Toronto of Old Part 15

"Where clad in burning robes are laid Life's blossomed joys untimely shed, And where those cherish'd forms are laid We miss awhile, and call them dead."

The building itself has been s.h.i.+fted bodily from its original position to the south-east corner of Stanley and Jarvis Street. It, the centre of so many a.s.sociations, is degraded now into being a depot for "General Stock;" in other words, a receptacle for Rags and Old Iron.

The six acres of play-ground are thickly built over. A thoroughfare of ill-repute traverses it from west to east. This street was at first called March Street; and under that appellation acquired an evil report.

It was hoped that a n.o.bler designation would perhaps elevate the character of the place, as the name "Milton Street" had helped to do for the ign.o.ble Grub Street in London. But the purlieus of the neighbourhood continue, unhappily, to be the Alsatia of the town. The filling up of the old breezy field with dwellings, for the most part of a wretched cla.s.s, has driven "the schoolmaster" away from the region. His return to the locality, in some good missionary sense, is much to be wished; and after a time, will probably be an accomplished fact.

[Since these lines were written, the old District Grammar School building has wholly vanished. It will be consolatory to know that, escaping destruction by fire, it was deliberately dismantled and taken to pieces; and, at once, walls of substantial brick overspread the whole of the s.p.a.ce which it had occupied.]

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XII.

KING STREET FROM CHURCH STREET TO GEORGE STREET.

We were arrested in our progress on King Street by St. James' Church.

Its a.s.sociations, and those of the District Grammar School and its play-ground to the north, have detained us long. We now return to the point reached when our recollections compelled us to digress.

Before proceeding, however, we must record the fact that the break in the line of building on the north side of the street here, was the means of checking the tide of fire which was rolling irresistibly westward, in the great conflagration of 1849. The energies of the local fire-brigade of the day had never been so taxed as they were on that memorable occasion, Aid from steam-power was then undreamt-of. Simultaneous outbursts of flame from numerous widely-separated spots had utterly disheartened every one, and had caused a general abandonment of effort to quell the conflagration. Then it was that the open s.p.a.ce about St.

James' Church saved much of the town from destruction.

To the west, the whole sky was, as it were, a vast canopy of meteors streaming from the east. The church itself was consumed, but the flames advanced no further. A burning s.h.i.+ngle was seen to become entangled in the luffer-boards of the belfry, and slowly to ignite the woodwork there: from a very minute start at that point, a stream of fire soon began to rise--soon began to twine itself about the upper stages of the tower, and to climb nimbly up the steep slope of the spire, from the summit of which it then shot aloft into the air, speedily enveloping and overtopping the golden cross that was there.

At the same time the flames made their way downwards within the tower, till the internal timbers of the roofing over the main body of the building were reached. There, in the natural order of things, the fire readily spread; and the whole interior of the church, in the course of an hour, was transformed, before the eyes of a bewildered mult.i.tude looking powerlessly on, first into a vast "burning fiery furnace," and then, as the roof collapsed and fell, into a confused chaos of raging flame.

The heavy gilt cross at the apex of the spire came down with a crash, and planted itself in the pavement of the princ.i.p.al entrance below, where the steps, as well as the inner-walls of the base of the tower, were bespattered far and wide with the molten metal of the great bell.

While the work of destruction was going fiercely and irrepressibly on, the Public Clock in the belfry, Mr. Draper's gift to the town, was heard to strike the hour as usual, and the quarters thrice--exercising its functions and having its appointed say, amidst the sympathies, not loud but deep, of those who watched its doom; bearing its testimony, like a martyr at the stake, in calm and unimpa.s.sioned strain, up to the very moment of time when the deadly element touched its vitals.

Opposite the southern portal of St. James' Church was to be seen, at a very early period, the conspicuous trade-sign of a well-known furrier of York, Mr. Joseph Rogers. It was the figure of an Indian Trapper holding a gun, and accompanied by a dog, all depicted in their proper colours on a high, upright tablet set over the doorway of the store below. Besides being an appropriate symbol of the business carried on, it was always an interesting reminder of the time, then not so very remote, when all of York, or Toronto, and its commerce that existed, was the old French trading-post on the common to the west, and a few native hunters of the woods congregating with their packs of "beaver" once or twice a-year about the entrance to its picketted enclosure. Other rather early dealers in furs in York were Mr. Jared Stocking and Mr. John Bastedo.

