Toronto of Old Part 43

60 in Markham, had also the rank of General. Augustin Boiton, of No. 48 in Markham and No. 61 in Vaughan, was a Lieutenant-Colonel.

The Comte de Puisaye, of No. 52 in Markham, figures conspicuously in the contemporary accounts of the royalist struggle against the Convention.

He himself published in London in 1803 five octavo volumes of Memoirs, justificatory of his proceedings in that contest. Carlyle in his "French Revolution" speaks of de Puisaye's work, and, referring to the so-called Calvados war, says that those who are curious in such matters may read therein "how our Girondin National forces, _i.e._, the Moderates, marching off with plenty of wind music, were drawn out about the old chateau of Brecourt, in the wood-country near Vernon (in Brittany), to meet the Mountain National forces (the Communist) advancing from Paris.

How on the fifteenth afternoon of July, 1793, they did meet:--and, as it were, shrieked mutually, and took mutually to flight, without loss. How Puisaye thereafter,--for the Mountain Nationals fled first, and we thought ourselves the victors,--was roused from his warm bed in the Castle of Brecourt and had to gallop without boots; our Nationals in the night watches having fallen unexpectedly into _sauve qui peut_."

Carlyle alludes again to this misadventure, when approaching the subject of the Quiberon expedition, two years later, towards the close of La Vendee war. Affecting for the moment a prophetic tone, in his peculiar way Carlyle proceeds thus, introducing at the close of his sketch de Puisaye once more, who was in command of the invading force spoken of, although not undividedly so. "In the month of July, 1795, English ships," he says, "will ride in Quiberon roads. There will be debarkation of chivalrous _ci-devants_, (_i.e._ ex-n.o.blesse), of volunteer prisoners of war--eager to desert; of fire-arms, proclamations, clothes chests, royalists, and specie. Whereupon also, on the Republican side, there will be rapid stand-to arms; with ambuscade-marchings by Quiberon beach at midnight; storming of Fort Penthievre; war-thunder mingling with the roar of the mighty main; and such a morning light as has seldom dawned; debarkation hurled back into its boats, or into the devouring billows, with wreck and wail;--in one word, a _ci-devant_ Puisaye as totally ineffectual here as he was at Calvados, when he rode from Vernon Castle without boots."

The impression which Carlyle gives of M. de Puisaye is not greatly bettered by what M. de Lamartine says of him in the _History of the Girondists_, when speaking of him in connexion with the affair near the Chateau of Brecourt. He is there ranked with adventurers rather than heroes. "This man," de Lamartine says, "was at once an orator, a diplomatist, and a soldier,--a character eminently adapted for civil war, which produces more adventurers than heroes." De Lamartine describes how, prior to the repulse at Chateau Brecourt, "M. de Puisaye had pa.s.sed a whole year concealed in a cavern in the midst of the forests of Brittany, where, by his manoeuvres and correspondence he kindled the fire of revolt against the republic." He professed to act in the interest of the moderates, believing that, through his influence, they would at last be induced to espouse heartily the cause of const.i.tutional royalty.

Thiers, in his "History of the French Revolution," vii. 146, speaks in respectful terms of Puisaye. He says that "with great intelligence and extraordinary skill in uniting the elements of a party, he combined extreme activity of body and mind, and vast ambition:" and even after Quiberon, Thiers says "it was certain that Puisaye had done all that lay in his power." De Puisaye ended his days in England, in the neighbourhood of London, in 1827.--In one of the letters of Mr. Surveyor Jones we observe some of the improvements of the Oak Ridges spoken of as "Puisaye's Town."

It is possibly to the settlement, then only in contemplation, of emigres here in the Oak Ridges of Yonge Street, that Burke alludes, when in his Reflections on the French Revolution he says: "I hear that there are considerable emigrations from France, and that many, quitting that voluptuous climate and that seductive Circean liberty, have taken refuge in the frozen regions, and under the British despotism, of Canada."

"The frozen regions of Canada," the great rhetorician's expression in this place, has become a stereotyped phrase with declaimers. The reports of the first settlers at Tadousac and Quebec made an indelible impression on the European mind. To this day in transatlantic communities, it is realized only to a limited extent that Canada has a spring, summer and autumn as well as a winter, and that her skies wear an aspect not always gloomy and inhospitable. "British despotism" is, of course, ironically said, and means, in reality, British const.i.tutional freedom. (In some instances these Royalist officers appear to have accepted commissions from the British Crown, and so to have become nominally ent.i.tled to grants of land.)

