Part 41 (1/2)
The German Mills were founded by Mr. Berczy, either on his own account or acting as agent for an a.s.sociation at New York for the promotion of German emigration to Canada. When, after failing to induce the Government to reconsider its decision in regard to the patents demanded by him for his settlers, that gentleman retired to Montreal, the German Mills with various parcels of land were advertised for sale in the _Gazette_ of April 27, 1805, in the following strain: ”Mills and land in Markham. To be sold by the subscriber for payment of debts due to the creditors of William Berczy, Esq., the mills called the German Mills, being a grist mill and a saw mill. The grist mill has a pair of French burs, and complete machinery for making and bolting superfine flour.
These mills are situated on lot No. 4 in the third concession of Markham; with them will be given in, lots No. 3 and 4 in the third concession, at the option of the purchaser. Also, 300 acres being the west half of lot No. 31, and the whole of lot 32 in the second concession of Markham. Half the purchase money to be paid in hand, and half in one year with legal interest. W. Allan. N.B.--Francis Smith, who lives on lot No. 14 in the third concession, will show the premises.
York, 11th March, 1805.”
It appears from the same _Gazette_ that Mr. Berczy's vacant house in York had been entered by burglars after his departure. A reward of twenty dollars is offered for their discovery. ”Whereas,” the advertis.e.m.e.nt runs, ”the house of William Berczy, Esq., was broken open sometime during the night of the 14th instant, and the same ransacked from one end to the other; this is to give notice that whoever shall lodge an information, so that the offender or offenders may be brought to justice, shall upon conviction thereof receive Twenty Dollars. W.
Chewett. York, 18th April, 1805.”
We have before referred to Mr. Berczy's embarra.s.sments, from which he never became disentangled; and to his death in New York, in 1813. His decease was thus noticed in a Boston paper, quoted by Dr. Canniff, p.
364, ”Died--In the early part of the year 1813, William Berczy, Esq., aged 68; a distinguished inhabitant of Upper Canada, and highly respected for his literary acquirements. In the decease of this gentleman society must sustain an irreparable loss, and the republic of letters will have cause to mourn the death of a man eminent for genius and talent.”
The German Mills were purchased and kept in operation by Capt. Nolan, of the 70th Regiment, at the time on duty in Canada; but the speculation was not a success. We have heard it stated that this Captain Nolan was the father of the officer of the same name and rank who fell in the charge of the Light Brigade at the very first outset, when, at Balaclava,
”Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.”
The _Gazette_ of March 19, 1818, contains the following curt announcement: ”Notice. The German Mills and Distillery are now in operation. For the proprietors, Alexander Patterson, Clerk, 11th March, 1818.” Ten years later they are offered for sale or to lease in the _U.
C. Loyalist_ of April 5, 1828. (It will be observed that they once bore the designation of Nolanville.) ”For sale or to be leased,” thus runs the advertis.e.m.e.nt, ”all or any part of the property known and described as Nolanville or German Mills, in the third concession of the towns.h.i.+p of Markham, consisting of four hundred acres of land, upwards of fifty under good fences and improvements, with a good dwelling-house, barn, stable, saw-mill, grist-mill, distillery, brew-house, malt-house, and several other out-buildings. The above premises will be disposed of, either the whole or in part, by application to the subscriber, William Allan, York, January 26, 1828. The premises can be viewed at any time by applying to Mr. John Duggan, residing there.”
In the absence of striking architectural objects in the country at the time, we remember, about the year 1828, thinking the extensive cl.u.s.ter of buildings const.i.tuting the German Mills a rather impressive sight, coming upon them suddenly, in the midst of the woods, in a deserted condition, with all their windows boarded up.
One of our own a.s.sociations with the German Mills is the memory of Mr.
Charles Stewart Murray, afterwards well-known in York as connected with the Bank of Upper Canada. He had been thrown out of employment by Capt.
Nolan's relinquishment of the mills. He was then patronized by Mr.
Thorne of Thornhill.
In our boyish fancy, a romantic interest attached to Mr. Murray from his being a personal friend of Sir Walter Scott's, and from his being intimately a.s.sociated with him in the excursion to the Orkneys, while the Pirate and the Lord of the Isles were simmering in the Novelist's brain. ”Not a bad Re-past,” playfully said Sir Walter after partaking one day of homely meat-pie at the little inn of one Rae. Lo! from Mr.
Murray's talk, a minute grain to be added to Sir Walter's already huge cairn of _ana_. Mr. M., too, was imagined by us, quite absurdly doubtless, to be an hereditary devotee of the Pretender, if not closely allied to him by blood. (His grandfather, or other near relative, had, we believe, really been for a time secretary to Prince Charles Edward Stuart)
A mile or two beyond where the track to the German Mills turned off, Yonge Street once more encountered a branch of the Don, flowing, as usual, through a wide and difficult ravine. At the point where the stream was crossed, mills and manufactories made their appearance at an early date. The ascent of the bank towards the north was accomplished, in this instance, in no round-about way. The road went straight up.
Horse-power and the strength of leather were here often severely tested.
