Toronto of Old Part 26

Immediately north, on the same property, the Roman Catholics had previously built their princ.i.p.al place of wors.h.i.+p and numerous appurtenances, attracted possibly to the spot by the expectation that McGill Square would continue for ever an open ornamental piece of ground.

A little farther to the north a cross-street, leading from Yonge Street eastward, bears the name of McGill. An intervening cross-street preserves the name of Mr. Crookshank, who was Mr. McGill's brother-in-law.

The name that appears on the original survey of York and its suburbs as first occupant of the park-lot westward of Mr. McGill's, is that of Mr.

George Playter. This is the Captain Playter, senior, of whom we have already spoken in our excursion up the valley of the Don. We have named him also among the forms of a past age whom we ourselves remember often seeing in the congregation a.s.sembled of old in the wooden St. James'.

Mr. Playter was an Englishman by birth, but had pa.s.sed many of his early years in Philadelphia, where for a time he attached himself to the Society of Friends, having selected as a wife a member of that body. But on the breaking out of the troubles that led to the independence of the United States, his patriotic attachment to old far-off England compelled him, in spite of the peaceful theories of the denomination to which he had united himself, promptly to join the Royalist forces.

He used to give a somewhat humorous account of his sudden return to the military creed of ordinary mundane men. "Lie there, Quaker!" cried he to his cutaway, b.u.t.tonless, formal coat, as he stripped it off and flung it down, for the purpose of donning the soldier's habiliments. But some of the Quaker observances were never relinquished in his family. We well remember, in the old homestead on the Don, and afterwards at his residence on Caroline Street, a silent mental thanksgiving before meals, that always took place after every one had taken his seat at the table; a brief pause was made, and all bent for a moment slightly forwards. The act was solemn and impressive.

Old Mr. Playter was a man of sprightly and humorous temperament, and his society was accordingly much enjoyed by those who knew him. A precise attention to his dress and person rendered him an excellent type in which to study the costume and style of the ordinary unofficial citizen of a past generation. Colonel M. F. Whitehead, of Port Hope, in a letter kindly expressive of his interest in these reminiscences of York, incidentally furnished a little sketch that will not be out of place here. "My visits to York, after I was articled to Mr. Ward, in 1819,"

Colonel Whitehead says, "were frequent. I usually lodged at old Mr.

Playter's, Mrs. Ward's father. [This was when he was still living at the homestead on the Don.] The old gentleman often walked into town with me, by Castle Frank; his three-cornered hat, silver knee-buckles, broad-toed shoes and large buckles, were always carefully arranged."--To the equipments, so well described by Colonel Whitehead, we add from our own boyish recollection of Sunday sights, white stockings and a gold-headed cane of a length unusual now.

According to a common custom prevalent at an early time, Mr. Playter set apart on his estate on the Don a family burial-plot, where his own remains and those of several members of his family and their descendants were deposited. Mr. George Playter, son of Captain George Playter, was some time Deputy Sheriff of the Home District; and Mr. Eli Playter, another son, represented for some sessions in the Provincial Parliament the North Riding of York. A daughter, who died unmarried in 1832, Miss Hannah Playter, "Aunt Hannah," as she was styled in the family, is pleasantly remembered as well for the genuine kindness of her character, as also for the persistency with which, like her father, she carried forward into a new and changed generation, and retained to the last, the costume and manners of the reign of King George the Third.

Immediately in front of the extreme westerly portion of the park lot which we are now pa.s.sing, and on the south side of the present Queen Street in that direction, was situated an early Court House of York, a.s.sociated in the memories of most of the early people with their first acquaintance with forensic pleadings and law proceedings.

This building was a notable object in its day. In an old plan of the town we observe it conspicuously delineated in the locality mentioned--the _other_ public buildings of the place, viz., the Commissariat Stores, the Government House, the Council Chamber (at the present north-west corner of York and Wellington Streets), the District School, St. James's Church, and the Parliament House (by the Little Don), being marked in the same distinguished manner. It was a plain two-storey frame building, erected in the first instance as an ordinary place of abode by Mr. Montgomery, father of the Montgomerys, once of the neighbourhood of Eglinton, on Yonge Street. It stood in a s.p.a.ce defined by the present line of Yonge Street on the west, by nearly the present line of Victoria Street on the east, by Queen Street on the north and by Richmond Street on the south. Though situated nearer Queen Street than Richmond Street, it faced the latter, and was approached from the latter.--It was Mr. Montgomery who obtained by legal process the opening of Queen Street in the rear of his property. In consequence of the ravine of which we have had occasion so often to speak, the allowance for this street as laid down in the first plans of York had been closed up by authority from Yonge Street to Caroline Street.

