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Jesse Ketchum,
1782-1867.

A permanent record of the life of Jesse Ketchum has long been needed. There are few names in the records of the early history of Toronto more enduring or more endearing than that of this gentle yet forceful personality who, during the first half of the last century, gave such conspicuous service to the development of Toronto and its institutions.

Jesse Ketchum has been for many years a sort of legendary figure in the history of Toronto. He came to the City in 1799, five years after it was founded by Governor Simcoe, and lived there until 1845. These were the formative years in the life of the Province of Upper Canada and of the City, the period when sane judgment and unselfish service were most urgently needed, but of which, unfortunately, altogether too little were received.

Though essentially a man of peace he enlisted actively in the fight against arrogance and autocracy in public affairs. He was elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1828 and served as colleague and associate with William Lyon Mackenzie during the most colorful years of the battle with the Family Compact. He was associated with the founding of the first Public School in Toronto and also with the first Sunday school. He was the first Church unionist, anticipating by a full hundred years the great movement which during the present century has swept throughout the country; and during the past three-quarters of a century and more his name has been known to every generation of boys and girls because of the prize books bearing his name which are given from time to time in the Public and Sunday schools in Toronto. In Buffalo, where he lived for the last twenty-two years of his life, his name is held in quite as high esteem because of his benefactions in the interest of education.

This volume, however, aims to be something more than the story of one man’s life. It is an attempt to portray the period during which he lived, to recount the struggle to found a province and establish a system of government; and then, when it is found that the system thus set up is unsound, to tell of that still more important struggle, even to the length of resort to arms, for reconstruction on lines more in harmony with the principles of the British system.

The author is greatly indebted in the writing of this book to Mrs. George Burland Bull, of Orangeville, Ontario, a grand-daughter of Jesse Ketchum, for access to much interesting and valuable information relating to the Ketchum family which she has accumulated with industry and painstaking care. He wishes also to express grateful appreciation to M. O. Hammond, author of Canadian Footprints and Confederation and its Leaders, to E. S. Caswell, historian of the York Pioneers Society, and to A. F. Hunter, Secretary to the Ontario Historical Society, for advice and assistance.

In order to avoid the necessity for attaching an undue number of foot-notes, a bibliography is given of works consulted. These, with the volumes of the Journals of the House of Assembly and the fragmentary fyles of early newspapers of the Province preserved in the Toronto Public Library and Ontario Legislative Library, have furnished much of the material for this study.

1

JESSE KETCHUM ARRIVES AT YORK

It is an evening in August, 1799. The officers and men of the Queen’s Rangers in the garrison at York, in the new Province of Upper Canada, have been busily engaged for some days in making preparations for the arrival of a distinguished guest. Every tunic has been carefully mended, every button polished, every bunk made scrupulously neat and clean. The flag over the garrison has been flying all day, and the sentries have instructions to report promptly as soon as a sail is visible around the peninsula stretching from the mouth of the Don River across the front of the harbour.

Toward sundown a sail is reported, and keen is the excitement as the men watch the little boat beating its way toward the fort against the heavy north-westerly breeze.

The Speedy is a little sailing vessel of perhaps sixty to seventy tons—“fifty barrels burden” was the official description as to size and capacity of a similar craft of the day—and it is now arriving from Kingston carrying, among others, the newly appointed Governor of Upper Canada, the Honourable Peter Hunter, successor to Governor Simcoe, who had resigned nearly three years before. The Governor is accompanied by his secretary, Major James Green and an orderly.

The seat of Government had been moved from Newark, at the mouth of the Niagara River, by Governor Simcoe, in 1796. He had soon recognized that a position directly under the guns of an enemy fort across the river was no fit place for the Provincial capital; and, after carefully examining every available place he had selected, in 1794, the site of the old French fort at Toronto as the most desirable location. He changed its name from Rouillé to York, in honor of the Duke of York, and arranged for the erection of buildings for the use of the Legislature, houses for the accommodation of the officials, and a fort for the Queen’s Rangers, who formed the garrison.

In selecting York, then without settlement of any kind excepting a few families of Indians, the Governor had an eye to its defensibility in case of attack. In a letter to the Colonial Secretary he described it as the “most important and defensible situation in Upper Canada;” and from the character of the sandbanks which formed the harbour and protected the approach to the town he considered the place capable of being so fortified as to be “impregnable”.

The spot selected for the Government buildings and as a site for the town was at the extreme eastern end of the Bay, and a site for the fort for its protection was found on a knoll of land commanding the entrance to the harbour, washed by the waters of the Lake on the south and bordered by a stream known as the Garrison Creek on the east and north. A stockaded fort was erected at once for the troops, containing barracks, blockhouse, powder magazine and storehouse, with a wharf and canal on the creek for the landing of troops and supplies. Another blockhouse was projected for the sandbanks across the harbour entrance, which he proposed to call “Gibraltar Point”.

Governor Simcoe, who had been transferred to the Island of San Domingo, in the West Indies, in 1796, had lived while at York, during the erection of the Government Buildings and afterwards, in a “canvas house”—a tent, which is said to have once belonged to Captain Cook, the celebrated navigator—which he had set up on the parade grounds within the fort; and as no official home had as yet been built for the new Governor, quarters had been set apart for his accommodation within the fort.

Presently the Speedy in the hands of its skilful sailors is brought around to the entrance at the Garrison Creek and made fast to the wharf. By this time, however, the hour is late, and as His Excellency had already been nearly three weeks in making the trip from Quebec, and an extra night on the boat could not be a matter of great moment, it is decided to defer the official landing and reception until the following morning.

A receiving party from the Queen’s Rangers is on hand early. The men present arms and the Governor and his party are escorted to the quarters in the fort made ready for their accommodation. After a short visit the Governor is taken to town for the purpose of an official call on His Honour President Russell, who has now been Acting Governor for nearly three years. At one o’clock the military officers and Government officials wait upon him to welcome him to York, congratulate him on his appointment to the governorship of the Province, and express their satisfaction at his safe arrival at the capital.

Meanwhile the cargo of supplies from Kingston, Oswego and the east which had been brought by the Speedy is taken off and removed to the storehouses or sent on to its destination in the town; and the crew, their duties of unloading completed, proceed to get the vessel into condition for the return trip by way of Newark.

Presently, however, one of the crew, a stockily built young fellow, apparently not yet out of his ‘teens’ who had taken an active part in the handling of the cargo and cleaning up of the ship, is seen to emerge from the cabin dressed for the road and carrying a small pack over his shoulder. Bidding “good-bye” to his late companions, he crosses the bridge over the Garrison Creek, and following the trail leading eastwardly towards the town, he hurries off and is soon lost to view.

And thus it was that Jesse Ketchum came to Toronto.

2

THE KETCHUM FAMILY

When Jesse Ketchum came to York in the summer of 1799 he was but seventeen years of age. His eldest brother, Seneca, ten years his senior, had arrived three years before, and the young lad had now come to join him. Although this family of Ketchums had not taken part in the great movement of population into Canada which had followed on the heels of the Revolution, they were none the less United Empire Loyalists. With a large family of small children it was difficult, if not impossible, for their father, Jesse Ketchum the first, to have taken the risk during the crucial period of the Revolution of venturing into a new and strange country, where it would have been necessary for him actually to hew out a home for his family from the primeval forest.

The Ketchums were among the earliest settlers in New England. The family was of Welsh origin, and the tradition is that three brothers came to America at the same time, early in the seventeenth century. The earliest record of the line is that of Edward Ketchum, who settled at Ipswich, Massachusetts, in 1635. He was a freeman of the Colony, but in 1654 he removed to Southwold, Long Island, and there the family continued to live for many years.

“It is the chief recommendation of long pedigrees,” writes Robert Louis Stevenson, “that we can follow back the career of our component parts and be reminded of our antenatal lives.” The early settlers of Massachusetts were Puritans. They had come to America in the cause of religious liberty. They had no desire for political freedom from the Motherland, for they were proud to continue their allegiance to their King and Country. But with them citizenship in the commonwealth carried with it close communion with one of the churches. Loyalty to God and to their church were of first importance. The churches were organized on the congregational principle, each forming a group and each one independent of the others. Thus these sturdy pioneers laid the foundations of a political system for the Colony at a very early period. But the real leaders of the Colony were not soldiers, nor politicians, but clergymen. Their authority was intellectual and moral, and they held their influence by appeal to the reason and intelligence of the people.

The founding of common schools followed close on the building of churches, and these schools were maintained on terms of equality by all of the citizens. So eager, indeed, were the people for educational advantages, that in the very early years of settlement, and out of their extreme poverty, they established the two Universities of Harvard and Yale.

These New England Puritans were an industrious, intelligent and hard-working folk, and the Ketchums seem to have occupied quite a creditable place in the community life of the time. John Ketchum, of Ipswich, was for a time a member of the Massachusetts Legislature, but in 1648 he also removed to Long Island, settling first at New Town and later at Huntington, where he became overseer, having charge of the issuing of grants of land under the authority of the Government.

Samuel, a younger brother, seems not to have been so fortunate in life. He had established himself on his arrival at Norwalk, Connecticut, where he married Sarah Holbert, of New London, and it was through his family, which consisted of five sons and two daughters, that the Canadian line was established. One of his grandsons joined the United Empire Loyalist movement to New Brunswick in 1783, when so many of the very flower of the intellectual and cultivated people of New England and other parts of the newly-formed Republic, left their homes in order to follow the flag of Britain into Canada.

Jesse Ketchum the first, another grandson, was born at Norwalk on September 22nd, 1740. Although he had had many educational advantages, as education went in those early pioneer days, he does not appear to have made any great success of life. He was, however, a man of some attainments, and is said to have been a writer of moderate reputation, contributing poems and sketches to the local press. He seems also to have had a good deal of personal charm and to have moved in good social circles.

In 1771 he married Mollie Robbins, daughter of Judge Zebulon Robbins, now of Saratoga, New York, the place where, six years later, General Burgoyne and the British forces surrendered to General Gates. The Robbins family had settled near New Canaan, Columbia County, New York, in 1760, and here the Judge was afterwards married. His daughter at this time was but nineteen years of age, while her husband was thirty-one. Immediately on their marriage they took up their home at Spencertown in the same County, a small town lying to the east of the Hudson River, a short distance south of Troy.

Mollie Ketchum was a young woman of education and refinement, a good wife and an affectionate and sympathetic mother. She had come from a good home, where she had been accustomed not only to the comforts but also to many of the luxuries of life. Indeed, so deeply was the memory of her gentle personality impressed upon her little son, Jesse, the second, that although at the time of her death he was but six years of age, he always remembered her with the greatest tenderness and affection. She seems to have been much superior in intellect and ability to her husband, and it was doubtless from her that the lad inherited those qualities of kindliness and sympathy and that deeply religious spirit which characterized him in after life.

Moreover, the father also was a drinker, although that was not looked upon in those days as so discreditable a vice as in these later times; and even if he was not harsh and cruel to her, this was a sore trial to her refined and sensitive nature, and was something that the little Jesse never forgot.

The mother died in 1788, after seventeen years of married life, during which she had borne five sons and six daughters, including two pairs of twins. Though doubtless she had many regrets at the thought of leaving her large family of little children to the care of an improvident father and the mercies of a not very sympathetic world, death probably came to her as a precious relief from the burden and anxieties of living.

Seneca, the eldest of the children, was now sixteen. He probably had had greater advantage than any of the others, and as he had attended the local school and acquired a fair degree of education, he was in a position to look after himself. Soon after the death of his mother he came to Canada, and in 1796 took up land in York County, where, with the exception of the period when he lived near the present town of Orangeville, in Dufferin County, he continued to live until his death in 1850.

Sarah, the eldest daughter, born in January, 1774, was married to Major Ashall Warner, a member of the distinguished Warner family. One of his ancestors was one of the early benefactors of Magdalen and Balliol Colleges, Oxford; and Susan Warner, author of Queechy, Wide, Wide World, and other books, was one of the same family connection. She died in 1837.

Elizabeth, born in 1776, was married at Adolphustown to Alexander Jones, who died shortly afterwards, leaving her with a large family of young children, and for years she made her home at York.

Mary—or Polly, as she was usually called—who was two years younger than Jesse, married Nicholas Hagerman, a well-known lawyer of Adolphustown, and a charter member of the Law Society of Upper Canada. He was the father of Hon. Christopher A. Hagerman. Hannah, another sister, was cared for for many years at the home of her brother Jesse at York.

Zebulon followed Seneca and Jesse to York early in the nineteenth century. In 1806 he purchased a portion of Seneca’s farm on Yonge Street, about four miles north of the town; but he disposed of it later on his removal to Buffalo, New York. He was married to Hester Keel and died at Buffalo in 1854.

Henry Clinton Ketchum had moved to Western New York early in the century, settling at Buffalo, where he built for himself a homestead at the corner of what later were Main and Chippawa streets in that City. His home, however, was burned by Indians during the War of 1812 and he was forced to flee. He settled finally at Holley, New York, not far from Rochester, where he lived for many years. He was married twice, first to Elmira Bushnell, of Buffalo, and afterwards to Elizabeth Powers, a relative of the wife of President Fillmore. Another brother, Oliver Cromwell, had been killed during childhood by marauding Indians, as their home at that time lay close to the Indian trail leading to Lake George.

The youngest sister, Abigail, born just prior to their mother’s death in 1788, remained in the United States, and from her aunt’s home she was married to Samuel Adams, a cousin of the distinguished Massachusetts statesman, John Quincy Adams, one of the Presidents of the United States.

3

EARLY YOUTH

The death of Mollie Ketchum was a serious matter both for her husband and for the members of the family. The pressure of domestic cares and responsibilities had been too heavy for her frail body. The bearing of eleven children, too, had severely taxed her strength and energy. During all the years of her married life she had been the mainstay of the household and its directing head. Without her there was no way of holding it together. Never very competent either in the making of a living or in the handling of affairs, the husband was entirely at sea now that her capable authority was removed.

As soon as the funeral was over a consultation was called to determine what was best to be done. To hold the family intact was manifestly impossible. The children were too numerous and the available means too limited to think of engaging competent help. Seneca was sixteen, he could shift for himself, but obviously he could not assume much responsibility. But the others, down to the baby Abigail, presented a problem in which every member of the family connection was called upon to bear a share.

After carefully canvassing the situation from all angles, it was decided that the children should be distributed among such of the relatives as were willing to accept them. Papers of adoption were not insisted on, but this means of distribution provided at least a temporary solution of what seemed to be a difficult and pressing problem.

The baby Abigail was taken by her uncle and aunt, the parents of Stephen A. Douglas, who was Democratic candidate for the Presidency of the United States against Abraham Lincoln in 1860; while the little six-year old Jesse was taken by a neighbor, William Johnson, and his wife, who had especially asked for him and had agreed to bring him up as their own.

The Johnsons were prosperous farmers who had known the Ketchums for some years. They were hard-working and industrious people, well regarded in the district, and as they had no children of their own this was looked upon as a highly satisfactory arrangement and one that seemed to promise well for the future of the little orphaned boy.

The results, however, were far from those anticipated. Mr. Johnson seems to have been a well-intentioned man, with a certain kindliness of disposition, but his wife was capricious, harsh and tyrannous. Toward the neighbors she was affable and ingratiating, but to the motherless boy she seemed to be entirely lacking in the qualities of maternal affection. Such a thing as an expression of endearment, or even one of encouragement, rarely passed her lips. She was shrewish, full of fault-finding, and cruelty, and Jesse’s life during all of the years which he spent under her roof was full of misery and unhappiness.

As he was naturally of a sunny disposition, Jesse tried hard to gain his foster mother’s good-will and avoid her displeasure; but to her his fun was sheer mischief and his brightness something that must be repressed.

From his parents the lad had inherited a taste for reading and study, but schools in those days were not within easy reach of the children of the poor. In any event, they were not for boys like him who were dependent on others for the very food they ate. He would be better off if he attended to his work on the farm rather than wasting his time over books. His father and mother had had education, and what good had it been to them!

Books, too, were scarce and expensive. They did not often come his way, and such as he was able to get were obtained only at great sacrifice. His foster parents having no patience with his ambitions his days were crowded with duties from early morning until after sunset. In the summer months this allowed little time for reading, and during the winter, when the evenings were long and there were occasional intervals which might have been used for reading, he was denied the use of a light and compelled to gather extra fuel for himself in order to provide light in the fireplace by which to read.

The education which Jesse thus obtained was limited in the extreme. He practically had no opportunity for attending school, no tuition, and no training or direction in his study, and to the hardships which he endured during these years is due the intense interest which throughout his life he always showed in educational matters and his keen desire for the welfare of children during their school years.

Jesse Ketchum in after life rarely spoke of Mr. Johnson, but of his foster mother he had many a story to tell of harshness and ill-temper. These he told, however, not in a spirit of complaint or in order to evoke sympathy because of his unhappy childhood, but rather as illustrative of different kinds of women and distinct types of character.

On one occasion, for example, he recalled that he had by some means acquired a new coat of which he was very proud. Boy-like, however, he wore it one day when out at work in a field. After a time he realized that it would be much easier to work in his shirt sleeves; so he took the coat off and hung it on a bush. When his work was completed he returned to the house, forgetting for the time that he had left his coat behind. Mrs. Johnson later found it, and in order to make it appear that his carelessness alone was responsible, she tore it into ribbons and, taking it back to the house, claimed that he had left it in a place where the hogs had been able to get it.

As Jesse grew older Mrs. Johnson’s petty persecution and tyranny became more acute, and he determined to escape from its bondage at the earliest opportunity. His mistress found him engaged on one occasion in making a pen from a goose-quill which he had picked up in the yard. She immediately flew into a rage and charged him with having plucked it from one of the flock which she had been preparing for the market. He denied this and protested that the quill had been torn from the goose in its struggle to pull itself through a narrow opening in a fence. She refused to accept this explanation, and, although he was seventeen years of age at this time, he was punished for the offence.

This was the last straw. Try as he might it seemed impossible to please this shrewish woman; so, carefully gathering together his few clothes and scanty possessions, the boy slipped out of the house very quietly one midsummer night and set out alone and on foot upon the trail for Canada.

4

SENECA COMES TO CANADA

Seneca, the oldest brother, had preceded Jesse to Canada by some years. A year or two after his mother’s death he had, in company with his uncles, Joseph and James Ketchum, joined a company of Loyalists leaving for the promised land across the Canadian border. Conditions for the Loyalists in New England and in the eastern States had become intolerable. During the years of the Revolution these people had done nothing wrong—nothing for which they need be ashamed. As loyal citizens they had fought for the Government under which they had been born, to which they owed allegiance, and which should have given them all the benefits of freedom they desired. True, there had been injustice and oppression on the part of His Majesty’s Government, but constitutional means of redress had by no means been exhausted, and there seemed to be no good reason to believe that the Tea Duty might not, with proper representations, be repealed, nor that the Stamp Tax and the other objectionable measures at issue might not be removed or adjusted satisfactorily.

The great majority of the better class among the citizens of the American Colonies were at first sympathetic to the loyalist view, but the blundering violence of the British Government of the day and the stupidity of its officials and Governors gave encouragement to the movement toward independence which had been originally engineered by a group of English republicans.

It is difficult at this distance of time to indicate at what point in the conflict loyalty to the Crown ceased to be a virtue and became treason to the Commonwealth. But, once the conflict was over, the strife should have been closed with an amnesty similar to that adopted eighty years later on the conclusion of the Civil War. Had this been done it is doubtful whether British North America as it now exists would ever have been made possible.

But instead of an amnesty there ensued a period of vindictive persecution and acrimony against those who had remained faithful to the Crown. Those who had refused to join actively in the cause of the Revolution were branded as traitors and outcasts. Some were banished from the country, others were put to death, while others, still, were persecuted or abused and their homes burned, plundered or confiscated. In consequence of this many thousands of the best citizens of the country were forced to abandon their homes and property to face the hardships and privations of pioneer life in a new land.

In contrast to the vindictiveness of the successful revolutionary party was the sympathetic kindliness and generosity of the British Government to the suffering Loyalists. Liberal grants of free land were set apart in the Canadian provinces, in order to encourage settlement. Farm implements, food, clothing and other necessaries were furnished to those requiring them, and the sum of £3,300,000 was set apart to indemnify them for their lost estates and establish them in their new homes. Thus, while the United States in the first flush of their successful arms, seem to have made every effort to get rid of those who failed to give sympathetic aid to the Revolutionary cause, the Canadian provinces were swelled with a great influx of people, most of them from the educated and more intelligent classes, who could hardly fail to remain enemies of the Republic whence they had come.

During the years immediately following the Revolution—mainly in 1783 and 1784, and to a lesser extent during the succeeding five or six years—upwards of forty to fifty thousand loyal refugees are said to have come into Canada as a result of these persecutions. No such movement of population as this had ever been known in modern times. Into Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, and into the valley of the St. John, in New Brunswick, they swarmed in vast numbers, coming largely by way of the sea from New England ports. Others turned toward the west and made their way by the Hudson River and Lake Champlain to the eastern townships of Quebec, or along the north shore of the St. Lawrence into Ontario, settling in the Bay of Quinté district, at Kingston, and in near-by places. A smaller number entered Ontario by way of Oswego, crossing over to Kingston, or by the Niagara River, from which they planted settlements along the north shore of Lake Erie as far as Detroit.

The party which Seneca Ketchum had joined followed the old Iroquois route by way of the Mohawk River and Oneida Lake to Oswego, making the journey on foot all the way from the Catskills. They travelled, as did most of the Loyalists in those days, in large parties, not only for company but for protection; and from Oswego they completed the trip to Kingston in large flat-bottomed batteaux, skirting the eastern shore of Lake Ontario and crossing the St. Lawrence.

These batteaux were large, unwieldy craft, sufficiently commodious to accommodate four or five families, and having a carrying capacity of about two tons. They were propelled by a double crew, one of which walked along the shore or in the shallow water drawing the boat by a rope attached to the bow, while the other directed its movements from the craft by long steering poles.

The Durham boats, which came later, were considered quite an improvement on the batteaux. These long, shallow craft were operated by means of a long pole to which were attached crossbars of wood something like the rungs of a ladder. The members of the working crew took their places at the bow, two on each side, with the pole extending into the channel; and, grasping the crossbars in succession, the men worked their way toward the stern, thus pushing the boat forward as they walked.

Seneca Ketchum had been intended for the Church. He had looked forward to it as a career from early boyhood, but the circumstances of the war of the Revolution and the trail of horrors which followed it, together with the death of his mother, rendered this impossible of attainment. He had learned, however, of the inauguration of Governor Simcoe, of the possibility that Kingston might become the seat of Government for the Province, and that the community there had under consideration the building of a church. If he could but reach Kingston he might assist the Reverend John Stuart in his ministrations, and perhaps later on take holy orders and enter upon the career on which he had set his heart.

The party with which Seneca had travelled arrived in Kingston in the midsummer of 1792. As the largest and most important settlement in the new Province of Upper Canada, it naturally had high hopes of becoming the seat of Government. As the military and naval headquarters on Lake Ontario it had distinct advantages. Moreover, the fort at Kingston already had a brilliant history extending back more than a century to Frontenac’s day.

The Governor arrived from Quebec on July 8th, 1792, where, surrounded by his Legislative Councillors and in the presence of an audience assembled from the neighboring clearings, he took the oath of office in the barrack-room where divine services were usually held. On the following day the members of the Executive Council were sworn in, together with the officers of the Government who had been appointed by His Excellency. A Proclamation was then issued providing for the division of the Province into nineteen counties; officials were appointed for the holding of an election, and self-government was constituted for the first time in Upper Canada.

A fortnight later the Governor set out on his westward journey, a trip which resulted in the decision to fix his capital at Newark, at the mouth of the Niagara River, although a site on the River La Trenche, where the City of London now stands, was inspected and considered. The hopes of Kingston, therefore, as the seat of government for the Province were shattered.

Kingston at this time contained about fifty small wooden houses, and its population probably did not exceed three hundred, but it had become so important a shipping headquarters and lake port for trade with the United States that a year or two later it was made, officially, a port of entry for American goods entering Canada and granted a Customs House of its own.

But however anxious its citizens might have been to see Kingston the capital of the Province, it apparently had not been seriously considered by the Governor. “The situation of the place,” writes Mrs. Simcoe in her Diary, “is entirely flat and incapable of being rendered defensible; therefore were the situation more central it would still be unfit for the seat of Government.”

The Ketchums with their friends from Columbia County had reached Kingston prior to the arrival of the Governor. The situation of the district was good, and the quality of the soil had much to commend it, and as many of their friends were already there, they decided to remain for the present and make it their home.

But with the decision of the Governor in 1794 to remove the capital from Newark to Toronto—or York as he called it—they also changed their minds. Kingston might have its advantages, but opportunities at the provincial capital were likely to be better. When, therefore, on the completion of the new Legislative buildings in 1796, the Governor moved the offices of the Government to York, Seneca Ketchum and his two elderly uncles, Joseph and James—the former at that time being seventy-eight years of age—arranged for the disposal of their holdings, and again trusting themselves and their worldly possessions to the tender mercies of the batteaux, they moved westward to York.

Joseph Ketchum and James Ketchum were among the first settlers in Scarborough Township, in York County, each receiving land grants from the Crown of large areas in the neighborhood of Port Union. These grants bore the date March 23rd, 1798. Seneca, who at the time of his arrival at York was twenty-six, took up a block of land on the west side of the new road which the Governor had opened up to the north from York to Lake Simcoe, which he called Yonge Street in honor of Sir George Yonge, Secretary for War in His Majesty’s Government. This block, which consisted of 210 acres, was probably rented at first, as the records show that he did not become the registered owner until 1804, when he purchased it for the sum of £25 from Hiram Kendrick to whom it had been granted two years earlier. This property forms a large portion of the present Bedford Park section in North Toronto.

Evidently Seneca had managed to keep in touch with his brothers and sisters in New York State. As the eldest of the family he felt a certain measure of responsibility. Their father, on account of his habits, was not to be depended on, and, as many of the younger children were girls, he must lend them a hand. To keep up a correspondence in those days was quite an undertaking. Not only was it expensive, but the handling of mail was a difficult and hazardous procedure.

Although Governor Simcoe had laid out a military road all the way from Oxford County to the Bay of Quinté, no road actually existed east of York. An occasional sailing vessel carrying supplies for the use of the Government, made the trip from Kingston to York; but as shipping on Lake Ontario was of a primitive type, few persons were willing to commit themselves to any extended voyage without serious apprehension. The Indians, as it is well known, had but two modes of travel—by foot and by canoe. If their course lay along the waterway they used their birch-bark canoes. As horses had not yet come into the Province in any great numbers, the French and English were forced to adopt the same means, and until well on into the nineteenth century canoes were usually employed where light and quick transportation was required.

Jesse, in the home of his foster parents in Columbia County, had been in touch with Seneca’s movements. He knew of his removal to York, of its selection as the new capital of the Province, of the coming of the Government and the meeting of the Legislature. He also knew of Seneca’s farming operations, and it is more than probable that his brother had pointed out, if not to Jesse at least to some of the family, the splendid prospects which seemed to lie before the country.

As the brothers and sisters seem to have been on terms of the closest relationship with one another, although widely separated in their various foster homes, the letters from Canada were passed around from hand to hand. Sometimes, too, a message or a parcel would pass from New York to Canada, carried by some friend or acquaintance who had joined a Loyalist party moving to the north to take advantage of the generous grants of land offered by the Government of Upper Canada. What, therefore, could be more natural than that the young Jesse, stung beyond endurance at the harshness, injustice and ill-temper of his mistress, should have determined to strike out for himself and try to reach his eldest brother away off in Canada? Perhaps, if everything turned out right, other members of the family could join them later.

Jesse was now a sturdy, well set up lad, just past seventeen. He was strong and capable and willing to work at any honest job; but he had no very clear idea of where York might be beyond the fact that it was in Upper Canada. It was in no spirit of bravado and with no vague desire merely to see the world that he left the Johnson home. He was not that kind of a lad. But he refused to stay in a place where there was nothing but hate, envy and malice, when at the other end of the rainbow were joy, happiness and love. So, with but the few clothes that he wore and the small possessions he was able to carry, he started upon his travels into the unknown North.

5

JESSE’S FLIGHT

The little village of Spencertown was on the line of the old Indian trail between New York and Canada. For nearly two centuries the French settlements on the St. Lawrence had been menaced by the Iroquois allies of the English, who occupied the territory extending from the Hudson River to the Niagara. In their raids they followed the Hudson River north and made their way along the narrow line of Lake George and Lake Champlain to the Richelieu. The route to the west was almost equally well travelled, by way of the Mohawk River and Lake Oneida to Lake Ontario, at Oswego.

The young refugee, smarting under a sense of injustice and cruelty, turned his steps towards Canada. In a vague sort of way he knew about the Mohawk trail, but there was no one to consult and none to help. Alone and on foot he followed the trail that led along the Hudson as far as Troy. Crossing the river here by the ferry, he turned his face toward the setting sun along the road which skirted the Mohawk River.

It was a new, a terrifying and a trying experience, and unlike anything the youth had ever known before. His home life had been unhappy, but it at least was a home. Warmth, comfort and human contact were there, even if there was no love. This, too, was his first attempt at sleeping out under the skies. He now also knew something of the dangers of the road and the perils of the darkness; and the sounds of the wild beasts at night at first struck terror into his heart.

And then there was added the fear of being caught. He had done nothing wrong, nothing dishonorable, but that there might be a moral obligation to serve his master until he was of age disturbed his conscience. Yet the memories of more than ten years of unhappiness lent wings to his steps and spurred him on his way.

The way to Oswego was a long and wearisome journey. The countryside was but sparsely settled, and he met few people on the trail. Men did not travel for pleasure in those days; they were too much occupied with the serious things of life. He was lonely, tired and footsore, and at times hard pressed for food, but he pushed bravely on.

The days of tedious travel and the nights of nameless terror soon slipped into weeks, and still Jesse kept on his way. Presently he came within sight of a large sheet of water. At first he thought it must be Lake Ontario, but as the trail along the shore still beckoned, he soon realized that it was Lake Oneida. The way now became easier. He began to meet with occasional travellers on the road and more settlements, and again he had the joy of human intercourse. Oswego could not now be far, and this would mark the completion of the first stage of his journey.

Oswego for nearly a century had been an important trading post. It had been built by the English near the mouth of the Oswego River, in order to try and divert a portion of the rich fur traffic from the French fort at Kingston, on the north shore of Lake Ontario. It was a fine strategic point, for through Oneida Lake it led back to the English settlements on the Atlantic Coast. From the first the post had been successful, and it soon became a thorn in the side of the French, as it robbed them of their monopoly on the lakes and despoiled them of their prestige among the Indians. By the end of the century it had become an important outlet for the English colonies in the East in their trade with the settlements on Lake Ontario and in the West. Much of the traffic was with Kingston, but occasionally a vessel sailed to Newark, and, since the removal there of the capital, some even ventured as far as York.