On the rise above, began the village of Thornhill, an attractive and noticeable place from the first moment of its existence. Hereabout several English families had settled, giving a special tone to the neighbourhood. In the very heart of the village was the home, unfailingly genial and hospitable, of Mr. Parsons, one of the chief founders of the settlement; emigrating hither from Sherborne in Dorsets.h.i.+re in 1820. Nearer the brow of the hill overlooking the Don, was the house of Mr. Thorne, from whom the place took its name: an English gentleman also from Dorsets.h.i.+re, and a.s.sociated with Mr. Parsons in the numerous business enterprises which made Thornhill for a long period a centre of great activity and prosperity. Beyond, a little further northward, lived the Gappers, another family initiating here the amenities and ways of good old west-of-England households. Dr. Paget was likewise an element of happy influence in the little world of this region, a man of high culture; formerly a medical pract.i.tioner of great repute in Torquay.
Another character of mark a.s.sociated with Thornhill in its palmy days was the Rev. George Mortimer, for a series of years the pastor of the English congregation there. Had his lot been cast in the scenes of an Oberlin's labours or a Lavater's, or a Felix Neff's, his name would probably have been conspicuously cla.s.sed with theirs in religious annals. He was eminently of their type. Const.i.tutionally of a spiritual temperament, he still did not take theology to be a bar to a scientific and accurate examination of things visible. He deemed it ”sad, if not actually censurable, to pa.s.s blind-folded through the works of G.o.d, to live in a world of flowers, and stars, and sunsets, and a thousand glorious objects of Nature, and never to have a pa.s.sing interest awakened by any one of them.” Before his emigration to Canada he had been curate of Madeley in Shrops.h.i.+re, the parish of the celebrated Fletcher of Madeley, whose singularly beautiful character that of Mr.
Mortimer resembled. Though of feeble frame his ministerial labours were without intermission; and his lot, as Fletcher's also, was to die almost in the act of officiating in his profession.
An earlier inc.u.mbent of the English Church at Thornhill was the Rev.
Isaac Fidler. This gentleman rendered famous the scene of his Canadian ministry, as well as his experiences in the United States, by a book which in its day was a good deal read. It was ent.i.tled ”Observations on Professions, Literature, Manners, and Emigration in the United States and Canada.” Although he indulged in some sharp strictures on the citizens of the United States, in relation to the matters indicated, and followed speedily after by the never-to-be-forgotten Mrs. Trollope, his work was reprinted by the Harpers. Mr. Fidler was a remarkable person,--of a tall Westmoreland mould, resembling the common pictures of Wordsworth. He was somewhat peculiar in his dress, wearing always an extremely high s.h.i.+rt-collar, very conspicuous round the whole of his neck, forming a kind of spreading white socket in which rested and revolved a head, bald, egg-shaped and spectacled. Besides being scholarly in the modern sense, Mr. Fidler possessed the more uncommon accomplishment of a familiarity with the oriental languages.
The notices in his book, of early colonial life have now to us an archaic sound. We give his narrative of the overturn of a family party on their way home from church. ”The difficulty of descending a steep hill in wet weather may be imagined,” he says, ”The heavy rains had made it (the descent south of Thornhill) a complete puddle which afforded no sure footing to man or beast. In returning from church, the ladies and gentlemen I speak of,” he continues, ”had this steep hill to descend.
The jaunting car being filled with people was too heavy to be kept back, and pressed heavy upon the horses. The intended youthful bridegroom (of one of the ladies) was, I was told, the charioteer. His utmost skill was ineffectually tried to prevent a general overturn. The horses became less manageable every moment. But yet the ladies and gentlemen in the vehicle were inapprehensive of danger, and their mirth and jocularity betrayed the inward pleasure they derived from his increasing straggles.
At last the horses, impatient of control, and finding themselves their own masters, jerked the carriage against the parapet of the road and disengaged themselves from it. The carriage instantly turned over on its side; and as instantly all the ladies and gentlemen trundled out of it like rolling pins. n.o.body was hurt in the least, for the mire was so deep that they fell very soft and were quite imbedded in it. What apologies the gentleman made I am unable to tell, but the mirth was perfectly suspended. I overtook the party at the bottom of the hill, the ladies walking homewards from the church and making no very elegant appearance.”
As an example of the previously undreamt of incidents that may happen to a missionary in a backwoods settlement, we mention what occurred to ourselves when taking the duty one fine bright summer morn, many years ago, in the Thornhill Church, yet in its primitive unenlarged state. A farmer's horse that had been mooning leisurely about an adjoining field, suddenly took a fancy to the shady interior disclosed by the wide-open doors of the sacred building. Before the churchwardens or any one else could make out what the clatter meant, the creature was well up the central pa.s.sage of the nave. There becoming affrighted, its ejection was an awkward affair, calling for tact and manoeuvring.
The English Church at Thornhill has had another inc.u.mbent not undistinguished in literature, the Rev. E. H. Dewar, author of a work published at Oxford in 1844, on the Theology of Modern Germany. It is in the form of letters to a friend, written from the standpoint of the Jeremy Taylor school. It is ent.i.tled ”German Protestantism and the Right of Private Judgment in the Interpretation of Holy Scripture.” The author's former position as chaplain to the British residents at Hamburg gave him facilities for becoming acquainted with the state of German theology. Mr. Dewar, to superior natural talents, added a refined scholars.h.i.+p and a wide range of accurate knowledge. He died at Thornhill in 1862.
The inc.u.mbent who preceded Mr. Dewar was the Rev. Dominic E. Blake, brother of Mr. Chancellor Blake; a clergyman also of superior talents.