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
We take this account from the Toronto _Patriot_ of August 28th, 1835,
wherein it is copied from the _Christian Guardian_. Mr. R. B. Sullivan,
the official representative of the city on the occasion just described,
was the second mayor of Toronto. He was afterwards one of the Judges of
the Court of Common Pleas.
The bridges thus ceremoniously presented and received had a short-lived
existence. They were a few years afterwards, seriously damaged during
the breaking up of the ice, and then carried away bodily in one of the
spring freshets to which the Don is subject.
The peninsula in front of York was once plentifully stocked with goats,
the offspring of a small colony established by order of Governor Hunter,
at Gibraltar Point, for the sake, for one thing, of the supposed
salutary nature of the whey of goat's milk. These animals were dispersed
during the war of 1812-13. Governor Hunter may have taken the idea of
peopling the island at York with goats from what was to be seen, at an
early day, on Goat Island, adjoining the Falls of Niagara. A multitude
of goats ran at large there, the descendants of a few reared originally
by one Stedman, an English soldier, who, on escaping a massacre of his
comrades in the neighbourhood of what is now Lewiston, at the hands of
the Iroquois, soon after the conquest of the country, fled thither, and
led, to the end of his days, a Robinson-Crusoe-kind of life.
[Illustration]
V.
KING STREET, FROM JOHN STREET TO YONGE STREET.
After our long stroll westward, we had purposed returning to the place
of beginning by the route which constitutes the principal thoroughfare
of the modern Toronto; but the associations connected with the primitive
pathway on the cliff overlooking the harbour, led us insensibly back
along the track by which we came.
In order that we may execute our original design, we now transport
ourselves at once to the point where we had intended to begin our
descent of King Street. That point was the site of a building now wholly
taken out of the way--the old General Hospital. Farther west on this
line of road there was no object possessing any archæological interest.
The old Hospital was a spacious, unadorned, matter-of-fact, two-storey
structure, of red brick, one hundred and seven feet long, and sixty-six
feet wide. It had, by the direction of Dr. Grant Powell, as we have
heard, the peculiarity of standing with its sides precisely east and
west, north and south. At a subsequent period, it consequently had the
appearance of having being jerked round bodily, the streets in the
neighbourhood not being laid out with the same precise regard to the
cardinal points. The building exhibited recessed galleries on the north
and south sides, and a flattish hipped roof. The interior was
conveniently designed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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