Fortunately the young traveller found a vessel at Oswego almost ready to sail for Kingston. To wait for one going to York might have detained him for weeks. Even to be in Canada was something. How far it was from Kingston to York he did not know, but he could, if need be, walk there, if only he were on the north shore of the lake. He had no money to pay for his passage, but he was willing to work for it if only they would give him a chance. A few days later he was taken on as a helper, and in a day or two he found himself in Canada.

Kingston on his arrival was in a fever of excitement. General Peter Hunter, the new Governor of Upper Canada, had just arrived from Quebec on his way to York to take over the duties of his office. For three years the Province had been without a Governor, the duties of the office being performed by Honourable Peter Russell, President of the Legislative Council, who acted as Administrator. Governor Simcoe, his predecessor, had ambitious plans for the Province of Upper Canada. He hoped to establish there a strong British settlement, backed with an armed force sufficient to meet any attack from the American Colonies. But Lord Dorchester, the Governor-General, would have none of this. He refused to approve of settlement based on military lines, and Simcoe, backed by the friendship of the British Colonial Secretary, Dundas, forced the issue. In Upper Canadian affairs Governor Simcoe considered himself supreme; but when, under Dorchester’s instruction, the bulk of his regiment known as the Queen’s Rangers, which had been designed to assist in colonization and to help in the building of roads and the erection of public buildings, was withdrawn from the Province, he tendered his resignation and returned to England. His successor, General Peter Hunter, Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in Canada, was not appointed until three years later.

With the prestige of having been a sailor on the vessel from Oswego to Kingston Jesse Ketchum readily secured employment on the Speedy, now outfitting for the journey to York; and three days later, amid much acclaim from the populace, Governor Hunter sailed from Kingston, and the young refugee started on the last lap of his flight to York.

1

THE BEGINNINGS OF YORK

York in 1799 was still in swaddling clothes. It had been the seat of the Provincial Government but three short years, and with the coming of the officials had come its first substantial civil population.

The town as projected by Governor Simcoe was at the eastern end of the harbour with the fort for its protection at its western entrance, nearly three miles distant. The Parliament Buildings occupied a site close to the waterfront, near the mouth of the Don River and at the foot of Parliament Street, now known as Berkeley Street. These buildings, which had been erected by the men of the Queen’s Rangers, consisted of two one-storey log-houses about twenty-five feet by forty feet in size, standing about one hundred feet apart, the space between being subsequently filled in by an additional building. A dozen or more wooden houses were also built at the same time for the officers of the Legislature and those who accompanied the Government.

The town of York as laid out in 1797 under the Governor’s orders consisted of an area of land immediately to the north of the Parliament Buildings covering twelve city blocks, six on the north side and six on the south side of the present King Street and extending from George Street to Parliament Street. In the selection of names for the streets there was no attempt at picturesque titles to catch the attention of prospective buyers of the lots or to gratify the vanity of the founder of the town; they reflected only the personal loyalty of the Governor to his sovereign; and with the exception of Parliament Street and Palace Street, now called Front Street, which led to the Government Buildings from the Fort along the water front, and Ontario Street, which was named after the lake, all were named in compliment to the King and the members of the Royal family.

A few months after the arrival of the Government officials the town limits were extended westward as far as Peter Street and north to Queen Street, then known as Lot Street from the fact that this was the southern boundary of the series of “park” or farm lots into which the district adjoining the capital was divided, and which extended to the north a distance of one and a quarter miles to the second concession, now known as Bloor Street.

When this extension to the town was made allowances were also made for public services, and plots were set apart, though not used for some years, for a public market, and as sites for church, school, gaol and hospital buildings; while two squares were allocated for park purposes, one, known as Russell Square, on King Street, subsequently occupied by Upper Canada College, the other Simcoe Place, on Front Street, upon which the third Parliament Buildings were erected in 1824.

From the first the capital assumed a position of social and intellectual importance in the Province. In its population were a large number of army officers and soldiers and officials of the Government, many of whom drew salaries from Great Britain. Many also were of the United Empire Loyalist refugees who had come to Upper Canada because of the persecution which they had suffered at the hands of the Revolutionists. For the most part these were people of education and refinement, accustomed to many of the comforts of life, who had come in response to the inducements as to settlement offered by the British Government.

The town for some years, however, did not spread much beyond its original limits. In fact it was little more than a bundle of shanties huddled in a group not far from the swampy entrance to the Don River, from which it was but partially screened by a grove of fine forest trees. A path through the bush close to the waterfront led from the Garrison to the Parliament Buildings, and another, known as the Dundas Road, had been opened to the west, leading to the head of the Lake and thence to Newark, the former seat of Government.

When Governor Simcoe left Upper Canada in 1796 to become Governor of the island of San Domingo, in the West Indies, a Provisional Government was established, with the Hon. Peter Russell as President, and he continued to act as Administrator of the Province until the appointment of the Hon. Peter Hunter as Governor in 1799.

Russell Abbey, the home of the President, was at the corner of Palace (now Front) and Princes’ streets and, naturally, was the social centre of the town. Miss Elizabeth Russell, the President’s sister, had charge of the household, and many bright entertainments took place both there and at Castle Frank, the summer home which Governor Simcoe had built for himself on one of the knolls overlooking the beautiful Don ravine, and which President Russell also frequently used during his three years of office. During the summer months the groups which went to Castle Frank for picnics, excursions or dances were usually taken by boats up the winding reaches of the Don river, and in the winter sleighing or carioling parties were organized to make the trip by the ice on the river or by following the route of Parliament Street and through the woods.

The President, a portly, middle-aged gentleman of old world manners and dignified mien, had been Secretary to Sir Henry Clinton, Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in America, from 1778 to 1782, and since 1792 had been associated with Governor Simcoe as a member of the Executive Council of the Province. The official social circle, therefore, consisted largely of members of the Administration and their families, Government officials, and certain officers who, because of distinguished military service to the Crown, had received liberal grants of land in the Province and had settled largely in the neighborhood of York. Among those who formed the President’s court were Hon. Alexander Grant and Hon. James Baby, members of the Executive Council; Chief Justice John Elmsley, Attorney-General John White, John Small, clerk of the Executive Council; D. W. Smith, Surveyor-General; William Jarvis, Secretary and Registrar of the Province; Dr. James Macaulay, Captain Æneas (afterwards Major-General) Shaw, Colonel James Givens, Captain John McGill, formerly an officer in the Queen’s Rangers during the Revolution; Captain John Denison, at one time an officer in the English militia, who for several years occupied Castle Frank; and Colonel William Allan, afterwards the first Collector of Customs in York. These and others formed as it were the social aristocracy of the time, and, whether consciously or not, set in action the movement by which later the right and authority to govern became vested in the hands of those favored by the Governor of the day.

The arrival of General Peter Hunter, the new Governor, was therefore an important event in the life of the capital. The lack of an official head for three years had been felt, not only in the social, but also in the political life of the Province. Hon. Peter Russell had done very well, but he was not the Governor and he could not be expected to carry the prestige of one directly representing His Majesty.

The new Governor soon showed that he had a personality all his own. Having been a military man, he was a strict disciplinarian and accustomed to doing things in his own way. He was a man of few words and impatient of many of the fripperies that went with the vice-regal office. His reply to the elaborate address of welcome extended by the inhabitants of York on his arrival was terse and characteristic: “Gentlemen, nothing that is in my power shall be wanting to contribute to the happiness and welfare of this Colony.” But when, later, the “Mechanics and Husbandmen” of Niagara attempted to present an address on their own account, he refused to accept it on the ground that an address professedly from the “inhabitants” generally had already been presented. This led the Niagara Constellation to recall that, when Governor Simcoe arrived at Kingston on his way to Niagara to assume the government of the Province the “Magistrates and Gentlemen” of that town had presented him with an address, he had replied politely and verbally; but when the “inhabitants of the country and town”—those who were not in the upper circles—presented one on their own account, His Excellency had very politely given his reply in writing, in a document which had been carefully preserved and was still highly treasured.

The Governor, too, was impatient of looseness and indifference in the administrative offices, and he soon acquired such a reputation for severity that, according to Dr. Henry Scadding,^[1] officials of the service, “from the Judge on the bench to the humblest employee,” held office literally during pleasure.

It is related, for instance, that a deputation representing a colony of Quakers which had arrived some time before and settled near Yonge street, north of the Oak Ridges, some twenty miles north of the town, had complained that the patents to their lands had been unduly delayed. The Governor, after investigation, finally located the delay in the office of Secretary Jarvis, who pleaded that pressure of work in the office had made it impossible to get them ready.

“Sir!” thundered the Governor, “if they are not forthcoming, every one of them, and placed in the hands of these gentlemen here in my presence at noon on Thursday next (it was now Tuesday), by George! I’ll un-Jarvis you.”

With the coming, too, of Governor Hunter the work of the Legislative Assembly assumed new importance in the life of the Province. The opening and closing of the sessions were attended with much pomp and circumstance; quite unlike those under Governor Simcoe. There was a cavalcade of troops from the garrison in attendance, together with the firing of cannon, the attendance of local personages, the commotion of the crowd of curious sightseers—in miniature much the same kind of ceremonial that attends the opening and closing of parliaments the world over. But the Legislature for the most part was composed of plain, unassuming men, many of them of little education, and they, with the seven Crown-appointed Councillors, set about the laying of the foundations of the laws of the Province.

2

THE OPENING OF YONGE STREET

Governor Simcoe was a man of energy and wide vision. He had seen that the opening of highways was one of the first needs of the Province, and in the winter of 1796 he instructed the Queen’s Rangers to open a road extending from York to Lake Simcoe, a distance of about thirty miles. As this work was accomplished between the fourth of January and the sixteenth of February, it is doubtful if anything was attempted other than merely to blaze a path through the forest, for in the following year, when Balser Munshaw, one of the pioneers of Richmond Hill, made his first trip into the wilderness, so hard was the going that he was forced when reaching a ravine to take his canvas-topped waggon apart and lower the wheels and axles and other equipment by means of strong ropes passed around the trunks of saplings, and then haul them up the ascent on the other side in the same way.

A year or two later the brigades of the North-West Company began to use the same route. Indeed, it is not improbable that in addition to opening the road for the accommodation of the German colony which William Berczy had brought into Markham Township to settle on lands assigned to them, the Governor had had it in his mind to provide a shortcut at this point for traffic to the upper lakes by which the circuitous passage around by Lake Erie might be avoided, and which incidentally would bring prestige to the capital.

“This communication offers many advantages,” writes D. W. Smith, Surveyor-General of the Province, in his Gazetteer of 1799, in referring to this portage. “Merchandize from Montreal to Michilimackinac may be sent this way at ten to fifteen pounds less expense per ton than by the road of the Grand or Ottawa rivers; and the merchandize from New York to be sent up the North and Mohawk rivers for the North-West trade, finding its way into Lake Ontario at Oswego, the advantage will certainly be felt in transporting goods from Oswego to York and from thence across Yonge Street and down the waters of Lake Simcoe into Lake Huron in preference to sending it by Lake Erie.”

The Niagara Constellation of August 3rd, 1799, announces that “it is reported on good authority that the North-West Company has it seriously in contemplation to establish a communication with the Upper Lakes by way of York through Yonge Street to Lake Huron.”

That this passage was so used is, indeed, well authenticated, and the brigades of the Nor’-Westers, in order to avoid any contact with the American frontier, continued for some years to lift their boats over the carrying place of the peninsula across the harbour, where the eastern gap was broken through by the waves about the middle of the last century, and, putting them in the waters of the Bay, take them up the Don River to York Mills, where they were again lifted from the water, placed on wheels, and drawn up Yonge Street through the woods to Holland River. Here they were again placed in the water to make their way by Lake Simcoe and the Severn River to Georgian Bay.

The Upper Canada Gazette of March 9th, 1799, announced that “The North-West Company has given twelve thousand pounds towards making Yonge Street a good road, and the North-West commerce will be communicated through this place (York); an event which must inevitably benefit this country materially, as it will not only tend to augment the population, but will also enhance the present value of landed property.”

So important, indeed, did this traffic become, that Rowland Burr, a Pennsylvania engineer who had come into Upper Canada in 1803, early conceived the idea of connecting Lake Ontario with the Georgian Bay by a canal through Lake Simcoe and the valley of the Humber. This he considered of so vital a necessity that he later published at his own expense a report giving a minute record of an examination he had made of the route which he advocated and recommended.

The First St. James’ Church, York,
Erected 1803.

It is more than probable that the sixty or seventy German families which William Berczy brought into York County before 1800 were the first to bring horses into this district. They had come originally from beyond Philadelphia, cutting their way through the forests, and they were now completing their journey in order to again be under the British flag. The waggons which they brought with them and which carried their belongings were so constructed as to be serviceable under all conditions of travel. The bodies were made of close fitting boards, cleverly caulked at the seams, so that by lifting them from the wheels they served for a transport when crossing streams, carrying not only the families and their goods, but also in turn the wheels themselves.

For some years Yonge Street extended south only as far as Lot Street, but in the popular mind it began only at Yorkville, a mile and a quarter farther north, and the southern portion was spoken of, not as Yonge Street, but as the “road to Yonge Street.” Indeed, this portion was so neglected and impassable for vehicular traffic that a public meeting was called in December, 1800, to consider the best means of opening it up and making it available as an entrance to the town. At the same time a proposal was put forward for the closing of Lot Street as “altogether superfluous,” another street (Hospital Street, now Richmond Street) providing the necessary access to the town a few yards to the south. The suggestion also was made that the proceeds of the sale of the land thus saved might be applied to the improvement of Yonge Street.

Subscriptions were taken for the improvement of the road to Yonge Street by clearing the land, cutting the stumps in the two middle rods close to the ground, and making a causeway eighteen feet wide where a causeway might be required. Further subscriptions were taken up from time to time towards the undertaking, and finally, in June 1802, the subscribers were invited to meet with the committee for the purpose of inspecting the repaired parts “and to take into consideration how far the moneys subscribed by them have been beneficially expended.”

3

AT YORK

When Jesse Ketchum left the Garrison wharf to find the home of his brother Seneca he began the last short stage of his journey. He was now at York, the home of his dreams, the hope of his ambitions. He made his way eastward towards the Parliament Buildings by the track, called by courtesy Palace Street, which led through the hardwood forests. This road ran close to the high cliffs overlooking the harbour, and as he hurried on he caught glimpses from time to time of the bright blue waters of the Bay as they lay shimmering in the summer sun, while the neighboring marshes and the peninsula beyond were noisy with the song and alive with the movement of myriads of birds and wild fowl. It was an enchanting sight, and his heart beat high at the very thought of being alive amid such wonderful surroundings.

Soon after crossing Garrison Creek, then a stream eighteen feet in width, he passed a little military cemetery where, five years before, Governor Simcoe had buried his baby daughter Katherine, born in Upper Canada a few weeks after the Governor’s arrival. Then came a long stretch of partly cleared and partly burned over land, intersected at Simcoe Street by a stream known as Russell’s Creek (which, later, was traceable in the sunken lawn of the old Government House) until he had come almost to Church Street before he caught sight of any human habitation. This large area formed the new extension of the town, recently authorized but not yet cleared for settlement. No streets had as yet been cut through it to the water’s edge, and even Church Street at this time was considered remote from the business part of the town.

At the Parliament Buildings, then the focal centre of the community, the new arrival took breath to enquire as to the home of his brother Seneca, and he was directed to follow the usual trail up Parliament Street and across the pine lands through the bush in a north-westerly direction to Yonge Street, thence north a distance of about four miles.

Seneca, he found, was well known to the town people. For some time his home out in the country had been a sort of community centre for the neighborhood. There was as yet no church in York, but religious services were held occasionally in the Parliament Buildings; and frequently in the afternoons, at such times, the clergyman or reader would make his way out to the home of Seneca Ketchum, where another service was held for those unable to go to town. Moreover, Seneca had for a year or more been secretary of the Masonic Lodge, and was therefore known personally and favorably to many of the officials and the leading citizens of the town.

It requires but little imagination to picture the arrival towards sundown of young Jesse at the home of his brother. They had not seen one another for seven years, when the younger was but ten years of age and the elder twenty. Jesse at that time had been a weedy little fellow and it was impossible for Seneca to trace in the sturdy, weather-beaten young man who knocked at his kitchen door any resemblance to the brother he had left behind at Spencertown so long before. But he was welcomed none the less gladly, and they sat up until all hours asking and answering the eager questionings as they discussed the health, welfare and prospects of the various members of the family.

Seneca was now comfortably situated, and with the assistance of hired help was farming a considerable portion of his two hundred and ten acre property on the west side of Yonge Street, not far from York Mills, and reaching back to the second concession. The two uncles who had come to Canada in the same party were still with him, although they had already secured land of their own near Port Union. His house, of course, was of logs, as were most of the houses in those far-off, primitive days; and it was roomy enough, too, but there were not many of the necessities and certainly none of the comforts of life.

There was cordial welcome, however, for the wanderer who had come so far and had braved so much. His training in farm work was all that could be desired, and he was immediately made a member of the household and allocated a share in the work, and a share, too, in the financial returns.

The farmers and merchants in York at that time had a distinct advantage over those in most Upper Canadian towns in that so large a proportion of the town population were Government officials and military officers drawing regular salaries and allowances from Great Britain. There was thus plenty of money in circulation. Merchants and citizens, therefore, were able to pay for their purchases when made, and the farmers received cash for their products.

At this time, and until as late as 1817, there was no system of taxation in the Province. The entire expense of carrying on public affairs was borne by His Majesty’s Government, and, with the exception of occasional voluntary subscriptions for specific purposes, all costs of public works and improvements and services of every kind were defrayed by drafts from England.

Although a large section of the land around York and throughout the township had been allotted, the area actually under cultivation at this time was comparatively small. In 1802, according to the Town Clerk’s return as to the inhabitants of the Town of York and of the Townships of York and Etobicoke, the population was but 659, with a cultivated area of only 1109 acres. The live-stock recorded included sixty-eight oxen, one hundred and thirty-three milch cows, forty-eight young horned cattle, and 530 swine, and the townships contained but one grist mill, a couple of saw-mills and two taverns.

When it is recalled that under the provisions of the original Order-in-Council, passed in 1789, providing for grants of land to Loyalist refugees from the thirteen Colonies, daughters as well as sons were each to get two hundred acres, it would appear as though, while many were prepared to take advantage of their opportunities, few were willing to live up to the obligations which these implied. The reason for this is probably not far to seek. A further provision was included requiring that in all records that should be made the names of Loyalists and the members of their families were to be “discriminated from those of future settlers,” and that those who had joined the cause of Great Britain prior to the Treaty of 1783 along with their children were to be distinguished by the letters U.E.L.

In effect, those who were able to qualify as United Empire Loyalists were, by the action of the Government, to be set apart from ordinary citizens. They were to have, as it were, a patent of nobility from the Crown. They need toil not, neither need they spin; but public office should be open to them, the divine rights of Government were to be theirs, and they and their children for years to come were to be entitled to the chief places in the synagogue.

From the first the Ketchums had taken their places in the community life. Seneca, as we have seen, because of his superior education, had been appointed secretary of Rawdon Masonic Lodge, the first one in the district, and holding its warrant from the first Grand Lodge of England. Because of his early studies and his ambitions towards holy orders he took the Church services occasionally, and on the organization of St. James’ Church, in 1803, he became one of its first and most enthusiastic members. He was a man of high-strung, nervous temperament, and not overly strong, either physically or emotionally. Jesse, on the other hand, was strong, rugged and capable in every way, and just the kind of assistant he required. It was not long, therefore, before the younger, though not yet out of his teens, was virtually in charge of the farm work.

A year or two after the arrival of Jesse at York another brother, Zebulon, who was seven or eight years older, decided also to seek his fortune in Upper Canada, and with him came their father, who since the death of his wife had, as it were, been at loose ends. Zebulon had been something of an anchorage for his father, and without him or someone to tie to the latter would have been lost. He also was a capable farmer and had some experience in the handling of affairs.

Their father, now well over sixty years of age, could not be expected at his time of life to make a new start, but he lived with one or other of his sons and enjoyed a certain measure of happiness, if not of entire contentment. He died in 1825 at the age of eighty-five and was buried in the churchyard at York Mills.

4

JESSE KETCHUM’S MARRIAGE

In the marriage register of St. James’ Church, York, under date of January 24th, 1804, a few months after the opening of the church, is to be found this entry:

Behind the event covered by this official record is a story of which the following is a free translation.

With the coming of Zebulon and his father Seneca’s house was now in need of a competent housekeeper. He and Jesse were fairly prosperous. They had had good crops, and the returns in cash were satisfactory. Seneca had now secured his deed for the land which he had taken over some years before from its original owner, Hiram Kendrick, and they could well afford the help required for the physical comfort of so large a household of men. They decided to engage a Mrs. Ann Love, a young widow, to take over the domestic duties of the establishment, and a section of the house was set apart for her special use.

The Loves had come of a Loyalist family with connections running back in England to Cromwellian days. They had removed to Pennsylvania many years before and during the Loyalist trek they had come to Canada, settling finally in the neighborhood of Temperanceville, in York County. There were three sons in the family, strong, active men, all in the prime of young manhood and of whom only one, James, was married. On one occasion, in the spring of 1803, when out shooting together, James, by some chance, was shot by a bullet from a rifle fired by one of his brothers which had been aimed at an animal in the woods. The stricken man died soon afterwards, leaving a young widow and a little girl baby.

Unwilling to live with her husband’s family and become a care to others the young widow determined, with an independence quite unusual in those days, to earn her own living and that of her little daughter. It was a sacrifice of social prestige at that time for a young woman to take a situation of any kind. There was not much open to women outside of domestic service. But Mrs. Love was a young woman of unusual qualities and temperament and she was not afraid of censorious comment. Her child needed her personal oversight, and that, she felt, could be given adequately only where she was free from the interference of complaining elders or the observation of critical relatives.

Mrs. Love was also a thorough and accomplished housekeeper, and Seneca and Jesse considered themselves fortunate in securing so competent and careful a person for their domestic establishment.

But the coming of a woman into their home brought with it an element that neither of the men had anticipated. They had known little of the joys and comforts of home life. For years Seneca had shifted for himself, and in the course of his travelling and association with his elderly uncles he had been able to acquire some proficiency in taking care of himself. Jesse also had known nothing of domestic happiness since his mother’s death. They were not prepared, therefore, for the transformation which Mrs. Love was able to make in their somewhat cheerless bachelor home. The presence, too, of the little girl, Lily, was as a ray of sunshine in their lives, and Jesse promptly succumbed to the spell of the child’s winning ways.

The inevitable followed. Jesse fell in love not only with the child but with the mother as well. Ann Love was several years older than he, and although he was now well on into his twenty-second year, and had become the business man of the partnership with his brother, he was quite unused to the society of women and altogether a novice in affairs of the heart.

Having decided in his own mind, however, that his happiness for the future was now in the capable hands of the radiant and charming Mrs. Love, he decided to talk the matter over with Seneca and ask for his advice.

Seneca, however, met the statement of the eager and questioning youth with blank astonishment. The thing was entirely out of the question. It was impossible, preposterous, unthinkable! He wouldn’t consent to it for a moment. Jesse was much too young for the woman and she entirely too old for him. Anyway—she was his housekeeper and he wouldn’t let her go. In fact—er—er—, in fact—er—er—he himself had practically decided to—er—er, himself ask her to marry him. . . .

Here was a trying and difficult situation. Each, quite unknown to the other, had fallen in love with the charming housekeeper. The one, young, impressionable, impulsive, eager; the other, now thirty-one, quiet, thoughtful, self-contained, and temperamentally a little out of normal. What was to be done? How was the difficulty to be settled?

A well-authenticated story is told of Dr. (Tiger) Dunlop, of the Canada Company, who, with his brother, Captain Robert Graham Dunlop, kept bachelor hall in sumptuous fashion at “Garbraid”, just across the Maitland River from Goderich, some thirty years later. A young dairy woman, Louise McColl, had been sent out from Dumbartonshire to manage their home. Small though the community was, gossip presently began to circulate in regard to them, and demands were made that the young woman should be dismissed. The Doctor gravely told his brother that there was but one way out of the difficulty, and that was that one of them should marry her. He was willing to decide which it should be by three tosses of a penny, and he offered to provide the penny. Three tosses, therefore, were solemnly given, with a double-headed penny, and the unsuspecting Captain became the husband of the pretty but illiterate dairy-maid.

In the case of the Ketchum brothers there was no such issue involved. Mrs. Love was a widow with a little daughter. She was above reproach. But manifestly it was impossible that such a situation could long continue. As both wished to marry her it was obvious that one or the other would do so if she would have him. There seems to have been no discussion as to Mrs. Love’s attitude in the matter or as to her preference. Neither had as yet declared himself. In any event that could wait until their dispute was settled. Finally they agreed to settle the question as to who should be the fortunate husband by drawing lots, and the choice fell to Jesse.

Fortunately this agreed absolutely with Ann’s own feelings. She had long been impressed with the younger brother’s genuine qualities, his manliness, his fine and generous spirit, and his prevailing optimism and good-nature. Lily also loved him and looked forward with eager expectancy to his home-coming and to the frolics she would be sure to have with him. It was with joyous hearts, therefore, that on January the twenty-fourth, 1804, Jesse Ketchum and Ann Love were married in St. James’ Church by the Reverend George O’Kill Stuart, the Rector of the church, and together they took up life in the same house with the other members of the family.

Some months later they moved into their own home on the eastern side of Yonge Street, a short distance away, on the property known in later years as “Strathgowan” and occupied for nearly half a century by the late Nicholas Garland. The original house which Jesse erected was later enlarged and rebuilt in brick, and the place, because of its picturesque setting, was known as one of the most attractive in the district.

Zebulon, too, at this time was anxious to have a place of his own. He was much older than Jesse, and it was time he was settled in life. He made an arrangement, therefore, to purchase one hundred acres of Seneca’s property for the sum of £100, and several years later he acquired an additional 98½ acres from a neighbor; and thus all three brothers were located on places of their own and within a short distance of one another.

1

HUNTER AND GORE

Although Governor Hunter took office with some show of spirit, he does not appear to bulk very large in the history of his period in Upper Canada. In view of the primitive conditions which existed in York and the many opportunities for service, his record is singularly barren in acts of constructive statesmanship. True, he set apart a square in York in 1803 for a public market, but this was done, not of his own initiative, but at the request of the citizens of the town; and he assisted during the same year in the founding of St. James’ Church, the first church to be opened in York.

The area set apart for the market was the six acre block bounded by King, Church, Front and Jarvis streets. This market-square soon became the focal centre of the town, and, especially on market days, was a busy and animated place. Public meetings were held here from time to time; auction sales of one kind and another took place in the square, including one or two sales of negro slaves; and at a later date a public well was opened for the use of the citizens and fitted with a town pump.

Within this square were set up also the pillory and stocks, and as the records show them to have been pretty freely used, it is probable that the farmers from the countryside and the citizens of the town found the punishment frames usually occupied on market days by persons sentenced to public exposure. The pillory and stocks in York were different from those used in England in that, instead of there being two separate instruments permitting of a choice of punishment, these had the advantages of both, the victims being secured by the head as well as by the hands and feet.

Public floggings, too, were not uncommon in those days, and as the gaol, which stood on the present site of the King Edward Hotel, was a poor affair, the whipping-post also formed a part of the equipment of the market-place.

The founding of St. James’ Church was an important event in the history of the town. It was felt that the time had now come when a building should be erected. The Governor was in the habit of making detailed reports to the home authorities as to the activities of the Provincial capital, and in recording for the benefit of the Colonial Minister the story of the founding of the church, he took occasion to remind him that the Protestant Cathedral at Quebec had been built with money sent from England, but that the church in York had no such advantage, its entire cost having been borne by the personal subscriptions of the people of the town.

The Governor also in one of his communications complained of the inadequate accommodation provided, not only for his own comfort, but also for that of his Executive Council. He pointed out that during his stay in York he had been compelled to live at the garrison owing to the fact that no official residence had been provided for him; and as for the Executive Council, it had been compelled to hold its meetings in a room in the private residence of the Clerk of the Council. All this, of course, was quite beneath the dignity of a Provincial Government, and he asked that the sum of £80,000 be set apart for the purpose of erecting suitable buildings for the Legislature, the various offices of the Government, the Courts of Law for the Province, and a Governor’s residence.

In August, 1805, General Hunter died at Quebec, where he had gone to see Sir Robert Milnes, the Governor-General, just prior to his departure for England on leave of absence, and Honourable Alexander Grant, senior member of the Executive Council, was appointed President of Council, to hold office until the arrival of a new Governor.

But if General Hunter failed to leave his mark upon the Province this cannot be said of his successor, Sir Francis Gore, who reached York in August, 1806. Gore was then but thirty-seven and had come direct from two years’ service as Governor of Bermuda. He was an old acquaintance of General Brock, whom he had known when as a young officer he had been quartered in Guernsey, and between the two there was a close friendship.

From the first the new Governor was determined to govern, and as during his term in Upper Canada he was beset by a group of “belligerent and intriguing Irishmen,” whose “avowed object seemed to be to give him trouble,” he had many opportunities for testing his qualities. The leader of this group was Justice Thorpe, one of the Puisne Judges of the Province. Thorpe for some time had made a practice of accepting memorials from Grand Juries for transmission to the Governor. These memorials often took the form of political addresses covering all manner of public questions, and as the Judge was inclined to give them sympathetic hearing, the Governor was sometimes placed in an embarrassing position. On one occasion, for instance, reference was made by him to proceedings “invasive of the privileges of the subject.” To this Thorpe made reply that “the act of governing was a difficult science; when there was neither talent, education, information, nor even manner in the administration, little could be expected.”

Although Sir Francis had been but a few weeks in the country he at once took exception to such freedom of comment; and when, a little later, Thorpe, still holding his judgeship, was elected to the Assembly as member for East York, Durham and Simcoe, as successor to William Weekes, who had been killed in a duel, the Governor promptly asked the authorities in England for his recall.

Weekes, who was an intimate friend of Thorpe’s had been for a time associated with Aaron Burr in New York. On coming to Upper Canada he had been admitted to the bar, and by the help of Joseph Willcocks, the Sheriff, had also been elected to the House. While appearing before Thorpe at Niagara Weekes had referred to Governor Hunter as a “Gothic barbarian whom the providence of God had removed from the world for his tyranny and iniquity.” William Dickson, though a friend and legal associate of Weekes in the same case, promptly resented such language. His expressed reproval led to a challenge and Weekes was mortally wounded.

Dismissal from office seems to have been the order of the day at this time, and it was the approved method of disciplining refractory employees. The Governor’s word was law; the habit of thinking for one’s self was a heinous offence, and he did not propose to tolerate criticism either of his own actions or of those of his Government.

Surveyor-General Wyatt also came under His Excellency’s displeasure about this time. During a debate in the House on the land question he had by request produced his official records without first asking permission of the Governor, holding that as an officer of the Crown he was responsible only to the House. For this and other acts of independence—if not of actual insubordination—he was dismissed; but although his dismissal was sustained at the time by Lord Castlereagh, Wyatt, several years later, entered action against Gore for libel and secured a verdict for £300.

