Jersey for 5,000, 150 years ago. But there remains one transfer from Mississaga to White owners.h.i.+p to be noticed, for which the equivalent, sometimes alleged to have been accepted, excites surprise.
On the 1st of August, 1805, a Report of the Indian Department informs us, the ”Toronto Purchase” was made, comprising 250,880 acres, and stretching eastward to the Scarboro' Heights; and the consideration accepted therefor was the sum of ten s.h.i.+llings. Two dollars for the site of Toronto and its suburbs, with an area extending eastward to Scarboro'
heights. The explanation, however, is this, which we gather from a ma.n.u.script volume of certified copies of early Indian treaties, furnished by William L. Baby, Esq., of Sandwich. The Toronto purchase was really effected in 1787, by Sir John Johnson, at the Bay of Quinte Carrying-place; and ”divers good and valuable considerations,” not specified, were received by the Mississagas on the occasion. But the doc.u.ment testifying to the transfer was imperfect. The deed of August 1, 1805, was simply confirmatory, and the sum named as the consideration was merely nominal.