Mr. Oates was nearly connected with the family of President Russell, but curiously obtained no share in the broad acres which were, in the early day, so plentifully distributed to all comers. By being unluckily out of the way, too, at a critical moment, subsequently, he missed a bequest at the hands of the sole inheritor of the possessions of his relative.
Capt. Oates was a man of dignified bearing, of more than the ordinary height. He had seen service on the ocean as master and owner of a merchantman. His portrait, which is still preserved in Toronto, somewhat resembles that of George IV.
A spot passed, a few moments since, on King Street, is associated with a story in which the Richmond sloop comes up. It happened that the nuptials of a neighbouring merchant had lately taken place. Some youths, employed in an adjoining warehouse or law-office, took it into their heads that a feu de joie should be fired on the occasion. To carry out the idea they proceeded, under cover of the night, to the Richmond sloop, where she lay frozen in by the Frederick Street wharf, and removed from her deck, without asking leave, a small piece of ordnance with which she was provided. They convey it with some difficulty, carriage and all, up into King Street, and place it in front of the bridegroom's house; run it back, as we have understood, even into the recess underneath the double steps of the porch: when duly ensconced there, as within the port of a man-of-war, they contrived to fire it off, decamping, however, immediately after the exploit, and leaving behind them the source of the deafening explosion.
On the morrow the cannon is missed from the sloop (she was being prepared for the spring navigation): on instituting an inquiry, Capt. Oates is mysteriously informed the lost article is, by some means, up somewhere on the premises of Mr. J. S. Baldwin, the gentleman who had been honoured with the salute, and that if he desired to recover his property he must despatch some men thither to fetch it. (We shall have occasion to refer hereafter to the Richmond, when we come to speak of the early Marine of York Harbour.)
Passing on our way eastward we came immediately, on the north side, to one of the principal hotels of York, a long, white, two-storey wooden building. It was called the Mansion House—an appropriate name for an inn, when we understand "Mansion" in its proper, but somewhat forgotten sense, as indicating a temporary abode, a place which a man occupies and then relinquishes to a successor. The landlord here for a considerable time was Mr. De Forest, an American who, in some way or other, had been deprived of his ears. The defect, however, was hardly perceptible, so nicely managed was the hair. On the ridge of the Mansion House roof was to be seen for a number of years a large and beautiful model of a completely-equipped sailing vessel.
We then arrived at the north-west angle of King and Princes streets, where a second public well (we have already commemorated the first,) was sunk, and provided with a pump in 1824—for all which the sum of £36 17s. 6d. was paid to John James on the 19th of August in that year. In the advertisements and contracts connected with this now obliterated public convenience, Princes Street is correctly printed and written as it here meets the eye, and not "Princess Street," as the recent corruption is.
Let not the record of our early water-works be disdained. Those of the metropolis of the Empire were once on a humble scale. Thus Master John Stow, in his Survey of London, Anno 1598, recordeth that "at the meeting of the corners of the Old Jurie, Milke Street, Lad Lane, Aldermanburie, there was of old time a fair well with two buckets; of late years," he somewhat pathetically adds, "converted to a pump."
Just across eastward from the pump was one of the first buildings put up on King Street: it was erected by Mr. Smith, who was the first to take up a building lot, after the laying-out of the town-plot.
On the opposite side, a few steps further on, was Jordan's—the far-famed "York Hotel"—at a certain period, the hotel par excellence of the place, than which no better could be found at the time in all Upper Canada. The whole edifice has now utterly disappeared. Its foundations giving way, it for a while seemed to be sinking into the earth, and then it partially threatened to topple over into the street. It was of antique style when compared with the Mansion House. It was only a storey-and-a-half high. Along its roof was a row of dormer windows. (Specimens of this style of hotel may still be seen in the country-towns of Lower Canada.)
When looking in later times at the doorways and windows of the older buildings intended for public and domestic purposes, as also at the dimensions of rooms and the proximity of the ceilings to the floors, we might be led for a moment to imagine that the generation of settlers passed away must have been of smaller bulk and stature than their descendants. But points especially studied in the construction of early Canadian houses, in both Provinces, were warmth and comfort in the long winters. Sanitary principles were not much thought of, and happily did not require to be much thought of, when most persons passed more of their time in the pure outer air than they do now.