Joseph Willcocks was another victim of the Governor’s passion for getting rid of inconvenient critics. He was Sheriff of the Home District and had been elected to Thorpe’s seat in the House on the latter’s recall; but as he had been the friend of Weekes and Thorpe and had given active support to their insurgency, he also had been removed from his position, on the ground, according to the Governor, of his “general and notorious bad character.”

Sir Francis Gore,
Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada
1806-1816.

On the calling of the House in 1808 Willcocks’ right to hold his seat was challenged, and he was promptly impeached for breach of privilege in having charged, both in his paper The Guardian, and on the public streets, that certain members of the House had been bribed by Governor Hunter with liberal grants of land to vote against the interests of their constituents. For this he was found guilty and ordered by the House to be imprisoned in the common gaol for the remainder of the session. At the general election, however, which followed a few months later, he was again elected; but the effect on the public mind of these dismissals from office of men eminently qualified for their duties, and of the high-handed actions of the Governor and his Executive which prompted the recall of Thorpe and the impeachment of Willcocks, was such as to cause the critics of the Government to come together in common cause and to form a separate group in the Assembly of those pledged to independent thinking and reform in the method of administration.

“What do you think?” said Gore to a Canadian friend whom he met while in London several years later; “that blackguard, Joe Willcocks, dined with General Brock and turned Government man for awhile and then found his own party again.”

Prior to the period of these dismissals there had been comparative peace in the House of Assembly. Its sixteen members—increased in 1808 to twenty-four—had not been free from differences of opinion, but there was no bitterness, and they were too much occupied with the serious affairs of life to waste time over trifles.

Gore returned to England in 1811 on twelve months leave of absence, leaving General Brock to act as Administrator in his place; but the outbreak of war which took place in the following summer delayed his return, and he did not resume his duties until some months after the signing of the treaty of peace.

In spite of Brock’s tribute that Gore was as “generous and honest a being as ever existed,” he seems to have had a talent for making mistakes; and although the Family Compact as such did not develop until some years later, when Rev. Dr. Strachan and Chief Justice William Dummer Powell became the outstanding personages in the Government, the shadows of the party of place and power were already on the horizon. With this group on the one side in control of the purse-strings and the patronage it was inevitable that another group should be formed of those opposed to such control and representative of the friends of freedom of thought and liberty of action.

2

THE MENACE OF WAR

Simcoe from the first was obsessed with the menace of an American invasion of Upper Canada. He had been a participant in the Revolutionary war, having landed at Boston on the day of the attack on Bunker Hill. He had accompanied Howe on his expedition to the South and was at the battle of Brandywine. Later he was in command of the Queen’s Rangers, a regiment of New York and Connecticut Loyalists and one that had rendered distinguished services throughout the war, and he was included in the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781. He returned to England on the disbanding of the Queen’s Rangers at the close of the war.

When, therefore, he came to Upper Canada in 1792 as Lieutenant-Governor he was no stranger to political conditions in North America. France in the following February declared war against Great Britain and Holland. News of the French Revolution had been received with much enthusiasm by the people of the United States. So far as they could see, the revolutionists in France were fighting for liberty from oppression, as they themselves had done a few short years before; and as they had received the whole-hearted sympathy of France in their struggle they recognized a reciprocal obligation on this occasion.

Moreover, although the boundaries between the United States and Canada had been fixed by treaty, the western posts in Ohio were still, owing to the fact that certain provisions of the peace treaty had not been fulfilled and debts due to English creditors had not yet been paid, occupied by the British. There was trouble also between the United States and the Western Indians over the boundaries of their territory, and Simcoe had been warned that the United States would accept no intervention from Great Britain on the question.

The news of the declaration of war in Europe, which reached Niagara in May, was a matter, therefore, of much concern, for it was felt that the United States by throwing its support to France might seize this opportunity for settling old scores. In that event Canada would become the battle-ground, and the prize.

Fortunately the flurry passed, but the menace of war was never far away. The United States was full of political refugees and agitators, all bitterly hostile to Great Britain, while on the continent the glory and prestige of the victorious Napoleon were shadows across the path of England and her colonies.

In May, 1805, Napoleon was made Emperor of the French. In spite of the fact that a coalition consisting of England, Russia, Austria and Sweden had been formed against him, he had become master of Europe. Following a series of splendid victories at Ulm and at Austerlitz, at Jena and at Auerstadt, he entered Berlin in October, and from that city he issued the famous Berlin decrees against the commerce of Britain.

Stung by repeated defeats on the high seas at the hands of the British fleet, Napoleon now ordered that no British ship was to be admitted to any port of France or of her allies, and any vessel eluding this decree was to be confiscated. He charged that England had for years disregarded the law of nations, that she had made prisoners of war of non-combatants, and that she had confiscated private property and blockaded unfortified harbours. He now declared the British Isles to be in a state of blockade; all intercourse with them was prohibited, and all British subjects under French authority were ordered to be made prisoners of war.

This was the expressed will of the Emperor. Those who were not for him were to be declared against him. Neutrality was now to be at an end unless the neutrals were friends of France. But arrogance of this kind could work both ways. If the ports of Great Britain were to be blockaded and neutral ships unwelcome, so also would the French ports be blockaded; thus, from whatever point of view, the situation in regard to the neutral trade of the United States was becoming complicated.

The Americans, who for some years had profited enormously by the trade with the warring nations in Europe, were now to suffer severely. The carrying of supplies to a blockaded port was becoming hazardous. But the losses which United States shippers sustained at the hands of France were quite as great as those at the hands of England. There was this difference, however, that England was hated while France was not, and the American Government was not unwilling to accept from a friend insults and injuries which, inflicted by an enemy, would be intolerable.

Colonel—afterwards Major-General—Sir Isaac Brock looked for hostilities to break out in 1807. But as the embargo which, from political motives, President Jefferson had laid on American shipping a few months before, had resulted in practically paralyzing United States commerce, there was a reaction in their animosity and the tide turned for a time against France, which, primarily, was responsible for the situation. So strong indeed was the bitterness against their former friends that although Napoleon at the time was striving by every means at his command to force America into declaring war against England, an alliance between the United States and England was seriously discussed.

The antagonism toward England, however, again asserted itself. The judgment of a British prize court to the effect that Napoleon’s decrees still held, in spite of assurances to the contrary, and that American vessels entering French ports were good prizes, added to the bitterness. The feeling was further strengthened by the report of the Congressional Committee on Foreign Relations, which recommended an increase of ten thousand men for the army and fifty thousand for the militia. It also counselled the arming of the merchant marine. In the course of the debate on the report Mr. Randolph was heard to say: “Since the report of the Committee came into the House we have heard but one word, like the whippoorwill’s monotonous tone, ‘Canada, Canada, Canada’.”

Such a feeling could have but one outcome. Brock, in anticipation of an invasion, promptly organized to meet the situation. The slender defences at York were repaired and strengthened in 1811, and a stone magazine was built on the outside of the southern embankment for the storage of ammunition and supplies. Companies of militia were enlisted wherever possible, and equipment was transferred from Quebec to various points throughout the Province. Arrangements were made for the building of some small vessels for naval defence on the lakes, and keels were laid for boats both at York and at Kingston.

Unfortunately Brock’s hopes of assistance from England were not realized. The hands of the Government were so occupied with the situation on the Continent that they were unable to give thought or attention to Canada. His preparations, too, were hampered by Sir George Prevost, the Commander-in-chief of the British forces in Canada. There was little money to meet necessary expenses, and few troops were available to carry out his projects. He was disappointed also in the support of the Legislature, the members of which refused to believe that war would come and declined to support war measures.

On the other hand, an expedition against the northern Indians in Ohio, led by General Harrison, and the unwarranted destruction of Tecumseh’s own village, alienated the tribes and swung their support to the cause of Britain, thus providing the Canadians with a useful and powerful ally throughout the perilous days that followed.

The message of President Madison to Congress in March, 1812, was hostile if not belligerent. He charged that British cruisers had made a practice of violating the American flag on the high seas and of seizing and carrying off persons sailing under it; and, curiously enough although this was claimed afterwards as one of the chief motives for the war, this was the first time it was presented as its chief grievance and the first occasion on which a claim for redress had been uttered.

England was now sorely pressed. The opportunity for striking her a deadly blow in her most vulnerable spot, Canada, was too good to miss. Moreover, it was election year in the United States. In view of public feeling a declaration of war would be an act of popular political strategy. The President desired re-election above everything else, but the vote by which Congress declared for war was geographical rather than political, the North being against the war by two to one. The insistence of Clay and Calhoun, however, carried the day. They promised the American people the early and complete conquest of Canada. “I verily believe,” said Clay, “that the militia of Kentucky are alone competent to place Montreal and Upper Canada at your feet;” and Jefferson in a letter written in August said: “The acquisition of Canada this year as far as the neighborhood of Quebec would be a mere matter of marching and will give us experience for the attack on Halifax the next year and the final expulsion of England from the American continent.”

But Clay and Jefferson overlooked one important element—the quality and character of the people of Canada. The Canadians, though few in number, were, owing to England’s unfortunate situation, entirely unprepared for war, but despite this, they had no intention of being conquered. The boasts of Congressmen and the insolence of the American press roused an intense national feeling among French and English alike, and although there were not more than 4500 regular troops in all of Canada, and the entire population of the country did not exceed 300,000, of which but 75,000 were in Upper Canada, they determined to fight to the last ditch and show the invading hosts the material of which they were made.

3

THE EXPULSION OF THE AMERICANS

Compulsory public service was the rule in the early days of Upper Canada, and every man was expected to take his share in the responsibilities of citizenship. Municipal government as we understand it was unknown, and as the taxes were inadequate for any extensive system of public improvements, every man was required to give some of his time to the service of the community.

The duties of magistrates at that time included among other things the appointment and oversight of the officials who had to do with the enforcement of the regulations, and citizens refusing to accept the positions to which they were appointed were frequently fined as a penalty and the fines turned over to the person who ultimately accepted the office.

From the first Jesse Ketchum entered enthusiastically into the life and activity of the community. He filled from time to time most of the positions to which he might be appointed—pathmaster, fence-viewer, overseer of the highways, and constable—and conscientiously and faithfully did he carry out his duties. These and other positions were all filled by appointment, and for the most part only the best citizens were called upon for service. Even the position of pound-keeper was an office of distinction in those days.

York, though the seat of Government, seems to have been slow of progress during its earlier years. Its population in 1798 is given as 112. By 1801 it had increased to 336. Four years later the number was but 473. In 1809 it had grown to 577; in 1816 the returns show a total of 869; and by 1820 it had only reached 1240. The system of taxation at the beginning of the century was simplicity itself. The population of 1798, for instance, was divided into ten groups, based largely on the ability of the citizens to pay. The lowest, and of course the largest group, consisted of twenty-six persons, who were each taxed one shilling and three pence per annum, while those of the highest group, three in number, each paid eighteen shillings and sixpence per annum. The total revenue during the first year amounted to £25. 16s. 3d. In the following year, due to the increase in population, it reached £75; in 1800 the amount was £81 and in 1801 £154.

But if the town was slow in gaining population the County was growing rapidly, and little community centres were opening up here and there throughout the townships, adding to the standard of living and to the prosperity of the Province.

Jesse Ketchum, whose home was on the main highway leading to the town of York, was prosperous from the beginning. He was not only a good farmer, but he was a born trader and financier as well, and the early records of the County show countless entries of purchases and sales of improved farm lands by means of which he added to his resources and at the same time built up for himself a reputation as a shrewd and enterprising man of affairs.

Unimproved lands, on the other hand, had but little value, and anyone on payment of sixpence an acre was able to acquire a grant of two hundred acres and establish a homestead. The result of this generous provision was that large numbers of Americans came into the Province during the early years of the century, attracted by the cheap land, its amazing fertility, and the splendid hardwood forests with which for the most part it was covered. Among these were many who had taken part against the British during the Revolution, and though not openly antagonistic to Great Britain they were naturally sympathetic to the United States and interested in its progress.

These people watched the darkening shadow of the war with much concern, and their observations as to Canadian conditions were carried regularly to the authorities at Washington. So far as the American Government was concerned, there was no doubt with them as to the easy conquest of Canada. Their emissaries were everywhere, and their information was at first hand. They had spies in the Legislature and in the Canadian militia; and when Col. St. George, who commanded the troops on the Detroit frontier, reported to Brock that his men had behaved badly on their first encounter and that many had actually joined the invading army, there was probably a good deal of justification for the boasting in the American press and in Congress as to the early fall of Canada. “We can take Canada without soldiers,” said Dr. Eustis, the United States Secretary of War; “we have only to send officers into the Province and the people, disaffected toward their own Government, will rally round our standard.”

Although war was declared by Congress on June 18th, 1812, official word was not received by Sir George Prevost until July 26th, nearly six weeks later, and two weeks after General Hull had entered the Province at the Detroit River. Fortunately, however, one of the partners in the North-West Company, anticipating such an action, had received the information and forwarded it to Prevost at Quebec. Word also had come direct to Brock before the end of June, having been sent by special express by John Jacob Astor to Thomas Clark at Niagara Falls. An order directing all subjects of the United States to leave Canada without delay was met by General Hull’s invasion at Sandwich and his impertinent appeal to the people of Canada to be “emancipated from tyranny and oppression and restored to the dignified station of freedom.”

The demand for the return to the United States within fourteen days of all citizens of that country was Jesse Ketchum’s opportunity. John Van Zant, an enterprising American from Pennsylvania, had for some years carried on a tannery at York at what is now the south-west corner of Yonge and Adelaide streets. It was a small business, catering only to the immediate neighborhood and furnishing meagre supplies of leather for boots and harness and other domestic needs. Because of the distance between settlements and the difficulties in transportation, it was necessary that each community should as far as possible be self-contained, and every district, therefore, had its own grist and saw-mills, its fulling and carding plants, and its tannery and distillery.

No one probably was more disappointed than John Van Zant at the order to give up his business and leave the country. But the order was imperative. It was now too late to take the oath of allegiance, which, had he so wished it, might permit him to remain in Canada; he must sell out his plant for what he could get and leave at once.

Jesse Ketchum was in close touch with town affairs and happenings. He was a regular attendant at St. James’ Church, and he knew most of the people of York. He knew Mr. Van Zant and sympathized with him in his predicament; but he saw in the sale of the tannery a business opportunity that might mean much to him in the future. He made an offer for the plant and the property which was accepted, and Mr. Van Zant returned to the United States.

4

JESSE KETCHUM, TANNER

Jesse Ketchum was thirty years of age when he moved into the town of York and became a tanner. He already had a working knowledge of the processes of the trade, but only in the way that many farmers in those days were familiar with other trades and industries in order to supply their personal needs. But his instinct was for trade and commerce rather than for farming, and he considered himself quite qualified to take over such a business. The emergency of the war made his venture the more significant. A tannery was a key industry at such a time, and it was inevitable that there would be an enormous demand for its products to meet the needs of troops as well as of civilians. Shortly after taking over the business he bought some of the adjoining land for his home and gardens, although he still retained his beautiful home and farm on upper Yonge Street. Most of the land in the immediate neighborhood of the tannery was vacant, and the block which he purchased, and which he got for almost a nominal price, extended all the way from just north of King Street to Lot Street and from Bay Street to what is now Victoria Street. Newgate Street and Hospital Street ran through the property from east to west, but Yonge Street did not at that time extend south of Lot Street.

A few months later Ketchum built for himself a new home on the west side of what is now Yonge Street, near the corner of Newgate Street, just across from the tannery. It was a large, fine-looking two-storey wooden building, painted white and erected, according to Dr. Henry Scadding, in the “American style,” with a square turretted tower rising out of the centre of the roof, surrounded by a wooden railing. Close to the house were the barns, stables and other outbuildings, and the remainder of the property not occupied by the works was set out in orchard or put under cultivation like other farm land of the period.

As the people of Upper Canada had for years been dependent on the United States for all kinds of supplies, the outbreak of war caused a serious dislocation in the normal channels of trade. All importations had now suddenly ceased and the Province was compelled almost overnight to fall back upon its own resources. This sudden demand at once caused prices to soar, and among other modest little industries the Ketchum tannery soon became a busy hive of activity.

British troops in Canada available for the defence of both Provinces consisted at the outbreak of war of not more than 4500 men. Arms had been sent from England for about 10,000 troops, but as Britain herself was involved in a titanic struggle with Napoleon there was very little specie in the public treasury, and it was hopeless to expect further cash assistance from abroad for some time to come.

In order to meet the situation which thus suddenly confronted the Province, the Legislature passed several important financial measures. These provided, among other things, for the issue of a series of Army Bills, or paper money, of small and large denominations, to be guaranteed by the Government, the large ones to bear interest and all to become payable at the expiration of five years. By this means the Province was able to finance its way without embarrassment throughout the entire period of the war. There was never a question of lack of confidence in the currency thus created; a ready way was furnished to provide for the maintenance and equipment of troops as well as to meet the ordinary daily requirements of the civilian population; and a direct impetus was given to all departments of trade, production and industry.

With the increase in business came repeated additions to the buildings and plant of the tannery; and before long the rambling old wooden sheds which contained the currier’s block, the row of deep tan vats of coloring liquid, the huge bark grinder which day after day was kept turning by the patient service of the old mill horse which without shoes paddled round and round in its limited orbit, and the great mounds of red brown hemlock bark which lay drying in the yard and furnished so splendid a place for the boys to play, extended almost to Bay Street.

Mr. Ketchum, like most of those in business during the war, made considerable money. There is no suggestion that he took undue advantage of his opportunities or charged more than the traffic could comfortably bear; but his product was chiefly for Government purposes, and the high cost of living and the keen competition for supplies made high prices a necessary evil. There is a suspicion, too, that all the hides which reached the tannery at York were not strictly home-grown. As the population of Upper Canada at the time was not more than 75,000, it is hardly probable that there would be sufficient live-stock in the Province to furnish enough hides to meet the requirements of the troops. Money talked in those days, and where ready money was to be had there were always those who were willing to take risks to get it.

Thomas Gibbs Ridout, who, though but twenty years of age at the time, held the office of Deputy Assistant Commissary-General, refers on many occasions in letters to his family to the large amounts of money which were passing through his hands for the purchase of supplies and the carrying on of operations. Writing from Headquarters in August, 1813, he reports that more than $40,000 had been paid out within the last fortnight; and in the following months he writes: “Tomorrow we shall have 20,000 hard dollars in silver and £5000 in paper money, and in about eight days shall receive in Army Bills £20,000.”

In June of the following year, Ridout lets out a secret which is more than suggestive as to the source of many of the supplies needed by the army. Writing from Cornwall he tells his father that he had contracted with a Yankee magistrate to furnish his post with fresh beef. “A Major,” he says, “came with him (the magistrate) to make the agreement, but as he was foreman to the Grand Jury at the Court in which the Government prosecutes the magistrates for high treason and smuggling, he turned his back and would not see the paper signed.”

Again, later in the war, in a letter written also from Cornwall, he refers to one of Wellington’s brigades of Artillery recently arrived in Canada and stationed there—a brigade which consisted of 180 horses, 120 artillerymen, and eighty drivers. “They give a great deal of trouble,” he says, “and consume two tons of hay per day and fifty bushels of oats. I am getting sixty tons of hay from the Yankees in batteaux, but am afraid of great difficulty in December.”

From this it will be seen that while the Government of the United States was making every effort humanly possible to implement the promises of its politicians to take Canada, the citizens of that country, especially those in the border States, were not above trading with the enemy; and it is more than probable that much of the raw material for the Ketchum works came into the Province in the same unlawful way.

The town of York at the time of the war was not large, but it was growing steadily and its future was sufficiently promising to warrant Mr. Ketchum in investing some of his accumulation of Army Bills in town property. Settlement had not as yet reached westward much beyond Church Street, excepting along the line of King Street, while Lot Street and Yonge Street were still primitive country roads. The latter was not opened down to the waterfront until several years later; and as Jesse Ketchum owned most of the land required for the extension, sufficient of that lying to the east of his property was turned over to him to compensate for that taken for the new street.

5

THE CAPTURE OF YORK

Brock opened a hurriedly called session of the Legislature on July 27th, 1812, but disgusted by the apathy shown by the members as to the serious situation before them and their failure to realize the menace at Detroit, he promptly prorogued it again within a week after forcing the necessary supply. He recognized that there was a disloyal element in the House, led by Willcocks and Marcle, both of whom later joined the United States forces, and little was to be gained by holding it in session; but the sons of United Empire Loyalists needed little encouragement and, led by Brock, they determined to risk their all in defence of their homes and country.

Before the session closed, however, Brock called for volunteers to accompany him to meet the anticipated attack at the Detroit River, and with forty regulars and about 260 of the militia he crossed by Burlington to Long Point, thence by small boats along the shores of Lake Erie to Amherstburg. Here he joined forces with the local defence force consisting of 600 men, and about the same number of Indian allies under Tecumseh, and almost before Hull knew what had happened Detroit was taken, involving possession of the whole territory of Michigan, together with the capture of the entire American army.

The great victory at Queenston Heights on October 13th, although resulting in the unfortunate death of the brave Brock, undoubtedly strengthened the prestige of the British, and the military operations of the season closed in a blaze of glory for the Canadian defence.

During the winter months vigorous preparations were made for the spring campaign. The Americans, smarting under the two defeats, made every effort to reinforce their armies with men and supplies. They massed their troops in three strong divisions for the invasion as soon as the ice should break up. In the east they had assembled 5000 men at Lake Champlain, with 4000 more at Sackett’s Harbour, at the eastern end of Lake Ontario. In the centre 3300 men were grouped on the Niagara frontier, with 3000 in reserve at Buffalo; and in the west they had 2000 on the Miami River, immediately to the south of Detroit.

On the Canadian side the situation by comparison seemed almost hopeless. In Lower Canada there were 3000 men under arms, in charge of Sir George Prevost; at York General Sheaffe, who had succeeded Brock as Administrator, had 600 men, volunteers and troops, and 100 Indians; on the Niagara frontier General Vincent had 1700 men and 500 Indians; and at Detroit and Amherstburg there were 970 men and 1200 Indians.

In naval support the situation was even worse. Sir James Yeo had left Halifax early in the year with 500 men to make the long and wearisome journey overland on foot to man the fleet on Lake Ontario, and guns and ammunition had been sent up from Quebec. But as yet there was practically no fleet available for use. Two vessels were spending the winter in the harbour at York; two others were under construction in the same harbour, and two more were building at Kingston but it was doubtful whether any would be ready by the time the harbours were free from ice.

The campaign of 1813 opened in February with a surprise attack on Ogdensburg, when Lieutenant-Colonel Macdonell with his company of Glengarry Fencibles and some local militia crossed the St. Lawrence from Prescott on the ice and, after an hour’s fighting drove the Americans out of the town, captured eleven guns with arms and supplies, and burned the fort and barracks and two armed schooners.

Smarting under this indignity General Dearborne, Commander of the American troops, supported by Commodore Chauncey and his fleet, determined, as a reprisal, to attack York, the capital of the Province, which to them seemed, if not the point of the greatest strategic, at least that of the most political importance.

The invading force sailed from Sackett’s Harbour on April 23rd. The fleet consisted of fourteen armed ships and two transports, manned by 800 sailors and carrying 112 guns, of which forty were thirty-two pounders of longer range and throwing heavier shot than any gun at York. They also carried 1700 picked troops under General Pike. Before sailing General Pike issued orders and instructions covering the proposed landing at York and the attack on the town, including this comment on the quality and morale of the force they were about to meet: “The poor Canadians have been forced into this war, and their property should be held sacred, but the commanding General assures the troops that should they capture a large quantity of public stores he will use his best endeavors to procure them a reward from their Government.”

He also as a reminder referred to the defeats at Detroit and Queenston during the previous autumn and to the capture of Ogdensburg: “It is expected that every corps will be mindful of the honour of the American name and the disgraces which have recently tarnished our arms, and endeavor by a cool and determined discharge of duty to support the one and discharge the other.”

York, though the largest and most important town in the Province, as well as the seat of Government, was a poor enough little place. It was absolutely without military importance and was of comparatively little political significance. Its military defences were practically negligible. There were the stockaded fort built by Governor Simcoe seventeen years before, with its little garrison and its few local militia, and, of course, the blockhouse at Gibraltar Point on the Island with a twenty-four pounder swivel gun on the roof. The guns from Kingston had not yet arrived, and Sir James Yeo was still ploughing his tedious way through the deep snowdrifts of the forests of Lower Canada.

It had been known for some days that York was the objective of the fleet in Sackett’s Harbour, but little preparation could be made to meet the attack as there was so little with which to make it. A brig, the Duke of Gloucester which had been wintering in the harbour, was still there, so its six small six-pounders and the eight eighteen-pounders intended for the new vessel in the shipyard at the foot of Simcoe Street, were distributed between the bastions of the Fort, the Western Battery, which had been thrown up on the edge of the high bank on the shore just east of the present Stanley Barracks, and the Half-Moon Battery, a semi-circular field-work protecting the roadway leading to the garrison. To the west of the Western Battery, in what is now the Exhibition Grounds, were the remains of the old French Fort, abandoned more than half a century before, and here three old eighteen-pounders, without trunnions, which had been dug up from the ruins, were brought into service and clamped with iron hoops to pine logs to serve as gun carriages. The troops in defence of the town consisted in all of 600 men, regulars and militia, made up from various regiments, and about 100 Indians under Major Givens.

At York it was expected that the breaking up of the ice in the harbour would be the signal for the sailing of the American fleet, and on the morning of the 24th of April the Prince Regent, which also had been wintering in the harbour, sailed out into the Lake to reconnoitre. Watchers were posted on the high bluffs at Scarboro’, to the east of the City, to scan the horizon and give warning whenever the enemy fleet should come into view; and every man capable of bearing arms in defence of his home was mustered into service to meet the expected invasion.

There is keen excitement throughout the garrison and town, such excitement as has never been known in this part of Canada before or since. About five o’clock on the afternoon of Monday, the 26th, eager watchers on the highlands of Scarboro’ catch a first fleeting view of the approaching fleet. A flotilla of ten ships is to be seen faintly looming up on the horizon, eight miles away, headed towards York. At once a vidette mounts horse and is off to town to bring the news and carry the alarm. The signal gun is fired, the bell of St. James’ Church is rung as a warning to the townspeople, and every man of the militia drops immediately whatever work he is doing, seizes his gun, and hurries to report for service.

A small detachment is hurriedly sent east to guard the Kingston Road, sentries are posted, and the rest of the forces are held in readiness to move either to the east or west as soon as the direction of the attack is learned. It is, of course, too late to expect the attack that evening, but a close watch is kept throughout the anxious night to discover, if possible, where the enemy away out in the darkness of the lake is likely to try to make a landing.

Dawn comes at last to the sleepless little capital, and as the darkness lifts a great fleet of sixteen armed boats, led by the Commodore’s flagship, is seen to be approaching the peninsula—now Toronto Island—from which a road leading to the town could easily be followed. Presently a stiff breeze comes up from the east and by five o’clock the Commander, finding it impossible to land on the sand-bar, bears off to the west and around Gibraltar Point towards the clearing at the old French fort. But again he is disappointed. The wind by this time has considerably freshened and the fleet is carried around the point into Humber Bay, where presently it is brought to anchor at the point now known as Sunnyside.

When it becomes certain that the attack is to be from the west, orders are sent to recall the guard from the Kingston Road. The Indians and a company of Glengarries, under Major Givens, are sent into the woods of what is now High Park, and a detachment is sent out to the Dundas Road to protect the approach from that direction.

No time is lost by the enemy in preparing to land troops. The small boats which have trailed behind are brought around, and under cover of the ships’ guns the men are lowered and started for the shore. In spite, however, of the fire from the Indians and Glengarries in the woods, the landing is effected and the defenders, spreading out into the thick woods extending from Sunnyside to the old French fort, prepare to contest every foot of the way. Meanwhile the company which had gone around to protect the rear has come down through the dense woods of what is now High Park to the aid of the Glengarries; and tradition has it that while crossing Grenadier Pond on the rotting ice, two of the Grenadiers broke through and were drowned, and it is supposed that from this incident Grenadier Pond first got its name.

Major Givens’ party, strengthened by this time by the Newfoundland company and 200 of the militia, fight stubbornly in an effort to prevent the progress of the advancing troops; but owing to the pressure of rapidly increasing numbers from the ships, they are forced back step by step and compelled to retire almost from tree to tree.

By nine o’clock the landing-place is clear of the defending troops, and the Americans as they reach shore are pushed forward rapidly by General Pike, the commander of the attacking party. The ground all along the high bank and through the dense woods of what is now South Parkdale is heavy and marshy on account of the spring thaw and the melting snow and the artillery, dragging their heavy guns brought from the ships, have the greatest difficulty in making progress.

The pressure of overwhelming numbers, however, is irresistible, although the Canadians fight stubbornly in spite of their slender forces and their heavy losses. A halt in the retirement is made at the old French fort, but as this is in open ground they are soon forced to abandon the old eighteen-pounders which had been strapped to the pine logs and they retire to the Western Battery, near the present Stanley Barracks.

By this time the smaller of the vessels of the fleet have been brought around by the shore and the Canadians are now subjected to a double deadly fire, one from the rifles and field-pieces of the pursuing troops, the other from a continuous raking broadside from the ships off in the Lake. As the long thirty-two’s of the fleet far out-distance the poor eighteen-pounders of the Battery, the Canadians are unable to retaliate, or even to hold their own, so, spiking their guns to render them useless to the enemy, they continue their retirement, carrying their wounded with them.

By noon the enemy and the fleet have reached the Half-Moon Battery, just across the road from the Fort. The fleet is now within six hundred yards of the garrison and the enemy is at its gates. The defence has lost enormously, as the fire from the fleet has been even more deadly than that from the land. It is now certain that the Fort, to which General Sheaffe has retired, cannot be held. Pike, advancing to within striking distance, waits for the garrison to be silenced by the guns from the fleet. Knowing that the Canadians cannot hope to save it from destruction or from capture, he naturally looks for proposals for surrender. During a lull in the cannonade he moves his men past the Half-Moon Battery to within two hundred yards of the gate of the Fort, and, sending forward a party to reconnoitre, he himself follows close behind. Suddenly there is a flash, followed by an explosion which shakes the ground like an earthquake, and instantly tons of rock and timbers are hurled in a shower high into the air. The great stone magazine built by Brock two years before on the waterside just below the south-western bastion and containing five hundred barrels of gunpowder and an immense quantity of ammunition, shot and shell, had deliberately been blown up under instructions from General Sheaffe. Two hundred and fifty of the American soldiers are either killed or wounded by the flying rocks and timbers, together with forty of the Canadian troops that had not been able to get away in time, and General Pike himself is mortally wounded by flying stones.

As soon as the Americans have recovered from the shock of the explosion they advance and take possession of the Fort. But when they get there the Fort is empty. General Sheaffe had gathered together the remnant of his gallant defending army and, after arranging to blow up the Fort, had retreated toward the town. He halts his men for a moment at Simcoe Street and sets fire to the new warships still on the stocks, to prevent their capture; he destroys the stores in the dockyard, and, leaving Colonel Chewett and Major Allan, of the militia, who are residents of the town, to arrange terms of capitulation with General Dearborne, he withdraws with all of the available regular troops along the Kingston Road and retires toward Kingston.

