The firing from the garrison ceased, and the Americans expected every moment to see a white flag displayed from the block-house in token of surrender. Lieutenant Riddle, whose corps had brought up the prisoners taken in the woods, was sent forward with a small party to reconnoitre. General Pike, who had just assisted with his own hands in removing a wounded soldier to a comfortable place, was sitting upon a stump conversing with a huge British sergeant who had been taken prisoner, his staff standing around him. At that moment was felt a sudden tremor of the ground, followed by a tremendous explosion near the British garrison. The enemy, despairing of holding the place, had blown up their powder magazine, situated upon the edge of the water at the mouth of a ravine, near where the buildings of the Great Western Railway now stand. The effect was terrible. Fragments of timber and huge stone of which the magazine walls were built were scattered in every direction over a space of several hundred yards. When the smoke floated away the scene was appalling. Fifty-two Americans lay dead, and one hundred and eighty others were wounded. So badly had the affair been managed that forty of the British also lost their lives by the explosion. General Pike, two of his aids, and the British sergeant were mortally hurt, while Riddle and his party were unhurt, the missiles passing entirely over them. The terrified Americans scattered in dismay, but they were soon rallied by Brigade-Major Hunt and Lieutenant-Colonel Mitchell. The column was re-formed and the general command was assumed by the gallant Pennsylvanian colonel, Cromwell Pearce, of the Sixteenth, the senior officer. After giving three cheers, the troops pressed forward toward the village, and were met by the civil authorities and militia officers with propositions of a capitulation in response to a peremptory demand for surrender made by Colonel Pearce. An arrangement was concluded for an absolute surrender, when, taking advantage of the confusion that succeeded the explosion, and the time intentionally consumed in the capitulation, General Sheaffe and a large portion of his regulars, after destroying the vessels on the stocks, and some storehouses and their contents, stole across the Don, and fled along Dundas Street toward Kingston. When several miles from York they met a portion of the King's Regiment on their way to Fort George. These turned back, covered Sheaffe's retreat, and all reached Kingston in safety. Sheaffe (who was the military successor of Brock) was severely censured for the loss of York. He was soon afterward superseded in command in Upper Canada by Major-General De Rottenburg and retired to Montreal to take command of the troops there.
On hearing of the death of General Pike, General Dearborn went on shore, and assumed command after the capitulation. At sunset the work was finished; both Chauncey and Dearborn wrote brief despatches to the government at Washington; the former saying: "We are in full possession of the place," and the latter: "I have the satisfaction to inform you that the American flag is flying upon the fort at York." The post, with about two hundred and ninety prisoners besides the militia, the war vessel Duke of Gloucester, and a large quantity of naval and military stores, passed into the possession of the Americans. Such of the latter as could not be carried away by the squadron were destroyed. Before the victors left, the public buildings were fired by some unknown hand, and consumed.
Four days after the capitulation, the troops were re-embarked, preparatory to a descent upon Fort George. The post and village of York, possessing little value to the Americans, were abandoned. The British repossessed themselves of the spot, built another block-house, and on the site of the garrison constructed a regular fortification.
The loss of the Americans in the capture of York was sixty-six killed and two hundred and three wounded on land, and seventeen killed and wounded on the vessels. The British lost, besides the prisoners, sixty killed and eighty-nine wounded. General Pike was crushed beneath a heavy mass of stones that struck him in the back. He was carried immediately after discovery to the water's edge, placed in a boat, and conveyed first on board the Pert, and then to the Commodore's flagship. Just as the surgeons and attendants, with the wounded general, reached the little boat, the huzzas of the troops fell upon his benumbed ears. "What does it mean?" he feebly asked. "Victory," said a sergeant in attendance. "The British union-jack is coming down from the blockhouse, and the Stars and Stripes are going up." The dying hero's face was illuminated by a smile of great joy. His spirit lingered several hours, and then departed. Just before his breath ceased the captured British flag was brought to him. He made a sign for them to place it under his head, and thus he expired. His body was taken to Sacketts Harbour, and with that of his pupil and aid, Captain Nicholson, was buried with military honours within Fort Tompkins there.
