XXVI.
YONGE STREET, FROM HOGG'S HOLLOW TO BOND'S LAKE.
eyond the hollow, Mr. Humberstone's was passed on the west side, another manufacturer of useful pottery ware. A curious incident used to be narrated as having occurred in this house. The barrel of an old Indian fowling-piece turned up by the plough in one of the fields, and made to do duty in the management of unwieldy back logs in the great fire-place, suddenly proved itself to have been charged all the while, by exploding one day in the hands of Mr. Humberstone's daughter while being put to its customary use, and killing her on the spot. Somewhat similarly, at Fort Erie, we have been told, in the fire which destroyed the wharf at the landing, a condemned cannon which had long been planted in the pier as a post, went off, happily straight upwards, without doing any damage.
Mr. Humberstone saw active service as a lieutenant in the incorporated militia in 1812. He was put in charge of some of the prisoners captured by Colonel Fitzgibbon, at the Beaver Dams, and when now nearing his destination, Kingston, with his prisoners in a large batteau, he, like the famous Dragoon who caught the Tartar, was made a prisoner of himself by the men whom he had in custody, and was adroitly rowed over by them to the United States shore, where being landed he was swiftly locked up in jail, and thence only delivered when peace was restored.
The next memorable object, also on the left, was Shephard's inn, a noted resting-place for wayfarers and their animals, flanked on the north by large driving sheds, on the south by stables and barns: over the porch, at an early period, was the effigy of a lion gardant, attempted in wood on the premises. Constructiveness was one of the predominant faculties in the first landlord of the Golden Lion. He was noted also for skilful execution on several instruments of music: on the bassoon for one. In the rear of the hotel, a little to the south, on a fine eminence, he put up for himself after the lapse of some years, a private residence, remarkable for the originality of its design, the outline of its many projecting roofs presenting a multitude of concave curves in the Chinese pagoda style.
In several buildings in this neighbourhood an effort was at one time made, chiefly, we believe, through the influence of Mr. Shephard, to reproduce what in the west of England are called cob-walls; but either from an error in compounding the material, or from the peculiar character of the local climate, they proved unsatisfactory.—The Sheppards, early proprietors of land a little farther on, were a different family, and spelt their name differently. It was some members of this family that were momentarily concerned in the movement of 1837.
In Willowdale, a hamlet just beyond Shephard's, was the residence of Mr. David Gibson, destroyed in 1837 by the Government forces. We observe in the Gazette of January 6th, 1826, the announcement, "Government House, York, 29th December, 1825. His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor has been pleased to appoint David Gibson, gentleman, to be a surveyor of land in the Province." In the practice of the profession indicated he was prosperous, and also as a practical farmer. He likewise represented North York in the Provincial Parliament. When the calm came after the tumult of 1837, he was appointed one of the Superintendents of Colonization Roads. He died at Quebec in 1864.
A road turning off at right angles to the eastward out of Willowdale led to a celebrated camp-meeting ground, on the property of Mr. Jacob Cummer, one of the early German settlers. It was in a grand maple forest—a fine specimen of such trysting places. It was here that we were for the first time present at one of the peculiar assemblies referred to, which, over the whole of this northern continent, in a primitive condition of society at its several points, have fulfilled, and still fulfil, an important, and we doubt not, beneficent function.
This, as we suppose, was the scene of the camp-meeting described in Peter Jones' Autobiography. "About noon," he writes on Tuesday, the 10th of June, 1828, "started for the camp ground. When we arrived we found about three hundred Indians collected from Lake Simcoe and Scugog Lake. Most of those from Lake Simcoe have just come in from the back lakes to join with their converted brethren in the service of the Almighty God. They came in company with brother Law, and all seemed very glad to see us, giving us a hearty shake of the hand. The camp ground enclosed about two acres, which was surrounded with board tents, having one large gate for teams to go in and out, and three smaller ones.