6

IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY

When he learned of the explosion of the magazine and the death of General Pike, Dearborne immediately announced his determination to burn the town to ashes. Such an indignity, offered by so mean and insignificant a defence, was not to be countenanced and they should “smoke for it.” Rev. John Strachan, rector of St. James’ and chaplain of the forces, on hearing of this, made his way to the General’s presence and begged him to abandon so cruel and unwarranted a decision. Dearborne at first was stubborn and resolute, declaring that the magazine had been wilfully exploded by the Canadians and that they should be made to suffer in consequence.

The interview was long and stormy. Strachan was equally insistent that the explosion was a sheer accident—as it was honestly thought to be at that time—and that the town did not deserve any such treatment. He also threatened on his side all sorts of reprisals when the troops from England should arrive, and that Buffalo, Sackett’s Harbour, Oswego and other United States towns should suffer in like manner if York was destroyed. Finally the American General yielded to his better judgment, and with the exception of the Parliament Buildings and certain of the neighbouring houses which meanwhile had been set on fire he promised that the town should be spared. Strachan also visited the Commodore’s flagship to beg that the rights of private property should be respected.

The Town of York at the Time of its capture by United States troops.

That evening terms of capitulation were made between Colonel Chewett and Major Allan, on behalf of the people of York, and General Dearborne. According to the terms of the surrender all public stores were to be delivered up to the victorious troops, all resident militia were to surrender on parole, and all private property was to be guaranteed to the citizens of the town.

But in spite of the signed agreement entered into in good faith and the personal assurances of the Commodore and the General that private property should not be molested, private stores throughout the town were broken into and plundered of their contents, the church was robbed of some of its treasures, the town library, opened but two years before and paid for by the private subscriptions of the citizens, was pillaged, and the barracks of the troops and the Governor’s residence at the garrison were wrecked. The Parliament Buildings and the Court House, of course, were burned, and when the invaders withdrew, they carried off the Duke of Gloucester, in the harbour, which had given up its guns for the defence of the Fort and batteries, as a trophy of war.

In an official account of the capture of York one of the American officers expressed the opinion that the advantages were not of great moment. “With the exception,” he says, “of the English General’s musical snuffbox, which was an object of much interest to some of our officers, and a scalp which Major Forsyth found suspended over the Speaker’s chair, we gained but barren honor by the capture of York, of which no permanent possession was taken.”

The Speaker’s wig, looked upon mistakenly as a human scalp, was offered to the United States Secretary of the Navy as a decoration for the walls of his office and indignantly refused; but it finally found a place, together with the Mace and the flag from the Parliament Buildings, in the naval museum at Annapolis, Maryland.

Nothing was sacred to the marauders; even the money belonging to the Provincial Treasury, to the amount of £2000, was taken, and many of the private houses of the citizens were entered, ostensibly in the search for public stores and records. Two hundred and forty men were taken prisoners, including thirty regulars; but, fortunately, the bulk of the troops were safely on their way to Kingston on the night of the battle, and thus were spared to render service at Sackett’s Harbour three weeks later on the occasion of Sir James Yeo’s attack on that fort. Sir James had also the satisfaction of setting fire to the Duke of Gloucester, which had been carried off so gleefully from York when the Americans retired after their four days’ visit.

Among the places visited by Dearborne’s men on that occasion was the Ketchum tannery. There they found little to attract them, as there was neither food, ammunition, clothing or liquor in the place, but opportunity for wanton destruction was presented and they wrecked much of the plant, destroyed some of the raw stock, and attempted to set fire to the piles of tan bark.

The owner, with many of the younger business men of the Town, had enlisted on the declaration of war in the 3rd Regiment, York Militia, and served under Captain Samuel Ridout, but, following the capture of York, the paroled troops were allowed to return to their homes and resume their peace-time occupations. Jesse Ketchum, senior, though now seventy-two also served in the same company.

On July 31st the United States fleet again descended upon the helpless town. Several small boat-loads of troops were landed, and from the barracks they proceeded to again take possession of the town. Again they laid their hands on everything that might be considered by a stretching of the imagination as public stores. In this, of course, they assumed wide latitude, and much in the way of provisions and other movable goods fell into their hands. There were no public stores in the town at the time, so in order to justify their visit they, “by mistake,” helped themselves to the goods of many of the private merchants and shopkeepers, after which they set fire to the places of business. They destroyed the blockhouse at Gibraltar Point and the barracks at the Fort, and set at liberty the prisoners in the gaol.

The destruction of so much of the town and the spoliation of its citizens was an inexcusable violation of the terms of the capitulation. Even the attack itself on the town was of no practical or military value and there was no important military force there to be captured. But the operation had this effect: it justified reprisal, and before the year was out the British returned the compliment in lively fashion. They invaded Buffalo on December 31st, drove out the troops stationed there and burned the town, including its houses and public buildings, and destroyed the military stores.

1

EARLY SCHOOLS IN YORK

When Governor Simcoe came to Upper Canada, in 1792, the population was small and widely scattered. Settlement had begun but a few years before, and was made up largely of United Empire Loyalists, refugees from the United States who had found conditions of living in that country after the Revolution far from agreeable. The people for the most part were hard-working and industrious, but as they had to leave most of their worldly belongings behind they were compelled to begin life over again in a new and primitive country.

The new Governor was a wise and far-seeing statesman. He recognized at once the need of schools for the education of the children, and one of his earliest despatches was a letter to Secretary of State Dundas suggesting that two schoolmasters be sent to Canada, one for Kingston, the other for Niagara. He recommended, further, that His Majesty’s Government should authorize the setting apart of certain portions of the lands of the Crown in the Province for the purpose of providing a fund for establishing District Grammar Schools, and ultimately the founding of a College.

Unfortunately, matters of this kind which have to be negotiated at long range cannot be accomplished without tedious and vexatious delays. In this case not only did no schoolmasters arrive in response to the request of the Governor, but it was not until 1797—nearly five years later—that the desired authority was received for setting up an endowment for the support of schools. This was contained in a letter from the Duke of Portland, the new Colonial Secretary, which authorized the setting apart of 540,000 acres of land for the purpose of providing an endowment for the Grammar Schools and the College.

Governor Simcoe, however, was now no longer at the helm, having been transferred in the previous year to San Domingo; and although rapidly increasing population and the development of communities made the need for schools more pressing, no one seemed to know what to do about the establishing of the schools now that authority had actually been received to found them. The Government of the day would neither take action itself nor permit anybody else to act in the matter.

In November, 1798, however, William Cooper, who prior to the coming of Reverend George O’Kill Stuart had been accustomed to read the lessons at the church services held in the Parliament Buildings, made an announcement in the Upper Canada Gazette that he intended to open a school at his house in George Street at York “for the instruction of youth in reading, writing, arithmetic and English grammar;” adding, “Those who choose to favour him with their pupils may rely on the greatest attention being paid to their virtue and morals.” But lest advantage should be taken of the authority granted by His Majesty’s Government, or in order, possibly, to convey the impression that the Government had some intention of acting on it, the Gazette published this editorial announcement in July of the following year:

The promise of action, however, which this notice seemed to suggest, and the pious homily which it contained, appear to have been nothing but rhetoric. The Government made no attempt whatever to touch the subject of education, and probably had never intended to do so. The Legislature which met at York in 1800 and in each of the three following years dealt with many matters of importance to the young and growing community, but the question of education was never once raised.

In 1804 the situation was even worse, for the Legislature on three separate votes refused to permit the County of Glengarry to establish a school for its own children and at its own expense. In the following session it repeated this action, and thus year after year, although the people of the Province were willing and anxious to establish schools and maintain them without charge on the public funds, they were compelled, because of the inaction and opposition of the authorities of the day, to depend altogether upon itinerant teachers or private schools for the education of their children.

In 1802 Dr. William Warren Baldwin, a graduate of the University of Edinburgh who had recently come to Upper Canada, decided to open a school in York in order to support himself while studying law, a profession which seemed at the time to offer the shortest way to wealth and influence. This announcement appeared in the Upper Canada Gazette in December of that year:

This somewhat naive advertisement evidently achieved its object, for the twelve boys, sons of some of the leading citizens of York at the time, were duly enrolled and the school established. But although the Doctor completed his brief period of study for the bar, and in April, 1803, was licensed by Lieutenant-Governor Hunter to practise his profession, he continued to carry on the school in addition to his medical and legal practice for at least four or five years.

Following the Doctor’s marriage, however, soon after his graduation at law, the school was moved to his new residence at the north-east corner of Front and Frederick streets, the building used afterwards by William Lyon MacKenzie as the publishing office of the Colonial Advocate, and which, in 1825, was raided by a “genteel mob” of friends of the Family Compact and the type used for the printing of the paper thrown into the bay.

But the Government could not go on indefinitely dodging responsibility in matters of education. The protests and petitions of electors became insistent. Something must be done. Finally, in the session of 1807, the Legislature went on record for the first time, and laid down the principle that it was the duty of the country to provide for the elementary education of its youth. But it went farther and an Act was passed, practically unanimously, providing for the establishment of a series of Public Schools—adopting the English nomenclature—in each of the eight districts into which the Province was divided. One school was authorized for each District, and the sum of £100 was to be paid to the master appointed in charge.

Curiously enough, however, although the Legislature had approved of the principle of elementary schools, those which it actually authorized and caused to be established were not elementary schools but High or Grammar Schools, and the course of education was entirely for senior pupils. No provision whatever was made for the primary schools which should provide the pupils necessary to feed the Grammar School system.

One of the first schools to be opened following the passing of the Act was that at York. The Lieutenant-Governor lost no time in appointing the necessary Board of Trustees, those for the Home District being Reverend George O’Kill Stuart, D’Arcy Boulton, John Small, Duncan Cameron, Samuel Smith, William Graham and Thomas Ridout. Reverend George O’Kill Stuart, who in 1803 had been appointed the first rector of St. James’ Church, was also appointed as teacher.

For a time the school occupied part of a house at the south-east corner of King and George streets, and here it was opened on June 1st, 1807. Later, a large and for the period quite a pretentious building, was erected on the College Square, a six acre block immediately to the north of St. James’ church which had been set apart some years before for school purposes. This new building was a two-storey frame structure, about fifty-five feet in length by forty feet in width, with the gables facing east and west, and it stood near the south-western corner of the block, a little more than a hundred feet back from Adelaide Street and about the same distance from Church Street. It was painted a bluish color, with the window and door-frames in white, and thus the school soon became generally known as the “Blue School.”

2

THE COMMON SCHOOL ACT OF 1816

It did not take long to recognize that the Grammar School Act was not likely to accomplish the purpose intended. Before a year had gone by petitions and appeals began to reach the Legislature asking for amendments and changes. During that period a number of schools had been opened, but it was soon discovered that it was quite impossible for one school, however large, to meet the needs of an entire District. Further, that in spite of the Government grants, the fees demanded by the teachers were so prohibitive that only the rich could afford to patronize the schools. Instead of providing for the children of the middle and poorer classes, who needed assistance, the new schools were pre-empted by those of means and influence. No thought had been given to primary education which was practically all that many of the young could ever expect to get, whereas those who could afford to send their sons to England for education were profiting by the Government grants. As one petition to the Legislature put it, “The Government casts money into the lap of the rich, who are sufficiently able without public assistance to support a school in every way equal to the ones established by law.”

The House of Assembly made repeated efforts to amend the Act. Representing the people as they did, the members were anxious that the public money should be spent where it would do the most good, and they demanded a system of elementary education that would serve the needs of poor and rich alike. But the Legislative Council, which represented the privileged and office-holding classes, was equally determined, not only in refusing to change the Act, but rather to extend its operation into an even more elaborate system.

The Assembly year after year passed its bills and made its recommendations, and just as often these recommendations, important and necessary as they seem to have been, were squelched by the Upper House. Appeals to the Executive Council and to the Lieutenant-Governor were of little avail. They met with scant attention and no action, and a deadlock on the question existed between the two Houses for several years.

Ultimately better counsels prevailed, and in his Speech from the Throne at the opening of the session of 1816 the Lieutenant-Governor intimated that the District Grammar Schools which had been instituted under the Act of 1807, while “admirably fitted as a step between elementary schools and a seminary for the higher branches of education, will not, without further aid, produce sufficient advantage to the youth of the Province;” and he suggested that provision should be made for schools in each township as elementary schools, to prepare children for the District Grammar Schools. He also recommended that a Provincial Seminary should be founded for the higher branches of education.

This was something, but with the knowledge of past experience and of the men it had to deal with, the Assembly was inclined to be wary. Before committing itself to any plan that might be proposed by the Executive Council it decided to refer the whole matter to a Select Committee of the House, consisting of James Durand, Ralph Clench and Thomas Dickson, to consider the question and draft a Bill to meet the situation.

Since the passing of the Act of 1807 a new element had entered into the educational world of Upper Canada. Reverend John Strachan, who, in 1799, had come to Canada from Scotland on the understanding that he should have charge of a High School “which should ultimately be converted into a University,” but who since 1804 had been rector and schoolmaster at Cornwall, had come to York in 1812 to succeed Rev. Dr. Stuart as the Rector of St. James’ Church and master of the “Blue School.” The Cornwall Grammar School had for some years been one of the most successful in the Province, and his transfer to York brought to the assistance of the Executive Council a man of wide and scholarly attainments, a trained educationalist and a powerful and aggressive personality.

Dr. Strachan from the first set himself to the task of leadership both as clergyman and patriot. So splendidly did he serve his King and country during the war which broke out shortly after his arrival in York, that on the advice of Lieutenant-Governor Gore he was appointed, almost as soon as hostilities had ceased, to a seat on the Executive Council of the Province. As was to be expected, he became almost immediately the most influential man in the Government. He regarded himself as the authorized state champion of the Church. Political honours were but the expression of tribute to his clerical office. The setting apart of one-seventh of the territory of the Province as Clergy Reserves for the support of a “Protestant Clergy” meant to him the Church of England clergy, and for more than forty years he carried on unceasing warfare to enforce this contention. He guided and influenced the despatches of successive Lieutenants-Governor, the trend of legislation, and the action of Governments. He became the recognized leader of the Family Compact, while those who dared to breathe opposition or to raise their voice in support of Responsible Government felt the weight of his hand and the pressure of his power. In Reverend Doctor Strachan, therefore, the Lieutenant-Governor and the Executive Council had now a man on whom they could rely for advice and assistance in all matters relating to education.

The Select Committee of the House of Assembly, to which had been submitted the suggestions in reference to education contained in the Speech from the Throne, made its report three weeks later. This report is valuable because it was the first serious attempt to deal with the problem from the standpoint of the needs of the people; and its statement of principles is so simple and straightforward that one wonders why men with the intelligence and capacity of those who advised the Lieutenant-Governor should, for more than twenty years, have so deliberately ignored or avoided them:

The Bill as drafted by the Select Committee of the House of Assembly, and known generally as “The Common School Act of 1816,” was introduced, and after a lengthy, full and free discussion and some amendment, was passed and sent on to the Legislative Council. By what appeared to be strange and unexpected good fortune, it was at once approved by the Upper House without amendment. Another Bill, providing for the expropriation of Crown Lands for the purpose of Common Schools, was also passed by both Houses, and the assent of the Lieutenant-Governor to these two measures was accompanied by this gracious message:

The Act, which on its passing was limited to a period of four years, provided that the Trustees should report annually to the District Board of Education as to the state of the schools and as to the number of scholars in their respective schools. The District Board was then to make report to the Lieutenant-Governor for presentation to the Legislature. The District Board also was to apportion the £6000 ($24,000) set apart for education to the ten districts into which the Province was then divided, paying the grants according to the number of scholars, but with the limitation that none was to be given to schools of fewer than twenty scholars and no school should have less than one hundred dollars. The money was to be paid to the teachers upon certificate of qualification and good conduct from their own Trustees.

The way was now open for establishing primary schools throughout the Province. Nine years had elapsed since Grammar Schools were first organized, and during that period there was the curious anomaly of schools for primary education being maintained by private enterprise and those for advanced education receiving bonuses from the public funds.

As many of the people of York were poor, they had been hard put to it in securing elementary education for their children. One very early school for young children was conducted by Mrs. Glennon, a young widow of fair education but little aptitude. Shortly after the war another, called the “Red School”, because of the colour of the schoolroom, located near the corner of Richmond and Yonge streets, was conducted by Mr. Barber in succession to a teacher named Bennett. This school was started for children who did not attend the District Grammar School, which had been appropriated largely by those of the official classes.

To this school Jesse Ketchum from his own household sent four young people as pupils: his step-daughter, Lily Love, now an engaging young miss of fourteen or fifteen, his own two daughters, Mary (Polly) and Fidelia, and his young son William, known generally to the people of the neighbourhood as “Sonny” Ketchum. Mr. Ketchum had early recognized that education was one of the most useful things in life, that it was never a burden to carry, and that persons of cultivation had better opportunities in life than others. He determined, therefore, that his children should have the best that he could afford.

Indeed, for several years Mr. Barber was boarded at the Ketchum house, in order, as Mr. Ketchum himself often explained, not only that his children might have the benefit of daily association with a man of education, but also that he too might have the opportunity by private lessons in grammar and other subjects of remedying the deficiencies of his own early training.

A rival school to that of Mr. Barber’s was the old “Yellow House”, conducted by Mr. Judd, near the corner of King and Ontario streets. A little later—about 1817—Mr. Castles conducted this school. On Monday mornings he had prayers with his pupils, and on Saturday afternoons he taught the Church of England Catechism to all whose parents desired it.

Dr. Egerton Ryerson, who, later, was the founder of the splendid system of education in the Province, recalls in his autobiography^[2] that at this time some of the branches of education were taught by itinerant teachers who specialized in certain subjects; and that about 1817, when he was fourteen years of age, he attended a course of instruction in the English language given by two professors who taught nothing but English grammar. They professed to be able in one course of instruction by lectures to make it possible for delinquent scholars to parse any sentence in the English language. Some of the methods of teaching were primitive in the extreme, and for the most part the curricula consisted of instruction in the three R’s, with the emphasis on the first.

With the passing of the “Common School Act” all this was now to be changed. Teaching was to become more standardized. Opportunities were to be opened for both poor and rich, the way was made clear for the opening of schools in many of the outlying townships, and the £6000 appropriated by the Legislature was to be set apart annually to assist in their maintenance. The law also provided that the people were to “meet together” in any town, village or township to make arrangements for establishing Common Schools. A board of trustees was to be chosen by the people—“fit and discreet persons” as the Act specifically mentions—who were to “examine into the moral character and capacity of any person willing to become a teacher,” and make the appointment. They were also to make rules and regulations for their own schools and select text-books from a list prescribed by the District Board of Education, to which they were required to report from year to year. The Provincial allowance to each school, or teacher, was in no case to exceed £25 ($100), the balance of salary and maintenance charges to be made up by subscriptions and fees.

It will thus be seen that every reasonable precaution had been taken both in the Act and in the regulations to safeguard the interests of the children of the rank and file of the citizens, as well as those of the well-to-do. It was now up to the people to take advantage of the opportunities offered.

3

CONTROVERSY WITH DOCTOR STRACHAN

The uncanny ease with which the “Common School Act” slipped into legislation might have presaged the trouble to follow. It happened so easily that it should have seemed too good to be true. It had not been customary for legislation initiated in the House of Assembly to find such favour in the Legislative Council. It is true that a truce had been reached, but rivalries and antagonisms such as had existed for years could hardly be sealed so easily.

It soon became apparent that the hatchet had not yet been buried. Next only to initiating good legislation would be to claim credit for what was good and turn it to personal advantage. Parliament was dissolved shortly after the close of the session, and at once the fat was in the fire again. So popular was the new School Act, following so long and acrimonious a siege, that claimants as to its parentage arose immediately. Stung by the brazen attempts of the official party to assume credit for something against which they had fought for years, Mr. Durand, who had been so largely responsible for the Bill, and who personally had carried it through the House, gave vent to his indignation in his Address to the Electors of Halton County, issued at the time of the elections and published in the St. David’s Spectator of February 14th, 1817.

In this address Mr. Durand hits out freely at the enemies of Reform, both in the Legislative Council and the Executive Council. In his reference to educational matters he says: “The Common School Bill which passed into a law last year was one in which I, likewise, took a very active part. I was one of the committee that introduced it through its various stages, though I believe the merit has been once claimed by John Willson (of Saltfleet), and once transferred entirely out of the House of Assembly, and is now to rest on the Atlantean shoulders of Rev. Doctor Strachan, of York. You are, however, not to mind what the versatile chameleons of corruption might please to say. The truth lies as I have stated, and the Journals of the House will prove it. To these I challenge reference. . . .”

“I likewise,” he continues, “opposed the old District (Grammar) School Bill (1807), brought in, unprecedentedly, twice in the same Session, first with one thousand pounds (£1000) a year additional for supporting a few students in Divinity, and lastly with five hundred pounds (£500) a year for the same purpose, leaving it in such a way that the teachers were to have their salaries whether they had one school or not; and behold we find that immaculate, reformed, refined gentlemen, loyal squire, Inspector Willson!! of Saltfleet, the man to second this notorious Bill. To the honour of the majority of the House, this Bill was rejected with contempt.”

This was pretty strong language. But this was a time when strong language seemed to be the order of the day; indeed, it required strong language at that time to express what the authors intended to say. But temper such as this, coming from one who was under obligation to the official group for giving effect to the legislation of his party, was not to be tolerated. Had not the Government accepted Mr. Durand’s legislation and passed it without question or amendment?

The subject of this Address to the Electors, therefore, was brought to the attention of the House at its first session; a resolution was introduced declaring it to be a libel on members of the House; and after a lengthy debate in which the full force of the dominant elements was brought to bear, Mr. Durand was declared guilty of gross libel and sentenced to imprisonment for the remainder of the session. He was afterwards by resolution declared unfit to occupy a seat in the House and was expelled. Writs for a new election followed shortly, but as Mr. Durand was returned triumphantly the question was not again opened.

The first Common School in York under the new Act was started very quietly and modestly during the year, with Reverend Alexander Stuart as teacher. As it had none of the prestige that attached to a Grammar School, it was ignored by the well-to-do among the inhabitants and for a time it had to depend altogether on the poorer and middle-class citizens for its support. The Board of Trustees—of fit and discreet persons, as designated by the Act—consisted of Jesse Ketchum, Dr. Thomas D. Morrison and Eli Playter. These had been elected by popular vote of the citizens of York without interference from members of the official party who evidently looked upon it as of little importance. Dr. T. D. Morrison was a man of splendid character and reputation who for a time had been a clerk in the Civil Service and later was prominently identified with the Reform movement in the Province, a member of the Legislature, and in 1836 Mayor of Toronto. Eli Playter, who for a time was Chairman of the Board, was also at a later date a member of the House of Assembly, representing the North Riding of York. In 1820 he was succeeded by Jordan Post.

The new school at first occupied inconspicuous quarters in the lower floor of the Masonic Hall on Market Lane—afterwards Colborne Street—until its new building, planned and erected by the Trustees, was built in 1818 at the south-eastern corner of the College Square at Jarvis and Adelaide Streets. Although the Square, consisting of six acres, had been set apart for school purposes, a scant half-acre was grudgingly fenced off in the distant corner for the Common School; and many a battle, with fists in the summer time and with snow during the winter months, is said to have taken place across the swale which ran north and south through the Square between the boys of the Grammar School and those of the Common School.

Reverend Alexander Stuart resigned his position as teacher at the beginning of 1819, and Thomas Appleton, who had taught for a time in Scarborough, and afterwards at King, applied for the school. The appointment, however, was delayed for some months at the request, it was said, of the Lieutenant-Governor, with an intimation to the Trustees that another teacher was expected shortly from England. But the need was pressing, and ultimately, unable to wait longer, Mr. Appleton was appointed to the vacancy.

As Rev. Mr. Stuart had regularly, under the terms of the School Act, drawn his Government grant, Mr. Appleton’s appointment, based on his experience and his personal references, carried with it an assurance from the Trustees that the allowance would be continued. They also gave him to understand that, providing his services proved satisfactory, he would be continued in the school.

Mr. Appleton taught the school for twelve months, receiving for each half-year the regular Government allowance, but on rendering his account and report for the third period, presenting exactly the same sort of documents as before, his application was refused. No explanation was offered as to the non-payment other than to say that there was no money for the York school.

The reason, however, was soon apparent. Joseph Spragg, the teacher whom the Lieutenant-Governor was reported to have had in mind for the school, had now arrived from England. In spite of the fact that the appointment of a teacher had been delayed for a considerable time and that Mr. Appleton had now held the school to the entire satisfaction of everyone for upwards of eighteen months, Rev. Dr. Strachan, who had absolutely nothing whatever to do with its management or administration, had no compunction in demanding, in the name of the Lieutenant-Governor, that the school be turned over to the newly arrived teacher.

But the Trustees were not disposed to do anything of the kind. They had been put to much inconvenience in the first instance in holding the school for a time without a teacher; they had engaged Mr. Appleton in good faith upwards of a year and a half ago, and his services, abilities and conduct had been such as to commend him most favourably both to the Trustees and parents; and they felt that in fairness to him and to those especially interested in the school they could not discharge him from his position in order to make a place for Mr. Spragg.

It was a practice at this time for the Trustees to hold a special session of the school from time to time for the examination of the scholars as to their progress and proficiency. The demand from Doctor Strachan for possession of the school was received a few days prior to this meeting. In reply he was told that the matter would be considered by the Trustees at the meeting shortly to be held. Doctor Strachan attended the meeting, but as the attendance of those interested happened to be small, he asked that the matter in which he was concerned be held over until a later date in order that a larger attendance might be ensured. This was acceded to, and when the second meeting was called Doctor Strachan is said to have made a long and vigorous harangue to the assembled people on the sins of the Trustees, the deficiencies of the school and the necessity for instituting other methods of instruction. He declared that the Trustees had availed themselves of all that the law allowed to such schools, but had not performed the duties required of them by the same law. He attacked them bitterly for their action in withholding the school from the nominee of His Excellency, and asserted that they were acting contrary to the best interests of the children under their care. But as the Trustees, backed by the assembled parents, persisted in their refusal to give up the school, and declined to recognize in his demand any legal or moral claim, he left the meeting in high dudgeon.

Mr. Appleton, on the refusal of the District Board of Education to honour his application for the Government grant, reported the matter to the Trustees, who immediately wrote to the Board for an explanation. But to their letter there was no reply. Mr. Appleton then addressed a petition through the Board of Trustees and shareholders to the Lieutenant-Governor in regard to Doctor Strachan’s demand, which had been made in the name of His Excellency. To this the Lieutenant-Governor made reply through his secretary, Major Hillier, that he had made no such application.

The Legislative grant in 1819 for Common Schools had been £6000 ($24,000), but by an amendment passed in 1820 this amount was reduced to £2500 ($10,000), owing to the fact, as explained to the House at the time, that large amounts which had been set apart for various districts had remained unexpended. On the passing of this amendment the District Board of Education, of which Doctor Strachan was Chairman, promptly stopped the grant to the school at York, without notifying either the teacher or the Trustees, although, obviously, when the Legislative grant for the lesser amount had been voted no such action had been anticipated. The reduced appropriation, however, furnished an excuse, and the purpose beyond question was to force the issue between Mr. Appleton and the Trustees and the District Board. If the Trustees were determined to remain firm on the question of possession, the alternative would be to starve the teacher out.

The real trouble with the school was that it had been unexpectedly successful. Its name and its fame had been extolled on every hand. The attendance had increased to such an extent that an assistant—John Fenton, afterwards Clerk of St. James’ Church—had been engaged to help with the teaching, and parents and Trustees seemed thoroughly satisfied with the progress and attainments of the scholars. It was evident that the authorities, owing to the lack of foresight, had allowed the Common School system in York to slip out of their hands. It would not do for anything of an educational character to be successful unless it were controlled by those in authority of things educational and things spiritual. Thus every effort must be made to get it out of the hands of the people and under the care of those in the confidence of the administration.

The starvation process proved effective. Without the Government allowance Mr. Appleton could not carry on. And with his resignation came that of the Board of Trustees. Mr. Spragg was immediately appointed teacher and the school turned over to him. By some strange chance, however, so long as Mr. Appleton remained as teacher, there was no money available to pay the Government allowance, but as soon as Mr. Spragg took over the school the necessary funds were found, and even the Lieutenant-Governor’s gratuity was restored.

With the advent of Mr. Spragg the real motive for securing possession of the school soon became apparent. Doctor Strachan, who in addition to being an Executive Councillor was now also a Legislative Councillor, and, virtually, head of the educational system of the Province. It had long been his desire to introduce into the schools a system of teaching which for some time had been popular in England, known as the Bell and Lancaster, or Church of England National School system of elementary schools. The school in York was, of course, the logical place to begin, and as the duly elected Trustees were unwilling to give up their school voluntarily, pressure must be brought in order to secure the desired result. The name of the school was at once changed to that of the Central School with His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Peregrine Maitland, as Patron. A new Board of Trustees was appointed by the Government—not elected by the people, be it observed—consisting of Lieutenant-Colonel Hon. Joseph Wells, Hon. John Beverley Robinson, Attorney-General, and Thomas Ridout, Surveyor-General; certainly not a Board for a “Common” school.

The devious means used to secure control can readily be followed. The name of His Excellency is first used as a lever, evidently without warrant or justification. As this does not work, it is decided that the inconvenient Appleton must be starved out. The recalcitrant Board of Trustees is then forced to resign; a fine school building, erected by the subscriptions of the citizens of York, is taken over as it stands without cost or expense; and a flourishing school, built up by a capable and popular teacher, is thus made available for the waiting Mr. Spragg. Doctor Strachan, as educational dictator of the Province, now assumes control of the school; and the Bell and Lancaster method of education, a system in accordance with the established Church in which the study of the Church catechism occupies a conspicuous place, is initiated in place of the general system contemplated by the Common School Act.

But, strangely enough, the introduction of this Church of England National System does not displace the Common School system throughout the Province. The York school is to be the first under a new regime, which, ultimately, should extend over the whole Province. In a despatch to Earl Bathurst, Colonial Minister, in 1822, more than a year after the school had been taken over, Sir Peregrine Maitland notifies him that it is proposed to establish a school on this plan and that the number may be increased as circumstances may require and means allow. Thus there were to be two systems in the Province: one the Common Schools established under the authority of the Legislature and supported by the annual grant from the revenue of the Province; the other the Church of England National Schools, established by the authority of the Executive Government alone and to be supported out of funds set apart years before for the maintenance of a Provincial University, and all without the knowledge or sanction or oversight of the Legislature. Doctor Strachan had thus attained another personal victory. A new strategic point had been gained.