In the _Gazette_ for April 25, 1822, we notice a somewhat pretentious advertis.e.m.e.nt, headed "Muskrats," which announces that the highest market price will be given in cash for "good seasonable muskrat skins and other furs at the store of Robert Coleman, Esquire, Market Place, York."

Mr. Rogers' descendants continue to occupy the identical site on King Street indicated above, and the Indian Trapper, renovated, is still to be seen--a pleasant instance of Canadian persistence and stability.

In Great Britain and Europe generally, the thoroughfares of ancient towns had, as we know, character and variety given them by the trade-symbols displayed up and down their misty vistas. Charles the First gave, by letters patent, express permission to the citizens of London "to expose and hang in and over the streets, and ways, and alleys of the said city and suburbs of the same, signs and posts of signs, affixed to their houses and shops, for the better finding out such citizens' dwellings, shops, arts, and occupations, without impediment, molestation or interruption of his heirs or successors." And the practice was in vogue long before the time of Charles. It preceded the custom of distinguis.h.i.+ng houses by numbers. At periods when the population generally were unable to read, such rude appeals to the eye had, of course, their use. But as education spread, and architecture of a modern style came to be preferred, this mode of indicating "arts and occupations" grew out of fas.h.i.+on.

Of late, however, the pressure of compet.i.tion in business has been driving men back again upon the customs of by-gone illiterate generations. For the purpose of establis.h.i.+ng a distinct individuality in the public mind the most capricious freaks are played. The streets of the modern Toronto exhibit, we believe, two leonine specimens of auro-ligneous zoology, between which the s.e.x is announced to const.i.tute the difference. The lack of such clear distinction between a pair of glittering symbols of this genus and species, in our Canadian London, was the occasion of much grave consideration in 1867, on the part of the highest authority in our Court of Chancery. Although in that _cause celebre_, after a careful physiognomical study by means of photographs transmitted, it was allowed that there _were_ points of difference between the two specimens in question, as, for example, that "one looked older than the other;" that "one, from the sorrowful expression of its countenance, seemed more resigned to its position than the other"--still the decree was issued for the removal of one of them from the scene--very properly the later-carved of the two.

Of the ordinary trade-signs that were to be seen along the thoroughfare of King Street no particular notice need be taken. The Pestle and Mortar, the Pole twined round with the black strap, the Crowned Boot, the Tea-chest, the Axe, the Broad-axe, the Saw, (mill, cross-cut and circular), the colossal Fowling-piece, the Cooking-stove, the Plough, the Golden Fleece, the Anvil and Sledge-Hammer, the magnified Horse-Shoe, each told its own story, as indicating indispensable wares or occupations.

Pa.s.sing eastward from the painted effigy of the Indian Trapper, we soon came in front of the Market Place, which, so long as only a low wooden building occupied its centre, had an open, airy appearance. We have already dwelt upon some of the occurrences, and a.s.sociations connected with this spot.

On King street, about here, the ordinary trade and traffic of the place came, after a few years, to be concentrated. Here business and bustle were every day, more or less, created by the usual wants of the inhabitants, and by the wants of the country farmers whose waggons in summer, and sleighs in winter, thronged in from the north, east and west. And hereabout at one moment or another, every lawful day, would be surely seen, coming and going, the oddities and street-characters of the town and neighbourhood. Having devoted some s.p.a.ce to the leading and prominent personages of our drama, it will be only proper to bestow a few words on the subordinates, the Calibans and Gobbos, the Nyms and Touchstones, of the piece.

From the various nationalities and races of which the community was a mixture, these were drawn. There was James O'Hara, for example, a poor humourous Irishman, a perfect representative of his cla.s.s in costume, style and manner, employed as bellman at auctions, and so on. When the town was visited by the Papyrotomia--travelling cutters-out of likenesses in black paper (some years ago such things created a sensation),--a full-length of O'Hara was suspended at the entrance to the rooms, recognized at once by every eye, even without the aid of the "Shoot easy" inscribed on a label issuing from the mouth. (In the _Loyalist_ of Nov. 24, 1827, we have O'Hara's death noted. "Died on Friday the 16th instant, James O'Hara, long an inhabitant of this Town, and formerly a soldier in His Majesty's service.")--There was Jock Murray, the Scotch carter; and after him, William Pett.i.t, the English one; and the carter who drove the horse with the "spring-halt;" (every school-lad in the place was familiar with the peculiar twitch upwards of the near hind leg in the gait of this nag.)

