The building itself has been shifted bodily from its original position to the south-east corner of Stanley and Jarvis Street. It, the centre of so many associations, 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 nobler designation would perhaps elevate the character of the place, as the name "Milton Street" had helped to do for the ignoble 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 class, 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 space which it had occupied.]

XII.

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 multitude 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 principal 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 unimpassioned 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 advertisement, 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 distinguishing 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 fashion.

Of late, however, the pressure of competition in business has been driving men back again upon the customs of by-gone illiterate generations. For the purpose of establishing 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 sex is announced to constitute 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 célèbre, 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.

Passing 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 associations 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 space 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 class 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 Pettit, 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 shell-jacket, acting as porter, or engaged about horses; once already we have had a glimpse of him in the capacity of sheriff's assistant, 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 sturdy 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 township 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 document 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 space 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-titles 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, Dick, 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 fashionable 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 passing 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 masse 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.

XIII.

A little to the north, on the left side of George Street, was the famous Ladies' School of Mrs. Goodman, presided over subsequently by Miss Purcell and Miss Rose. This had been previously the homestead of Mr. Stephen Jarvis, of whom again immediately.—Two or three of these familiar names appear in an advertisement relating to land in this neighbourhood, in the Gazette of March 23rd, 1826.—"For Sale: Three lots or parcels of land in the town of York, the property of Mrs. Goodman, being part of the premises on which Miss Purcell now resides, and formerly owned by Col. Jarvis. The lots are each fifty feet in width and one hundred and thirty in depth, and front on the street running from King Street to Mr. Jarvis's Park lot. If not disposed of by private sale, they will be put up at auction on the first day of May next. Application to be made to Miss Purcell, or at the Office of the U. C. Gazette. York, March 10, 1826."

Advancing on Duke Street eastward a little way, we came, on the left, to the abode of Chief Justice Sir William Campbell, of whom before Sir William erected here in 1822 a mansion of brick, in good style. It was subsequently, for many years, the hospitable home of the Hon. James Gordon, formerly of Amherstburgh.

Then on the right, one square beyond, at the south-easterly corner where Caroline Street intersects, we reached the house of Mr. Secretary Jarvis, a man of great note in his day, whose name is familiar to all who have occasion to examine the archives of Upper Canada in the administrations of Governors Simcoe, Hunter and Gore. A fine portrait of him exists, but, as we have been informed, it has been transmitted to relatives in England. Mr. Stephen Jarvis, above named, was long the Registrar of Upper Canada. His hand-writing is well-known to all holders of early deeds. He and the Secretary were first cousins; of the same stock as the well-known Bishop Jarvis of Connecticut, and the Church Historian, Dr. Samuel Farmer Jarvis. Both were officers in incorporated Colonial regiments before the independence of the United States; and both came to Canada as United Empire Loyalists. Mr. Stephen Jarvis was the founder of the leading Canadian family to which the first Sheriff Jarvis belonged. Mr. Samuel Peters Jarvis, from whom "Jarvis Street" has its name, was the son of Mr. Secretary Jarvis.

On the left, one square beyond the abode of Mr. Secretary Jarvis, came the premises and home of Mr. Surveyor General Ridout, the latter a structure still to be seen in its primitive outlines, a good specimen of the old type of early Upper Canadian family residence of a superior class; combining the qualities of solidity and durability with those of snugness and comfort in the rigours of winter and the heats of summer. In the rear of Mr. Ridout's house was for some time a family burial-plot; but, like several similar private enclosures in the neighbourhood of the town, it became disused after the establishment of regular cemeteries.

Nearly opposite Mr. Ridout's, in one of the usual long, low Upper Canadian one-storey dwellings, shaded by lofty Lombardy poplars, was the home of the McIntoshes, who are to be commemorated hereafter in connection with the Marine of York: and here, at a later period, lived for a long time Mr. Andrew Warffe and his brother John. Mr. Andrew Warffe was a well-known employé in the office of the Inspector General, Mr. Baby, and a lieutenant in the Incorporated Militia.