As head of the Church of England Doctor Strachan was forever making war on those outside his Church. In a sermon which he preached in 1826 on the occasion of the death of the late Bishop of Quebec, he outlined the story of the rise and progress of the Church of England in Canada. He told of the obstacles which impeded it in Upper Canada, and attacked the character of those of religious denominations other than his own church. He denounced especially the Methodists, whose ministers, he said, were American in their origin and feeling, ignorant, forsaking their proper employment to preach what they did not understand, and which from their pride they disdained to learn. He also charged them with spreading disaffection to the civil and religious institutions of Great Britain, and he made an appeal to the Imperial Government and Parliament for a grant of £300,000 per annum to enable the Church of England in Upper Canada to maintain the loyalty of the Province to England.

In view of the fact that the Methodists in York at this time numbered not more than a few score persons, that the Presbyterians had but a few months before organized their first small congregation, and that but a single decade had passed since the entire population had united as one man and demonstrated its loyalty to the Empire in a war in which the United States had made every effort to take possession of this country, such statements were not likely to assist in the promotion of kindly feelings among the people. But the Doctor was nothing if not persistent. He claimed for his Church the entire control of the Clergy Reserves—one-seventh of the lands in the Province; and those who were strongest in their protests against the dominance of the Church of England in these matters were not Americans, but Loyalists, men who for years had been declaring for religious liberty and equality for all denominations. The initiation, therefore, of a system of Church of England schools in the Province, to be supported out of public funds and controlled by the Executive Council, was another menace to religious freedom, and one that was likely to have an important bearing on the political and religious life of the Province.

But Doctor Strachan’s victory was not complete. The Common School of York may have lost its identity and become the Central School, but Mr. Appleton, the teacher, was not yet disposed of. His claim against the District Board of Education had not been settled, and although he had lost his position, he was not willing to forfeit his just claim. With disquieting persistence he pursued the authorities. He appealed to the Lieutenant-Governor, whose name had been used in the demand for the school; to the District Board, which controlled the distribution of the funds; and finally to the House of Assembly, the final court of appeal for all such matters.

Eight years passed since he had been squeezed from his position, and still he was without compensation, but what at first was little more than a claim for wages had by this time developed into a grievance. Instead of a debt his appeal had now become a political and religious issue directed against the Church of England system of schools and the entrenched forces led by Doctor Strachan.

Finally, in 1828, the House of Assembly, realizing that the matter must be faced and settled in one way or the other, appointed a Committee of the House to consider the whole matter. This Committee went into the question thoroughly, examined witnesses under oath and took the evidence of all those concerned. George H. Hetherington, Clerk of the General Board of Education at the time, made it appear that the reason for the cut in Mr. Appleton’s proportion was in consequence of an increase in population and of the number of schools, as only twenty-two schools were allowed in the Home District and any in excess of that must suffer. But as other evidence submitted showed but there were but twenty-one at that time, this was considered by the Committee as an excuse rather than a reason. Reverend Alexander Stuart, who had taught in the York school for a year and a half and later was a teacher in Toronto Township in the County of Halton, deposed that he had, in 1826, an experience similar to that of Mr. Appleton six years before. When he applied for his Legislative grant on the conclusion of his yearly service he also had been refused, on the ground, as stated by Doctor Strachan, that the District Board of Education had limited the number of teachers to three in that township. But as in other Districts there did not appear to have been any such limitation this explanation also did not appear to be reasonable. But Jesse Ketchum, who had been a member of the Board of Trustees of the York school from the beginning, and had consistently backed Mr. Appleton’s efforts for redress and compensation, seems, in his evidence, to have put the fault where it rightly belonged. He pointed out that from his personal observation and from the information he had been able to obtain the District Board of Education had absolute control of all school patronage. It was able to give the Government grant to whom it pleased, and to withhold it from others as it so desired; and the withdrawal of the grant to Mr. Appleton’s school was due entirely to the determination to force Mr. Appleton out and take the building over for Mr. Spragg.

The Committee, from the evidence before it, and taking into consideration all the circumstances, confirmed Mr. Appleton in his claim for redress, and it recommended to the House that the money due should be paid to him from the funds of the Legislature devoted to Common School purposes. The members of the House in their discussion on the Report expressed strong resentment over the seizure of the Common School at York, which they themselves had set up under the Act of 1816 and the powers and authority of the Trustees acting under it; but particularly did they repudiate the authority of the Executive Council to appropriate revenues of the Province for the purpose of establishing and supporting another set of schools quite independent of those founded by authority of the Legislature of the Province, and without the knowledge and consent of Parliament. The House of Assembly put itself on record in strongly expressed dissent from the action of the Executive Council and the District Board of Education in these matters; and with this pronouncement there began the long continued strife between the elected and the nominated sections of the Legislature which culminated in the Rebellion of 1837, but which in matters of education and religion was not settled until 1854, when, with the passing of the Act secularizing the Clergy Reserves, all connection between Church and State was finally severed. About this time, also, was accomplished the linking up of the Grammar Schools, founded in 1807, and the Common Schools, organized in 1816, in one comprehensive system of education as recommended by Reverend Egerton Ryerson, who had become the first Superintendent of Education for the Province in 1844.

The controversy over the Common School between Jesse Ketchum on behalf of the people and Doctor Strachan, the leader of the official forces, had one very definite result. Mr. Ketchum’s interest in public affairs was so stimulated that he was induced to enter public life, with a place in the ranks of the Reform party. At the general election which took place in 1828, immediately following the settlement of the Appleton matter, he was returned to the Legislative Assembly as a member for York County, with William Lyon Mackenzie as his colleague from the same constituency. The Reformers, thus strengthened by the addition of two valiant and courageous allies, threw down the gauge of battle to the entrenched Family Compact as directed by Doctor Strachan, and from that day the war was carried into the enemies’ camp.

1

GORE AND MAITLAND

The War of 1812-15 ended in a draw. It had lasted for nearly three years, and both the United States and England were tired and anxious to call it a day. The Canadians, also, were perfectly willing to quit. What they had fought for—refusal to be conquered by the United States—had been accomplished. During all these weary months they had carried on the campaign in America without outside aid other than from the troops and supplies which had been sent before hostilities had begun. With the defeat of Napoleon at Warsaw, Leipsic and Vittoria, England had been able at last to release some of her fleet and troops for service overseas; and with the coming of these came the end of the war.

The Peace Treaty signed at Ghent showed plainly that there should have been no war. Nothing was surrendered on either side, none of the matters under dispute were settled, no territory was either given up or taken; and peace was welcomed by everyone excepting, possibly, the farmers in the border States who had profited so much by selling supplies to both the contending armies.

As to the warfare itself, little credit is due to either the British or American leadership. The military blunders on both sides were colossal, and although there were many important engagements during that period it is generally conceded to have been the worst fought war in history. The United States with its vastly superior forces and equipment failed to make any important advances or hold any strategic points, and Lower Canada, the more populous of the Provinces, was practically untouched.

The war is sometimes justified on the ground that it consolidated the various groups in the American nation; but the truth is that although certain of the Southern States were keen for it, there was lukewarmness and open discontent in New England and the Northern States. On the other hand, the Canadians made a brilliant defence throughout the whole period, and while in the end they were glad to drop their rifles and return to their peaceful pioneer life, they had the satisfaction of knowing that they had come out of the war with unquestionable credit and distinction.

Gore returned to Canada in September of 1815. He had been away during the entire period of the war, during which time three administrators, all military commanders, had held office. Much history had been made during these years, and the Governor was welcomed back to York with enthusiasm.

York itself, the Niagara district, and much of the western peninsula of Upper Canada indeed had suffered greatly. These had provided the main theatre of the war. Those United States generals who had been lucky enough to obtain for a time a footing in the Province had followed, apparently, a deliberate policy of devastation, and rarely had such a policy been more ruthlessly applied. With their homes in ruins and their property destroyed, scores of families throughout the Province were now faced with the prospect of beginning life all over again. It is not surprising, therefore, that conditions in Upper Canada were poor and unsettled and that the war was followed by a long period of depression.

In view of the heroic and successful efforts of the inhabitants during these difficult years it was hoped that the sympathetic attitude of the Home Government towards Canadian affairs might have undergone some improvement. Conditions had altered vastly in twenty-four years, and the development in population, in education, in prosperity, and in political ideas had been such that many Canadians looked forward to the time when public opinion would have some weight in the conduct of public affairs.

But the British Government had made no such corresponding progress. It still retained the same long-rooted ideas of Colonial administration as had caused the loss of the Thirteen Colonies forty years before. So far as it was concerned the teapot tempest in Boston might never have occurred, and Bunker Hill and Brandywine and Saratoga might never have existed. It is true they had set up legislatures in the Provinces, modelled largely on the British system, with its two Houses of Parliament, but responsibility to the people had no part in it. An Executive Council, fashioned ostensibly on the Ministry at Westminster, was established, but its duties were purely administrative and it had no responsibility to anyone but the Governor, who in turn was responsible only to the British Ministry and the King. The House of Assembly was elected by the people, but as the Legislative Councillors and Executive Councillors were both appointed by the Governor, and therefore were privileged bodies, there was not much sympathy between them and the popular chamber. Indeed, their usual attitude towards the Assembly seemed to be a conviction that anything the House might desire must necessarily be wrong.

The Governor was the mouthpiece of the Colonial Office. His function was not so much to represent the needs of the Canadian people to the British Government as to convey the orders of that Government to the people of the Province. The Colonial Minister was not only omnipotent, but he was also omniscient; and periodically, and absolutely without personal knowledge of local conditions, he issued instructions to the Governor as to the course he should pursue or the policy he must follow.

It is almost impossible at this distance of time to credit some of the fatuous orders for which the Colonial Ministers at that period were responsible. Lord Bathurst, for example, in 1816, expressed to the Canadian Governor-General his great dissatisfaction over the fact that settlement had been permitted close to the United States frontier between Lake Champlain and Montreal; and although much of the land here had been occupied for years, he proposed that the property should now be re-acquired, and that a forest belt of twenty miles in width should be kept between Canada and the United States in order to prevent intercourse between the two countries. In another despatch he actually issued instructions absolutely forbidding all immigration from the United States to Canada.

The weapon in the hands of the Governor for handling refractory Government officials was dismissal, for legislators impeachment, and for legislatures instant prorogation or dissolution. If the Governor failed to carry out orders from the Home Government his way to further promotion was closed; if by chance he presumed to place before his superiors unwelcome views as to the conditions of affairs and the state of colonial opinion, his representations were ignored. The Governor, therefore, in his attitude toward the House of Assembly, represented as accurately as can be estimated the attitude of the Colonial Office toward Canada.

There was naturally much dissatisfaction over the order prohibiting immigration from the United States. The slump in business following the war and the redemption of the Army Bills was serious, and as land was the chief asset in the Province, the only way to market it was to offer it to intending settlers from the United States. For a time this order was neglected, but Gore immediately on his arrival issued instructions for its enforcement. When the Assembly, early in 1817, undertook to discuss this and other questions in a way suggestive of criticism of the administration and of the Colonial Office, he lost no time in showing who was boss. He would “dismiss the rascals at once,” and he promptly proceeded to carry out his resolution.

“Before the Orders of the Day, Monday April 7th,” according to the Journals of the House, “the Commons, to the great surprise of all the members, was summoned to the bar of the Legislative Council, when His Excellency, having assented in His Majesty’s name to several bills . . . put an end to the session by the following speech:—“Honourable Gentlemen of the Legislative Council and Gentlemen of the House of Assembly,—The session of the Provincial Legislature having been protracted by an unusual interruption of business at its commencement, your longer absence from your respective avocations must be too great a sacrifice for the objects which remain to occupy your attention. I have therefore come to close the session and permit you to return to your homes . . .” Six weeks later he returned to England on leave in order to give in person an account of conditions in Upper Canada, and fortunately never returned.

Gore’s success in suppressing unwelcome discussion emboldened Samuel Smith, who followed him as Administrator, to adopt similar methods a year later, when, following a heated dispute between the Assembly and the Legislative Council, he also dismissed the House without waiting for it to complete its work, concluding his address to the House with this observation: “Finding no probability of any concert between the two Houses, I come reluctantly to close the session of its business unfinished.”

Sir Peregrine Maitland, who became Governor of Upper Canada in 1818, was no great improvement on his fat and pompous predecessor. He also held the extreme views of his class—the Tory aristocracy—that the prizes in life were for those with prestige and influence, and that the only way to remove insurgency was either to ignore it or repress those who were responsible for it. Moreover, he was the son-in-law of the newly appointed Governor-General, the Duke of Richmond, who also, while enjoying a measure of personal popularity, was wholly lacking in political judgment and sagacity.

Sir Peregrine Maitland,
Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada
1818-1828.

The coming of Sir Peregrine was heralded with considerable interest because of the romance associated with his recent marriage. As the commanding officer for some years of the 1st Foot Guards he had entré to the highest social circles. His aide at Waterloo had been Lord William Lennox, son of the Duke of Richmond. He was well born, of good presence, and a widower for some years. But for some reason the Duke did not look with favour upon the intimacy which had developed between his daughter, the Lady Sarah, and the tall and solemn-looking Maitland. The headstrong Lady Sarah, however, refused to be intimidated. There was an elopement at Paris, and a hasty marriage was followed by a tardy reconciliation. Then came a Governor-Generalship for the Duke and a Lieutenant-Governorship for the son-in-law.

Sir Peregrine held office until 1828, just ten years too long. He misunderstood, as the others had done, the very first principles of responsible government. “Why do they talk of responsible government?” exclaimed one of his successors, indignantly, on the very eve of the rebellion, “when we have responsible government? As Governor of this country I am responsible to the King.” This also was Maitland’s attitude, and the attitude counselled by the Colonial Office.

Ever since the close of the war there had been dissatisfaction arising from grants of land having been made to non-residents who paid no taxes, and which, added to the Clergy and Crown Reserves, had resulted in seriously retarding the development of the Province. Further, the Colonial Office had persistently neglected to consider the claims of the volunteers and militia to substantial recognition for their part in the war.

Finally, in 1819, after four years of petition and protest, the Governor informed the House that authority had been received to make land grants to those who had been present in the field; but to this welcome announcement he added an entirely gratuitous rider to the effect that he did not consider himself “justified in extending this mark of approbation to any of the inhabitants who composed the late convention of delegates, the proceedings of which were properly the subject of your very severe animadversion.”

As the convention referred to was a meeting of representatives of the Townships, called by Robert Gourlay, for the purpose of petitioning the Home Government for an enquiry into the affairs of the Province, and had nothing whatever to do with the recognition of an obligation incurred during the war four years before, such a declaration raised a storm. The Legislative Council naturally backed the Governor, but a vote of censure in the Assembly was defeated only by the casting vote of the Speaker.

Gourlay, the cause of the trouble, was a Scotchman of education and ability who had come to Upper Canada in 1817. He soon recognized the unusual opportunities which the Province seemed to offer for the crowded population of England, and at once began an exhaustive enquiry as to the agricultural possibilities of the various sections of the country. He addressed a circular to officials in the various townships containing a series of thirty-one questions covering all kinds of information that might be useful to intending settlers. He enquired as to the population, schools, churches, stores and mills; as to soil, buildings, minerals; as to wages and costs of clearing land; as to dates of ploughing, seeding and the like; as to production, pasturage and roads; as to prices obtained for crops of various kinds; and as to wild and unoccupied land and its values. Unfortunately the answers to the last of the questions, a simple and apparently innocuous one, aroused the attention of the authorities. It was “What, in your opinion, most retards the improvement of your township in particular, or the Province in general, and what would most contribute to the same?”

Gourlay published the result of his enquiries, including some rather frank replies to the last question. Immediately he was denounced as a dangerous agitator, a republican, and a preacher of disloyalty. The calling of the convention was the outcome of the attack made upon him, and a petition was directed to the Prince Regent praying that a commission be sent to Canada to examine into the causes of the discontent which for some years had been steadily growing throughout the Province.

2

YORK IN 1818

York, in 1818, was a town of some twelve to fourteen hundred people and the most important community in the Province. Gourlay describes it as a town of “narrow streets and miserable, dirty, unpainted clap-boarded huts;” but Rev. Dr. Bethune, who later became the second Bishop of Toronto, and who came about the same time, gives quite a different impression. “It took high rank as to social position,” he says, “and from its being the seat of Government the society was excellent, having not less than twenty families of the highest respectability, persons of refinement, and many of high intellectual culture. To these were added a small sprinkling of military. For the size of the place there was a large amount of hospitality exercised, and on a handsome and bountiful scale.”

The focal centre of the town at this time was the junction of King and Frederick streets where the four corners were occupied by the four principal general stores. Duke Street was the best residential street, but there were a number of good homes on King Street, as far west as Simcoe Street, and along Front Street, where they overlooked the harbour.

Among the more important residences were the quaint, old-fashioned house once occupied by President Peter Russell, at Front and Princess Street; Berkeley House, the home of Major John Small, Clerk of the Executive Council since Simcoe’s time, at the corner of King and Berkeley Street, and occupied by members of the family from about 1796 until well on into the present century; the fine brick house—the first of its kind in York—erected in 1807 by Quetton St. George at the north-east corner of King and Frederick streets, acquired in 1817 by James S. Baldwin and later used for many years as the chief offices of the Canada Company; the brick house and store at the south-east corner of the same streets occupied by Major William Allan, who combined with his business the offices of Postmaster and Collector of Customs; Elmsley House, at King and Simcoe streets, the house taken over by Governor Gore for an official residence at the close of the war, and used as the home of the Lieutenant-Governor of the Province for more than a hundred years; the home of Chief Justice Powell, at the north-east corner of Front and York streets; the “Palace” of Rev. Dr. Strachan, on Front Street, opposite the old Union Station, which seemed so sumptuous and grand in size and appointments as to cause his brother James, who visited him from Scotland in 1819, to remark, gravely, when he saw it: “Jock, Jock, ye’ve a hoosie like a palace, an’ a wifie like a Queen. Eh, mon, I hope it’s a’ come by honest;” and Beverley House, the home of Attorney-General (afterwards Chief Justice) Sir John Beverley Robinson, which at one time occupied the entire block bounded by Lot, Simcoe, Hospital and John streets, and which remained the home of members of the Robinson family until 1912.

Along the north side of Lot Street were the homes of several landed proprietors, certain families of United Empire Loyalists and others whom the Government, for military and other services, had favoured with large grants of land. These lots, twenty-eight in number and reaching from Parliament Street on the east almost to Sunnyside, extended back to the next concession, a distance of a mile and a quarter. Few of the owners of these lots made any great effort to cultivate their properties, but some of them or their successors had built substantial homes on their estates, and as the frontages were comparatively narrow the street had the appearance almost of a continuous community much like a French-Canadian village. There was little settlement south of Lot Street west from Peter Street, owing to the fact that the land from this point to Dufferin Street had been set apart as a military reserve, and it was not until many years later that it was released for occupation.

The coming of Sir Peregrine and Lady Sarah accentuated the marked social distinction which for years had been growing up among the people of York. Certain of the Loyalist families who had received large grants of good lands in the Province, in addition to generous compensation from the British Government on account of their losses during the Revolution, had arrogated to themselves something of the prestige which they claimed to have enjoyed in their former homes in New York or New England. Closely allied to them in the confidence of the Government were officers from British regiments who, following their discharge from service, had chosen to settle in the Province. To these also large land grants had been made in recognition of services in the army or navy. Then there was a sprinkling of officials of the Government who had come from England to take part in the administration of public affairs or to serve in the judicial positions in the Province; while another and larger group was made up of friends and relatives of aristocratic English families who had come to Canada with letters of introduction to the Lieutenant-Governor or to members of the Government, and who on the strength of their intention to settle in the Province had been treated handsomely by the authorities in allotments of land.

Owing to the fact that most of the pioneer settlers were still too busily engaged in the work of tilling the soil to devote much attention to public affairs, the administration of the offices of the Government had fallen largely into the hands of members of these groups—men who were more interested in the holding of office than in farming the land or carrying on trade. They looked upon public office as though it was theirs by divine right; their families constituted the most exclusive set in the social life of the town, of which the Governor and his lady were the centre, and they occupied the chief seats in the Episcopal synagogue. These were the people who constituted what came to be known as the “Family Compact.”

Most of the citizens of York were adherents of the Church of England, and as many of them filled positions of influence either in civil or military life, they alone had been able to maintain a church. St. James’ at this time was but a mean-looking, unpainted, clap-boarded structure, without steeple or other adornment, set in an unfenced field, from which even the stumps of the original forest trees had not yet been removed. But it was one of the social centres of the community, and on each Sunday morning it was attended by the Lieutenant-Governor and his party, by the troops from the garrison, and by most of the better class citizens of the town and district, some of whom arrived in state in gigs or coaches, and even in some cases with footmen in attendance.

Although the church had been built but fifteen years, so shabby had it become that a wag once scribbled upon its walls this screed:

Doctor Strachan accepted this gratuitous advice shortly after the arrival of Sir Peregrine, and the church was enlarged, improved and painted. A gallery was constructed around three sides of the nave, a pew of state was built for the use of the Governor, and a small tin-covered spire was erected over a square tower in the southern gable. The rector, who now had become one of the chief figures in the Government, and hence was on the high road to prosperity, built for himself about this time the fine brick residence on Front Street west which for many years was known as the Bishop’s Palace. This was the first house in York to be built of brick manufactured in the town.

3

SCHOOL TRUSTEE

But Jesse Ketchum, although one of the leading citizens of York and for many years a member of St. James’ Church, was not of the exclusive social circle which centred around Elmsley House and the Lieutenant-Governor. His home at Adelaide and Yonge streets was one of the finest houses in the town; he was one of its most successful citizens, and his tannery on the opposite corner was one of the largest manufacturing establishments in the Province. Further, he had been elected in 1816 by the votes of the citizens as a member of the Board of Trustees of the new Common School, founded under the legislation of that year. Yet in an official return of the inhabitants of the town of York made in 1815 he is described as an “emigrant settler, by trade a tanner.”

Although he had come to Upper Canada at the early age of seventeen Mr. Ketchum had arrived too late, apparently, to be considered a United Empire Loyalist and to be entitled to the use of the aristocratic symbols after his name. Moreover, he had erred also in certain other essentials: he had the poor judgment to be born of humble parents; he had earned his living by the labour of his hands; he had been the friend and associate of the poor; and he had the unfortunate and unusual faculty of doing his own thinking. These certainly were not the sort of virtues to make for popularity among those who dictated the social tenets and practices of the day in York.

The election of Jesse Ketchum as a school trustee was a spontaneous tribute to his interest in boys and girls. Having lacked educational opportunities himself, he had determined to make up to his own children, and as far as possible to those of the town, for the handicaps which he himself had suffered. He entered upon his duties, therefore, with interest and enthusiasm. He was chosen as Chairman of the Board and as such carried much of the responsibility for the success or failure of the school. Rev. Alexander Stuart had been engaged as teacher and premises were secured at once on the lower floor of the Masonic Hall, on Colborne Street, where the school was carried on for nearly two years until the pressure for additional space made necessary the erection of the school building at the north-western corner of Newgate and Jarvis streets.

As the better off among the people of York had pre-empted the District School for the education of their children, the Common School attendance was largely from those whose parents were unable to pay the high fees demanded at Dr. Strachan’s school. The private schools were inadequate, and but for this new school many of the children would have been neglected. The new building was erected by private subscription, raised chiefly from those interested in its welfare and benefiting from its ministrations; and among those who contributed towards its cost were Jesse Ketchum, the Chairman of the Board, who subscribed £25; and Jordan Post, the clockmaker, after whom Jordan Street, which ran through his property, was named, gave £17. 6. 3.; both liberal subscriptions for this early period.

From the first Mr. Ketchum took his duties seriously. He felt a personal responsibility toward the school, the teacher and the community. There had never been a school of its kind before; there was no Department of Education with which to consult or which might exercise parental oversight; and no inspector to supervise the work of the teacher. Books were scarce, especially among the children of the poor. And there was no uniform system of education, no established method of instruction, and practically no trained or experienced teachers.

Mr. Ketchum made it a practice to visit the school on all possible occasions, and no week was allowed to pass without a call upon Mr. Stuart and a visit with the children. His own household—now containing four children of his own and a nephew, Johnny Jones, whose mother had come recently to make her home in York—kept him in close touch with the pupils, and because of his gentle friendliness and interest in them he was known familiarly among them as “Uncle Jesse.”

American school-books, because of their availability, had already superseded the English ones, and the Webster spelling-book, with its American system of instruction, had replaced the English Dilworth and the Lindley Murray books in the class-rooms.

Some of the methods of instruction in those days were primitive in the extreme. With the exception of those in Dr. Strachan’s Blue School, few of the children in York ever got much beyond the three R’s. Spelling was the chief feature of the reading instruction, and the exercises were usually conducted in chorus, the better spellers leading and the others following at the top of their voices. In one of the private schools, for example, the class was instructed to spell the name Aaron, “double a, r-o-n,” while in another it was rendered, “big A, little a, r-o-n.” The word “legerdemain” was rendered, “l-e-g-e-r, leger, d-e-leger de, m-a-i-n, legerdemain;” and from the Webster speller the word nation was intoned by the class, “n-a, na; t-i, nati; o-n, nation.”

With the opening of the new Common School and the engagement of Mr. Stuart as teacher Mr. Ketchum had hoped to set a new standard for the town and open up to the children of those in more humble positions in life opportunities they had never before enjoyed.

4

THE FIRST SUNDAY SCHOOL

In York, as in most of the other settlements in the Province, there were some—chiefly, though not altogether, among those in more humble circumstances—whose sympathies leaned toward religious bodies other than the Church of England.

Owing to the pressure of circumstances the Government, in 1798, had been compelled to recognize the rights of the clergy of the Church of Scotland, the Calvinists and the Lutherans to perform marriage ceremonies; but this privilege had not been extended to those of the Methodist Society, owing to the fact that their preachers were working under the New York Conference and therefore were looked upon as foreigners and unable to take the oath of allegiance.

This prejudice existed for many years, although, following the transfer of the work to the Genesee Conference in 1810, practically all of those working in Canada became British subjects, and the number regularly engaged in religious work under the Methodist Church soon far outnumbered those of any other denomination. But the power of Rev. Dr. Strachan in the councils of the Government, and the control of the political, religious and educational forces exercised by the Church of England, were absolute. In 1820 a census was made of the recognized preachers in the Province, showing the number engaged regularly in the work of religious instruction. In the light of this information the position of the Church is interesting.

Church of England Clergymen 16, Presbyterian and Congregational 15, Baptist Ministers and Preachers 18, Mennonites and German Baptists 7, Preachers of the Society of Friends 10, European Methodist Missionaries 5, Itinerant Methodist Preachers 28, Local Preachers (Methodist) 47, Public Trained Exhorters (Methodist) 65.

Thus it will be seen that of the 211 clergymen and preachers in Upper Canada 145 were connected with the work of the Methodist Church while but sixteen were of the Church of England.

Three years later the first Bill ever introduced in the Legislature for the purpose of extending to Methodist preachers the right of marrying was rejected by the Legislative Council at the instance of its clerical dictator. Dr. Strachan had little love for the Methodists. In a striking address delivered in the Legislative Council on March 5th, 1828, five years later, he attacks them with bitter invective. “Have not the Methodists in this Province . . . ever shown themselves the enemies of the Established Church? Are they not at this moment laboring to separate religion from the State, with which it ought to be firmly united? . . . Has it not been the primary object of all enemies to regular government . . . to pull down religious establishments? . . . If they tell me the Ecclesiastical establishments are great evils, I bid them look at England and Scotland, each of which has a religious establishment, and to these establishments are they mainly indebted for their vast superiority to other nations. To what but her Established Church, and the Parochial Schools under her direction, does Scotland owe her high reputation for moral improvement?”

York, for reasons that are obvious, had not been sympathetic to the work of the Methodist Society. As early as 1805 a Circuit had been organized among the settlements in the northern part of York County, along Yonge Street, but it was not until 1818, following the arrival from England of James Lever, that Reverend Henry Ryan, Presiding Elder of the Upper Canada District, found sufficient encouragement to warrant the building of a chapel in the town itself. Services had been held occasionally by visiting preachers at certain private homes, but no effort had been made to organize a church. Mr. Lever had for some years been a member of the Methodist Society in London and had known Wesley. At his suggestion a few of those interested in the work which the Methodists were doing agreed to hold weekly prayer-meetings. A few months later plans were made to found a church and erect a chapel.

Rev. John Carroll, in his My Boy Life, recalls of having as a boy of eight returned from a near-by store and telling his mother of a man whom he had met there who had come into town for the purpose of putting up the meeting-house. It was his intention to raise the frame of the building that day, with the assistance of some of the church people, and, contrary to the practice of the time, those engaged in the raising were to be served with cakes and beer instead of the usual quota of raw whiskey. The little Carroll lad had a particular interest in the building of the church owing to the fact that his father was loaning the logchain for drawing the timbers for the construction, and his parents were numbered among the first attendants following its completion.

The site chosen for the new church was at the corner of King and Jordan streets, where the Canadian Bank of Commerce now stands, but which at that time was near the extreme western boundary of the town. The building was a plain clap-boarded structure, about thirty feet by forty in size, resting upon wooden posts. There was a double doorway in the centre facing the street, and a narrow aisle led from the door to the rear, where stood a high pulpit backed with a sounding-board. Two rows of benches flanked the aisle, those on the right being reserved for the men and those on the left for the women. The building was without decoration of any kind, and it remained unpainted for many years. During the long winter months it was heated by a sheet-iron stove, which almost literally roasted those who sat near it, and at the evening services tallow candles supplied the necessary lighting.

The new church was opened on November 5th, 1818, before it was quite completed, with Rev. David Culp as its first pastor. A few weeks later, following a visit from Rev. Thaddeus Osgood, a general missionary supported by some New England Society, a Sunday School was organized, the first to be opened in York and one of the earliest in the Province. The school was under the patronage of the American Sunday School Union, which provided the spelling and lesson books. W. P. Patrick, Clerk of the Legislative Assembly, was selected as the Superintendent of the School. Jesse Ketchum was appointed Secretary, and these with Dr. T. D. Morrison and Thomas Carfrae constituted the teaching staff.

Owing to the primitive conditions of the time there were few books of any kind for the use of the scholars, no hymn-books, and not many Bibles; and during the earlier sessions the lessons were based on some fragment of the Bible, a Psalm or other passage, pasted on a shingle, which the children were required to commit to memory.

Dr. Carroll, who from its inception was a pupil in the Sunday School and for three or four years was an apprentice in the Ketchum tannery, records many pleasant recollections of his employer, or his “boss”, as he calls him. “I do not think,” he says, “that Mr. Ketchum ever professed any very marked Christian experience, but from our earliest knowledge of him as a householder his character was that of a Christian man. He was never known otherwise than as strictly moral and temperate. Indeed, he was far in advance of the very best part of the community in the avoidance of the drinking customs of the day; he took no snuff, tobacco or drams.” He recalls that the Ketchum home was open to all the travelling ministers who came and went in those days, the Methodist itinerants among the rest; and the candidates for settlement as Presbyterian ministers and the Methodist itinerants who had occasion to come to York, usually found welcome and lodging at his home.