Captain Sowers's drawings of Fort Niagara, 1769.
From the original in the British Museum.
It was not till 1821 that the town recovered from these disasters, and then the population only amounted to 1559. In 1830 it was 2860; but in 1834, a strong tide of emigration into Canada having set in, the population increased to 9254. In that year the town was incorporated as a city, and Mr. William Lyon Mackenzie was elected the first mayor of Toronto, April 3, 1834. In 1838 the inhabitants numbered 12,571; in 1848, 15,336; in 1861, they had increased to 44,821; in 1871, to 56,039; in 1881, 86,415; in 1891, 181,220; and finally, in 1903, to 266,989.
In 1821, E. A. Talbot, the author of some works of travel[39] visited the town. He states that the public edifices at that time were a Protestant Episcopal Church ("a wooden building with a wooden belfry"), a Roman Catholic Chapel (a brick building "not then completed, but intended to be very magnificent"—the present St. Paul's Church in Power Street), a Presbyterian Meeting House (a brick building, occupying the site of what is now Knox's Church), a Methodist Meeting House, situated in a field, nearly on the present site of the Globe office, the Hospital (the brick building on King Street now known as the Old Hospital, and occupied as Government offices), which Talbot describes as the most important building of the province, "bearing a very fine exterior," the Parliament House (a brick building erected in 1820 on the former site, and destroyed by fire in 1824), and the residence of the Lieutenant-Governor, a wooden building, "inferior to several private houses of the town, particularly that of Rev. Dr. Strachan," says Talbot. The streets, he adds, are regularly laid out, but "only one of them is in a finished state, and in wet weather those of them which are unfinished, are if possible more muddy than the streets of Kingston."
How different to-day, when Toronto has been called the "City of Churches," because of the large number of fine churches that have been erected in it! The distinctive feature of church architecture in Toronto consists in the fact that all denominations have built a considerable number of fine churches instead of concentrating their efforts on the erection of a few of greater magnificence. The large churches are not confined to the central portion but are found widely distributed throughout. Toronto to-day is the see of both Anglican and Roman Catholic archbishops. The city has suffered from destructive conflagrations, notably in 1890, and in April, 1904, when more than one hundred buildings in the wholesale business section were burned down, some five thousand persons were thrown out of work, and about eleven millions' worth of property was destroyed.
The year 1866 is a memorable one in the history of Toronto as well as all Canada as the year of the Fenian raids. The Toronto regiments of volunteers were promptly sent to drive the Fenians out of the Niagara peninsula. The "Queen's Own" met the enemy at Ridgeway, and sustained a loss of seven killed and twenty-three wounded. The beautiful monument erected to the memory of those who fell at Ridgeway is decorated each year on June 2d by their comrades and by the school children of the city. Another monument in Queen's Park commemorates the loyalty and bravery of Toronto volunteers. It records the gallantry of those who were killed during the North-west rebellion of 1885.
Toronto is a notable educational centre. The university is one of the best equipped in America. The first step towards its establishment was taken as early as 1797, but the university was not founded until 1827, chartered and endowed somewhat later, and opened for students in 1843. Until then it had rather a sectarian character, but nowadays it embraces, besides the four principal faculties, the following institutions: Ontario Agricultural College, Royal College of Dental Surgeons, the College of Pharmacy, the Toronto College of Music, the School of Practical Science, and the Ontario Veterinary College. The students in 1905-06 numbered 2547. The University buildings, it is said, are the best specimen of Norman architecture in America. The most beautiful other public buildings of Toronto are: the new Parliament buildings, the new City Hall, Osgood Hall, the Seat of the Provincial Courts and Law School, Trinity University, McMaster University, the Normal School, Upper Canada College, and the Provincial Asylum.
