So early as 1795 Liancourt speaks of a migration hither of German settlers from the other side of the Lake. He says a number of German settlers collected at Hamburg, an agent had brought out to settle on "Captain Williamson's Demesne" in the State of New York. After subsisting for some time there at the expense of Capt. Williamson, (who, it was stated, was really the representative of one of the Pulteneys in England), they decamped in a body to the north side of the Lake, and especially to York and its neighbourhood, at the instigation of one Berczy, and "gained over, if we may believe common fame," Liancourt says, "by the English;" gained over, rather, it is likely, by the prospect of acquiring freehold property for nothing, instead of holding under a patroon or American feudal lord.
Probably it was to the accounts of Capt. Williamson's proceedings, given by these refugees, that a message from Gov. Simcoe to that gentleman, in 1794, was due. Capt. Williamson, who appears to have acquired a supposed personal interest in a large portion of the State of New York, was opening settlements on the inlets on the south side of Lake Ontario, known as Ierondequat and Sodus Bay.
"Last year," Liancourt informs us, "General Simcoe, Governor of Upper Canada, who considered the Forts of Niagara and Oswego, . . . as English property, together with the banks of Lake Ontario, sent an English officer to the Captain, with an injunction, not to persist in his design of forming the settlements." To which message, "the Captain," we are then told, "returned a plain and spirited answer, yet nevertheless conducted himself with a prudence conformable to the circumstances. All these difficulties, however," it is added, "are now removed by the prospect of the continuance of peace, and still more so by the treaty newly concluded." (Of Mr. Berczy, and the German Settlement proper, we shall discourse at large in our section on Yonge Street.)
VII.
KING STREET: DIGRESSION SOUTHWARDS AT CHURCH STREET: MARKET LANE.
cross Church Street from Clinkunbroomer's were the wooden buildings already referred to, as having remained long in a partially finished state, being the result of a premature speculation. From this point we are induced to turn aside from our direct route for a few moments, attracted by a street which we see a short distance to the south, namely, Market Lane, or Colborne Street, as the modern phraseology is.
In this passage was, in the olden time, the Masonic Hall, a wooden building of two storeys. To the young imagination this edifice seemed to possess considerable dignity, from being surmounted by a cupola; the first structure in York that ever enjoyed such a distinction. This ornamental appendage supported above the western gable, by slender props, (intended in fact for the reception of a bell, which, so far as our recollection extends, was never supplied), would appear insignificant enough now; but it was the first budding of the architectural ambition of a young town, which leads at length to turrets, pinnacles, spires and domes.