5

THE BUILDING OF KNOX CHURCH

There were now two churches in York. A third, a Presbyterian congregation, was organized in 1820. Prior to this there were but two Presbyterian ministers in all of Upper Canada west of Kingston—Rev. Robert McDowell, of Ernestown, and Rev. W. Jenkins, who had a joint charge at Scarborough and Richmond Hill.

These two clergymen had during several years made frequent visits to York, where they had held services in private homes, sometimes in one and sometimes in another; but the numbers of those sympathetic to the formation of a church were much too small to support a minister of their own.

In June, 1820, a young Irishman, James Harris, of Belfast, a probationer of the Presbyterian Church of Ireland and a licentiate of the Presbytery of Monaghan, sailed for America with a view to engaging in the work of the church in Upper Canada. He reached Brockville on August 10th with letters of introduction to Rev. William Smart, the resident pastor, and on his recommendation passed on immediately to York, where he arrived on August 28th.

Reverend John Strachan, D.D.
Rector of St. James’ Church, Toronto,
Afterwards First Bishop of Toronto.

Mr. Harris was a young, fresh-looking, personable man of good education and pleasing address, and he met with a cordial welcome from the Presbyterians at York. He was invited at once to make his home with the family of Jesse Ketchum, and steps were taken to organize a church and congregation. The use of the large class-room in the school was secured until permanent quarters could be obtained, and services were regularly instituted on September 20th.

Dr. Carroll hazzards the opinion that Mr. Ketchum’s early religious tendencies were Presbyterian; at all events, that those of his wife undoubtedly were. Although but two years had passed since he had assisted in the building of the Methodist Church and had become the leader of the Sunday School which had been opened in connection with it, so enthusiastic were he and his wife over the prospects for the new church that on Christmas day, following the beginning of services in the schoolroom, Mr. Ketchum signed the following agreement, by which he undertook to dedicate the land for the new church and to contribute a substantial amount toward the erection of the permanent church building:

The new church, which was built on the site occupied now by part of the large departmental store of the Robert Simpson Company Limited, was begun during the following summer and opened on February 18th, 1822. It was a small, plain brick building, without ornament of any kind, and it stood about fifty feet back from the street, facing on Hospital Street, that being at the time a more important thoroughfare than Lot Street. The entire cost of its construction was borne by Mr. Ketchum, and the land which he had dedicated for its use consisted, with the exception of the Yonge Street frontage, of the entire block now bounded by Yonge, Queen, Bay and Richmond streets. The western portion of the property, extending to Bay Street, was rented for a time for market garden purposes, chiefly for the growing of potatoes, but in 1825 a manse for the use of the pastor of the church was built upon it by Mr. Ketchum, on the Bay Street frontage.

The First Knox Church, York, erected 1822.

Ever since his arrival in York Mr. Harris had continued to live at the Ketchums, and the building of the manse was the outcome of a romance which had developed between the attractive young Irish clergyman and Fidelia, the second daughter of the household. On their marriage they moved into the manse and this was their home for nearly twenty years.

In 1830 another Presbyterian church was organized. At this time the Church of Scotland was an organization distinct from the Presbyterian Church of Ireland, and those sympathetic with the Scottish branch felt that they had been neglectful of their opportunities. Led by Thomas Carfrae, who had been associated in the opening of the Sunday School in the Methodist Church a few years before, and others among the Scotch inhabitants of York, a church was organized, and in June, 1830, the corner stone was laid of St. Andrew’s Church, at the south-west corner of Newgate and Church streets, just across from St. James’ Episcopal Church.

Seven years later the United Secession Church was organized, with a building at the south-east corner of Bay and Richmond streets. Thus with a population of less than five thousand there were now three Presbyterian congregations in York.

Echoes of the disruption which took place in the Church of Scotland in the old land in 1843 were heard in Canada before many months had passed. Rev. Dr. Robert Burns, as the apostle of the secessionists who had recently organized the Free Church of Scotland, came to York to urge similar action here, while Rev. Dr. Norman Macleod arrived about the same time to sponsor the claims of the Mother Church.

So skilfully did Dr. Burns represent the position for the “Frees” to the congregation of St. Andrew’s that a large portion of them decided to withdraw. Instead, however, of organizing a new congregation, they made an agreement with the congregation of the Irish Presbyterians by which the two bodies should unite. Rev. James Harris, who had now served the congregation for nearly twenty-five years, was retired on a pension; Rev. Dr. Burns was installed in his place, and the church from this time became known as Knox Church.

The new arrangement, however, did not prove to be permanently satisfactory, especially to those of the original congregation. The influx at one time of so large a number disturbed the even tenor of their existence. The induction of a new pastor—a Scotchman from Paisley—and the addition of a name that was so essentially Scottish, suggested to them that the control of their church had passed from their hands into those of others; and in 1851 a commission was appointed, representing those among the Irish membership who were discontented, to plan for the organization of a new church. The outcome was the founding of Cooke’s Church, which had its beginning in 1854.

When Mr. Harris gave up the occupation of the Manse, in 1845, he moved with his family to the old Ketchum homestead on Upper Yonge Street, which had been occupied previous to the removal to York at the time of the purchase of the tannery property, and where Mrs. Harris had been born, and here they continued to live until the death of Mr. Harris in 1873.

1

THE FAMILY COMPACT

The outstanding features in the administration of Sir Peregrine Maitland in Upper Canada consist not so much in the agitation for reform, which was carried on during the entire period of his regime by those opposed to the Government, as in the stupidities which were perpetrated by those in office and the succession of irritating abuses which they countenanced.

According to the first census of the Province, taken in 1824, the population numbered 150,066, but it had a system of government designed for a population many times larger. In theory this system, according to Simcoe, was “the very image and transcript of that of Great Britain;” but in actual practice it had but the barest resemblance to that of the Motherland. In the first place, there was the Lieutenant-Governor personifying, ostensibly, His Majesty. In reality he represented only the Colonial Office, from which he took his directions. The Ministry, or Executive Council, was appointed by the Lieutenant-Governor; but as it was not essential that its members should have seats in either branch of the Legislature there was no such thing as ministerial responsibility, and no possible way by which it could be held to account by the people or their representatives in the Assembly. Then there was the Legislative Council, a body bearing some likeness to the House of Lords, and intended to preserve the “happy balance of our glorious Constitution,” as Sir Peregrine rhetorically phrased it. The members of this Chamber were appointed for life. They received their appointments from the Lieutenant-Governor, and as they were drawn largely from the ranks of those holding public office, and dependent, therefore, upon the Government for their salaries or their pensions, it was not long before they ceased to exercise the “seasonable and wholesome check upon extravagance and inconsiderate legislation of the Lower House,” and became merely a vehicle for baulking the wishes of the people as expressed by their elected representatives. They were for the most part entirely out of harmony with the Legislative Assembly, and became as tools of the administration under which they held, not their seats only, but also their salaried positions under the Crown.

During the eight years preceding that of 1837 the Legislative Council became absolutely ruthless in its attitude toward legislation initiated in the Assembly. As Watson in his The Constitutional History of Canada expressed it, “the Legislative Councils, nominated by the Crown, held the Legislative Assemblies by the throat, kept them prostrate and paralyzed them;” and as for the Executive Council, no act or resolution of the Assembly seemed to it to be worthy of respect or attention. During eight years of Maitland’s administration the Legislative Council rejected no fewer than three hundred and twenty Bills which had been passed by the Assembly—an average of forty for each session.

Under such circumstances it was inevitable that there should be dissatisfaction and discontent. Between the two Houses there was bitter antagonism, and instead of free and representative government the system was tyrannous and despotic. The Executive Council had unlimited power and authority, which it exercised both in direct action and also through its subservient Legislative Council.

Gourlay, whose courage was probably more admirable than his discretion, had challenged this power, and by order of the Court presided over by one of the Government’s henchmen he had been expelled from the country. Not content with this the Legislature, under directions from the Executive Council, passed an Act prohibiting the holding of conventions such as that demanded by Gourlay, at which political grievances might be aired and public affairs openly discussed. Fortunately the better sense of the members ultimately prevailed, and this Act was repealed two years later.

The Government seems to have made a habit about this time of demanding specific legislation to meet troublesome political conditions only to have it repealed later when the members realized their folly. Another instance took place in 1821, by which legislation was evoked in order to penalize a political enemy. The Reformers had nominated Barnabas Bidwell, a man of outstanding ability and experience, and one likely to add materially to the strength of their cause in the Assembly, to fill a vacancy in Lennox and Addington. Unfortunately Mr. Bidwell had had an active political career in the United States before coming to Canada in 1810. He had been Attorney-General of Massachusetts and a member of Congress. During these years he had made many political enemies, and finally, in order to avoid a web of suspicion which had been cast about him and from which he felt it would be impossible to obtain justice, he came to Upper Canada and settled at Bath. He took the oath of allegiance during the war of 1812. Later he assisted Gourlay in the preparation of his book on Upper Canada.^[3]

The election of such a man was looked upon as a serious blow to the Administration, and on the strength of information gathered in Massachusetts as to his record a petition was filed against his election, on the ground that he had once taken the oath of allegiance to the United States; but in case that should prove inadequate, the further charge was made that he was a fugitive from justice and therefore not a fit and proper person to serve in the Assembly. By a bare majority a motion of expulsion was passed, and as it was inevitable that the County would immediately again return him, it was decided to pass special legislation of disqualification. An Act, therefore, was at once hurried through the House providing that any person who had once held any of the principal offices in a foreign country should be rendered ineligible for a seat in the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada.

In the election to fill the still vacant seat Marshall Spring Bidwell, only son of the former disqualified candidate, carried the Reform standard. He was but twenty-three years of age at this time, and although his opponent was declared elected, so flagrant was the corruption employed to defeat the youthful Bidwell that the return was promptly set aside and a new election ordered. At this time, however, new tactics were followed. The returning officer was instructed by the Government to accept no votes for the Reform candidate, on the ground that he was an alien and therefore ineligible for election. The return of the Government candidate was challenged, and again the seat was declared vacant. In this instance, too, it was recognized that second thoughts were better, and in the session of 1823-24 the Act passed two years before to meet the case of Barnabas Bidwell was so amended that persons who had taken the oath of allegiance to a foreign State were rendered eligible for election after seven years’ residence in the Province. Thus after a series of battles the younger Bidwell was permitted ultimately to take his seat, but the proscription levelled against his father still held.

The general election of 1824 resulted in a substantial addition to the fighting strength of the Reform party in the Assembly. Dr. John Rolph, one of the most remarkable personalities in the public life of his day; Captain John Matthews, a retired officer of the Royal Artillery, who for some reason had not been accepted by the official set in York and had settled later in Middlesex, where he became conspicuous because of his liberal opinions; and Peter Perry, son of a U.E.L., and one of the cleverest stump orators of his time, and later one of the founders of the “clear Grit” party—all these came into the Legislature at this time. In point of fact the Reformers now for the first time had a majority in the Assembly, and, what was more important, they far out-distanced their opponents in sheer debating skill and ability.

On the Government side, however, the Family Compact was strongly entrenched, and although it resented bitterly the growing strength of the Reform movement, it determined to fight without giving or asking quarter. Dr. John Strachan and Attorney-General Robinson were easily the most influential leaders, but the latter only was in the Assembly.

It is a little difficult at this distance to appreciate the power and influence exercised by the “Family Compact;” indeed it is difficult sometimes to realize what was meant by the name itself. In a statement contained in William Lyon Mackenzie’s Sketches of Canada and the United States, published in England in 1833, a list is given as to the “manner in which some of the offices, sinecures, and pensions of the Government” were divided. He enumerates thirty of the prominent members of the Government party, giving the office or offices which they occupied, their salaries, pensions or emoluments, and their family relationships one to another. “This family connection,” he says, “rules Upper Canada according to its own good pleasure, and has no efficient check from this country to guard the people against its acts of tyranny and oppression. It includes the whole of the Judges of the Supreme Court and criminal tribunal—active Tory politicians. It includes half the Executive Council or provincial cabinet. It includes the Speaker and eight other members of the Legislative Council. It includes the persons who hold the control of the Canada Land Company’s monopoly. It includes the President and solicitor of the Bank, and about half the Bank directors. . . . And it includes the list of Crown lawyers until last March, when they carried their opposition to Viscount Goderich’s measures of reform to such a height as personally to insult the (British) Government, and to declare their belief that he had not the royal authority for his despatches. . . . . . This Family Compact surround the Lieutenant-Governor and mould him like wax to their will; they fill every office with their relatives, dependents, and partisans; by them justices of the peace and officers of the militia are made and unmade; they have increased the number of the Legislative Council by recommending, through the Governor, half a dozen of nobodies and a few placemen, pensioners and individuals of well-known narrow and bigoted principles; the whole of the revenues of Upper Canada are in reality at their mercy;—they are paymasters, receivers, auditors, King, Lords and Commons!”

This description of the Family Compact was practically confirmed by Lord Durham in his “Report on the Affairs of British North America,” although he seemed inclined to treat the name more as a party designation than an actual condition. “For a long time,” he says, “this body of men, receiving at times accessions to its members, possessed almost all the highest public offices, by means of which, and of its influence in the Executive Council, it wielded all the powers of government; it maintained influence in the Legislature by means of its predominance in the Legislative Council; and it disposed of the large number of party posts which are in the patronage of the Government all over the Province. Successive Governors, as they came in their turn, are said to have either submitted quietly to its influence, or, after a short and unavailing struggle, to have yielded to this well-organized party the conduct of affairs. The bench, the magistracy, the high offices of the Episcopal Church, and a great part of the legal profession, are filled by the adherents of the party; by grant or purchase they have acquired nearly the whole of the waste lands of the Province; they are all-powerful in the chartered banks, and, till lately, shared among themselves almost exclusively all offices of trust and profit.”

A story was current at this time that young John Strachan, a son of the famous political cleric, once boasted in jest at an American table of how he “governed Canada.”

“You govern Canada?” questioned his incredulous hosts. They did not think much of Canada, but they doubted his word.

“Yes, indeed, I do,” returned young Strachan. “My father rules the Family Compact; they rule the Governor; my mother rules my father; and I rule my mother.”

The leaders of the Family Compact and the members of the Administration were usually men of undoubted ability. Many of the families had come of good stock: United Empire Loyalists of education and comparative wealth, the sons of good English, Scotch and Irish families, half-pay officers, and others who by favouritism or speculation had acquired wealth and had been admitted to the inner social and political circles. But the second and the following generations were vastly different. Means of education in the Province at the time were limited, and in many cases those who succeeded to the legislative posts were quite unfitted, excepting in the matter of social graces, for the responsibilities placed upon them.

In the drafting of the Constitutional Act of 1791 provision had been made for the creation in Canada of a sort of hereditary nobility, with the hereditary right of succession to the Legislative Council; and although this system was not actually adopted as originally projected, it was not long before the pernicious effects of membership for life in the Council became increasingly apparent. As vacancies occurred they were filled with sycophants and incompetents. Certain members—Colonel Talbot for example—had persistently refused for many years to attend the sessions, with the result that the Council consisted largely of those who were content merely to echo the will of the dominant Executive Council.

The place of the Legislative Assembly in the Government of the Province was inconsequent and inconsistent. Although the only elected and responsible body in the Legislature, it was systematically robbed of its rights and snubbed in regard to its privileges. Because of the material advantages to be had from supporting the Administration, the Government was able usually to command a majority of votes to carry out its wishes; but in any event the Legislative Council could always be depended upon to do the bidding of those in authority. Illiteracy was no uncommon thing in the Assembly, but because of the test of election the standard of membership was undoubtedly higher than that in the Upper House.

It is related of one of the members of the Assembly that, being a modest man, he tried to withdraw from the chairmanship of the Committee of the House to which he had been appointed, but without success. When the Committee met a statement was handed to him to read aloud. He looked at it gravely and passed it on; and it is said that the paper went half way round the table before it reached a member who was able to act as secretary and interpret it to the meeting.

2

EDITORIAL BUCCANEERS

William Lyon Mackenzie was twenty-nine when he set up his first printing press and began publication of the Colonial Advocate at Queenston on May 18th, 1824. He had been in Canada but four years, having come from Scotland at the suggestion of James Lesslie, of Dundas, with whom he was afterwards associated in business. On account of his natural aptitude for public affairs and his intense nervous energy he soon abandoned the comparative quiet of mercantile life for a journalistic career. He had already met Rolph, the Bidwells, Perry and other of the Reform leaders, and his sympathies were entirely with their cause. To take his place among them was his great ambition, and in view of the pending general elections this seemed the strategic time to enter the lists with an organ of public opinion that could be relied upon to take an aggressive position.

Mackenzie, who was afterwards to become the outstanding figure in the struggle for Responsible Government, was a little, insignificant wisp of a man with a large head, massive brow, alert bright blue eyes, and a firmly-set mouth. He was quick and active in his movements, high-strung, restless, and gifted with an enormous capacity for work. The Colonial Advocate was a one-man paper, and from the first it was conducted with energy, courage and skill. In a letter written during the period of his exile following the Rebellion, he recalls the motives which inspired him to establish the paper and take a hand in the political movements of the day. “I had long seen the country in the hands of a few shrewd, crafty, covetous men,” he writes, “under whose management one of the most lovely and desirable sections of America remained a comparative desert. The most obvious public improvements were stayed; dissension was created among classes; citizens were banished and imprisoned in defiance of all law; the people had been long forbidden, under severe pains and penalties, from meeting anywhere to petition for justice; large estates were wrested from their owners in utter contempt of even the forms of the courts; the Church of England, the adherents of which were few, monopolized as much of the lands of the Colony as all the religious houses and dignitaries of the Roman Catholic Church had had the control of in Scotland at the era of the Reformation; other sects were treated with contempt and scarcely tolerated; a sordid band of land-jobbers grasped the soil as their patrimony, and with a few leading officials, who divided the public revenue among themselves, formed the Family Compact, and were the avowed enemies of common schools, of civil and religious liberty, of all legislative or other checks to their own will. Other men had opposed, and been converted by them. At nine-and-twenty I might have united with them, but chose rather to join the oppressed; nor have I ever regretted that choice, or wavered from the object of my early pursuit.”

Mackenzie’s was personal journalism in a very real sense, and he soon became recognized as an important influence in the Reform movement. He took an advanced position on many public questions, and for the most part expressed himself in the first person singular. So outspoken were his comments on the Lieutenant-Governor and his satellites in the very first issue of the Advocate that talk of suppression was heard almost before copies of the paper had reached the capital.

Revenge was not long delayed. The laying of the foundation-stone for the monument to Major-General Sir Isaac Brock on the heights at Queenston had been fixed for June 1st, 1824, two weeks after the first number of the Colonial Advocate had been issued. As a prominent citizen of the district Mackenzie naturally had taken an active part in the ceremonial, and in co-operation with the committee a few coins and copies of the newspapers of the day were placed in a sealed bottle in the cavity of the stone. The stone was then with due solemnity touched with the trowel and the dedication concluded with Masonic honours. One of the papers enclosed in the bottle was, naturally, a copy of the first issue of the Colonial Advocate. When Sir Peregrine Maitland learned that Mackenzie had taken a leading part in the ceremonial he immediately ordered Colonel Clark, one of the Commissioners appointed to supervise the erection of the monument, to stop the work and remove the offensive paper. Thus with a clash of arms Mackenzie began his newspaper career.

Six months later he removed his paper and his family to York in order to be closer to the scene of action and be ready for the opening of the new Legislature, which was to meet in January. The Government now found itself for the first time in a minority. This was Mackenzie’s opportunity, and he lashed at the Administration with all the energy and scorn at his command. Before the close of the session Responsible Government became the leading issue of the day, and the editor of the Advocate one of the best hated men in the Province.

But the paper, though increasing in prestige, was now limping badly as a business enterprise. The cost of production and the postage to country subscribers was out of proportion to its receipts. Mackenzie’s small savings had become exhausted, and the issues did not always appear in regular sequence. About the time that his financial affairs were causing him the greatest embarrassment, and during an interval when he was absent from York, an attack was made upon his place of business by an organized mob, which broke into his shop, overturned the imposing stone containing pages of type, smashed the printing press and much of the equipment, and dumped a quantity of the type into the waters of the Bay.

It was soon discovered that those who composed the mob were all relatives of members of the Family Compact or persons identified with them by association or employment. Mackenzie immediately entered action against them for damages, and, to the chagrin of the members of the Government, the jury awarded him damages to the amount of £625, together with costs. This money, which was raised by subscription among the friends of the rioters, soon rehabilitated the almost defunct Advocate, and Mackenzie became recognized as a martyr to the cause of reform.

The chief journalistic rival of the Advocate at this time was not a supporter of the Administration, but one that was its avowed and persistent enemy. Francis Collins, a young Irish Roman Catholic printer, had worked for a time for Dr. R. C. Horne, the King’s Printer, as a reporter of debates for the Upper Canada Gazette. When, owing to an unfortunately expressed report of certain proceedings of the House which the Government did not approve of, that official was relieved of his office, Collins had the temerity to apply for the position. But he was promptly rebuked for his impertinence and assured that such an office would be given to “no one but a gentleman.” As one who claimed descent direct from the Irish Kings Collins was highly incensed at such an indignity, and in 1825 he founded the Canadian Freeman and laid himself out to try and destroy the Government and all its works. His editorial utterances, many of which were put into type without ever having first been written by hand, were quite the equal in vigor and bitterness of any of those by Mackenzie, and he pursued Sir Peregrine and his Executive Council week by week with malevolent hostility.

Finally, after submitting patiently—or rather impatiently—for nearly three years, the Government decided to take action to shut off the gas attacks. A series of libel actions were brought against Collins in an effort to cripple him financially. These, however, met with little success, while he on the other hand gave Attorney-General Robinson, his favourite enemy, no excuse for leaving him alone. After several abortive attempts to entrap Collins with legal entanglements, a fresh indictment was laid against him for personal libel upon the sacred person of the Attorney-General himself. In reporting a recent trial from which he had emerged victorious Collins had accused the Attorney-General of “native malignancy” and of “open, palpable falsehood.” In this action he was not so fortunate. Justice Sherwood declared the Freeman’s report to be “a gross and scandalous libel,” and the jury, after deliberating for five hours, returned a verdict of “Guilty.” Collins was sentenced by the Court to pay a fine of fifty pounds, to be imprisoned for twelve months, to find securities for his good behaviour for three years after his liberation, himself in four hundred pounds and two sureties in one hundred pounds each, and to stand committed until all these conditions should be complied with.

As the Attorney-General had already failed in four indictments against Collins such a sentence was out of all proportion in severity for a charge of “native malignancy,” even if applied to so august a personality; and especially was this the case when editors sympathetic to the Government were permitted, if not actually encouraged, to pursue their opponents with hot-shot quite as bitter and vindictive. Moreover, the sting of the sentence of the Court was in the clause demanding two sureties for the editor’s good behaviour.

Meanwhile the Freeman continued to make intermittent appearance, but its editorial comments, written from the prison cell, showed no lessening in venom or caustic criticism. Petition after petition in the editor’s behalf went forward to the Lieutenant-Governor, first to Sir Peregrine Maitland, and then to his successor, Sir John Colborne; and an address sent from the Legislative Assembly itself to His Majesty entreated him to “extend to Francis Collins the royal clemency by remitting the residue of his punishment.” Public subscriptions ultimately paid the fine after Collins had been in jail for many months, but it was difficult to find anyone who could guarantee that Collins would preserve the peace if restored to liberty.

3

JESSE KETCHUM ENTERS POLITICS

Jesse Ketchum’s first taste of public life—that imbibed while trustee for the first Common School of York—had not been altogether without result. Unlike the fiery Mackenzie, who revelled in contention, he was essentially a man of peace. But he had now experienced personally the full pressure of the arrogant Strachan, who had filched from the control of the Board of Trustees the school in which he had been so vitally interested and which the citizens of York had built with their own money; and he had been compelled to carry on a continuous fight for nearly eight years against an unscrupulous antagonist in order to get bare justice for the schoolmaster. The victory which he had achieved for Mr. Appleton was largely a personal triumph, and he was now definitely aligned with the Reform movement.

The Clergy Reserves agitation, too, had now become a burning question. The Crown, following Simcoe’s suggestion, had long ago set apart one-seventh of the lands of the Province for the “support of a Protestant clergy,” and as a member of the Executive Council Dr. Strachan had assumed control of these lands as part of the ecclesiastical system of the Province. As to who constituted the “Protestant clergy” there was in Strachan’s mind no manner of doubt. With the Church of England as the established Church in the old land it followed as a natural consequence that it must be the established Church in Canada. The revenue from these lands was not large, amounting in 1819 to but £700, but whether much or little the other denominations, which now had far outstripped the Church of England in numbers, were demanding that it should be divided on some reasonable basis among all the Christian churches.

The death of the Rev. Dr. Mountain, Bishop of Quebec,^[4] in 1825, furnished the occasion for an official declaration of policy. Dr. Strachan preached a funeral sermon on the life and work of the distinguished prelate. This sermon, issued subsequently in pamphlet form, constituted a statement as to the purpose of the Church of England in Canada, and accompanying it was a chart containing much information as to the clergy, not only of that Church, but also of all those in the Province.

Vigorous exception was taken immediately to the Ecclesiastical Chart both in England and in Canada, and the Moderator of the Kirk of Scotland went so far as to denounce it as a tissue of misrepresentations. One of the most outspoken replies which it evoked was that made by Egerton Ryerson, then a young Methodist preacher of twenty-three, who with this made his entry into public controversy and soon became recognized as one of Strachan’s strongest opponents.

The battle in the press continued long and furiously. As Strachan himself expressed it: “The floodgates of a most licentious press were opened upon me; newspapers in both Provinces, day after day and week after week, poured out the most rancorous calumny and abuse upon me.” Finally, unable to hold himself in check any longer, he addressed a reply to his critics in the Legislative Council. In a speech bristling with denunciation and supported with argument and invective he defended the position which he had taken on behalf of his Church; but unfortunately, while making an effort to substantiate the statements in the Chart, he was compelled to acknowledge that it contained “some inaccuracies.”

The Assembly, too, felt obliged to enter the controversy. Doctor Strachan, now since the death of Dr. Mountain, Archdeacon of York, in a letter accompanying the Chart had made this statement: “The Methodist teachers are subject to the order of the United States of America, and it is manifest that the Colonial Government neither has, nor can have, any other control over them, or prevent them from gradually rendering a large portion of the population, by their influence and instructions, hostile to our institutions, civil and religious, than by increasing the numbers of the Established clergy.” The Legislative Council, on hearing Strachan’s statement, immediately passed unanimously a resolution declaring that “in relation to a certain Letter and Ecclesiastical Chart, said to have been addressed by Archdeacon Strachan to the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, and in his agency in procuring the Charter for the University of King’s College, he hath explained his conduct in relation to the same to the satisfaction of this House.” But in the Legislative Assembly he had no such luck. A committee of investigation was appointed to examine into the whole affair. Fifty-two witnesses were examined, an elaborate report was adopted, and an Address prepared and forwarded to the King condemning the statements of Doctor Strachan and remonstrating against the establishing of a dominant Church in the Province.

Doctor Strachan determined to reply direct to the Colonial Office and went to England, where he remained for many months. While there he took up with the British Government the matter of the sale of the Clergy Reserve lands. “I got a Bill introduced in February into Parliament,” he writes in a letter to a friend in York, “to enable the Crown to sell a portion of the Clergy Reserves, as they are at present totally unproductive, and a cause of clamour as being a barrier to improvement. I was anxious to avoid the great question that has been agitated in the Colony about the meaning of the words ‘Protestant Clergy,’ and confined myself simply to the power of sale. Mr. Stanley came forward with a motion to investigate the whole matter, and of consequence the second reading of my Bill is put off to the first of May.”

Echoes of Strachan’s representations to the British Government and before Parliament reached York, and a public meeting was called in December, 1827, to take action. Jesse Ketchum, one of the most vital personalities in the community, was chosen as chairman, and Dr. T. D. Morrison as secretary. By resolution the whole matter was referred eventually to a permanent Committee consisting of Jesse Ketchum, Reverend William Ryerson, Reverend James Harris, Elder Alexander Stewart, Elder George Barclay, Dr. T. D. Morrison, Reverend William Jenkins, William Hewitt, James Lesslie, Thomas Vaux, W. L. Mackenzie, James Wilson, Thomas Stoyell, James Braby, John Braby, Robert Randall and Andrew Bell. Jesse Ketchum, because of his skill and ability in the handling of difficult political problems, was chosen as permanent Chairman and Dr. Morrison as Secretary; and the Committee, which soon became known as the Central Committee, was authorized to collect by means of a questionnaire full information as to the actual position of the different religious denominations in the Province, to circulate petitions for signature, and, if deemed advisable, to send a representative to England to present the case of those opposed to the legislation asked for by Doctor Strachan.

Reverend George Ryerson, eldest brother of Egerton, was deputed by the Committee to go to England to present the petition, and to another brother, Reverend William Ryerson, was delegated the duty of advising him as to the information collected. In doing this he took occasion to explain the manner in which much of the information given by Doctor Strachan in his Chart had been obtained. “It may be proper to advise you,” writes William Ryerson, “that the Church of England has been making an enquiry into the religious state of the Province, the results of which they have sent home to the Imperial Parliament. And, in order to swell the numbers as much as possible, they have sent persons through almost every portion of the Province who, when they come into a home, enquire of the head of the family as to what Church he belongs. If he says to the Methodist or any other body of dissenters, they will enquire if their children belong to the same Church. If they say no, they set down the children as members of the Church of England! If they say that neither themselves nor their children belong to any particular church, they set them all down as members of the Church of England! So that should they make a parade of their members you can tell how they got them.”

Mr. Ketchum and his Central Committee soon discovered that they had a wider field than had originally been anticipated, and the Committee became a recognized agency, not only in the movement against the existing administration of the Clergy Reserves lands, but also as an advisory board in the general arena of political affairs.

Its first notable public service was in connection with the Naturalization or Alien Act, passed during the previous session, but which had not yet received the Royal Assent. Under the terms of this Act, which undoubtedly was aimed at certain enemies of the Government, all those persons in the Province who had lived in the United States at any time since the Peace Treaty of 1783 were to be deemed as citizens of that country, and therefore aliens under the law. In spite of the fact that many of those directly affected by the proposed Act had lived in the Province for many years and were looked upon as among its leading citizens, and that some were even at the moment members of the Provincial Legislature, it seemed an infamous invasion of the rights of citizenship that these persons should be compelled at this late date to take the oath of allegiance in the Province.

The Central Committee undertook to fight this Act. Failing to secure redress from the Legislature, it determined to send a representative to England in order if possible to head off the Royal Assent. Robert Randall, a native of Virginia, and now a member of the Legislative Assembly, was entrusted with the task, and he carried with him a petition signed by upwards of fifteen thousand citizens of the Province. His mission was successful in every way; the Royal Assent was refused, and a year later the Legislature passed another Bill drafted in accordance with instructions from His Majesty’s Government. From this moment the Central Committee, which had now assumed active leadership in the fight against exclusive control of the Clergy Reserves by Doctor Strachan and his friends, and other obvious abuses, was marked for destruction.