By one of the vicissitudes common in the history of family residences everywhere, Mr. Secretary Jarvis's house, which we just now passed, became afterwards the place of business of a memorable cutler and gunsmith, named Isaac Columbus. During the war of 1812, Mr. Columbus was employed as armourer to the Militia, and had a forge near the garrison. Many of the swords used by the Militia officers were actually manufactured by him. He was a native of France; a liberal-hearted man, ever ready to contribute to charitable objects; and a clever artizan. Whether required to "jump" the worn and battered axe of a backwoodsman, to manufacture the skate-irons and rudder of an ice-boat, to put in order a surveyor's theodolite, or to replace for the young geometrician or draughtsman an instrument lost out of his case, he was equally au fait. On occasion he could even supply an elderly lady or gentleman with a set of false teeth, and insert them.

In our boyhood we had occasion to get many little matters attended to at Mr. Columbus's. Once on leaving word that a certain article must be ready by a particular hour, we remember being informed that "must" was only for the King of France. His political absolutism would have satisfied Louis XIV. himself. He positively refused to have anything to do with the "liberals" of York, expressly on the ground that, in his opinion, the modern ideas of government "hindered the King from acting as a good father to the people."

An expression of his, "first quality, blue!" used on a particular occasion in reference to an extra finish to be given to some steel-work for an extra price, passed into a proverb among us boys at school, and was extensively applied by us to persons and things of which we desired to predicate a high degree of excellence.

Over Columbus's workshop, at the corner of Caroline Street, we are pretty sure his name appeared as here given; and so it was always called. But we observe in some lists of early names in York, that it is given as "Isaac Collumbes." It is curious to note that the great discoverer's name is a latinization of Colon, Coulon, Colombe, descendant each of columba, dove, of which columbus is the masculine form.

XIV.

Dr. Stuart's was the Home District School. From a contemporary record, now before us, we learn that it opened on June the first, 1807, and that the first names entered on its books were those of John Ridout, William A. Hamilton, Thomas G. Hamilton, George H. Detlor, George S. Boulton, Robert Stanton, William Stanton, Angus McDonell, Alexander Hamilton, Wilson Hamilton, Robert Ross, Allan McNab. To this list, from time to time, were added many other old Toronto or Upper Canadian names: as, for example, the following: John Moore, Charles Ruggles, Edward Hartney, Charles Boulton, Alexander Chewett, Donald McDonell, James Edward Small, Charles Small, John Hayes, George and William Jarvis, William Bowkett, Peter McDonell, Philemon Squires, James McIntosh, Bernard, Henry and Marshall Glennon, Richard Brooke, Daniel Brooke, Charles Reade, William Robinson, Gilbert Hamilton, Henry Ernst, John Gray, Robert Gray, William Cawthra, William Smith, Harvey Woodruff, Robert Anderson, Benjamin Anderson, James Givins, Thomas Playter, William Pilkington. The French names Belcour, Hammeil and Marian occur. (There were bakers or confectioners of these names in York at an early period.)

From the same record it appears that female pupils were not excluded from the primitive Home District School. On the roll are names which surviving contemporaries would recognize as belonging to the beau monde of Upper Canada, distinguished and admired in later years.

A building-lot, eighty-six feet in front and one hundred and seventeen in depth, next to the site of the school, is offered for sale in the Gazette of the 18th of March, 1822; and in the advertisement it is stated to be "one of the most eligible lots in the Town of York, and situated in King Street, in the centre of the Town."

To the left, just across from this choice position, was, in 1833, Wragg & Co.'s establishment, where such matter-of-fact articles as the following could be procured: "Bending and unbending nails, as usual; wrought nails and spikes of all sizes [a change since 1810]: ox-traces and cable chains; tin; double and single sheet iron: sheet brass and copper; bar, hoop, bolt and rod iron of all sizes; shear, blister and cast steel; with every other article in the heavy line, together with a very complete assortment of shelf goods, cordage, oakum, tar, pitch, and rosin: also a few patent machines for shelling corn." (A much earlier resort for such merchandize was Mr. Peter Paterson's, on the west side of the Market Square.)

