From the first grist mill, built below Kingston by the Government for the settlers—to which my grandfather carried his first few bushels of wheat in a canoe down the Bay of Quinte, a distance of thirty-five miles—the mills in course of time increased to 303. They were small, and the greater proportion had but a single run of stones. The constant demand for lumber for building purposes in every settlement necessitated the building of saw-mills, and in each township, wherever there was a creek or stream upon which a sufficient head of water could be procured to give power, there was a rude mill, with its single upright saw. Getting out logs in the winter was a part of the regular programme of every farmer who had pine timber, and in spring, for a short time, the mill was kept going, and the lumber taken home. According to the returns made to the Government, there were 429 of these mills in the Province at that time. [Footnote: Journals, House of Assembly, 1831.] There were also foundries where ploughs and other implements were made, and a few fulling mills, where the home-made flannel was converted into the thick coarse cloth known as full cloth, a warm and serviceable article, as many no doubt remember. Carding machines, which had almost entirely relieved the housewife from using hand cards in making rolls, were also in existence. There were also breweries and distilleries, and a paper mill on the Don, at York. This was about the sum total of our manufacturing enterprises at that date.
There are now 508 grist and flour mills—not quite double the number, but owing to the great improvement in machinery the producing capacity has largely increased. Very few mills, at the present time, have fewer than two run of stones, and a great many have fewer, and even more, and the same may be said of the saw mills, of which there are 853. There are many in the Province capable of turning out nearly as much lumber in twelve months as all the mills did fifty years ago.
It is only within a few years that we have made much progress in manufactures of any kind. Whatever the hindrances were, judging from the numerous factories that are springing into existence all over the Dominion, they seem to have been removed, and capitalists are embarking their money in all kinds of manufacturing enterprises. There is no way, as far as I know, of getting at the value annually produced by our mills and factories, except from the Trade and Navigation Returns for 1880, and this only gives the exports, which are but a fraction of the grand total. Our woolen mills turned out last year upwards of $4,000,000, [Footnote: Monetary Times, December 17, 1881.] of which we exported $222,425. This does not include the produce of what are called custom mills. There are 224 foundries, 285 tanneries, 164 woollen mills, 74 carding and fulling mills, 137 cheese factories, 127 agricultural and implement factories, 92 breweries, 8 boot and shoe factories, 5 button factories, 1 barley mill, 2 carpet factories, 4 chemical works, 9 rope and twine factories, 9 cotton mills, 3 crockery kilns, 11 flax mills, 4 glass works, 11 glove factories, 7 glue factories, 9 hat factories, 12 knitting factories, 9 oatmeal mills, 9 organ factories, 10 piano factories, 25 paper mills, 4 rubber factories, 6 shoddy mills, 3 sugar refineries; making, with the flour and saw mills, 2,642. Besides these there are carriage, cabinet and other factories and shops, to the number of 3,848. The value of flour exported was $1,547,910; of sawn lumber, $4,137,062; of cheese, $1,199,973; of flax, $95,292; of oatmeal, $215,131; and of other manufactures, $1,100,605.
We may further illustrate the progress we have made by giving the estimated value of the trade in Toronto in 1880, taken from an interesting article on this subject which appeared in the Globe last January. The wholesale trade is placed at $30,650,000; produce, $23,000,000; a few leading factories, $1,770,000; live stock, local timber trade, coal, distilling and brewing, $8,910,000; in all, $64,330,000—a gross sum more than ten times greater than the value of the trade of the whole Province fifty years ago.
Another interesting feature in our growth is the rapid increase in the cities and towns. Some of these were not even laid out in 1830, and others hardly deserved the humble appellation of village. The difference will be more apparent by giving the population, as far as possible, then and in 1881, when the last census was taken, of a number of the principal places:—
1830. 1881.