There are some representatives of the original emigres still to be met with in the neighbourhood of the Oak Ridges; but they have not in every instance continued to be seised of the lands granted in 1798. The Comte de Chalus, son of Rene Augustin, retains property here; but he resides in Montreal.

An estate, however, at the distance of one lot eastward from Yonge Street, in Whitchurch, is yet in the actual occupation of a direct descendant of one of the first settlers in this region. Mr. Henry Quetton St. George here engages with energy in the various operations of a practical farmer, on land inherited immediately from his father, the Chevalier de St. George, at the same time dispensing to his many friends a refined hospitality. If at Glenlonely the circular turrets and pointed roofs of the old French chateau are not to be seen,--what is of greater importance, the amenities and gentle life of the old French chateau are to be found. Moreover, by another successful enterprise added to agriculture, the present proprietor of Glenlonely has brought it to pa.s.s that the name of St. George is no longer suggestive, as in the first instance it was, of wars in La Vendee and fightings on the Garonne and Dordogne, but redolent in Canada, far and wide, only of vineyards in Languedoc and of pleasant wines from across the Pyrenees.

A large group of superior farm buildings, formerly seen on the right just after the turn which leads to Glenlonely, bore the graceful name of Larchmere,--an appellation glancing at the mere or little lake within view of the windows of the house: a sheet of water more generally known as Lake Willc.o.c.ks--so called from an early owner of the spot, Col.

Willc.o.c.ks, of whom we have spoken in another section. Larchmere was for some time the home of his great grandson, William Willc.o.c.ks Baldwin. The house has since been destroyed by fire.

Just beneath the surface of the soil on the borders of the lakelets of the Ridges, was early noticed a plentiful deposit of white sh.e.l.l-marl, resembling the substance brought up from the oozy floor of the Atlantic in the soundings preparatory to laying the telegraph-cable. It was, in fact, incipient chalk. It used to be employed in the composition of a whitewash for walls and fences. It may since have been found of value as a manure. In these quarters, as elsewhere in Canada, fine specimens of the antlers of the Wapiti, or great American stag, were occasionally dug up.

The summit level of the Ridges was now reached, the most elevated land in this part of the basin of the St. Lawrence; a height, however, after all, of only about eight hundred feet above the level of the sea. The attention of the wayfarer was hereabout always directed to a small stream, which the road crossed, flowing out of Lake Willc.o.c.ks: and then a short distance further on, he was desired to notice a slight swale or shallow mora.s.s on the left. The stream in question, he was told, was the infant Humber, just starting south for Lake Ontario; while the swale or mora.s.s, he was a.s.sured, was a feeder of the east branch of the Holland River, flowing north into Lake Simcoe.

Notwithstanding the comparative nearness to each other of the waters of the Holland and the Humber, thus made visible to the eye, the earliest project of a ca.n.a.l in these parts was, as has once before been observed, for the connection, not of the Holland river and the Humber, but of the Holland river and the Rouge or Nen. The Mississaga Indians attached great importance to the Rouge and its valley as a link in one of their ancient trails between Huron and Ontario; and they seem to have imparted to the first white men their own notions on the subject. "It apparently rises," says the _Gazetteer_ of 1799, speaking of the Rouge or Nen, "in the vicinity of one of the branches of Holland's river, with which it will probably, at some future period, be connected by a ca.n.a.l." A "proposed ca.n.a.l" is accordingly here marked on one of the first ma.n.u.script maps of Upper Canada.

Father St. Lawrence and Father Mississippi pour their streams--so travellers a.s.sure us--from urns situated at no great distance apart.

Lake Itaska and its vicinity, just west of Lake Superior, possess a charm for this reason. In like manner, to compare small things with great, the particular quarter of the Ridges where the waters of the Humber and the Holland used to be seen in near proximity to each other, had always with ourselves a special interest. Two small lakes, called respectively Lake Sproxton and Lake Simon, important feeders of the Rouge, a little to the east of the Glenlonely property, are situated very close to the streams that pa.s.s into the east branch of the Holland river; so that the conjecture of the author of the _Gazetteer_ was a good one. He says, "apparently the sources of the Rouge and Holland lie near each other."

After pa.s.sing the notable locality of the Ridges just spoken of, the land began perceptibly to decline; and soon emerging from the confused glens and hillocks and woods that had long on every side been hedging in the view, we suddenly came out upon a brow where a wide prospect was obtained, stretching far to the north, and far to the east and west.

