Toronto of Old: Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of OntarioScadding, Henry
History
Toronto of Old: Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of Ontario
Scadding, Henry
Toronto (Ont.) -- Description and travel; Toronto (Ont.) -- History
QUEEN STREET--DIGRESSION AT CAROLINE STREET--HISTORY OF THE EARLY PRESS.
A little to the south of Britain Street, between it and Duchess Street,
near the spot where Caroline Street, slightly diverging from the right
line, passes northward to Queen Street, there stood in the early day a
long, low wooden structure, memorable to ourselves, as being, in our
school-boy days, the Government Printing Office. Here the _Upper Canada
Gazette_ was issued, by "R. C. Horne, Printer to the King's Most
Excellent Majesty."
We shall have occasion hereafter to notice among our early inhabitants
some curious instances of change of profession. In the present case, His
Majesty's Printer was in reality an Army Surgeon, once attached to the
Glengary Light Infantry. And again, afterwards, the same gentleman was
for many years the Chief Teller in the Bank of Upper Canada. An incident
in the troubles of 1837 was "the burning of Dr. Horne's house," by a
party of the malcontents who were making a show of assault upon the
town. The site of this building, a conspicuous square two-storey frame
family residence, was close to the toll-bar on Yonge Street, in what is
now Yorkville. On that occasion, we are informed, Dr. Horne "berated the
Lieutenant-Governor for treating with avowed rebels, and insisted that
they were not in sufficient force to give any ground of alarm."
The _Upper Canada Gazette_ was the first newspaper published in Upper
Canada. Its first number appeared at Newark or Niagara, on Thursday,
the 18th of April, 1793. As it was apparently expected to combine with a
record of the acts of the new government some account of events
happening on the continent at large, it was made to bear the double
title of _Upper Canada Gazette, or American Oracle_. Louis Roy was its
first printer, a skilled artizan engaged probably from Lower Canada,
where printing had been introduced about thirty years previously, soon
after the English occupation of the country.
Louis Roy's name appears on the face of No. 1, Vol. I. The type is of
the shape used in contemporaneous printing, and the execution is very
good. The size of the sheet, which retained the folio form, was 15 by 9½
inches. The quality of the paper was rather coarse, but stout and
durable.
The address to the public in the first number is as follows:--"The
Editor of this paper respectfully informs the public that the flattering
prospect which he has of an extensive sale for his new undertaking has
enabled him to augment the size originally proposed from a Demy Quarto
to a Folio.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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