Toronto of Old / Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of Ontario

by Henry Scadding

An estate, however, at the distance of one lot eastward from Yonge Street, in Whitchurch, is yet in the actual occupation of a direct descendant of one of the first settlers in this region. Mr. Henry Quetton St. George here engages with energy in the various operations of a practical farmer, on land inherited immediately from his father, the Chevalier de St. George, at the same time dispensing to his many friends a refined hospitality. If at Glenlonely the circular turrets and pointed roofs of the old French château are not to be seen,—what is of greater importance, the amenities and gentle life of the old French château are to be found. Moreover, by another successful enterprise added to agriculture, the present proprietor of Glenlonely has brought it to pass that the name of St. George is no longer suggestive, as in the first instance it was, of wars in La Vendée and fightings on the Garonne and Dordogne, but redolent in Canada, far and wide, only of vineyards in Languedoc and of pleasant wines from across the Pyrenees.

A large group of superior farm buildings, formerly seen on the right just after the turn which leads to Glenlonely, bore the graceful name of Larchmere,—an appellation glancing at the mere or little lake within view of the windows of the house: a sheet of water more generally known as Lake Willcocks—so called from an early owner of the spot, Col. Willcocks, of whom we have spoken in another section. Larchmere was for some time the home of his great grandson, William Willcocks Baldwin. The house has since been destroyed by fire.

Just beneath the surface of the soil on the borders of the lakelets of the Ridges, was early noticed a plentiful deposit of white shell-marl, resembling the substance brought up from the oozy floor of the Atlantic in the soundings preparatory to laying the telegraph-cable. It was, in fact, incipient chalk. It used to be employed in the composition of a whitewash for walls and fences. It may since have been found of value as a manure. In these quarters, as elsewhere in Canada, fine specimens of the antlers of the Wapiti, or great American stag, were occasionally dug up.

The summit level of the Ridges was now reached, the most elevated land in this part of the basin of the St. Lawrence; a height, however, after all, of only about eight hundred feet above the level of the sea. The attention of the wayfarer was hereabout always directed to a small stream, which the road crossed, flowing out of Lake Willcocks: and then a short distance further on, he was desired to notice a slight swale or shallow morass on the left. The stream in question, he was told, was the infant Humber, just starting south for Lake Ontario; while the swale or morass, he was assured, was a feeder of the east branch of the Holland River, flowing north into Lake Simcoe.

Notwithstanding the comparative nearness to each other of the waters of the Holland and the Humber, thus made visible to the eye, the earliest project of a canal in these parts was, as has once before been observed, for the connection, not of the Holland river and the Humber, but of the Holland river and the Rouge or Nen. The Mississaga Indians attached great importance to the Rouge and its valley as a link in one of their ancient trails between Huron and Ontario; and they seem to have imparted to the first white men their own notions on the subject. "It apparently rises," says the Gazetteer of 1799, speaking of the Rouge or Nen, "in the vicinity of one of the branches of Holland's river, with which it will probably, at some future period, be connected by a canal." A "proposed canal" is accordingly here marked on one of the first manuscript maps of Upper Canada.

Father St. Lawrence and Father Mississippi pour their streams—so travellers assure us—from urns situated at no great distance apart. Lake Itaska and its vicinity, just west of Lake Superior, possess a charm for this reason. In like manner, to compare small things with great, the particular quarter of the Ridges where the waters of the Humber and the Holland used to be seen in near proximity to each other, had always with ourselves a special interest. Two small lakes, called respectively Lake Sproxton and Lake Simon, important feeders of the Rouge, a little to the east of the Glenlonely property, are situated very close to the streams that pass into the east branch of the Holland river; so that the conjecture of the author of the Gazetteer was a good one. He says, "apparently the sources of the Rouge and Holland lie near each other."

After passing the notable locality of the Ridges just spoken of, the land began perceptibly to decline; and soon emerging from the confused glens and hillocks and woods that had long on every side been hedging in the view, we suddenly came out upon a brow where a wide prospect was obtained, stretching far to the north, and far to the east and west. From such an elevation the acres here and there denuded of their woods by the solitary axemen could not be distinguished; accordingly, the panorama presented here for many a year continued to be exactly that which met the eyes of the first exploring party from York in 1793.

As we used to see it, it seemed in effect to be an unbroken forest; in the foreground bold and billowy and of every variety of green; in the middle distance assuming neutral, indistinct tints, as it dipped down into what looked like a wide vale; then apparently rising by successive gentle stages, coloured now deep violet, now a tender blue, up to the line of the sky. In a depression in the far horizon, immediately in front, was seen the silvery sheen of water. This, of course, was the lake known since 1793 as Lake Simcoe; but previously spoken of by the French sometimes as Lake Sinion or Sheniong; sometimes as Lake Ouentironk, Ouentaron, and Toronto—the very name which is so familiar to us now, as appertaining to a locality thirty miles southward of this lake.

The French also in their own tongue sometimes designated it, perhaps for some reason connected with fishing operations, Lac aux Claies, Hurdle Lake. Thus in the Gazetteer of 1799 we have "Simcoe Lake: formerly Lake aux Claies, Ouentironk, Sheniong, situated between York and Gloucester upon Lake Huron: it has a few small islands and several good harbours." And again on another page of the same Gazetteer, we have the article: "Toronto Lake (or Toronto): lake le Clie [i. e. Lac aux Claies] was formerly so called by some: (others," the same article proceeds to say, "called the chain of lakes from the vicinity of Matchedash towards the head of the Bay of Quinté, the Toronto lakes and the communication from the one to the other was called the Toronto river:" whilst in another place in the Gazetteer we have the information given us that the Humber was also styled the Toronto river, thus: "Toronto river, called by some St. John's; now called the Humber.")