The negro population was small. Every individual of colour was recognizable at sight. Black Joe and Whistling Jack were two notabilities; both of them negroes of African birth. In military bands a negro drummer or cymbal-player was formerly often to be seen. The two men just named, after obtaining discharge from a regiment here, gained an honest livelihood by chance employment about the town. Joe, a well-formed, well-trained figure, was to be seen, still arrayed in some old cast-off sh.e.l.l-jacket, acting as porter, or engaged about horses; once already we have had a glimpse of him in the capacity of sheriff's a.s.sistant, administering the lash to wretched culprits in the Market Place. The other, besides playing other parts, officiated occasionally as a sweep; but his most memorable accomplishment was a melodious and powerful style of whistling musical airs, and a faculty for imitating the bag-pipes to perfection.--For the romantic sound of the name, the tall, comely negress, Amy Pompadour, should also be mentioned in the record. But she was of servile descent: at the time at which we write slavery was only just dying out in Upper Canada, as we shall have occasion to note hereafter more at large.

Then came the "Jack of Clubs." Lord Thurlow, we are told, once enabled a stranger to single out in a crowd Dunning, afterwards Lord Ashburton, by telling him to take notice of the first man he saw bearing a strong resemblance to the "Jack of Clubs." In the present case it was a worthy trader in provisions who had acquired among his fellow-townsmen a sobriquet from a supposed likeness to that st.u.r.dy court-card figure. He was a short, burly Englishman, whose place of business was just opposite the entrance to the Market. So absolutely did the epithet attach itself to him, that late-comers to the place failed to learn his real name: all which was good-humouredly borne for a time; but at last the distinction became burdensome and irritating, and Mr. Stafford removed in disgust to New York.

A well-known character often to be seen about here, too, was an unfortunate English farmer of the name of Cowper, of disordered intellect, whose peculiarity was a desire to station himself in the middle of the roadway, and from that vantage-ground to harangue any crowd that might gather, incoherently, but always with a great show of sly drollery and mirthfulness.

On occasions of militia funeral processions, observant lads and others were always on the look-out for a certain prosperous cordwainer of the town of York, Mr. Wilson, who was sure then to be seen marching in the ranks, with musket reversed, and displaying with great precision and solemnity the extra-upright carriage and genuine toe-pointed step of the soldier of the days of George the Second. He had been for sixteen years in the 41st regiment, and ten years and forty-four days in the 103rd; and it was with pride and gusto that he exhibited the high proficiency to which he had in other days attained. The slow pace required by the Dead March gave the on-looker time to study the antique style of military movement thus exemplified.

It was at a comparatively late period that Sir John Smythe and Spencer Lydstone, poets, were notabilities in the streets; the latter, Mr.

Lydstone, recognizable from afar by a scarlet vest, brought out, ever and anon, a printed broadside, filled with eulogiums or satires on the inhabitants of the town, regulated by fees or refusals received. The former, Sir John Smythe, found in the public papers a place for his productions, which by their syntactical irregularities and freedom from marks of punctuation, proved their author (as a reviewer of the day once observed) to be a man _supra grammaticam_, and one possessed of a genius above commas. But his great hobby was a railway to the Pacific, in connection with which he brought out a lithographed map: its peculiarity was a straight black line conspicuously drawn across the continent from Fort William to the mouth of the Columbia river.

In a tract of his on the subject of this railway he provides, in the case of war with the United States, for steam communication between London in England and China and the East Indies, by "a branch to run on the north side of the towns.h.i.+p of Cavan and on the south side of Balsam Lake." "I propose this," he says, "to run in the rear of Lake Huron and in the rear of Lake Superior, twenty miles in the interior of the country of the Lake aforesaid; to unite with the railroad from Lake Superior to Winnipeg, at the south-west main trading-post of the North-West Company." The doc.u.ment is signed "Sir John Smythe, Baronet and Royal Engineer, Canadian Poet, LL.D., and Moral Philosopher."

The concourse of traffickers and idlers in the open s.p.a.ce before the old Market Place were free of tongue; they sometimes talked, in no subdued tone, of their fellow-townsfolk of all ranks. In a small community every one was more or less acquainted with every one, with his dealings and appurtenances, with his man-servant and maid-servant, his horse, his dog, his waggon, cart or barrow.