Of a date somewhat subsequent to that of Messrs. Wragg's advertisement, was the depôt of Mr. Harris for similar substantial wares. This was situated on the north side of King Street, westward of the point at which we are now pausing. It long resisted the great conflagration of 1849, towering up amidst the flames like a black, isolated crag in a tempestuous sea; but at length it succumbed. Having been rendered, as it was supposed, fire-proof externally, no attempt was made to remove the contents of the building.

To the east of Messrs. Wragg's place of business, on the same side, and dating back to an early period, was the dwelling house and mart of Mr. Mosley, the principal auctioneer and appraiser of York, a well-known and excellent man. He had suffered the severe calamity of a partial deprivation of the lower limbs by frost-bite; but he contrived to move about with great activity in a room or on the side-walk by means of two light chairs, shifting himself adroitly from the one to the other. When required to go to a distance or to church, (where he was ever punctually to be seen in his place), he was lifted by his son or sons into and out of a wagonette, together with the chairs.

On the same (north) side was the place where the Messrs. Lesslie, enterprising and successful merchants from Dundee, dealt at once in two remunerative articles—books and drugs. The left side of the store was devoted to the latter; the right to the former. Their first head-quarters in York had been further up the street; but a move had been made to the eastward, to be, as things were then, nearer the heart of the town.

This firm had houses carrying on the same combined businesses in Kingston and Dundas. There exists a bronze medal or token, of good design, sought after by collectors, bearing the legend, "E. Lesslie and Sons, Toronto and Dundas, 1822." The date has been perplexing, as the town was not named Toronto in 1822. The intention simply was to indicate the year of the founding of the firm in the two towns; the first of which assumed the name of Toronto at the period the medal was really struck, viz., 1834. On the obverse it bears a figure of Justice with scales and sword: on the reverse, a plough with the mottoes, "Prosperity to Canada," "La Prudence et la Candeur."—A smaller Token of the same firm is extant, on which "Kingston" is inserted between "Toronto" and "Dundas."

Nearly opposite was the store of Mr. Monro. Regarding our King Street as the Broadway of York, Mr. Monro was for a long time its Stewart. But the points about his premises that linger now in our recollection the most, are a tasteful flower-garden on its west side, and a trellised verandah in that direction, with canaries in a cage, usually singing therein. Mr. Monro was Mayor of Toronto in 1840. He also represented in Parliament the South Riding of York, in the Session of 1844-5.

At the north-west corner, a little further on, resided Mr. Alexander Wood, whose name appears often in the Report of the Loyal and Patriotic Society of 1812, to which reference before has been made, and of which he was the Secretary. A brother of his, at first in copartnership with Mr. Allan, and at a later period, independently, had made money, at York, by business. On the decease of his brother, Mr. Alexander Wood came out to attend to the property left. He continued on the same spot, until after the war of 1812, the commercial operations which had been so prosperously begun, and then retired.

At the time to which our recollections are just now transporting us, the windows of the part of the house that had been the store were always seen with the shutters closed. Mr. Wood was a bachelor; and it was no uncosy sight, towards the close of the shortening autumnal days, before the remaining front shutters of the house were drawn in for the evening, to catch a glimpse, in passing, of the interior of his comfortable quarters, lighted up by the blazing logs on the hearth, the table standing duly spread close by, and the solitary himself ruminating in his chair before the fire, waiting for candles and dinner to be brought in.

On sunny mornings in winter he was often to be seen pacing the sidewalk in front of his premises for exercise, arrayed in a long blue over-coat, with his right hand thrust for warmth into the cuff of his left sleeve, and his left hand into that of his right. He afterwards returned to Scotland, where, at Stonehaven, not far from Aberdeen, he had family estates known as Woodcot and Woodburnden. He died without executing a will; and it was some time before the rightful heir to his property in Scotland and here was determined. It had been his intention, we believe, to return to Canada.—The streets which run eastward from Yonge Street, north of Carleton Street, named respectively "Wood" and "Alexander," pass across land that belonged to Mr. Wood.

Many are the shadowy forms that rise before us, as we proceed on our way; phantom-revisitings from the misty Past; the shapes and faces of enterprising and painstaking men, of whose fortunes King Street hereabout was the cradle. But it is not necessary in these reminiscences to enumerate all who, on the right hand and on the left, along the now comparatively deserted portions of the great thoroughfare, amassed wealth in the olden time by commerce and other honourable pursuits,—laying the foundation, in several instances, of opulent families.

