A HISTORY OF TORONTO.* Nor quite two centuries ago the

name of "Toronto" was probably first known to Europeans as that of a portage on Lake Ontario,

the exact locality of which was not very clearly defined, the head- quarters of Wyandot or Huron Indians, a mere pass through which French agents made their way in their trading expeditions, but where no buildings of any kind at that time existed ; yet already, so rapid is the course of progress and innovation, that obscure spot has become so modernised a city, that it has been found necessary to collect into a volume the traditions of its local past, and the recollections of its primitive life and manners, in order to prevent them from entirely fading away. Dr. Scadding, himself, as he says, identified from boyhood with Toronto, has devoted himself lovingly to this task ; and if in his zeal to preserve every record of a past which to others, as well as himself, must be full of interest., he has exceeded the limits to which he intended to confine himself, and produced a book of ponderous dimensions and elaborate research, his painstaking investigations will be ap- preciated by all who care to follow the rise and progress of one of the most important settlements of the old lands beyond the sea. In seeking for the origin of the name "Toronto," we may discard, according to Dr. Scadding, the far-fetched signification of "trees rising out of the water," and the still more improbable Italian designation which some have sought to give to it, and be content to recognise in the appellation merely a Huron vocable, picked up and adopted by the voyagers just in the same way as " ICanata "—" yonder are our wigwams "—was taken by French mariners for a geographical expression, and soon resolved itself into the well-known "Canada." " Toronto " means "a place of meeting," and was applied to the whole region about Lake Simcoe and between that and Lake Huron ; and although we find mention of it by Decouville so early as 1686, it was not until 1794 that the French established their trading post, which they called Fort Rouilld, to act as a counterpoise to the English " beaver-trap " of Choueguen, at the mouth of the Oswego river, where the trade in furs carried on by us was very considerable. Dr. Scadding brings before us this lonely, desolate outpost, occu- pied by a mere handful of brave but anxious men, always subject to the attacks of Indians, set on by the English to destroy the poor little stockade fort which was so detrimental to the trade they had for so many years carried on unmolested. We have next the account of the visit of the Abbe Picquet, that zealous missionary who, according to the Marquis du Quesne, "was worth ten regiments to New France." This "Apostle of the Iroquois" makes a tour of exploration round Lake Ontario, visits the site of the ancient mission established by M. Dollieres de Klens and the Abbe d'Urfe, and goes on to Toronto, where he finds "good bread, good wine, and all things necessary for the trade, while they were in want of them things at the other ports ; " and Sods also the Mississagues, who bitterly complain that, instead of building them a church, their French friends have only given them a canteen ! We do not find, however, that these poor Indians obtain any satisfaction from the Abbe, who probably found the spiritual care of the Iroquois as much as he could well attend to. But Toronto was not destined to a lengthened existence as a French station ; in ten years' time it had, with all:Canada, succumbed to our troops, and

• Ibroolo of Md. By Henry Scadding, P.D. London : George Rontledge and Sous.

from that period its prosperity was assured ; so that, as Sir William Johnson informs us, in 1767, although "even a single trader would not think it worth attention to supply a dependent, post, yet I have heard traders of long experience and good cir- cumstances affirm, that for the exclusive trade of that place for one season they would willingly pay 2.1,000—so certain were they of a quiet market—from the cheapness at which they could afford their goods there." It appears to have been early in con- templation to establish a town at Toronto, for in 1788 the harbour and its surroundings were minutely described by the Deputy- Surveyor-General in a report to Lord Dorchester, then Governor- General ; however, in 1792, Governor Simcoe sends to Mr. Chewett a plan of the town and township of Toronto, with a query as to whether they had ever been laid out ; and in the next year the place was selected as the capital of Upper Canada, and a royal salute fired in honour of the change of name from Toronto to York, a change which happily it was found impossible to render permanent. At York, then, as it was officially called,. did General Simcoe, the first Governor of the province, establish himself, in the famous canvas-house, once the property of Captain Cook, the circumnavigator, which, with a view to probable neces-

sities, the wise old man had brought over from London, and which soon became renowned for the hospitality which its owner SG liberally dispensed to all comers. The position of this movable residence appears to have been altered several times at the dif- ferent visits of the Governor, who at first, at all events, passed a

considerable part of his time at Newark and Niagara. Governor Simcoe was a thorough soldier, of a simple, unostentatious char- acter, who treated those beneath him with urbanity, and who showed kindness and consideration to all ; a great contrast must he have been to the severe Governor Hunter, of whom all men,

from the judge on the Bench to the humblest employi, stood greatly in awe,—since, says Dr. Scadding, "they held office in those days very literally during pleasure." In proof of this, he

gives the following anecdote. Certain persons had preferred a Complaint about the dilatoriness of the proceedings in the Patent Office, and the irate Governor having summoned before him the parties concerned, proceeded as follows :—