From such an elevation the acres here and there denuded of their woods by the solitary axemen could not be distinguished; accordingly, the panorama presented here for many a year continued to be exactly that which met the eyes of the first exploring party from York in 1793.

As we used to see it, it seemed in effect to be an unbroken forest; in the foreground bold and billowy and of every variety of green; in the middle distance a.s.suming neutral, indistinct tints, as it dipped down into what looked like a wide vale; then apparently rising by successive gentle stages, coloured now deep violet, now a tender blue, up to the line of the sky. In a depression in the far horizon, immediately in front, was seen the silvery sheen of water. This, of course, was the lake known since 1793 as Lake Simcoe; but previously spoken of by the French sometimes as Lake Sinion or Sheniong; sometimes as Lake Ouentironk, Ouentaron, and Toronto--the very name which is so familiar to us now, as appertaining to a locality thirty miles southward of this lake.

The French also in their own tongue sometimes designated it, perhaps for some reason connected with fishing operations, _Lac aux Claies_, Hurdle Lake. Thus in the _Gazetteer_ of 1799 we have "Simcoe Lake: formerly Lake aux Claies, Ouentironk, Sheniong, situated between York and Gloucester upon Lake Huron: it has a few small islands and several good harbours." And again on another page of the same _Gazetteer_, we have the article: "Toronto Lake (or Toronto): lake le Clie [_i. e._ Lac aux Claies] was formerly so called by some: (others," the same article proceeds to say, "called the chain of lakes from the vicinity of Matchedash towards the head of the Bay of Quinte, the Toronto lakes and the communication from the one to the other was called the Toronto river:" whilst in another place in the _Gazetteer_ we have the information given us that the Humber was also styled the Toronto river, thus: "Toronto river, called by some St. John's; now called the Humber.")

The region of which we here obtained a kind of Pisgah view, where

"The bursting prospect spreads immense around"

on the northern brow of the Ridges, is a cla.s.sic one, renowned in the history of the Wyandots or Hurons, and in the early French missionary annals.

It did not chance to enter into the poet Longfellow's plan to lay the scene of any portion of his song of Hiawatha so far to the eastward; and the legends gathered by him

From the great lakes of the Northland, From the mountains, moors and fenlands, Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah, Feeds among the reeds and rushes--

tell of an era just anterior to the period when this district becomes invested with interest for us. Francis Parkman, however, in an agreeably written work, ent.i.tled "The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century," has dwelt somewhat at length on the history of this locality, which is the well-peopled Toronto region, _lieu ou il y a beaucoup de gens_, of which we have formerly spoken. (p. 74.)

In the early Reports of the Jesuit fathers themselves, too, this area figures largely. They, in fact, constructed a map, which must have led the central mission-board of their a.s.sociation, at Rome, to believe that this portion of Western Canada was as thickly strewn with villages and towns as a district of equal area in old France. In the "Chorographia Regionis Huronum," attached to Father du Creux's Map of New France, of the date 1660, given in Bressani's Abridgment of "the Relations," we have the following places conspicuously marked as stations or sub-missions in the peninsula bounded by Notawasaga bay, Matchedash or Sturgeon bay, the river Severn, Lake Couchichin, and Lake Simcoe, implying population in and round each of them:--St. Xavier, St. Charles, St. Louis, St. Ignatius, St. Denis, St. Joachim, St. Athanasius, St.

Elizabeth, St. John the Baptist, St. Joseph, St. Mary, St. Michael, La Conception, St. Mary Magdalene, and others.

(In Schoolcraft's American Indians, p. 130, ed. 1851, the scene of the story of AinG.o.don and Naywadaha is laid at Toronto, by which a spot near Lake Simcoe seems to be meant, and not the trading-post of Toronto on Lake Ontario.)

But we must push on. The end of our journey is in sight. The impediments to our advance have been innumerable, but unavoidable. In spite of appearances, "Semper ad eventum festina," has all along been secretly goading us forward.

The farmhouses and their surroundings in the Quaker settlement through which, after descending from the Ridges on the northern side, we pa.s.sed, came to be notable at an early date for a characteristic neatness, completeness, and visible judiciousness; and for an air of enviable general comfort and prosperity. The farmers here were emigrants chiefly from Pennsylvania. Coming from a quarter where large tracts had been rapidly transformed by human toil from a state of nature to a condition of high cultivation, they brought with them an inherited experience in regard to such matters; and on planting themselves down in the midst of an unbroken wild, they regarded the situation with more intelligence perhaps than the ordinary emigrant from the British Islands and interior of Germany, and so, unr.e.t.a.r.ded by blunders and by doubts as to the issue, were enabled very speedily to turn their industry to profitable account.