Mackenzie, late in 1827, and without waiting to be invited, announced his candidature for York County at the general elections to take place during the following year. James E. Small, who had been his solicitor in the mob action two years before, immediately announced himself also. That neither was a popular announcement is indicated by the vote at the Reform convention held in Newmarket a few weeks later. Political parties, both then and now, prefer to make their own selections, and when the ballot was taken it was found that Mackenzie had received but three votes and Small nine, while William Roe had fifty-seven and Jesse Ketchum forty-one. Nothing daunted, however, Mackenzie determined to run as an independent candidate, and was elected, running second to Ketchum, one of the official nominees. The defeated candidates were Small and young Robert Baldwin, then a youth of twenty-five making his first essay in public life. His nomination had been endorsed by the Reform party, but Mackenzie’s forceful personality had beaten him in the test for popular support.

The Session of the Assembly opened with a trial of strength which indicated that the Reform party was clearly in the majority. Its ranks in the House had now been substantially strengthened by the return of the two new members for York County. Another recruit was Mr. Fothergill, who had recently been dismissed from the office of King’s Printer because of his independence in voting against the Naturalization Bill and for his support of a resolution criticizing the administration of the Post Office, then handled by the British Postmaster-General.

First blood was drawn in the passing of the resolution on the Address which set forth for the first time the principle that the Assembly should be the responsible adviser of the Crown. It also condemned the present advisers of His Excellency—now Sir John Colborne—the same crowd which for years had caused ill-feeling in the country; and it suggested that the wishes and interests of the people should have first consideration, that the administration of justice should be above suspicion, that the revenues of the country should be devoted to public improvements, and that economy should be exercised in the public service.

This must have been a bitter pill for the friends of the Administration to swallow, as in a House of thirty-eight but one member was found with sufficient courage to vote against it and in defence of the Government. But votes of want of confidence in those days were matters of every day occurrence and were treated with the utmost indifference. In the matter of supplies, also, they were independent, as the “casual and territorial” revenues of the Province were entirely within its control and it was able to get along year after year without reference to the Assembly. Indeed, in one of the messages from the Lieutenant-Governor it was intimated that the Lower House would not be asked to trouble itself about “ways and means.”

During the session of 1829 twenty-one Bills passed by the Assembly were summarily rejected by the Legislative Council, and in the session which followed twenty-seven met the same fate. In opening the session of 1830 Sir John Colborne announced that the revenues of the Crown had again been sufficient to meet the needs of the Government for the year, and that a considerable surplus remained. But the Assembly, instead of hailing this announcement with delight, immediately proceeded to pass another want of confidence address. “We still feel unabated solicitude about the administration of public justice,” declared the resolution, “and entertain a settled conviction that the continuance about your Excellency of those advisers who from the unhappy policy they pursued have long deservedly lost the confidence of the country, is highly inexpedient and calculated seriously to weaken the expectations of the people from the impartial and disinterested justice of His Majesty’s Government.”

The Freeman during all this time was pouring withering chain-shot into the Government and all its gang. But Collins was the kind of Irishman who was not only “agin” the Government but also “agin” its enemies as well. He refused to recognize the Advocate as an ally, and he despised it as a foe; and his attacks on Mackenzie were quite as vitriolic and malevolent as those on the Lieutenant-Governor. He refused to take Mackenzie’s candidature seriously, and his election in York was a keen disappointment. “Wm. L. Mackenzie, King Jesse’s Jackall,” cries the Freeman in a bitter criticism in its issue of August 7th, 1828, “having been returned to Parliament through the intrigue of the Central Committee, has already assumed all the airs of a grave legislator.” Evidently Jesse Ketchum as Chairman of the Central Committee is now a person of some importance in the community. Not only has he been able to have himself elected, but, according to Collins, he has been able to carry Mackenzie with him. “Does little Mackenzie, Jesse Ketchum’s Jackall, recollect when an outrage upon his press softened down the feelings of public indignation against him, which his billingsgate had excited, so far as to enable him to show his face in the Province? . . . Is this the man that has been selected by King Jesse and the Central Committee to legislate for the County of York? How can Mr. Ketchum or Dr. Burnside show their faces to their fellow-townsmen after lending their influence and their purse to procure a seat in the Legislature for such a scurvy beggar? . . .”

But he goes further. In another editorial he states that “King Jesse and his Jackall, little Mackenzie, plotted the defeat of Mr. Beardsley’s election in conjunction with Major Randal and Dr. Lefferty and the Jackall went over as an agent from the Central Committee to engage the services of the Niagara Branch Committees for this purpose. As we look upon this to be a most nefarious transaction, and view the defeat of Mr. Beardsley as a public loss, he being the soundest patriot ever returned for Lincoln, we will thank some of our friends to furnish us with correct information, so that we may bring the matter properly before the country.”

The sessions of 1829 and 1830 were noisy and quarrelsome, but comparatively barren of important issues. The Government, recognizing that it was in a minority, was content with negative victories. But it looked forward eagerly to its next test of strength. The death of King George IV., in 1830, brought the dissolution earlier than was expected, and both parties squared away for a life and death struggle at the polls. Mackenzie set the pace at once by making the issue Responsible Government. He drew up a vigorous indictment against the Administration in a series of open letters addressed to the Lieutenant-Governor, but intended as an appeal to the entire Province.

Jesse Ketchum and he were again candidates in York County, but this time they both received official endorsation from the Reform party. The Freeman, unable to support the Government candidates and unwilling to accept Mackenzie, turned its guns on both. Its account in the issue of October 21st of the nominations in York County is probably coloured, not so much because of Jesse Ketchum’s candidature as of that of his colleague. “York County election,” it predicts, “will be warmly contested between the two old members, Ketchum and Mackenzie, and Messrs. Washburn and Thorn. Ketchum, in an attempt at a speech, exhibited the greatest stupidity and grossest ignorance we ever heard or saw. He told a silly story about a nurse and child that sickened all who heard it, and then said that although the Upper House had a right to control and appropriate one-half the revenues of the country, the House of Assembly was entitled to the control of the other half. This doctrine, coming from an ignoramus offering his services to defend the rights of the people, drove every intelligent man into a burst of laughter which so bothered the poor Buffalo tanner^[5] that he seemed scarcely to know what he was about. Mackenzie received an awful castigation. Mr. Washburn proved to the satisfaction of all that he actually applied for the situation of Government Printer both in the Province and in Lower Canada. A copy of the Washington Watch Tower charging Mackenzie with treasonable designs was produced and the cries of ‘traitor,’ ‘rebel,’ ‘villain,’ interrupted with hisses, resounded from all quarters. We never saw a candidate treated with such contempt and insult.”

The main plank put forward by the Reform candidates was that first laid down by Mackenzie, the principle of Responsible Government. Accompanying it was a demand for the purging of the Legislative Council of persons wholly or partially dependent on the Executive Council for their support, the control of the entire revenues of the Province by the Legislature, with the exception of territorial and hereditary revenues, the responsibility of the Executive to the people of the Province, and the exclusion of all religious denominations from participation in the administration of the affairs of the Province.

The result of the elections was a sweeping victory for the Family Compact Government. The Reform ranks were sadly broken and many of the leaders were among the slain. But conditions in some of the constituencies in Upper Canada in those days were much like those in the “pocket boroughs” in England. In a House of forty-seven a majority of the members represented less than one-third of the population. York County alone with two members—again Ketchum and Mackenzie—had more people than the combined ridings of Hastings, Dundas, Haldimand, Niagara and Brockville, which together returned seven members, and there were constituencies in the Province which contained not more than a score of voters altogether. The quality of the men, too, was not above reproach. Among the members of the new House were half a dozen Postmasters, several Collectors of Customs, Sheriffs and County Registrars. The Commissioner of Customs and the Inspector of Tavern Licenses were also among those elected, and even the newly elected Speaker held the office of Clerk of the Crown in the district in which he lived. Needless to say, none of these were numbered among the opponents of the Administration.

4

THE STORMY PARLIAMENT

Jesse Ketchum was now launched on the most stormy period of his career. At forty-eight he found himself a popular member of the Legislative Assembly, a highly successful manufacturer and regarded as a man of sane and mature judgment. He had not the forceful and aggressive personality of Mackenzie, nor, fortunately, his gift for pertinacious and exasperating criticism, but he gave hearty and consistent support to the policies initiated by his younger colleague, and he added generous financial support to the Reform movement.

The indifference of the Administration to the expressed will of the people when the majority in the Assembly was against it was bad enough—the Reformers then had at least a moral claim—but now that the majorities in both Houses were sympathetic the Government had everything its own way.

William Lyon Mackenzie,
Leader of the Reform Movement in
Upper Canada.

The casualties in the Reform ranks in the recent elections had been heavy: the cautious and unfathomable Dr. John Rolph, the shrewd and fortunate Dr. William Warren Baldwin and his brilliant young son Robert, had all suffered defeat; while the outspoken but tactless Captain Matthews, who had been broken by the Administration and had suffered the cancellation of his military pension, had been forced to resign his seat. Thus, in spite of the presence of Peter Perry, John Willson and Ex-Speaker Bidwell, all tried and experienced parliamentarians, Mackenzie with his unbounded energy, his radical views, and his venomous vaporings, gravitated naturally into the leadership of the opposition group.

But if Mackenzie’s manners and methods were offensive, those of the new Government leaders were no great improvement. The position of Attorney-General was now occupied by the arrogant and bumptious H. J. Boulton, in succession to John Beverley Robinson, who had recently been appointed Chief Justice of the Province, and the office of Solicitor-General was filled by the garrulous Christopher A. Hagerman, son of Nicholas Hagerman of Adolphustown and step-son of Polly Ketchum.

Mackenzie lost no time in setting the tinder aflame. He began with a resolution questioning the right of the Executive Council to appoint a Chaplain for the House, demanding that the clergymen of the various denominations in York should be invited in turn to open the sittings with prayers. This was followed by a series of resolutions, each aimed at some weak spot in the armour of the Administration: among them a motion to enquire into the representation in the House by which postmasters, county registrars and other public officials dependent on the Government for their salaries, were permitted to sit as members; a resolution to enquire into the amount of fees, salaries and pensions paid out from revenues not under the control of the Assembly, and of the amounts paid to religious denominations; and a motion to enquire into the banking system of the Province and the management of the Bank of Upper Canada, of which the new Attorney-General was solicitor.

All this was more than a patient and long-suffering Administration could be expected to bear, especially at the hands of a defeated and fragmentary opposition. Further, the Reform minority objected strenuously to the “Everlasting Salaries Bill,” a harmless and innocuous measure which provided for a permanent Civil List without consulting the House, to cover the salaries of the judges, the Lieutenant-Governor, the Executive Councillors, and the Attorney and Solicitor Generals.

There was a time when persons both in the House and out of it had been punished whenever they proved refractory. Perhaps some measure could be devised to meet the present situation! At any rate it was worth trying. The first attempt, that of accusing Mackenzie of a breach of the privileges of the House in circulating copies of the Journals of the House during the recent election in the interests of the Reform candidates, was defeated—even a subservient majority being unwilling to support so transparent an attempt at intimidation. But in the following session the Government fared much better.

During the recess the Reform members, under the leadership of Mackenzie and Ketchum, initiated a campaign to arouse the people of the Province against the abuses of power indulged in by the Government. Meetings were held in various places and petitions were drawn up in addresses to the King and the British Parliament. Among other things the petitioners asked that “the same constitutional principle which has called your present ministers to office” might be recognized and acted upon in Upper Canada, so that “we may see only those who possess the confidence of the people composing the Executive Council of your Majesty’s representative.” These petitions, signed by more than twenty-four thousand persons, were, later, carried to England by Mackenzie himself.

The House met again on November 17th (1831), and three weeks later the real fighting began. A charge was levelled by the Government against Mackenzie on account of two articles published in recent numbers of the Colonial Advocate, one on November 24th and the other on December 1st—both since the actual opening of the House—which it characterized as “gross, scandalous and malicious libels, intended and calculated to bring the House and the Government of the Province into contempt.” One of these articles was a severe criticism of the attitude of the Government toward a petition from the people of Vaughan Township, in Mackenzie’s own riding, while the other was a somewhat vivid commentary upon the Executive Council of the Province, accompanied by a stinging comparison between it and the Administration in Lower Canada. One paragraph which appears to have got under the skin of the Government reads: “Our representative body has degenerated into a sycophantic office for registering the decrees of as mean and mercenary an Executive as ever was given as a punishment for the sins of any part of North America in the nineteenth century. We boast of our superior intelligence, of our love of liberty; but where are the fruits? Has not the subservience of our Legislature to a worthless Executive become a by-word and a reproach throughout the Colonies?”

Mackenzie immediately challenged the authority of the House to try such a prosecution. If libel had been uttered, he urged, the Government could ask the Crown officers to institute proceedings against him; but the House was not a proper tribunal where the members would occupy the impossible position of complainant, judge and jury, and he was entitled to and demanded a legal trial before a jury.

The prosecution of the charge was led by Boulton and Hagerman, with vigor if not with vindictiveness, while Mackenzie by his address in his own defence was declared to have but aggravated the case already charged against him. After a week of incessant and acrimonious debate Mackenzie, by a vote of the House, was found to be guilty of the libel charged against him; by another vote he was declared guilty of a “high breach of the privileges of the House,” and by a third it was resolved to expel him from the House itself.

The fat was now in the fire. The Administration had accomplished its purpose. But instead of suppressing the erratic Mackenzie this tyrannous act of expulsion had quite the contrary effect; it again lifted him to the rank of martyr. People began to take notice of him because of the enemies he had made; and so wide-spread was the interest in the event that the Lieutenant-Governor during the week of the debate was bombarded with petitions from all parts of the Province asking for the dismissal of a House “tainted with the worst vices of judicial partiality.” A deputation, consisting of nearly one thousand persons, which went to Government House with a view to presenting their petition to His Excellency in person was treated with scant courtesy. Mackenzie became the hero of the hour, and, following the resolution of expulsion, he was carried through the streets of the town amid the acclamations of an enthusiastic populace.

The writ for a new election was issued at once, and when on the day of the vote, January 2nd, the Government candidate had received during the first hour and a half but one vote to one hundred and nineteen for Mackenzie, he abandoned the contest and Mackenzie was escorted in triumph back to the Parliament Buildings, whence he had been expelled three weeks before.

But the House would have none of him. The echoes of his expulsion had as yet scarcely died away. An attempt to refuse him entry on the ground that he had been declared unfit and unworthy to be a member of the House proved untenable, owing to the fact that he had just been re-elected, and some other excuse had to be found. Presently it was discovered that in the current issue of the Colonial Advocate an article had appeared, written by Mackenzie, in which it was claimed he had endeavoured by “false, scandalous and malicious representations to cause His Majesty’s subjects of the Province to believe that the majority of their representatives should be held in execration and abhorrence by posterity as enemies of the liberties of the people they represent—as persons who would by violent and unconstitutional means destroy the liberty of the press and convert the fifty members of which the House is composed into tyrants in close and unholy alliance with trained bands of public robbers: Wherefore,” so the resolution submitted to the House continued, “it is resolved that the said William Lyon Mackenzie be expelled [from (added by Transcriber)] the House and declared unfit and unworthy to hold a seat therein.”

The lesson of the one expulsion was evidently not enough. The Government, with a fatuity beyond understanding, seemed determined to make Mackenzie a great popular figure in the community. And Mackenzie was not slow to sense the public mind. As a regularly elected member of the House he claimed the right to be heard. He pointed out in his defence that public opinion was decidedly against any such action on the part of the Assembly, and he declared that the alleged libel had been read by him on the hustings, and that after the people of York County had heard it but one solitary voter had been found to vote in favour of his opponent. But the House was determined to get rid of him at all hazards, and by a vote of twenty-seven to nineteen he was expelled a second time.

Mackenzie’s constituents, however, refused to share the opinions of the majority of the House. Although declared “unfit and unworthy” to hold a seat, his name was again put forward at the by-election four weeks later. Against him on this occasion were James E. Small and Simon Washburn, both former antagonists, and again they were ignominiously defeated, Mackenzie receiving 628 votes, Small 96, and Washburn 23.

The Legislature by this time was no longer in session. During the recess further efforts were put forth by the Reformers to obtain popular support. Public meetings were held to denounce the arbitrary conduct of the official majority, more especially in their unwarranted expulsion of Mackenzie, and to complete the arrangements for the petitions to the King and the British Government. One of these meetings was called for March 23rd at the Court House in York, at the north-west corner of King and Church streets. In spite of the fact that an attempt had been made on Mackenzie’s life at a meeting in Hamilton but a few days before, no special provisions were made by the authorities to protect this meeting from molestation. Jesse Ketchum and Dr. William Dunlop, the rugged but eccentric Warden of the Canada Company, were both proposed as chairman; but when the big, assertive Doctor advanced to take possession of the chair in spite of an obvious majority in favour of Ketchum, the Reform sympathizers were called upon to withdraw in order to organize an open-air meeting in the square outside. A farmer’s waggon was commandeered to serve as a platform, and Mr. Ketchum was appointed chairman. After addressing the gathering on the issues of the day and explaining the reasons for the meeting, he called on Mackenzie to speak. This was the signal for an attack by a group of friends of the Government who had followed from the Court House. Stones and other missiles were hurled at the speakers on the waggon, sticks were flourished, a knife was drawn by one as though to make an attack, and before long a riot was in progress. The Sheriff, now thoroughly alarmed, appealed to Mr. Ketchum to abandon the meeting in order to avoid bloodshed; and while the peace-loving chairman was appealing for order the shafts of the waggon containing the speakers were seized by a group of Tory hoodlums, and the unsteady platform was wheeled rapidly down King Street to the accompaniment of jeers and threats.

Fortunately, someone at this point suggested that the friends of the Government should go in a body to Government House and cheer for His Excellency. With the turbulent portion of the crowd thus removed the meeting proceeded and Ketchum and Mackenzie continued their addresses. An appeal to the King was submitted to the meeting, and hundreds of signatures were obtained at tables set up in the streets.

Before the signing of the petition had been completed, however, the mob which had gone to Government House had returned carrying an effigy of Mackenzie, and after burning it in the street with much ceremonial it proceeded to attack his house and printing plant where his paper was issued. The riot continued during most of the night. The windows of the Colonial Advocate office were broken and some of the type was destroyed, and so bitter was the feeling at the time that it was found necessary for some weeks to maintain guards for the protection of Mackenzie’s family and his business.

The report in reference to this meeting in The Upper Canada Courier, the organ of the Government, reflects something of the temper of the time. It had undertaken in advance to caution the Reformers against “any attempt at deception,” declaring, in case their warning was not heeded, that “we most assuredly would not ensure the leading revolutionary tools a whole skin, or a whole bone in their skins, for the space of fifteen minutes.” Later, in an account of the meeting itself, it declared that “every wheel of their well-organized political machine was set in motion to transmute country farmers into citizens of York. Accordingly, about nine in the morning, groups of tall, broad-shouldered, hulking fellows were seen arriving from Whitby, Pickering and Scarborough, some crowded in waggons and others on horseback; and Hogg, the miller, headed a herd of the swine of Yonge Street, who made just as good votes at the meeting as the best shopkeepers in York.”

Mackenzie left for England in April, 1832, carrying with him the petitions which had been accumulating for months. In association with Rev. George Ryerson, who had gone on behalf of the Central Committee and the Methodist Conference, and D. B. Viger, the representative of Lower Canada, he met the Colonial Minister in London and presented his petitions, together with a written statement as to conditions in the Province. About the same time documents and heavily signed petitions began to arrive also from the members of the Administration, and thus the Colonial Office had both sides of the question before it.

Lord Goderich made reply to the representations of the opposing parties on November 8th. He dealt at length and with eminent fairness with the various points covered by the memorials, refusing some and approving of others; and his despatch, submitted later to the House, contained many important recommendations. The Lieutenant-Governor of the Province was instructed, for instance, to procure the repeal of the law which disqualified British subjects from voting at elections after their return from residence in foreign countries. He was told that “His Majesty expects and requires of you neither to practise nor to allow on the part of those who are officially subordinate to you any interference with the right of His Majesty’s subjects to the free and unbiased choice of their representatives.” He was instructed further to forward to the utmost extent of his “lawful authority and influence” every scheme for the extension of education amongst the youth of the Province, and especially the “poorest and most destitute among their number.” All restrictions as to placing before the Legislature full statements of all revenue and expenditure were to be removed; the gratuitous disposal of public lands among favourites was deprecated; ecclesiastical members of the Legislative Council were advised to abstain from interference in any secular matters brought before that body, and their presence even in the Legislature was discouraged; and it was recommended that a Bill be enacted providing for an independent judiciary.

Naturally such a document, even from so august an official as the Colonial Secretary, was not exactly palatable. In other words, the Government was furious. Mackenzie had secured concessions far beyond anything he might have conceived possible. The Legislative Council, in spite of its protestations of extreme loyalty, refused to accept the despatch or even to recognize it, and it declared by resolution that the document called for no serious attention. Even in the Assembly it was by no means welcome. It was pointed out to the House that the allegations which deeply affected the character of Upper Canada rested on no better authority than that of an individual who had been twice expelled from the Assembly, and the House gravely debated the question of returning it altogether. Attorney-General Boulton affected to treat the whole despatch with contempt, declaring it was ill-becoming of the Colonial Secretary to “sit down and answer all this rigmarole trash,” and that “it would much less become the House to interfere with it.” The editor of the Courier also had something to say, and in a bitter editorial comment he described the despatch as an “elegant piece of fiddle-faddle” and “full of clever stupidity and condescending impertinence.” Finally the House, while consenting to receive it, decided not to permit the documents which accompanied it to go into the Journals.

During Mackenzie’s absence in England he was expelled for a third time. There had been no new offence charged against him, no new transgression; but the law officers—the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General—had decreed that as he had already been expelled twice he could have no right to again sit in the House. As their attitude in regard to the previous expulsions had already been reported to the Colonial Office, and commented on in the despatch of November 8th, this action on their part could be viewed only as a direct violation of the expressed wish of the Colonial Minister. Further, the insolence shown by the Legislature in regard to his message could not be overlooked. Sir John Colborne, therefore, was instructed in a letter dated March 6th, 1833, that, as the Attorney and Solicitor Generals had taken a position directly opposed to the avowed policy of His Majesty’s Government, “I have received His Majesty’s commands to inform you that he regrets that he can no longer avail himself of their services, and that from the time of your receiving this despatch they are to be relieved from the duties imposed upon them in their respective offices.”

The effect of this action by the Colonial Minister was electrical. The boasted loyalty of the pillars of the Government was at once shot to pieces. The Courier described it as “as high-handed and arbitrary a stretch of power as has been enacted before the face of high heaven.” The shoe is now on the other foot. The united factions of “Mackenzie, Goderich and the Yankee Methodists” are blamed, and it was said that the Colonial Secretary had not only more than half alienated the well-affected people of the country, but that they had begun to cast about in their mind’s eye for “some new state of political existence.”

An address to His Majesty was promptly drawn up by the Government for presentation to the House protesting that as Upper Canada was a free, sovereign, independent Province, or nation of itself, with the King of England as its Sovereign, “the King’s Ministers in England have no right or authority to recommend to His Majesty any instructions to be transmitted to his Viceroy here for his guidance with relation to the affairs of this Province, or the application of its laws or revenues, to any purpose whatever,” and that “in respect to laws to which the obedience of the Province (or nation) is required, the House of Assembly on their behalf claims, and is resolved to exercise, the same right as the House of Commons of England exercises, in the making of laws for the peace, welfare and good government of Great Britain and Ireland.”

This resolution, remarkable for its inconsistency and prepared under the impulse of momentary passion, is one that under similar circumstances might have been drawn by Mackenzie himself, and it received an enthusiastic reception, one voice and vote only dissenting—that of Jesse Ketchum. Ketchum, however, was the only consistent man in the House; all of the others were wrong. The Government did not really mean what it here expressed, and the Reform party had for years insisted on the very thing the resolution was condemning. Indeed, Mackenzie, but a few short months before, had gone to London to ask personally for just such interference in the affairs of the Province.

Mr. Hagerman, the Solicitor-General, who had sailed for England before the notice of his dismissal had reached York, was able to make his peace with Mr. Stanley, the new Colonial Secretary, and was reinstated in his old position—“in consequence,” according to the official statement, “of exculpatory evidence;” and the Attorney-General, who had followed soon after, was consoled with the Chief Justiceship of Newfoundland.

But the Government of the Province had apparently not even yet learned its lesson. As no supporter of the Government seemed willing to risk a contest in York County, Mackenzie, though out of the country at the time, was again elected unanimously. He returned to Canada during the summer, and when the House opened for its fourth session, in October, 1833, he entered and took his seat. The Government, however, was in no better mood to accept him now than it was before. It took the ground that as he had several times been declared ineligible to hold a seat there had been no election; and it repeated its resolution of expulsion, and by a bare majority of one the writ for still another election was ordered.

It had now become abundantly clear that the Tory majority would continue in its absurd refusal to accept Mackenzie, and that his constituency on the other hand would elect no one else. As Mr. MacNab on behalf of the Government explained it, Mackenzie clearly was eligible for election, but the House had the right to refuse him the seat to which he might be elected.

Led by Ketchum, Bidwell, Perry and Samson, the long and spirited fight against the unfairness of this position was resumed as soon as the House had assembled for its last session. Mr. MacNab, without waiting for the debate on the Address, at once moved that the entries in the Journals relating to the previous expulsions be read. Mr. Ketchum, in an effort to clear the whole situation, took the other tack and moved: “That all the proceedings during the last session relating to the expulsion of Mr. Mackenzie, Esquire, Representative for the County of York, be expunged from the Journals.”

Although one of the most active members of the Opposition, Mr. Ketchum was a working rather than a speaking member. The debating service was taken care of largely by Bidwell and Perry. But when he did speak he always had something to say, and he had a happy and terse way of saying it. The Patriot, which was no friend of the Reform movement, quotes at length from Mr. Ketchum’s speech on introducing his resolution, which, it says, was spoken with much animation:

“The question is this: Is the House determined to deprive the County of York of their rights and independence? Let the lawyers in this House give us a plain elucidation of the justice of the course pursued. I feel for the respectability of the County. We are, or rather we ought to be, the guardians of the rights and privileges of the people of the Province. The yeomanry of this populous and important County have appealed to the British Government. I am desirous that the British Government should, and I am persuaded that they will very soon, persist in having their views acted upon. Honourable Gentlemen are desirous of getting rid of this question. Can they do so? Do they expect that the people of this country will sit still and see their dearest rights and privileges invaded and taken from them? No; Honourable Gentlemen may rest assured they will be mistaken. We had better take to ourselves the credit of doing that justice which sooner or later will be forced upon us. Some Honourable Gentlemen say: ‘Blame yourselves for the County of York not having its share of representation!’ Some blame, perhaps, is aimed at me at resisting the new writ moved for at the close of the last session. I acknowledge I did do so and I will do so again if such a thing is attempted. Mr. Mackenzie is legally and constitutionally a member of this House, and no argument is brought forward or can be brought forward but might to keep him away. Does the House think that the many interested in this question, claiming by birth the privileges of devoted subjects of His Majesty, will permit these sacred rights to be violated? I implore the House for their own sakes to pause, and let not this gross injustice be forced upon them unwittingly. If we have done wrong let us manfully acknowledge our fault and make haste to retrace our steps, expunge the whole of these unpleasant proceedings from our Journals, and by that means set the excitement of the country at rest, or else we shall see very soon Mackenzie made Governor, or, perhaps, King.”

Mackenzie’s was again the only name presented in the by-election, which took place on December 16th, and he was once more returned without opposition. Knowing of the bitterness of the Administration towards their member, his friends now determined to accompany him to the House in order to see him seated. They filled the galleries, overflowed into the lobbies, and some were admitted to the floor of the Chamber. Mr. Perry rose to present a petition against a repetition of the proceedings by which the County of York had been deprived of half its legal representation, and when Mr. MacNab undertook to reply he was hissed from the galleries. Mr. Mackenzie stood at the bar of the House ready to be sworn in, and when the Sergeant-at-Arms attempted to remove him a commotion ensued which reached almost to a riot. The Speaker ordered the Commissioners to refuse to administer the oath, and then declared Mackenzie to be a “stranger” because he had not taken it and therefore was not entitled to remain below the bar.

The Reform leader, realizing now unmistakably that he could not expect justice from the House decided to appeal to the Lieutenant-Governor. His Excellency promptly referred his request to Hon. R. S. Jameson, the new Attorney-General, recently arrived from England, who ruled that Mackenzie was entitled to take the oath and that the Commissioners were not justified in refusing it. The Clerk of the Executive Council, therefore, was directed to administer the oath to Mr. Mackenzie in case he should appear to take it.

In order to try and reach a peaceful solution of the whole matter, a deputation consisting of Messrs. Ketchum, McIntosh and Shepard was appointed to accompany Mr. Mackenzie to Government House for the purpose of securing the co-operation of His Excellency. Sir John Colborne, however, was not to be caught so easily. He sent his reply to their representations through his Secretary, and he recommended that Mackenzie might offer to make “the reparation which the House by their late resolution seem to expect from him;” but he sent as a peace-offering as it were, with his message letters of apology from the Commissioners who had previously refused to administer the oath. The apologies were something, but Mackenzie had no intention of making any such reparation. Any reparation that was to be made must be the other way round.

Sir Francis Bond Head,
Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada
1836-1838.

On December 23rd, Mr. Ketchum again took up the issue in the House. “In view of the fact that the County of York had not its proper share of representation,” he declared, according to the report in The Patriot, “something is necessary to be done; and he hoped that the House would consider it. In regard to Mr. Mackenzie,” he said, “if he had done wrong he had now suffered sufficient punishment in all reason.” The County of York had done nothing wrong, and ought not therefore to be disfranchised, and he hoped the House would feel that the County had a claim upon them and that it was good and expedient to restore it to “that degree of satisfaction that would enable it to have a proper sense of the justice of the House.”

As no writ had been issued for a new election, Mr. Mackenzie, on February 11th (1834), appeared before the Clerk of the Executive Council, as suggested by the Lieutenant-Governor, and took the oath. He then entered the House and took his seat. A few moments later the Sergeant-at-Arms approached and ordered him as a stranger to leave the Chamber. Mackenzie disputed the charge, produced an attested copy of the oath which he had taken and refused to retire. In spite of his protests he was then three times in succession forcibly taken from his seat, and when he appealed to the Speaker for protection he was told that the Sergeant-at-Arms could not possibly have mistaken his duty.

The Lieutenant-Governor now came in for a good deal of harsh criticism at the hands of his friends. Mr. MacNab, who led the attack, declared that he “had interfered very improperly and in a manner in no way creditable to himself;” and Mr. W. Robinson claimed that Mr. Mackenzie would not have gone to the House had it not been that he had the Governor’s sanction in his pocket, and that the conduct of the head of the Government was entirely unjustifiable.