Those of the primitive residentiaries, to whom the commonalty had taken kindly, were honoured in ordinary speech with their militia-t.i.tles of Colonel, Major, Captain, or the civilian prefix of Mister, Honourable Mister, Squire or Judge, as the case might be; whilst others, not held to have achieved any special claims to deference, were named, even in mature years, by their plain, baptismal names, John, Andrew, Duncan, George, and so on.

And then, there was a third marking-off of a few, against whom, for some vague reason or another, there had grown up in the popular mind a certain degree of prejudice. These, by a curtailment or national corruption of their proper prenomen, would be ordinarily styled Sandy this, Jock that. In some instances the epithet "old" would irreverently precede, and persons of considerable eminence might be heard spoken of as old Tom so-and-so, old Sam such-a-one.

And similarly in respect to the sons and nephews of these worthy gentlemen. Had the community never been replenished from outside sources, few of them would, to the latest moment of their lives, have ever been distinguished except by the plain John, Stephen, Allan, Christopher, and so on, of their infancy, or by the Bill, Harry, Alec, Mac, Dolph, d.i.c.k, or Bob, acquired in the nursery or school.

But enough has been said, for the present at least, on the humors and ways of our secondary characters, as exemplified in the crowd customarily gathered in front of the old Market at York. We shall now proceed on our prescribed route.

The lane leading northward from the north-west corner of Market Square used to be known as Stuart's Lane, from the Rev. George Okill Stuart, once owner of property here. On its west side was a well-known inn, the Farmers' Arms, kept by Mr. Bloor, who, on retiring from business, took up his abode at Yorkville, where it has curiously happened that his name has been attached to a fas.h.i.+onable street, the thoroughfare formerly known as the Concession Line.

The street running north from the north-east angle of Market Square, now known as Nelson Street, was originally New Street, a name which was commemorative of the growth of York westward. The terminal street of the town on the west, prior to the opening of this New Street, had been George Street. The name of "New Street" should never have been changed, even for the heroic one of Nelson. As the years rolled on, it would have become a quaint misnomer, involving a tale, like the name of "New College" at Oxford--a College about five hundred years old.

At a point about half-way between New Street and George Street, King Street was, in 1849, the scene of an election _fracas_ which, in distant quarters, damaged for a time the good name of the town. While pa.s.sing in front of the Coleraine House, an inn on the north side of the street, and a rendezvous of the unsuccessful party, some persons walking in procession, in addition to indulging in the usual harmless groans, flung a missile into the house, when a shot, fired from one of the windows, killed a man in the concourse below.

Owing to the happy settlement of numerous irritating public questions, elections are conducted now, in our towns and throughout our Provinces, in a calm and rational temper for the most part. Only two relics of evil and ignorant days remain amongst us, stirring bad blood twice a year, on anniversaries consecrated, or otherwise, to the object. A generous-hearted nation, transplanted as they have been almost _en ma.s.se_ to a new continent, where prosperity, wealth and honours have everywhere been their portion, would shew more wisdom in the repudiation than they do in the recognition and studied conservation, of these hateful heirlooms of their race.

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XIII.

KING STREET--DIGRESSION INTO DUKE STREET.

On pa.s.sing George Street, as we intimated a moment ago, we enter the parallelogram which const.i.tuted the original town-plot. Its boundaries were George Street, d.u.c.h.ess Street, Ontario Street (with the lane south of it), and Palace Street. From this, its old core, York spread westward and northward, extending at length in those directions respectively (under the name of Toronto) to the Asylum and Yorkville; while eastward its developments--though here less solid and less shapely--were finally bounded by the windings of the Don. Were Toronto an old town on the European Continent, George Street, d.u.c.h.ess Street, Ontario Street and Palace Street, would probably now be boulevards, showing the s.p.a.ce once occupied by stout stone walls. The parallelogram just defined represents "the City" in modern London, or "la Cite" in modern Paris--the original nucleus round which gradually cl.u.s.tered the dwellings of later generations.

Before, however, we enter upon what may be styled King Street proper, it will be convenient to make a momentary digression northwards into Duke Street, anciently a quiet, retired thoroughfare, skirted on the right and left by the premises and grounds and houses of several most respectable inhabitants. At the north-west angle of the intersection of this street with George Street was the home of Mr. Washburn; but this was comparatively a recent erection. Its site previously had been the brickyard of Henry Hale, a builder and contractor, who put up the wooden structure, possessing some architectural pretensions, on the south-east angle of the same intersection, diagonally across; occupied in the second instance by Mr. Moore, of the Commissariat; then by Dr. Lee, and afterwards by Mr. J. Murchison.