Captain Bonnycastle indulges in a further little fling at civilians who presume to undertake engineering duties, in a story which serves to fill a page or two of his book, immediately after the above remarks on Yonge Street, about Richmond Hill. He narrates an incident of his voyage out:—
"A Character," he says, "set out from England to try his fortune in Canada. He was conversing about prospects in that country, on board the vessel, with a person who knew him, but whom he knew not. 'I have not quite made up my mind,' said the character, 'as to what pursuit I shall follow in Canada; but that which brings most grist to the mill will answer best; and I hear a man may turn his hand to anything there, without the folly of an apprenticeship being necessary; for if he have only brains, bread will come; now what do you think would be the best business for my market?' 'Why,' said the gentleman, after pondering a little, 'I should advise you to try civil engineering; for they are getting up a Board of Works there, and want that branch of industry very much, for they won't take natives: nothing but foreigners and strangers will go down.' 'What is a civil engineer?' said the Character. 'A man always measuring and calculating,' responded his adviser, 'and that will just suit you.' 'So it will,' rejoined Character, and a civil engineer he became accordingly, and a very good one into the bargain, for he had brains, and had used a yard measure all his lifetime."—Who "the Character" was, we do not for certain know.
A short distance beyond Richmond Hill was the abode of Colonel Moodie, on the right,—distinguished by a flag-staff in front of it, after the custom of Lower Canada, where an officer's house used to be known in this way. (In the neighbourhood of Sorel, as we remember, in the winter of 1837, it was one of the symptoms of disaffection come to a head, when in front of a substantial habitan's home a flag-staff was suddenly seen bearing the inscription "——, Capitaine, élu par le peuple.")
Colonel Moodie's title came from his rank in the regular army. He had been Lieut.-Colonel of the 104th regiment. Sad, that a distinguished officer, after escaping the perils of the Peninsular war, and of the war with the United States here in 1812-13, should have yet, nevertheless, met with a violent death in a petty local civil tumult. He was shot, as all remember, in the troubles of 1837, while attempting to ride past Montgomery's, regardless of the insurgent challenge to stop.
"Thou might'st have dreamed of brighter hours to close thy chequered life Beneath thy country's victor-flag, sure beacon in the strife; Or in the shadow of thy home with those who mourn thee now, To whisper comfort in thine ear, to calm thine aged brow. Well! peaceful be thy changeless rest,—thine is a soldier's grave; Hearts like thine own shall mourn thy doom—meet requiem for the brave— And ne'er 'till Freedom's ray is pale and Valour's pulse grown cold Shall be thy bright career forgot, thy gloomy fate untold."
So sang one in the columns of a local contemporary paper, in "Lines suggested by the Lamented Death of the late Colonel Moodie."
At a certain period in the history of Yonge Street, as indeed of all the leading thoroughfares of Upper Canada, about 1830-33, a frequent sign that property had changed hands, and that a second wave of population was rolling in, was the springing up, at intervals, of houses of an improved style, with surroundings, lawns, sheltering plantations, winding drives, well-constructed entrance-gates, and so on, indicating an appreciation of the elegant and the comfortable.
We recall two instances of this, which we used to contemplate with particular interest, a little way beyond Richmond Hill, on the left: the cosy, English-looking residences, not far apart, with a cluster of appurtenances round each—of Mr. Larratt Smith, and Mr. Francis Boyd. Both gentlemen settled here with their families in 1836.
Mr. Smith had been previously in Canada in a military capacity during the war of 1812-13, and for many years subsequently he had been Chief Commissary of the Field Train Department and Paymaster of the Artillery. He died at Southampton in 1860.