It was seriously proposed in 1800 to close up Queen Street to the westward also from Yonge Street "so far as the Common," that is, the Garrison Reserve, on the ground that such street was wholly unnecessary, there being in that direction already one highway into the town, namely, Richmond Street, situated only ten rods to the south. In 1800 the southern termination of Yonge Street was where we are now pa.s.sing, at the corner of Montgomery's lot. At this point the farmers' waggons from the north turned off to the eastward, proceeding as far as Toronto Street, down which they wended their way to Richmond Street, and so on to Church Street and King Street, finally reaching the Market Place.

Of the opening of Yonge Street through a range of building lots which in 1800 blocked the way from Queen Street southwards, we shall speak hereafter in the excursion which we propose to make through Yonge Street from south to north, the moment we have finished recording our collections and recollections in relation to Queen Street.

_Memories of the Old Court House._

In the old Court House, situated as we have described, we received our first boyish impressions of the solemnities and forms observed in Courts of Law. In paying a visit of curiosity subsequently to the singular series of Law Courts which are to be found ranged along one side of Westminster Hall in London--each one of them in succession entered through the heavy folds of lofty mysterious-looking curtains, each one of them crowded with earnest pleaders and anxious suitors, each one of them provided with a judge elevated in solitary majesty on high, each one of them seeming to the pa.s.sing stranger more like a scene in a drama than a prosaic reality--we could not but revert in memory to the old upper chamber at York where the remote shadows of such things were for the first time encountered.

It was startling to remember of a sudden that our early Upper Canadian Judges, our early Upper Canadian Barristers, came fresh from these Westminster Hall Courts! What a contrast must have been presented to these men in the rude wilds to which they found themselves transported.

Riding the Circuit in the Home, Midland, Eastern and Western Districts at the beginning of the present century was no trivial undertaking.

Accommodation for man and horse was for the most part scant and comfortless. Locomotion by land and water was perilous and slow, and racking to the frame. The apartments procurable for the purposes of the Court were of the humblest kind.

Our pioneer jurisconsults in their several degrees, however, like our pioneers generally, unofficial as well as official, did their duty. They quietly initiated in the country, customs of gravity and order which have now become traditional; and we see the result in the decent dignity which surrounds, at the present day, the administration of justice in Canada in the Courts of every grade.

Prior to the occupation of Mr. Montgomery's house as the Court House at York, the Court of King's Bench held its sessions in a portion of the Government Buildings at the east end of the town, destroyed in the war of 1813. On June 25, 1812, the Sheriff, John Beikie, advertises in the _Gazette_ that "a Court of General Quarter Sessions of the Peace for the Home District will be holden at the Government Buildings in the town of York on Tuesday, the fourteenth day of July now next ensuing, at the hour of ten o'clock in the forenoon, of which all Justices of the Peace, Coroners, Gaolers, High Constables, Constables and Bailiffs are desired to take notice, and that they be then and there present with their Rolls, Records, and other Memoranda to do and perform those things which by reason of their respective offices shall be to be done."

It is with the Court Room in the Government Buildings that the Judge, Sheriff and Crown Counsel were familiar, who were engulfed in Lake Ontario in 1805. The story of the total loss of the government schooner Speedy, Captain Thomas Paxton, is widely known. In that ill-fated vessel suddenly went down in a gale in the dead of night, along with its commander and crew, Judge Cochrane, Solicitor-General Gray, Mr. Angus McDonell, Sheriff of York, Mr. Fishe, the High Bailiff, an Indian prisoner about to be tried at Presqu'Isle for murder, two interpreters, Cowan and Ruggles, several witnesses, and Mr. Herchmer, a merchant of York; in all thirty-nine persons, of whom no trace was ever afterwards discovered.

