It seems to-day almost like a dream that we have seen in the flesh the honoured patriarchs and founders of our now great community—
"Zorah, Nahor, Haran, Abram, Lot, The youthful world's gray fathers in one knot;"—
that our eyes really once beheld the traces on their countenances of their long and varied experiences, of their cares, and processes of thought; the traces left by the lapse of years, by times, rough and troublous, not merely heard of by the hearing of the ear, as existing across the Lakes or across the Seas, but encountered in their own persons, in their own land, at their own hearths; encountered and bravely struggled through:—that we were eye-witnesses of their cheerfulness and good courage after crisis upon crisis had thus passed over them; eye-witnesses again, too, of their earnest devotedness to the duties of calmer days, discharged ever honestly and well according to the beliefs and knowledge of the period, and without the realization, in many an instance, of the reach and vastness of the scheme of things which was being wrought out:—that with our own eyes we saw them, again and again, engaged within consecrated walls, in solemn acts which expressed, in spite of the vicissitudes which their destiny had brought with it, their unaffected faith in the unseen, and their living hope in relation to futurity.
All this, we say, now seems like a dream of the night, or a mystic revelation of the scenes of a very distant period and in a very distant locality, rather than the recollections of a few short years spent on the spot where these pages are indited. The names, however, which we shall produce will have a sound of reality about them: they will be recognized as familiar, household words still perpetuated, or, at all events, still freshly remembered in the modern Toronto.
From amongst the venerable heads and ancestral forms which recur to us, as we gaze down in imagination from the galleries of the old wooden St. James', of York, we will single out, in addition to those already spoken of, that of Mr. Ridout, sometimes Surveyor-General of the Province, father of a numerous progeny, and tribal head, so to speak, of more than one family of connections settled here, bearing the same name. He was a fine typical representative of the group to which our attention is directed. He was a perfect picture of a cheerful, benevolent-minded Englishman; of portly form, well advanced in years, his hair snowy-white naturally; his usual costume, of the antique style above described.
Then there was Mr. Small, Clerk of the Crown, an Englishman of similar stamp. We might sketch the rest separately as they rise before the mind's eye; but we should probably, after all, convey an idea of each that would be too incomplete to be interesting or of much value. We therefore simply name other members of the remarkable group of reverend seniors that assembled habitually in the church at York. Mr. Justice Boulton, Colonel Smith, sometime President of the Province; Mr. Allan, Mr. M'Gill, Mr. Crookshank, Colonel Givins, Major Heward, Colonel Wells, Colonel Fitzgibbon, Mr. Dunn, Dr. Macaulay, Dr. Baldwin, Dr. Lee, Mr. Samuel Ridout, Mr. Chewett, Mr. McNab (Sir Allan's father); Mr. Stephen Jarvis, who retained to the last the ancient fashion of tying the hair in a queue.
We might go on with several others, also founders of families that still largely people York and its vicinity; we might mention old Captain Playter, Captain Denison, Mr. Scarlett, Captain Brooke, sen., and others. Filial duty would urge us not to omit, in the enumeration, one who, though at a very early period removed by a sudden casualty, is vividly remembered, not only as a good and watchful father, but also as a venerable form harmonizing perfectly in expression and costume with the rest of the group which used to gather in the church at York.
Of course, mingled with the ancients of the congregation, there was a due proportion of a younger generation. There was for example Mr. Simon Washburn, a bulky and prosperous barrister, afterwards Clerk of the Peace, who was the first, perhaps, in these parts, to carry a glass adroitly in the eye. There was Dr. Grant Powell, a handsome reproduction, on a larger scale, of his father the Chief, as his portrait shews; there were the Messrs. Monro, George and John; the Messrs. Stanton; Mr. Billings; the Messrs. Gamble, John and William; Mr. J. S. Baldwin, Mr. Lyons, Mr. Beikie, and others, all men of note, distinguishable from each other by individual traits and characteristics that might readily be sketched.
And lastly in the interstices of the assemblage was to be seen a plentiful representation of generation number three; young men and lads of good looks, for the most part, well set-up limbs, and quick faculties; in some instances, of course, of fractious temperament and manners. As ecclesiastical associations are at the moment uppermost, we note an ill habit that prevailed among some of these younglings of the flock, of loitering long about the doors of the church for the purpose of watching the arrivals, and then, when the service was well advanced, the striplings would be seen sporadically coming in, each one imagining, as he passed his fingers through his hair and marched with a shew of manly spirit up the aisle, that he attracted a degree of attention; attracted, perhaps, a glance of admiration from some of the many pairs of eyes that rained influence from a large pew in the eastern portion of the north gallery, where the numerous school of Miss Purcell and Miss Rose held a commanding position.
It would have been a singular exception to a general law, had the interior into which we are now gazing, and whose habitués we are now recalling, not been largely frequented by the feminine portion of society at York. Seated in their places in various directions along the galleries and in the body of the old wooden church, were to be regularly seen specimens of the venerable great-grandmammas of the old English and Scottish type (in one or two instances to be thought of to this day with a degree of awe by reason of the vigour, almost masculine, of their character); specimens of kindly maiden aunts; specimens of matronly wives and mothers, keeping watch and ward over bevies of comely daughters and nieces.