" 'These gentleman complain,' the Governor said, pointing to the Quakers, 'that they cannot get their patents.' Each of the official personages present offered in succession some indistinct observations,. expressive, it would seem, of a degree of regret, and hinting exculpatory reasons, as far as he individually was concerned. On closer interroga- tion, one thing, however, came out very clear,—that the order for the patents was more than twelve months old. At length the onus of blame seemed to settle down on the head of the Secretary and Registrar, Mr. Jarvis, who could only say that really the pressure of business in hie office was so great that he had been absolutely unable, up to the pre- sent moment, to get ready the particular patents referred to. 'Sir, was the Governor's immediate rejoinder, • if they are not forthcoming, every one of them, and placed in the hands of these gentlemen here in my presence at noon on Thursday next [it was now Tuesday], by George, I'll un-Jarvis you!' implying, as we suppose, a summary conger as Secretary and Registrar."

The proceeding was certainly summary,lbut the result was all that could be desired, and in view of the tiresome red-tapeism of our own day, one is apt to look back somewhat longingly to a time when such speedy retribution could be made to overtake the vexatious procrastinator.

In his account of Toronto of old, while disclaiming all intention of writing a history, Dr. Scadding proceeds to describe street by street, and, as it were, to reconstruct and repeople for us the old Canadian town. As he walks along, he points with his wand to some particular building, and forthwith a civic notability, a learned divine, a man of science, or mayhap a personage of much humbler position, stands forth in the garb and manners of his time, appropriately surrounded by the quaint edifices which occu- pied the places of the handsome modern erections which have supplanted them. We see the solitary windmill built by Mr. Worts in 1832, where now stand massive structures of dark- coloured stone, enclosing machinery of the newest and most excellent construction ; and we listen to the story of the emigra- tion of the families of Gooderham and Worts, fifty-four persons, more or less connected by blood and marriage, who went out in one vessel, and have by their energy and enterprise done. so much for their adopted country ; and in this goodly company the patriarch, Mr. Gooderharn, and his seven stalwart sons, stand out pre-eminent. Then, when we come to the house of Mr. Secretary Jarvis, our leader forthwith evokes the shade of Mr. Columbus, a famous cutler and gunsmith, whose favourite expression, "first-quality blue," became a by- word with the young customers who patronised his wares. For Mr. Columbus was up to anything ; he could " jump " a hank- woodsman's axe, repair a theodolite, or supply an elderly lady. or gentleman with a set of false teeth, and insert them ; but Isaac Collunzbes, as his name is sometimes given, was not to be hurried

-out of his own proper course, and when juveniles were a little too

imperious was sure to reply, "'Must' is for the King of France." 4' His political absolutism," says the writer, "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."

Another of the worthies of Toronto in old times was the Indian Wesleyan missionary, Peter Jones, called by the euphonious name of Kah-ke-wa-quo-na-by, "Sacred Waving Feathers." This man was the son of Mr. Augustus Jones, deputy provincial surveyor, by a Missisaagua wife, and was by her brought up in all the superstitions of her tribe, and lived and wandered about with the Indians in the woods for fourteen years, his father having been so 'occupied in his various duties as to have been somewhat neg- lectful of his children, a fault, however, which he seems after- wards to have repaired. His simple, straightforward character, is strikingly shown by a letter which he sends in 1826 to his missionary son :—

"Please to give our true love to John and Christine, and all the rest of our friends at the Credit. We expect to meet you and them at the camp meeting. I think a good many of our Indians will come down at that time. I send you Jack, and hope the Lord will preserve both you and your beast. He is quiet and hardy; the only fault I know he stumbles sometimes, and if you find he does not suit you as a riding-horse, you can change him for some other, but always tell your reasons. May the Lord bless you I Pray for your unworthy father, Augustus Jones.'

This Jones was the man who was concerned in the very first survey of York and the township attached, and if his transactions ,on all other occasions were on a par with his views upon horse- dealing, either he must have been a very remarkable man, or honesty must have been much commoner in Toronto long ago than

it is at present there or anywhere else. One of the most pic- turesque as well as interesting pieces of description in Dr. Seed- ding's book-is his account of the valley of the Don, with its quaint bridges, its mills, its pine groves, its salmon-fishing by night, its scattered country residences, and the birds and beasts of various kinds to he found there. But we have not time to glance at any more of the contents of this carefully-written and closely-printed volume. Suffice it to say that those, and they are many, who from residence in or connection with Canada take an interest in its second capital, and-desire to trace it from its cradle to its present state of prosperity, will find in Dr. Scadding's pages a mass of material from which they may gather all the information which they can possibly desire.