The weather was threatening, the season of the year stormy (7th October), and the schooner was suspected not to be sea-worthy. But the orders of the Governor, General Peter Hunter, were peremptory. Mr.

Weekes, of whom we have heard before, escaped the fate that befel so many connected with his profession, by deciding to make the journey to Presqu'Isle on horseback. (For the seat in the House rendered vacant by the sudden removal of Mr. McDonell, Mr. Weekes was the successful candidate.)

The name of the Indian who was on his way to be tried was Ogetonicut.

His brother, Whistling Duck, had been killed by a white man, and he took his revenge on John Sharp, another white man. The deed was done at Ball Point on Lake Scugog, where John Sharp was in charge of a trading-post for furs belonging to the Messrs. Farewell. The Governor had promised, so it was alleged, that the slayer of Whistling Duck should be punished.

But a twelvemonth had elapsed and nothing had been done. The whole tribe, the Muskrat branch of the Chippewas, with their Chief Wabbekisheco at their head, came up in canoes to York on this occasion, starting from the mouth of Annis's creek, near Port Oshawa, and encamping at Gibraltar Point on the peninsula in front of York. A guard of soldiers went over to a.s.sist in the arrest of Ogetonicut, who, it appears, had arrived with the rest. The Chief Wabbekisheco, took the culprit by the shoulder and delivered him up. He was lodged in the jail at York.

During the summer it was proved by means of a survey that the spot where Sharp had been killed was within the District of Newcastle. It was held necessary, therefore, that the trial should take place in that District.

Sellick's, at the Carrying Place, was to have been the scene of the investigation, and thither the _Speedy_ was bound when she foundered.

Mr. Justice Cochrane was a most estimable character personally, and a man of distinguished ability. He was only in his 28th year, and had been Chief Justice of Prince Edward Island before his arrival in Upper Canada. He was a native of Halifax, in Nova Scotia, but had studied law in Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the Bar in England.

In the old Court House, near which we are now pa.s.sing, were a.s.signed to convicted culprits, with unflinching severity and in a no inconsiderable number of instances, all the penalties enjoined in the criminal code of the day--the lash, the pillory, the stocks, the gallows. We have conversed with an old inhabitant of Toronto, who had not only here heard the penalty of branding ordered by the Judge, but had actually seen it in open court inflicted, the iron being heated in the great wood-stove that warmed the room, and the culprit made to stretch out his hand and have burnt thereon the initial letter of the offence committed.

Here cases came up repeatedly, arising out of the system of slavery which at the beginning was received in Canada, apparently as an inevitable part and parcel of the social arrangements of a colony on this continent.

On the first of March, 1811, we have it on the record, "William Jarvis, of the Town of York, Esq. (this is the Secretary again), informed the Court that a negro boy and girl, his slaves, had the evening before been committed to prison for having stolen gold and silver out of his desk in his dwelling-house, and escaped from their said master; and prayed that the Court would order that the said prisoners, with one Coachly, a free negro, also committed to prison on suspicion of having advised and aided the said boy and girl in eloping with their master's property."

Thereupon it was "Ordered,--That the said negro boy, named Henry, commonly called Prince, be re-committed to prison, and there safely kept till delivered according to law, and that the girl do return to her said master; and Coachly be discharged."

At the date just mentioned Slavery was being gradually extinguished by an Act of the Provincial Legislature of Upper Canada, pa.s.sed at Newark in 1793, which forbade the further introduction of slaves, and ordered that all slave children born after the 9th of July in that year should be free on attaining the age of twenty-five.

Most gentlemen, from the Administrator of the Government downwards, possessed some slaves. Peter Russell, in 1806, was anxious to dispose of two of his, and thus advertised in the _Gazette and Oracle_, mentioning his prices:--"To be sold: a Black Woman named Peggy, aged forty years, and a Black Boy, her son, named Jupiter, aged about fifteen years, both of them the property of the subscriber. The woman is a tolerable cook and washerwoman, and perfectly understands making soap and candles. The boy is tall and strong for his age, and has been employed in the country business, but brought up princ.i.p.ally as a house servant. They are each of them servants for life. The price of the woman is one hundred and fifty dollars. For the boy two hundred dollars, payable in three years, with interest from the day of sale, and to be secured by bond, &c. But one-fourth less will be taken for ready money. York, Feb. 19th, 1806.