Toronto 2,860 86,445
Kingston 3,587 14,093
Hamilton, including township 2,013 35,965
London, including township 2,415 ——
Brantford, laid out in 1830 —— 9,626
Guelph, including township 778 9,890
St. Catharines (Population in 1845, 3,000) —— ——
Ottawa contained 150 houses —— ——
Belleville, incorporated 1835 —— 9,516
Brockville 1,130 7,608
Napanee (Population in 1845, 500) —— 3,681
Cobourg —— 4,957
Port Hope —— 5,888
Peterboro', laid out in 1826 —— 6,815
Lindsay, " 1833 —— 5,081
Barrie, " 1832 —— ——
Ingersoll, " 1831 —— 4,322
Woodstock (Population in 1845, 1,085) —— 5,373
Chatham, settled in 1830 —— 7,881
Stratford, laid out in 1833 —— 8,240
Sarnia, laid out in 1833 —— 3,874
I hope the humble effort I have made to show what we Upper Canadians have done during the fifty years that are gone will induce some one better qualified to go over the same ground, and put it in a more attractive and effective shape. It is a period in our history which must ever demand attention, and although our Province had been settled for nearly half a century prior to 1830, it was not until after that date that men of intelligence began to look around them, and take an active interest in shaping the future of their country. There were many failures, but the practical sense of the people surmounted them, and pushed on. All were awake to the value of their heritage, and contributed their share to extend its influence; and so we have gone on breasting manfully political, commercial and other difficulties, but always advancing; and whatever may be said about the growth of other parts of America, figures will show that Canada is to the front. At the Provincial Exhibition in Ottawa, in 1879, the Governor of Vermont, in his address, stated (what we already knew), that Canada had outstripped the United States in rapidity of growth and development during recent years, and the Governors of Ohio and Maine endorsed the statement. We have a grand country, and I believe a grand future.
"Fair land of peace! to Britain's rule and throne
Adherent still, yet happier than alone,
And free as happy, and as brave as free,
Proud are thy children, justly proud of thee.
Few are the years that have sufficed to change
This whole broad land by transformation strange.
Once far and wide the unbroken forests spread
Their lonely waste, mysterious and dread—
Forest, whose echoes never had been stirred
By the sweet music of an English word;
Where only rang the red-browed hunter's yell,
And the wolf's howl through the dark sunless dell.
Now fruitful fields and waving orchard trees
Spread their rich treasures to the summer breeze.
Yonder, in queenly pride, a city stands,
Whence stately vessels speed to distant lands;
Here smiles a hamlet through embow'ring green,
And there the statelier village spires are seen;
Here by the brook-side clacks the noisy mill,
There the white homestead nestles on the hill;
The modest school-house here flings wide its door
To smiling crowds that seek its simple lore;
There Learning's statelier fane of massive walls
Wooes the young aspirant to classic halls,
And bids him in her hoarded treasure find
The gathered wealth of all earth's gifted minds."
—PAMELA S. VINING.
Since writing the foregoing, I accidentally came across The Canadas, &c., by Andrew Picken, published in London in 1832, a work which I had never previously met with. It is written principally for the benefit of persons intending to emigrate to Canada, and contains notices of the most important places in both Provinces. I have made the following extracts, thinking that they would prove interesting to those of my readers who wish to get a correct idea of our towns and villages fifty years ago.
"The largest and most populous of the towns in Upper Canada, and called the key to the Province, is Kingston, advantageously situated at the head of the St. Lawrence, and at the entrance of the great Lake Ontario. Its population is now about 5,500 souls; it is a military post of importance, as well as a naval depot, and from local position and advantages is well susceptible of fortification. It contains noble dockyards and conveniences for ship-building. Its bay affords, says Howison, so fine a harbour, that a vessel of one hundred and twenty guns can lie close to the quay, and the mercantile importance it has now attained as a commercial entrepot between Montreal below and the western settlements on the lakes above, may be inferred, among other things from the wharfs on the river and the many spacious and well-filled warehouses behind them, as well as the numerous stores and mercantile employes within the town. The streets are regularly formed upon the right-angular plan which is the favourite in the new settlements, but they are not paved; and though the houses are mostly built of limestone, inexhaustible quarries of which lie in the immediate vicinity of the town, and are of the greatest importance to it and the surrounding neighbourhood, there is nothing in the least degree remarkable or interesting in the appearance of either the streets or the buildings. The opening of the Rideau Canal there, which, with the intermediate lakes, forms a junction between the Ontario and other lakes above, the St. Lawrence below, and the Ottawa, opposite Hull, in its rear, with all the intervening districts and townships, will immensely increase the importance of this place; and its convenient hotels already afford comfortable accommodation to the host of travellers that are continually passing between the Upper and Lower Provinces, as well as to and from the States on the opposite side of the river.