The old _Gazetteer_ of 1799 speaks in an exalted sentimental strain of an emigration then going on from the United States into Canada. "The loyal peasant," it says, "sighing after the government he lost by the late revolution, travels from Pennsylvania in search of his former laws and protection; and having his expectations fulfilled by new marks of favour from the Crown in a grant of lands, he turns his plough at once into these fertile plains [the immediate reference is to the neighbourhood of Woodhouse on Lake Erie], and an abundant crop reminds him of his grat.i.tude to his G.o.d and to his king."

We do not know for certain whether the Quaker settlers of the region north of the Ridges came into Canada under the influence of feelings exactly such as those described by the _Gazetteer_ of 1799. In 1806, however, we find them coming forward in a body to congratulate a new Lieutenant-Governor on his arrival in Upper Canada. In the _Gazette_ of Oct. 4, 1806, we read: "On Tuesday, the 30th September (1806), the following address from the Quakers residing on Yonge Street was presented to his Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor: "The Society of the people called Quakers, to Francis Gore, Governor of Upper Canada, sendeth greeting. Notwithstanding we are a people who hold forth to the world a principle which in many respects differs from the greater part of mankind, yet we believe it our reasonable duty, as saith the Apostle, 'Submit yourselves unto every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether it be the king as supreme, or unto governors as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well:' in this we hope to be his humble and peaceful subjects. Although we cannot for conscience sake join with many of our fellow-mortals in complimentary customs of man, neither in taking up the sword in order to shed human blood--for the Scripture saith that 'it is righteousness that exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people'--we feel concerned for thy welfare and the prosperity of the province, hoping thy administration may be such as to be a terror to the evil-minded and a pleasure to them that do well: then will the province flourish and prosper under thy direction; which is the earnest desire and prayer of thy sincere friends.--Read and approved in Yonge Street monthly meeting, held the 18th day of the ninth month, 1806. Timothy Rogers and Amos Armitage are appointed to attend on the Governor therewith." Signed by order of the said meeting, Nathaniel Pearson, clerk."

To this address, characteristic alike in the peculiar syntax of its sentences and in the well-meant plat.i.tudes to which it gives expression, his Excellency was pleased to return the following answer: "I return you my thanks for your dutiful address and for your good wishes for my welfare and prosperity of this province. I have no doubt of your proving peaceful and good subjects to his Majesty, as well as industrious and respectable members of society. I shall at all times be happy to afford to such persons my countenance and support. Francis Gore, Lieut.-Governor. Government House, York, Upper Canada, 30th Sept., 1806."

The Timothy Rogers here named bore a leading part in the first establishment of the Quaker settlement. He and Jacob Lundy were the two original managers of its affairs. On the arrival of Governor Peter Hunter, predecessor to Gov. Gore, Timothy Rogers and Jacob Lundy with a deputation from the settlement, came into town to complain to him of the delay which they and their co-religionists had experienced in obtaining the patents for their lands.

Governor Hunter, who was also Commander-in-Chief and a Lieut.-General in the army, received them in the garrison, and after hearing how on coming to York on former occasions they had been sent about from one office to another for a reply to their inquiries about the patents, he requested them to come to him again the next day at noon. Orders were at the same instant despatched to Mr. D. W. Smith, the Surveyor-General, to Mr.

Small, Clerk of the Executive Council, to Mr. Burns, Clerk of the Crown, and to Mr. Jarvis, Secretary and Registrar of the Province (all of whom it appeared at one time or another had failed to reply satisfactorily to the Quakers), to wait at the same hour on the Lieut.-Governor, bringing with them, each respectively, such papers and memoranda as might be in their possession, having relation to patents for lands in Whitchurch and King.

Governor Hunter had a reputation for considerable severity of character; and all functionaries, from the judge on the bench to the humblest employe, held office in those days very literally during pleasure.

"These gentlemen complain,"--the personages above enumerated having duly appeared, together with the deputation from Yonge Street--"These gentlemen complain," the Governor said, pointing to the Quakers, "that they cannot get their patents."

Each of the official personages present offered in succession some indistinct observations; expressive it would seem of a degree of regret, and hinting exculpatory reasons, so far as he individually was concerned.

On closer interrogation, one thing however came out very clear, that the order for the patents was more than twelve months old.