Peter Russell."

According to our ideas at the present moment, such an advertis.e.m.e.nt as this is shocking enough. But we must judge the words and deeds of men by the spirit of the age in which they lived and moved.

Similar notices were common a century since in the English newspapers.

It is in fact a.s.serted that at that period there were probably more slaves in England than in Virginia. In the London _Public Advertiser_, of March 28th, 1769, we have, for example, the following: "To be sold, a Black Girl, the property of J. B----, eleven years of age, who is extremely handy, works at her needle tolerably, and speaks English perfectly well; is of an excellent temper, and willing disposition.

Enquire of Mr. Owen, at the Angel Inn, behind St. Clement's Church, in the Strand." And again, in the Edinburgh _Evening Courant_ of April 18th, 1768, we have, "A Black Boy to sell. To be sold a Black Boy with long hair, stout made and well limbed; is good tempered; can dress hair, and take care of a horse indifferently. He has been in Britain near three years. Any person that inclines to purchase him may have him for 40. He belongs to Captain Abercrombie, at Brighton. This advertis.e.m.e.nt not to be repeated."

The poet sings--

"Slaves cannot breathe in England: if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free; They touch our country and their shackles fall."

But this was not true until Lord Mansfield, in 1772, uttered his famous judgment in the case of James Somerset, a slave brought over by a Mr.

Stewart from Jamaica. Cowper's lines are in reality a versification of a portion of Lord Mansfield's words. A plea had been set up that villeinage had never been abolished by law in England; _ergo_, the possession of slaves was not illegal. But Lord Mansfield ruled: "Villeinage has ceased in England, and it cannot be revived. The air of England," he said, " has long been too pure for a slave, and every man is free who breathes it. Every man who comes into England," Lord Mansfield continued, "is ent.i.tled to the protection of English law, whatever oppression he may heretofore have suffered, and whatever may be the colour of his skin: _Quamvis ille niger, quamvis tu candidus esses._ Let the negro be discharged." But this is a digression.

Peter Russell's Peggy had been giving him uneasiness a few years previous to the advertis.e.m.e.nt copied above. She had been absenting herself without leave. Of this we are apprised in an advertis.e.m.e.nt dated York, September 2nd, 1803. It runs as follows: "The subscriber's black servant Peggy, not having his permission to absent herself from his service, the public are hereby cautioned from employing or harbouring her without the owner's leave. Whoever will do so after this notice may expect to be treated as the law directs. Peter Russell."

In the papers published at Niagara advertis.e.m.e.nts similar to those just given are to be seen. In the Niagara _Herald_ of January 2nd, 1802, we have, "For sale: A negro man slave, 18 years of age, stout and healthy; has had the small pox and is capable of service either in the house or out-doors. The terms will be made easy to the purchaser, and cash or new lands received in payment. Enquire of the printer." And again in the _Herald_ of January 18th: "For sale: the negro man and woman, the property of Mrs. Widow Clement. They have been bred to the business of a farm; will be sold on highly advantageous terms for cash or lands. Apply to Mrs. Clement."

Cash and lands were plainly beginning to be regarded as less precarious property than human chattels. In 1797 purchasers, however, were still advertising. In the _Gazette and Oracle_ of October 11th, in that year, we read; "Wanted to purchase, a negro girl from seven to twelve years of age, of good disposition. For fuller particulars apply to the subscribers, W. and J. Crooks, West Niagara, Oct. 4th." At York, in 1800, the _Gazette_ announces as "to be sold"--"A healthy strong negro woman, about thirty years of age; understands cooking, laundry and the taking care of poultry. N.B.--She can dress ladies' hair. Enquire of the Printers. York, Dec 20, 1800."

In respect to the following notice some explanation is needed. We presume the "Indian slave" spoken of must have been only part Indian.

The detention of a native as a slave, if legal, would have been difficult. Mr. Charles Field, of Niagara, on the 28th of August, 1802, gave notice in the _Herald_: "All persons are forbidden harbouring, employing, or concealing my Indian slave Sal, as I am determined to prosecute any offender to the extremity of the law; and persons who may suffer her to remain in or upon their premises for the s.p.a.ce of half-an-hour, without my written consent, will be taken as offending, and dealt with accordingly."