Quetton St. George, however, must not be omitted, builder of the solid and enduring house on the corner opposite to Mr. Wood's; a structure that, for its size and air of respectability; for its material, brick, when as yet all the surrounding habitations were of wood; for its tinned roof, its graceful porch, its careful and neat finish generally, was, for a long time, one of the York lions.

Mr. Quetton St. George was a French royalist officer, and a chevalier of the order of St. Louis. With many other French gentlemen, he emigrated to Canada at the era of the Revolution. He was of the class of the noblesse, as all officers were required to be; which class, just before the Revolution, included, it is said, 90,000 persons, all exempt from the ordinary taxes of the country.

The surname of St. George was assumed by M. Quetton to commemorate the fact that he had first set foot on English ground on St. George's day. On proceeding to Canada, he, in conjunction with Jean Louis, Vicomte de Chalûs, and other distinguished émigrés, acquired a large estate in wild lands in the rough region north of York, known as the "Oak Ridges."

Finding it difficult, however, to turn such property speedily to account, he had recourse to trade with the Indians and remote inhabitants. Numerous stations, with this object in view, were established by him in different parts of the country, before his final settlement in York. One of these posts was at Orillia, on Lake Couchiching; and in the Niagara Herald of August the 7th, 1802, we meet with the following advertisement:—"New Store at the House of the French General, between Niagara and Queenston. Messrs. Quetton St. George and Co., acquaint the public that they have lately arrived from New York with a general assortment of Dry Goods and Groceries, which will be sold at the lowest price for ready money, for from the uncertainty of their residing any time in these parts they cannot open accounts with any person. Will also be found at the same store a general assortment of tools for all mechanics. They have likewise well-made Trunks; also empty Barrels. Niagara, July 23."

The copartnership implied was with M. de Farcy. The French General referred to was the Comte de Puisaye, of whom in full hereafter. The house spoken of still exists, beautifully situated at a point on the Niagara River, where the carriage-road between Queenston and the town of Niagara approaches the very brink of the lofty bank, whose precipitous side is even yet richly clothed with fine forest trees, and where the noble stream below, closed in towards the south by the heights above Lewiston and Queenston, possesses all the features of a picturesque inland lake.

Attached to the house in question is a curious old fire-proof structure of brick, quaintly buttressed with stone: the walls are of a thickness of three or four feet; and the interior is beautifully vaulted and divided into two compartments, having no communication with each other: and above the whole is a long loft of wood, approached by steps on the outside. The property here belonged for a time in later years to Shickluna, the shipbuilder of St. Catharines, who happily did not disturb the interesting relic just described. The house itself was in some respects modernized by him; but, with its steep roof and three dormer windows, it still retains much of its primitive character.

In 1805 we find Mr. St. George removed to York. The copartnership with M. de Farcy is now dissolved. In successive numbers of the Gazette and Oracle, issued in that and the following year, he advertises at great length. But on the 20th of September, 1806, he abruptly announces that he is not going to advertise any more: he now once for all, begs the public to examine his former advertisements, where they will find, he says, an account of the supply which he brings from New York every spring, a similar assortment to which he intends always to have on hand: and N. B., he adds: Nearly the same assortment may be found at Mr. Boiton's, at Kingston, and at Mr. Boucherville's, at Amherstburgh, "who transact business for Mr. St. George."

IMPORTS AT YORK IN 1805.

As we have, in the advertisements referred to, a rather minute record of articles and things procurable and held likely to be wanted by the founders of society in these parts, we will give, for the reader's entertainment, a selection from several of them, adhering for the most part to the order in which the goods are therein named.

