Of Mr. Berczy, above spoken of, we shall soon have to give further particulars. We must now push on.
Just beyond the Blue Hill ravine, on the west side, stood for a long while a lonely unfinished frame building, with gable towards the street, and windows boarded up. The inquiring stage-passenger would be told, good-humouredly, by the driver, that it was Rowland Burr's Folly. It was, we believe, to have been a Carding or Fulling Mill, worked by peculiar machinery driven by the stream in the valley below; but either the impracticability of this from the position of the building, or the as yet insignificant quantity of wool produced in the country made the enterprise abortive.
Mr. Burr was an emigrant to these parts from Pennsylvania in 1803, and from early manhood was strongly marked by many of the traits which are held to be characteristic of the speculative and energetic American. Unfortunately in some respects for himself, he was in advance of his neighbours in a clear perception of the capabilities of things as seen in the rough, and in a strong desire to initiate works of public utility, broaching schemes occasionally beyond the natural powers of a community in its veriest infancy. A canal to connect Lake Ontario with the Georgian Bay of Lake Huron, via Lake Simcoe and the valley of the Humber, was pressed by him as an immediate necessity, years ago; and at his own expense he minutely examined the route and published thereon a report which has furnished to later theorizers on the same subject much valuable information.
Mr. Burr was a born engineer and mechanician, and at a more auspicious time, with proper opportunities for training and culture, he would probably have become famed as a local George Stephenson. He built on his own account, or for others, a number of mills and factories, providing and getting into working order the complicated mechanism required for each; and this at a time when such undertakings were not easy to accomplish, from the unimproved condition of the country and the few facilities that existed for importing and transporting inland, heavy machinery. The mills and factories at Burwick in Vaughan originated with him, and from him that place takes its name.
The early tramway on Yonge Street of which we have already spoken was suggested by Mr. Burr; and when the cutting down of the Blue Hill was decided on, he undertook and effected the work.
It is now some forty years since the peculiar clay of the Blue Hill began to be turned to useful account. In or near the brick-fields, which at the present time are still to be seen on the left, Messrs. James and William Townsley burnt kilns of white brick, a manufacture afterwards carried on here by Mr. Nightingale, a family connection of the Messrs. Townsley. Mr. Worthington also for a time engaged on the same spot in the manufacture of pressed brick and drain tiles. The Rossin House Hotel, in Toronto, and the Yorkville Town Hall were built of pressed brick made here.
Chestnut Park, which we pass on the right, the residence now of Mr. McPherson, is a comparatively modern erection, put up by Mr. Mathers, an early merchant of York, who, before building here, lived on Queen Street, near the Meadows, the residence of Mr. J. Hillyard Cameron. Oaklands, Mr. John McDonald's residence, of which a short distance back we obtained a passing glimpse far to the west, and Rathnally, Mr. McMaster's palatial abode, beyond, are both modern structures, put up by their respective occupants. Woodlawn, still on the left, the present residence of Mr. Justice Morrison, was previously the home of Mr. Chancellor Blake, and was built by him.
Summer Hill, seen on the high land far to the right, and commanding a noble view of the wide plain below, including Toronto with its spires and the lake view along the horizon, was originally built by Mr. Charles Thomson, whose name is associated with the former travel and postal service of the whole length of Yonge Street and the Upper Lakes. In Mr. Thompson's time, however, Summer Hill was by no means the extensive and handsome place into which it has developed since becoming the property and the abode of Mr. Larratt Smith.
The primitive waggon track of Yonge Street ascended the hill at which we now arrive, a little to the west of the present line of road. It passed up through a narrow excavated notch. Across this depression or trench a forest tree fell without being broken, and there long remained. Teams, in their way to and from town, had to pass underneath it like captured armies of old under the yoke. To some among the country folk it suggested the beam of the gallows-tree. Hence sprang an ill-omened name long attached to this particular spot.