At length the onus of blame seemed to settle down on the head of the Secretary and Registrar, Mr. Jarvis, who could only say that really the pressure of business in his office was so great that he had been absolutely unable, up to the present moment, to get ready the particular patents referred to.

"Sir!" was the Governor's immediate rejoinder, "if they are not forthcoming, every one of them, and placed in the hands of these gentlemen here in my presence at noon on Thursday next (it was now Tuesday), by George! I'll un-Jarvis you!"--implying, as we suppose, a summary conge as Secretary and Registrar.

It is needless to say that Mr. Rogers and his colleagues of the deputation carried back with them to Whitchurch lively accounts of the vigour and rigour of the new Governor--as well as their patents.

General Hunter was very peremptory in his dismissals occasionally. In a _Gazette_ of July 16, 1803, is to be seen an ominous announcement that the Governor is going to be very strict with the Government clerks in regard to hours: "Lieut.-Governor's office, 21st June, 1803. Notice is hereby given that regular attendance for the transaction of the public business of the Province will in future be given at the office of the Secretary of the Province, the Executive Council office, and the Surveyor-General's office, every day in the year (Sundays, Good Friday, and Christmas day only excepted) from ten o'clock in the morning until three in the afternoon, and from five o'clock in the afternoon until seven in the evening. By order of the Lieutenant-Governor, Jas. Green, Secretary."

Soon after the appearance of this notice, it happened one forenoon that young Alexander Macnab, a clerk in one of the public offices, was innocently watching the Governor's debarkation from a boat, preparatory to his being conveyed up to the Council-chamber in a sedan-chair which was in waiting for him. The youth suddenly caught his Excellency's eye, and was asked--"What business he had to be there? Did he not belong to the Surveyor-General's office? Sir! your services are no longer required!"

For this same young Macnab, thus summarily dismissed, Governor Hunter, we have been told, procured subsequently a commission. He attained the rank of captain and met a soldier's fate on the field of Waterloo, the only Upper Canadian known to have been engaged or to have fallen in that famous battle. (We have before mentioned that so late as 1868, Captain Macnab's Waterloo medal was presented, by the Duke of Cambridge personally, to the Rev. Dr. Macnab, of Bowmanville, nephew of the deceased officer.)

Two stray characteristic items relating to Governor Hunter may here be subjoined. The following was his brief reply to the Address of the Inhabitants of York on his arrival there in 1799:--"Gentlemen, nothing that is in my power shall be wanting to contribute to the happiness and welfare of this colony." (_Gazette_, Aug. 24, 1799)--At Niagara, an Address from "the mechanics and husbandmen" was refused by him, on the ground that an address professedly from the inhabitants generally had been presented already. On this, the _Constellation_ of Sep. 10 (1799), prints the following "anecdote," which is a hit at Gov. Hunter.

"Anecdote.--When Governor Simcoe arrived at Kingston on his way here to take upon him the government of the Province, the magistrates and gentlemen of that town presented him with a very polite address. It was politely and verbally answered. The inhabitants of the country and town, who move not in the upper circles, presented theirs. And this also his Excellency very politely answered, and the answer being in writing, is carefully preserved to this day."

Among the patents carried home by Mr. Timothy Rogers, above named, were at least seven in which he was more or less personally interested. His own lot was 95 on the west or King side of Yonge Street. Immediately in front of him on the Whitchurch or east side, on lots 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, and 96, all in a row, were enjoyed by sons or near relatives of his, bearing the names respectively of Rufus Rogers, Asa Rogers, Isaac Rogers, Wing Rogers, James Rogers, and Obadiah Rogers.

Mr. Lundy's name does not appear among those of the original patentees; but lots or portions of lot in the "Quaker Settlement" are marked at an earlier period with the names of Shadrach Lundy, Oliver Lundy, Jacob Lundy, Reuben Lundy, and perhaps more.

In the region just beyond the Ridges there were farmers also of the community known as Mennonists or Tunkers. Long beards, when such appendages were rarities, dangling hair, antique-shaped, b.u.t.tonless, home-spun coats, and wide-brimmed low-crowned hats, made these persons conspicuous in the street. On the seat of a loaded country-waggon, or on the back of a solitary rustic nag, would now and then be seen a man of this community, who might pa.s.s for John Huss or John a Lasco, as represented in the pictures. It was always curious to gaze upon these waifs and strays from old Holland, perpetuating, or at least trying to perpetuate, on a new continent, customs and notions originating in the peculiar circ.u.mstances of obscure localities in another hemisphere three hundred years ago.