In the early volumes of the _Quebec Gazette_ these slave advertis.e.m.e.nts are common. A rough wood-cut of a black figure running frequently precedes them. It appropriately ill.u.s.trates the following one: "Run away from the subscriber on Tuesday, the 25th ult., a negro man, named Drummond, near six feet high, walks heavily; had on when he went away a dark coloured cloth coat and leather breeches. Whoever takes up and secures the said negro, so that his master may have him again, shall have Four Dollars reward, and all reasonable charges paid by John McCord. Speaks very bad English and next to no French." Another reads thus: "To be sold, a healthy Negro Boy, about fifteen years of age, well qualified to wait on a gentleman as a Body Servant. For further particulars inquire of the Printers."

Mr. Sol.-General Gray, lost in the _Speedy_, manumitted by his will, dated August 27th, 1803, and discharged from the state of slavery in which, as that doc.u.ment speaks, "she now is," his "faithful black woman servant, Dorinda," and gave her and her children their freedom; and that they might not want, directed that 1200 should be invested and the interest applied to their maintenance. To his black servants, Simon and John Baker, he gave, besides their freedom, 200 acres of land each, and pecuniary legacies. The Simon here named went down with his master in the _Speedy_; but John long survived. He used to state that his mother Dorinda, was a native of Guinea, and to describe Governor Hunter as a rough old warrior, who carried snuff in an outside pocket, whence he took it in handfuls, to the great disfigurement of his ruffled s.h.i.+rt-bosoms. His death was announced in the public papers by telegram from Cornwall, Ontario, bearing date January 17, 1871. "A coloured man,"

it said, "named John Baker, who attained his 105th year on the 25th ult., died here to-day. He came here as a chattel of the late Colonel Gray, in 1792, having seen service in the Revolutionary war.

Subsequently he served throughout the war of 1812. He was wounded at Lundy's Lane, and has drawn a pension for fifty-seven years." Mr. Gray, it may be added, was a native of our Canadian town of Cornwall. His place of abode in York was in what is now Wellington Street, on the lot immediately to the west of the old "Council Chamber" (subsequently the residence of Chief Justice Draper.)

We ourselves, we remember, used to gaze, in former days, with some curiosity at the pure negress, Amy Pompadour, here in York, knowing that she had once been legally made a present of by Miss Elizabeth Russell to Mrs. Captain Denison.

But enough of the subject of Canadian slavery, to which we have been inadvertently led.

The old Court House, when abandoned by the law authorities for the new buildings on King Street, was afterwards occasionally employed for religious purposes. By an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the _Advocate_, in March, 1834, we learn that the adherents of David Willson, of Whitchurch, sometimes made use of it. It is there announced that "the Children of Peace will hold Wors.h.i.+p in the Old Court House of York, on Sunday, the 16th instant, at Eleven and Three." Subsequently it became for a time the House of Industry or Poor House of the town.

Besides the legal cases tried and the judgments p.r.o.nounced within the homely walls of the Old Court House, interest would attach to the curious scenes--could they be recovered and described--which there occurred, arising sometimes from the primitive rusticity of juries, and sometimes from their imperfect mastery of the English language, many of them being, as the German settlers of Markham and Vaughan were indiscriminately called, Dutchmen. Peter Ernest, appearing in court with the verdict of a jury of which he was foreman, began to preface the same with a number of peculiar German-English expressions which moved Chief Justice Powell to cut him short by the remark that he would have to commit him if he swore:--when Ernest observed that the perplexities through which he and the jury had been endeavouring to find their way, were enough to make better men than they were express themselves in an unusual way.--The verdict, pure and simple, was demanded. Ernest then announced that the verdict which he had to deliver was, that half of the jury were for "guilty" and half for "not guilty." That is, the Judge observed, you would have the prisoner half-hanged, or the half of him hanged. To which Peter replied, that would be as his Lords.h.i.+p pleased.--It was a case of homicide. Being sent back, they agreed to acquit.

Odd pa.s.sages, too, between pertinacious counsel and nettled judges sometimes occurred, as when Mr. H. J. Boulton, fresh from the Inner Temple, sat down at the peremptory order of the Chief Justice, but added, "I will sit down, my Lord, but I shall instantly stand up again."