Toronto is pre-eminently a city of homes. It claims to have a larger proportion of good homes and a much smaller proportion of saloons than any city of its size in America. One of the gratifying features of Toronto that distinguishes it from most large cities is the fact that there is no part of the city that can be fairly regarded as a "slum" district.
The city covers a very large area so that there is no overcrowding. Working men have no difficulty in obtaining homes with separate gardens, and it is a common practice to use these gardens in growing both flowers and vegetables.
The Park System is extensive and beautiful, possessing about 1350 acres, the chief being Queen's Park, adjoining the university, and the extensive High Park on the west of the city. But the most popular is probably Island Park, on Hiawatha Island, which lies immediately in front of the city in the form of a crescent about three miles in length.
The following great Canadians were born in Toronto: Professor Egerton Ryerson; Sir John MacDonald; Sir Daniel Wilson; Reverend Wm. Morley Puncheon; Hon. George Brown; Sir Oliver Mowat; but the most widely known Toronto citizen is probably Goldwin Smith, the great historian and economist. Toronto has ever shown itself fervently British in sentiment. Its later history has been purely civic without other interest than that attaching to prosperous growth. A pleasant society and an attractive situation make it a favourite place of residence.
In the first quarter of the nineteenth century, there was a certain Mr. Hetherington in Toronto, one of the clerks of St. James. Now the music of those primitive times seems to have been managed altogether after the old country village choirs. Mr. Hetherington was wont, after giving out the Psalm, to play the air on a bassoon; and then to accompany with fantasias on the same instrument, when any vocalist could be found to take the singing in hand. By-and-by the first symptoms of progress are apparent in the addition of a bass-viol and clarinet to help Mr. Hetherington's bassoon—"the harbinger and foreshadow," as Dr. Scadding says, "of the magnificent organ presented in after-times to the congregation of the 'Second Temple of St. James' by Mr. Dunn, but destroyed by fire, together with the whole church, in 1839, after only two years of existence."
Incidents of a different character no less strongly mark the changes which a period of only ninety years has witnessed. In 1811, namely, we find William Jarvis, Esq., His Excellency's Secretary, lodging a complaint in open court against a negro boy and girl, his slaves. The Parliament at Newark had, indeed, enacted in 1793—in those patriarchal days already described, when they could settle the affairs of the young province under the shade of an umbrageous tree—that no more slaves should be introduced into Upper Canada, and that all slave children born after the 9th of July of that year should be free on attaining the age of twenty-five.
But even by this creditable enactment slavery had a lease of life of fully a quarter of a century longer, and the Gazette Public Advertiser, and other journals, continue for years thereafter to exhibit such announcements as this of the Hon. Peter Russell, President of the Legislative Council, of date, February 19, 1806: "To be sold: a black woman, named Peggy, aged forty years, and a black boy, her son, named Jupiter, aged about fifteen years." The advertisement goes on to describe the virtues of Peggy and Jupiter. Peggy is a tolerable cook and washerwoman, perfectly understands making soap and candles, and may be had for one hundred and fifty dollars, payable in three years, with interest, from the day of sale. Jupiter, having various acquirements besides his specialty as a good house servant, is offered for two hundred dollars, but a fourth less will be taken for ready money. So recently as 1871, John Baker, who had been brought to Canada as the slave of Solicitor-General Gray, died at Cornwall, Ontario, in extreme old age. But before that the very memory of slavery had died out in Canada; and it long formed the refuge which the fugitive slave made for, with no other guide than the pole-star of our northern sky.
The history of Toronto, as already noted, is necessarily to a great extent that of the province, and of the whole region of Canada.
Upper Canada [says Dr. Scadding], in miniature, and in the space of a century, curiously passed through conditions and processes, physical and social, which old countries on a large scale, and in the course of long ages passed through. Upper Canada had its primeval and barbaric, but heroic age, its mediæval and high prerogative era; and then, after a revolutionary period of a few weeks, its modern, defeudalised, democratic era.