From time to time it is announced by Mr. St. George that there have "just arrived from New York":—Ribbons, cotton goods, silk tassels, gown-trimmings, cotton binding, wire trimmings, silk belting, fans, beaded buttons, block tin, glove ties, cotton bed-line, bed-lace, rollo-bands, ostrich feathers, silk lace, black veil lace, thread do., laces and edging, fine black veils, white do., fine silk mitts, love-handkerchiefs, Barcelona do., silk do., black crape, black mode, black Belong, blue, white and yellow do., striped silk for gowns, Chambray muslins, printed dimity, split-straw bonnets, Leghorn do., imperial chip do., best London Ladies' beaver bonnets, cotton wire, Rutland gauze, band boxes, cambrics, calicoes, Irish linens, callimancoes, plain muslins, laced muslins, blue, black and yellow nankeens, jeans, fustians, long silk gloves, velvet ribbons, Russia sheetings, India satins, silk and cotton umbrellas, parasols, white cottons, bombazetts, black and white silk stockings, damask table cloths, napkins, cotton, striped nankeens, bandana handkerchiefs, catgut, Ticklenburg, brown holland, Creas à la Morlaix, Italian lutestring, beaver caps for children.

Then we have: Hyson tea, Hyson Chaulon in small chests, young Hyson, green, Souchong and Bohea, loaf, East India and Muscovado sugars, mustard, essence of mustard, pills of mustard, capers, lemon-juice, soap, Windsor do., indigo, mace, nutmegs, cinnamon, cassia, cloves, pimento, pepper, best box raisins, prunes, coffee, Spanish and American "segars," Cayenne pepper in bottles, pearl barley, castor oil, British oil, pickled oysters.

Furthermore, china-ware is to be had in small boxes and in sets; also, Suwarrow boots, bootees, and an assortment of men's, women's and children's shoes, japanned quart mugs, do. tumblers, tipped flutes, violin bows, brass wire, sickles, iron candlesticks, shoe-makers' hammers, knives, pincers, pegging awls and tacks, awl-blades, shoe-brushes, copper tea-kettles, snaffle-bits, leather shot belts, horn powder flasks, ivory, horn and crooked combs, mathematical instruments, knives and forks, suspenders, fish-hooks, sleeve-links, sportsmen's knives, lockets, earrings, gold topaz, do., gold watch-chains, gold seals, gold brooches, cut gold rings, plain do., pearl do., silver thimbles, do. teaspoons, shell sleeve buttons, silver watches, beads. In stationery there was to be had paste-board, foolscap paper, second do., letter paper, black and red ink powder and wafers.

There was also the following supply of Literature:—Telemachus, Volney's Views, Public Characters, Dr. Whitman's Egypt, Evelina, Cecilia, Lady's Library, Ready Reckoner, Looking Glass, Franklin's Fair Sex, Camilla, Don Raphael, Night Thoughts, Winter Evenings, Voltaire's Life, Joseph Andrews, Walker's Geography, Bonaparte and the French People, Voltaire's Tales, Fisher's Companion, Modern Literature, Eccentric Biography, Naval do., Martial do., Fun, Criminal Records, Entick's Dictionary, Gordon's America, Thompson's Family Physician, Sheridan's Dictionary, Johnson's do., Wilson's Egypt, Denon's Travels, Travels of Cyrus, Stephani de Bourbon, Alexis, Pocket Library, Every Man's Physician, Citizen of the World, Taplin's Farriery, Farmer's Boy, Romance of the Forest, Grandison, Campbell's Narrative, Paul and Virginia, Adelaide de Sincere, Emelini, Monk, Abbess, Evening Amusement, Children of the Abbey, Tom Jones, Vicar of Wakefield, Sterne's Journey, Abelard and Eloisa, Ormond, Caroline, Mercutio, Julia and Baron, Minstrel, H. Villars, De Valcourt, J. Smith, Charlotte Temple, Theodore Chypon, What has Been, Elegant Extracts in Prose and Verse, J. and J. Jessamy, Chinese Tales, New Gazetteer, Smollett's Works, Cabinet of Knowledge, Devil on Sticks, Arabian Tales, Goldsmith's Essays, Bragg's Cookery, Tooke's Pantheon, Boyle's Voyage, Roderick Random, Jonathan Wild, Louisa Solomon's Guide to Health, Spelling-books, Bibles and Primers.

Our extracts have extended to a great length: but the animated picture of Upper Canadian life at a primitive era, which such an enumeration of items, in some sort affords, must be our apology.

In the Gazette of July 4, 1807, Mr. St. George complains of a protested bill; but consoles himself with a quotation—