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
[the site subsequently of the dwelling-house of Jesse Ketchum, of whom
hereafter], are mostly clear of the large timber, and some _brush cut_
also, but _not burnt_; therefore omitted in the first report. This
second examination done by order of the Honourable John Elmsley, Esq."
The second extension of York westward included the Government Common.
The staking out of streets here was a comparatively late event. Brock
Street, to which we have now approached, had its name, of course, from
the General officer slain at Queenston, and its extra width from the
example set in the Avenue to the north, into which it merges after
crossing Queen Street.
A little to the west of Brock Street was the old military
burying-ground, a clearing in the thick brushwood of the locality: of an
oblong shape, its four picketed sides directed exactly towards the four
cardinal points. The setting off of the neighbouring streets and lots at
a different angle, caused the boundary lines of this plot to run askew
to every other straight line in the vicinity. Over how many a now
forgotten and even obliterated grave have the customary farewell volleys
here been fired!--those final honours to the soldier, always so
touching; intended doubtless, in the old barbaric way, to be an
incentive to endurance in the sound and well; and consolatory in
anticipation to the sick and dying.
In the mould of this old cemetery, what a mingling from distant
quarters! Hearts finally at rest here, fluttered in their last beats,
far away, at times, to old familiar scenes "beloved in vain" long ago;
to villages, hedgerows, lanes, fields, in green England and Ireland, in
rugged Scotland and Wales. Many a widow, standing at an open grave here,
holding the hand of orphan boy or girl, has "wept her soldier dead," not
slain in the battle-field, indeed, but fallen, nevertheless, in the
discharge of duty, before one or other of the subtle assailants that,
even in times of peace, not unfrequently bring the career of the
military man to a premature close. Among the remains deposited in this
ancient burial-plot are those of a child of the first Governor of Upper
Canada, a fact commemorated on the exterior of the mortuary chapel over
his own grave in Devonshire, by a tablet on which are the words:
"Katharine, born in Upper Canada, 16th Jan., 1793; died and was buried
at York Town, in that Province, in 1794."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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