Mackenzie was not again permitted to take his seat during the session. No new writ was issued for another election, and thus York County during the life of almost an entire Parliament, though entitled to two members, was represented by but one—Jesse Ketchum.

Although the Government by reason of its subservient majority had refused to accept Mr. Ketchum’s motion to remove from the Journals the records relating to the expulsion of Mackenzie, it experienced a change of heart during the next Parliament, and so ashamed apparently was it of the spectacle which it had presented during these four years that one of its earliest actions was the approval of a resolution, moved by Mackenzie and seconded by John McIntosh, by which the whole of the proceedings relating to the successive expulsions were ordered to be expunged from the Journals as “being subversive of the rights of the whole body of electors of Upper Canada.” Even Mr. MacNab joined in voting thus to expunge one of his own resolutions, admitting frankly at the same time that the House had been wrong in basing its act of expulsion the third time on the fact that it had previously passed a similar resolution. Mr. Hagerman, too, acknowledged that he had considered the expulsions inexpedient, but he declared that he would not now stoop to enquire whether this action was right or wrong, that it was sufficient for him that the House had done it.

But Mackenzie by this time had not only been re-elected as a member of the new Legislature, but he had been chosen Mayor of the newly-created City of Toronto, and this fact might have had some bearing on the new attitude of mind which friends of the Administration were now bringing to bear on their judicial actions of the previous sessions.

1

TORONTO, NÉE YORK

On March 6th, 1834, the Town of York, which had existed for forty years, gave place to the City of Toronto. Unlike any other community in Upper Canada, York had never been anything but a town; it had so been christened by Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe when, soon after his arrival in the Province, he had decided to remove the capital from Niagara to the north shore of Lake Ontario. The name of York for the new capital had probably not been a happy selection, and in taking the name Toronto the city was but resuming the title which in earlier days had been applied by the Indians to this section of the country.

Ketchum, Mackenzie and other Reform leaders in the Assembly had vigorously opposed the Act of Incorporation; they felt that the advantages of separate municipal administration would not justify the heavy additional expense which incorporation was bound to entail. Moreover, the Incorporation Bill had been engineered by Sheriff Jarvis and carried through by Family Compact influences, and they were fearful that as the headquarters of the official party the consolidation of influence in the City was likely to have a pernicious effect throughout the Province.

It is interesting to recall that in the discussion in the House on the Incorporation Bill the question of the introduction of the ballot in municipal elections came up, probably for the first time, in an amendment prepared by Mr. Ketchum. The discussion as reported in The Patriot at the time, is enlightening, if not edifying.

“Mr. Boulton, the Attorney-General, was convinced,” says the report, “that a ballot system could never be adopted by the House, that the idea that such a system would be a protection to the poor against the rich was a poor compliment to the people of the town who possessed influence over their fellow-townsmen, that they would make use of that power to forward their personal interest. He was convinced, too, that neither in this country, nor in any other, could a creditor be found so base as to oppress an unfortunate debtor because he should happen to differ from him in opinion.

“Mr. VanKoughnet thanked God that his hands were not tied as were those of Mr. Jarvis who acknowledged that he was compelled to vote according to the wishes of his constituents, rather than according to his own views; but Mr. VanKoughnet would never surrender his opinion to any man. He feared that a thousand times more corruption would take place if they adopted the ballot system rather than the coming out to vote boldly and openly.

“Mr. Ketchum said that perhaps any argument he could advance would have little weight. It has been said that men should come forward openly if acting upon the principle of conscientious right. It has been well said that every person in the town is dependent more or less upon every other person; but in the case of a Government candidate it would be urged that so-and-so has great influence, that there may be a bill in the bank, that a candidate may be a friend and he would expect the voter to vote for him. But where both candidates are friends you must offend one or the other. Compulsion also might be urged by the Sheriff. It is much to be regretted that electors are abused, that money is spent and people are taken along in waggons drinking whiskey like pigs. If we can better this evil it should be done, and he for one would like to see the experiment tried to see what effect it would have.”

In spite of strenuous opposition, however, the Bill was carried, but the amendment, by which it was proposed to try out the ballot in municipal elections in Toronto, was defeated by twenty to fourteen. It was now up to the friends of the Reform movement to make the best of it. They decided, therefore, to remain constantly on guard, and if a municipal government had to be elected it was in the best interests of the City that one sympathetic to Reform should be returned, rather than one under the control of the Government.

A proclamation, issued on March 15th, fixed the date of the first municipal elections for March 27th. That was the golden opportunity, and the Reformers of the City eagerly entered the campaign. The City was divided into five wards, each with two Aldermen and two Common Councilmen to be elected by the people; the Mayor was to be afterwards elected by the Aldermen and Councillors from among themselves.

The election contest naturally assumed a political aspect. The recent persecution of Mackenzie was played to the utmost, and popular indignation against the Government was excited even among persons not identified with the Reform movement. York had always been looked upon in Parliamentary affairs as a Tory hive. The Family Compact party had numerical advantages and it enjoyed the prestige which belongs to a successful organization. It also controlled the patronage. The result of the elections, therefore, was a great disappointment to the Government; the Reformers succeeded not only in capturing a majority of seats both among aldermen and councilmen, but in spite of the keenest opposition Mackenzie was elected for St. David’s Ward, defeating Dr. Christopher Widmer, President of the Bank of Upper Canada, one of the strongest of the Tory candidates. Dr. John Rolph, Dr. T. D. Morrison, James Lesslie, John Doel, Thomas Carfrae, Jr., and others prominent in the counsels of the Reform movement were also elected.

Interest was now focussed on the election of Mayor. This too was a matter of political significance, and again Mackenzie’s persecution was the determining factor. The Reform members felt that the interests of their movement would be greatly strengthened if the man who in behalf of the cause had been so shamefully abused should be elected. Such an appointment would be a fitting answer to the slurs and calumnies of the official party and might atone in some slight measure for the suffering he had endured. Mackenzie therefore, at the first meeting of the Council, held on April 3rd, 1834, was elected as the first Mayor of Toronto.

Toronto at the time of its incorporation had a population of 9254, but it was entirely without any of the ordinary public services and conveniences recognized as essential to an urban community in modern days. It had neither waterworks nor sewage system, street lighting nor paved roadways. Ditches lined the streets on both sides, and in wet weather these were literally rivers of mud; and with the exception of the tan bark footpaths around the home and tannery of Jesse Ketchum, there was not a sidewalk in the City. The derisive epithet “Muddy York”, which for years had been applied to it by ill-natured critics, was still true, even if the town had become a city and had changed its name.

The assessed value of all the property in the City was but £121,519; the municipal debt was £9240, most of it due to the cost of new market buildings, and the annual debt charges amounted to £550.

Mayor Mackenzie on assuming office was confronted with many difficult problems. With such a dearth of everything needed it was difficult to know where to begin. The City was still in swaddling clothes. Such a thing as a levy of taxes was unknown, unlooked for and distasteful. A programme of sidewalk construction, as the more pressing of public necessities, was laid out; and as this involved the expenditure of real money, an assessment was proposed of three pence in the pound on the assessed value of the property in the City. Immediately there was a howl of anguish, and Sheriff Jarvis led a campaign of protest accompanied by a demand for censure for the offending Mayor.

Provision, however, was ultimately made for the construction of 2618 rods of walks, and in order that the appropriation should be made to go as far as possible, it was planned to lay them on one side only of the streets, to put them on certain selected streets where the pedestrian traffic was the greatest, and the walk planned was to consist of but two twelve-inch planks placed side by side and laid lengthways.

In anticipation of the collection of taxes the Bank of Upper Canada, as the most important financial institution in the Province, was appealed to for a loan of £1000, but the sting of Dr. Widmer’s defeat by the Mayor was too keen, and the members of the Council were compelled to borrow the amount from the Farmers’ Bank on the strength of their own personal security. The Bank of Upper Canada also withdrew its advertising patronage from the Colonial Advocate.

King Street, the main thoroughfare east and west through the City, extended at this time only from Parliament Street to Peter Street. It was a street of some little importance, however, as it contained the principal shops and hotels and a number of the public buildings. Yonge Street, which ran northward from the waterfront, was built up only as far as Queen Street, and all north of that was in open fields.

Most of the houses in the City were of wood, but brick, which began to be made here shortly after the War of 1812, was used in the construction of some of the more modern homes and for the newer public buildings. St. James’ Church, which had been rebuilt two years before following its destruction by fire in 1830, was still without tower or steeple, and according to Anna Jameson,^[6] the newly completed Parliament Buildings on Front Street, between Simcoe and John streets were, in spite of their pretentiousness, “in the most tasteless, vulgar style imaginable.”

In addition to St. James’ Church, which still held the leading place in point of attendance and social prestige, there were four other churches: a Presbyterian, a Methodist, a Roman Catholic and a Baptist chapel.

Plan showing Toronto and its suburbs at the
time of its incorporation in 1834.

Although Government House was the centre of the social life of the capital it was architecturally far out-distanced by the splendid new “palace” of Doctor Strachan, who in 1827 had been appointed Archdeacon; and the new building of Upper Canada College, founded five years before by Sir John Colborne, was a new note in the life of the City because of its educational and intellectual importance.

The General Hospital building at the north-west corner of King and John streets, was now in use, having been vacated by the Government which had taken it over in 1824, almost before completion, for the use of the Legislature following the destruction by fire of the old Parliament Buildings in the eastern end of the city. A new Court House, erected in 1824, stood at the corner of King and Church streets directly across from St. James’ Church, and the Gaol, similar to it in architecture, occupied the adjoining corner at Toronto Street. The open square between these two buildings was often used for public gatherings, and here stood the pillory and stocks which from time to time had been used for the punishment of some unfortunate prisoner. Indeed, Mackenzie himself was the last magistrate to employ these barbarous relics of torture, having during his mayoralty sentenced a woman to a period in them for, in response to a reprimand administered by him, throwing one of her shoes at his head.

Mackenzie held office for but one year. At the following elections the Tories, not to be again caught napping, secured control. Hon. R. B. Sullivan who defeated Mackenzie in St. David’s Ward, was rewarded with the Mayoralty, although at the time he was not recognized as a particular friend of the Tory party. Dr. Morrison the Reform leader was Mayor in 1836, that party again being victorious.

In spite of the fact that the official residence of the Lieutenant-Governor was the centre of fashionable life it was at St. James’ Church that Toronto’s “four hundred” gathered from week to week and kept their social friendships in repair. Invitations to dine or dance at Government House were, of course, as Royal commands, but the invitation list to this exclusive preserve was highly restricted and its accommodation limited. The Church, however, was differently constituted. This was the rallying place of the Family Compact clans, rich and poor alike. Here were gathered, as Dr. Scadding puts it, “the little world of York; occasionally a goodly portion of the little world of all Upper Canada.” Here attended the Lieutenant-Governor with his household and staff, the members of the Executive Council, the Legislative Councillors, the judiciary and magistrates, office holders, departmental employees and bank officials; the King, Lords and Commons of the Province, all good churchmen, and the very salt of the earth.

Special pews were set apart for His Excellency, for the members of his Council, for the members of the Assembly during sessional days, and for the officers of the garrison. Aloft in the north gallery sat the young ladies from Miss Purcell’s boarding school; while usually, about the entrance to the church both before and after the service, the gay young blades of the day with well-oiled hair and in their best Sunday attire, gathered in groups in order to catch, if possible, a fleeting glance from the lowered eyes of the demure young damsels as they passed to and from their devotions.

Jordan’s Hotel and the Mansion House, both on King Street East convenient to the early Parliament Buildings, and Frank’s Hotel, on Market (now Colborne) Street, also had a place in the social life. According to modern standards these were mean-looking affairs, little better than wayside inns. Their proprietors were more concerned about warmth than comfort, and ventilation and sanitation were to them little more than strange scientific terms; but the Legislature once held its meetings for an entire session in Jordan’s ballroom following the burning of the House in 1813, and many important public dinners and popular balls took place under the glistening lamps with their oil-dipped tapers which hung from the ceilings. John Galt, head of the Canada Company, assisted by Lady Mary Willis, wife of Justice Willis, gave a fancy-dress ball to the citizens of York at Christmas time, in 1827, in the ballroom of Frank’s Hotel; a function which set a standard of entertainment hitherto unknown in the Province.

In spite of her domestic unhappiness, probably largely imaginary, Anna Jameson, who found little to approve of in Toronto in 1836, confesses^[7] that “a reasonable person might make himself happy here if it were not for . . . those Egyptian plagues, the flies and frogs in summer, and the relentless iron winter; but,” she says, “there are . . . good shops in the town, and one, that of the apothecary, worthy of Regent Street in its appearance. The importations of china, glass, hardware and clothing arrive from England in the spring and autumn, the season for making purchases. All these articles are much dearer than in England, and there is little choice as to taste or fashion. Two years ago,” she continues, “we bought our books at the same shop where we bought our shoes, our spades, our sugar and salt pork; now we have two good book-sellers shops, and at one of these a circulating library of two or three hundred volumes of common novels.”

The waterfront in the early days was one of the distinctive features of the City’s life. A well-trodden footpath, maintained by the men of the garrison, ran along the edge of the high cliff eastward from the Fort, and here on warm summer evenings the citizens took the air and watched the sunsets. With the splendours of the Thames Embankment in mind the Government, in 1818, appointed a Commission, headed by Chief Justice Robinson, to take over a strip of land, of four to five chains in width and extending from Peter Street to Berkeley Street, in order to develop it for the use of the people. Unfortunately, for one reason or another, the Mall, as it was proposed to call this boulevard, was not completed; but Front Street with its double rows of trees and its raised terrace overlooking the Bay, soon became the best residential street in the City. Later, when the esplanade below the cliff was given over to the railways, the street lost much of its charm and exclusiveness.

The Bay itself was always, alike in winter and summer, the great recreational area for the younger people. In the winter there was the skating and the driving over the wide, bleak stretches of open ice; in the summer, sailing, rowing, paddling and fishing. The people used the Bay more in those days than in recent times; and on fine afternoons fortunate youths in their offices in the Bank or in the Parliament Buildings cast anxious eyes on the laggard clocks as they waited impatiently for the hour of closing in order to get out and enjoy the water whose shimmering surface they could see from their office windows.

The Don and Humber rivers, with their fascinating reaches of water and woods and marsh, and the overshadowing hills in their glory of verdure or snow according to the season, were also popular resorts. The Rosedale and Don ravines in those early mid-century days were full of birds and wild animal life. Here were minks and martins, muskrats and water-rats; at times a wild-cat was caught in the traps set by the neighbouring farmers; and occasionally in the meadows by the river blood-stained tracks were found in the snow indicating that a timorous sheep had during the night been worried and killed by some ravenous marauding wolf.

Picnics up the Don to the ravines and woods near Castle Frank were summer diversions ever since Simcoe’s day until, sometime in the nineties, the City undertook to straighten the river in the hope of encouraging its use for commercial purposes. In substituting a wall of pile-driven logs for the mossy banks which formerly made it so attractive all romance was driven from the stream, and never now do gay canoe parties paddle their silent course up the sluggish waters beneath the silver moon; while in winter the young people of the district have transferred their skating activities to level rinks flooded by the City in the public parks.

Social customs in Toronto have not changed materially excepting in detail in a hundred years. “With regard to the society,” writes Mrs. Jameson, within a month of her arrival, “I can as yet say nothing, having seen nothing of it. All the official gentlemen have called, and all the ladies have properly and politely left their cards; so yesterday, in a sleigh, well wrapped up in furs and buffalo robes, I set out to return these visits.”

New Year’s Day calling, too, was general when Toronto was young as a city, and it so continued until well on into the present century. The annual reception for gentlemen at Government House and that at the See House by the Anglican Bishop are survivals of these early times. “I received this morning,” says Mrs. Jameson, “about thirty gentlemen—to gentlemen luckily for me the obligation is confined—two-thirds of whom I had never seen or heard of before, nor was there any one to introduce them.” This custom of paying visits of congratulation on the first day of the year, she asserts, prevailed in France, Germany, the United States,—everywhere but in England. “It is curious,” she comments, “to see how quickly a new fashion, or a new folly, is imported from the Old Country, and with what difficulty and delay a new idea finds its way into the heads of the people, or a new book into their hands.”

2

BOND HEAD

The Reform party was triumphant in the general elections of 1834. This result was the more remarkable in view of the fact that Mackenzie—in an effort, apparently, to hurt Egerton Ryerson, editor of the Christian Guardian and an outstanding leader in the Methodist community in Upper Canada with whom he had quarrelled—had foolishly published in the Colonial Advocate a letter from Joseph Hume, a Radical member of the British House of Commons, in which he had criticized the Upper Canada Assembly because of its repeated acts of expulsion of his Canadian friend as events which might “terminate in independence and freedom from the baneful domination of the Mother Country.”

The references to Ryerson were overlooked, but the supporters of the Government pounced upon the letter because of its political importance. They at once raised the loyalty cry. They affected to see in the “baneful domination” phrase an appeal for separation from the Mother Country. Mackenzie was denounced unmercifully. He was openly charged with treason. Even some of his own friends were for a time suspicious of his motives, and his political opponents declared him to be a rebel rather than a patriot with a legitimate grievance.

York County, which for Parliamentary purposes still included the City of Toronto, was now entitled to four members, and in spite of the valiant efforts of the Government it returned four supporters of the Reform movement: David Gibson, W. L. Mackenzie, Dr. T. D. Morrison and John McIntosh. As Jesse Ketchum, Dr. John Rolph and the two Baldwins had declined nomination, and Bidwell was again elected as Speaker, the active leadership of the forces opposed to the Government once more fell to Mackenzie.

In December, the Canadian Alliance Society was formed for the purpose of promoting Responsible Government throughout the Province; in reality its members became a sort of vigilance committee, devoting themselves to the political education of the people by means of public addresses, the circulation of pamphlets and other literature, and by keeping a watchful oversight of the operations of the Legislature. They set out a programme of objectives, all reasonable subjects for legislation, and they arranged to keep in “close alliance with any similar association that may be formed in Lower Canada or the other Colonies.”

The House met on January 15th, 1835, and on the twenty-sixth Mr. Mackenzie moved for and obtained a special Committee on Grievances. To this Committee, of which he naturally became Chairman, were referred the famous despatch of Lord Goderich which had caused so much stir a short time before, together with the replies made to it by the Legislature, the documents prepared by Mackenzie while in England, and all papers relating to the controversy between the Reformers and the various Governors. The Committee also heard evidence on the matters in question.

The report of this Committee, known as the Seventh Report, was prepared largely by Mackenzie himself. It made a bulky volume of 553 closely printed pages, and two thousand copies were printed and distributed. A resolution was passed by the House and sent to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, with copies of the Report, asking that “the many important measures recommended in the Report may be speedily carried into effect by an Administration deservedly possessing the public confidence.”

The publication of this Report had the effect of consolidating the matters at issue, and the Home Government was stirred to action. The Colonial Secretaryship at this time was in a sort of transitory position, eight ministers holding the office during nine years. Lord Glenelg, the incumbent for the moment, recognized, as had his immediate predecessor, Lord Goderich, that there were at least substantial grounds for discontent. As Sir John Colborne seemed unwilling to grapple with the situation he was recalled, and the incompetent and inept Sir Francis Bond Head, a retired half-pay Major, was appointed in his place.

Lord Glenelg’s reply to the petition and report was embodied in a series of private instructions to the new Lieutenant-Governor, and accompanying them was an assurance to the House that it would find in these communications conclusive proofs of the “desire and fixed purpose of the King to redress every grievance affecting any class of His Majesty’s subjects in Upper Canada which had been brought to His Majesty’s notice by their representatives in Provincial Parliament assembled.”

The appointment at this time of a man of Sir Francis Bond Head’s peculiar type of mind is one of the tragedies of our political history. It would have been difficult to select any man more unfitted by education, experience and temperament for such an office. But then it must be remembered that the appointment was due to an accident. The man who should have had the position was Sir Edmund Walker Head, a kinsman, who at a later date was Governor-General of Canada. The pity is that Upper Canada should have had to pay the penalty.

The story is that at the Cabinet meeting at which the appointment of a successor to Sir John Colborne was under discussion, some one said, “You cannot do better than send out young Head”—the “young Head” referred to being Edmund Walker Head, a promising young man then coming into recognition as an authority on public questions, and at the time a protégé of the Marquis of Lansdowne, President of the Council. Lord Glenelg, misunderstanding or not knowing “young Head,” sent for Sir Francis, and the appointment was made and confirmed before the mistake was discovered.

“With Mr. Mackenzie’s heavy book of lamentations in my portmanteau,” writes Sir Francis in his bulky Narrative—a curious and bombastic volume published three years later in an effort to justify his conduct while in Upper Canada—“and with my remedial instructions in my writing-case, I considered myself as a political physician who, whether regularly educated or not, was about to effect a surprising cure; for, as I never doubted for a moment the existence of the 553 pages of grievances, nor that I would mercilessly destroy them root and branch, I felt perfectly confident that I should very soon be able proudly to report that the grievances of Upper Canada were defunct—in fact that I had veni-ed, vidi-ed and vivi-ed them.”

Conscious, as he apparently was, of his own limitations and of his absolute lack of experience or fitness for the handling of political problems of any kind, it must have been a surprise to find himself greeted on his arrival in Toronto by huge placards hailing him as “Sir Francis Head, a Tried Reformer.” Not only was he not a “Tried Reformer,” but he belonged to no political party and had never even voted. But he was pompous, inordinately vain and absolutely lacking in any of the qualities of diplomacy or statesmanship.

Sir Francis reached Toronto on January 23rd, 1836, and remained in Canada but twenty-six months. As Parliament happened to be in session at the time, he promptly handed to each House a copy of the Colonial Secretary’s private instructions as to the course of action which he should follow in dealing with the Grievances Report and the Legislature—a proceeding which was not only embarrassing to Lord Glenelg, but also bitterly disappointing to both of the political parties in the House.

These instructions, obviously, were never intended for publication and were purely suggestive, but the official party found them disappointing because of the spirit of concession which they seemed to suggest, and the opposition was dissatisfied because so little in the way of substantial concession was definitely promised. They ignored the question of Executive responsibility; they overlooked the fact that the Assembly was an elective body, as the powers of Government were still to be continued in the hands of the Secretary of State for the Colonies; and in the case of complaint against the Lieutenant-Governor or the Executive Council, the remedy for redress was to be found only in appeal to the Sovereign. The suggestion for a Board of Audit was approved, but although the Colonial Secretary was loath to give to the Legislature the right of inspection of the public records, he was willing to go so far as to authorize the Lieutenant-Governor to give to the House such information as it might require in regard to the public revenues.

Within a fortnight of his arrival Sir Francis had decided to enlarge his Executive Council, which now consisted of but three members, and after some parley he induced Robert Baldwin, a friend of the Reform movement, but not now a member of the House, Dr. John Rolph, a trusted Reform leader, and John Henry Dunn, the Receiver-General, to accept office.

The new members, however, very soon discovered that His Excellency apparently had rules of Government unknown in the active political world, and that his Executive Councillors were merely to be pawns to be used or not used as he might see fit. He had no intention of permitting anyone but himself to have a voice in matters of administration. In the case of appointments to office they were not even to be consulted. The members, including those already in office, promptly tendered their resignations. The new Executive had lasted exactly twenty-two days.

Sir Francis attempted to justify himself in a heated and specious reply. He refused to recognize that the issue was one of Executive responsibility, or even that of a difference between two political principles of government. In his Narrative he claims to have found the question simply one of loyalty or disloyalty, of monarchy as against republicanism, of the control of the Province by Great Britain or by the United States. He contended that he alone was the sole responsible Minister in the Province and as the Lieutenant-Governor was liable to removal and impeachment for misconduct, he was only bound to consult his Council when he required their advice; while to be compelled to refer to it on the many subjects daily calling for decision would be as “utterly impossible as for anyone but himself to decide upon what points his mind required or needed” advice. In fact, despite his instructions from the Colonial Secretary, Sir Francis, though barely a month in the country, had already decided to follow the example of his predecessors and “govern” the Province in the full and literal sense of the word.

Two days after the resignation of his new Executive, R. B. Sullivan, John Elmsley, Augustus Baldwin and William Allan were appointed in their places. The Assembly promptly voted “entire want of confidence” in the new men, and politely requested His Excellency to remove them.

A few days later a deputation representing a public gathering which had met at the City Hall called upon the Governor with a petition asking that he appoint to his Council only men in whom the people had confidence. Surrounded by military officers, he received the party with supercilious loftiness and assured them that he would feel it his duty to reply with as much attention as if it had proceeded from either branch of the Legislature, but that he would express himself in a “plainer and more homely language.”

Incensed at the manner in which its representatives had been treated, another meeting of citizens was called at the home of Mayor Morrison, when a vigorous reply was prepared for the special attention of His Excellency. In this statement the reasons for the citizens’ protest were fully and circumstantially outlined. It recapitulated the history of the Reform movement from early days. It recalled the struggles of Gourlay, who still had a place in public sympathy; of Matthews, whose spirit had been broken; of Justice Willis, who had fought in vain to vindicate himself and the wounded justice of his country; of Collins and Randall, whose ashes “lie entombed in a country in whose service they suffered heart-rending persecution and accelerated death.” “And even Your Excellency,” it continued, “has disclosed a secret despatch to the Minister in Downing Street containing most libellous matter against William Lyon Mackenzie, Esq., M.P.P., a gentleman known chiefly for his untiring service for his adopted and grateful country.” “If Your Excellency will not govern upon these principles,” it concluded, “you will exercise arbitrary sway, you will violate our charter, virtually abrogate our law, and justly forfeit our submission to your authority.”

But Sir Francis had no intention of heeding anything that Reform leaders or sympathizers might say or do. He had already fallen into the net set for him by the Family Compact group, and he had taken Chief Justice Robinson for his personal adviser on political matters. He seemed quite unable to grasp the principles of the Reform movement. He could not believe that men who differed from him and who criticized his methods of government could be honest, and he quite convinced himself that the issue was one of loyalty to the British Crown.

On the other hand, he had no difficulty whatever in understanding the Tory point of view. The friends of the Administration made no secret of their efforts to be agreeable, and he set himself to destroy what he called the “low-bred antagonistic democracy.”

His Excellency now determined on a bold strategic move. He would dissolve the Legislature and, if possible, overturn the Reform majority. He could then snap his fingers at their hysterical criticisms. The last General Elections had taken place but two years before, but a desperate situation demanded a desperate remedy.

“My official communication of this date,” so reads his despatch of May 24th to the Colonial Secretary, “will inform your Lordship that I have this day dissolved the Provincial Parliament. Of course a most violent contest will take place, and I need hardly observe that it is one upon which our possession of the Canadas will almost be said to depend. Sensible as I am of its importance,” he continues, “I feel calm and tranquil as regards its result.”

This was His Excellency’s great opportunity. He himself took charge of the contest and declared the question of loyalty to be the issue of the election. The Tory press promptly seized the occasion, and before the opposition had awakened to the danger, they had succeeded in diverting the issue from Executive responsibility and had divided the voters of the Province into two distinct parties, those who were said to be in favour of maintaining the supremacy of the British Crown and those who were traitors and republicans.

The Province, according to Sir Francis, was threatened with invasion from a foreign country. “In the name of every regiment of militia in Upper Canada,” he said, “I publicly promulgate, ‘Let them come if they dare.’ ” His replies to public addresses were political speeches, and promises, threats and bribes were made openly in order to influence votes. “Hurrah for Sir Francis and British Connection!” became the catch word of the election. Tory votes were manufactured by the wholesale. Reform sympathizers were threatened with violence and at times chased from the polling booths; and when the ballots were counted at the close of the elections it was found that a Reform majority of eleven in the last House had been turned into a Tory majority of twenty-six in a House of sixty-two members. Mackenzie, Bidwell, Perry, Lount, and other Reform leaders bit the dust, but Dr. Rolph was elected and three Reform candidates from York County were also returned.

The triumph of the Lieutenant-Governor was complete. With uncanny cunning he had out-manoeuvred his opposition, diverted the issue and practically destroyed its power in the Assembly.

The new Parliament met on November 8th. His Excellency congratulated the House on the loyal feeling throughout the Province and the “conspicuous tranquillity of the country.” By spanking the opposition he considered that he had made its members good boys forever. In writing later to his superior at Downing Street, he declares that “Upper Canada is now, as I have assured your Lordship, sound and healthy at heart. . . . The more seriously I contemplate the political tranquillity of this Province, the more steadfastly am I confirmed in my opinion that cool, stern, decisive, unconciliating measures form the most popular description of government that can be exercised towards the free and high-minded inhabitants of the Canadas.”

What the lethargic Glenelg must have thought of the long, wordy and vain-glorious despatches which he was receiving from Upper Canada is not known, but Sir Francis, who already had acquired in England some literary reputation as author of several sprightly volumes of South American travel sketches, keeps up an unending stream of boasting, protest and criticism. He upbraids his chief for surrendering control to Parliament of the casual and territorial revenues. He protests against the instructions to the Lieutenant-Governor of New Brunswick requiring him to select Councillors having public confidence. He refuses pompously to obey the order of the Colonial Minister to reinstate Judge Ridout in office after his dismissal on a spurious charge, or to appoint Marshall Spring Bidwell to a Judgeship, though expressly instructed to do so; and he even has the assurance to ask the Colonial Office not to receive Robert Baldwin, one of his late Executive Councillors then on a visit to England, on the score that he is an agent for the revolutionary party. He even suggests that in case Mr. Baldwin should make an application of any kind he should be effectually snubbed in a letter, and that a copy of his reply should be sent to Canada for publication.

Naturally the activities of the Lieutenant-Governor came up for discussion. A series of charges made by Dr. Charles Duncombe, member for Oxford, to the Colonial Secretary provided the opportunity, and the result, as might be expected, resulted in a complete vindication for His Excellency, every charge being found to be “wholly and utterly destitute of truth.” In fact, according to the resolution passed by the House, the Province owed him a debt of gratitude for his actions.

Mackenzie, who had added a book store to his business following the abandonment of the Colonial Advocate two years before, now decided to again enter the newspaper field. He established The Constitution in July, 1837, and immediately proceeded to attack the Administration. He felt that he had been robbed of his seat by corrupt methods, and later, when owing to illness he had asked the Assembly for leave to appeal to the courts, he felt that he had again been unfairly treated. To destroy the Government now became the passion of his life.

If to Sir Francis the Province seemed quiescent it did not follow that such was the case. There was in existence a strong undercurrent of dissatisfaction and discontent. The people were not long in waking up to the fact that they had again been deceived. If the Reform members had made little headway, those who succeeded them made less. The “Tried Reformer” had turned out a dismal failure. All the old abuses still continued, and then some. Appointments to office were made in the same old way and from the same old groups. Dismissals for independence of thought and action still took place. The Clergy Reserves scandal was as bad as ever. The new Executive continued to throttle the Assembly as of old, and the House was as impotent as ever against the autocracy of the Legislative Council.

To all these was now added the spectre of financial and commercial depression. The era of prosperity seemed to be over and people were leaving the Province in large numbers. In Lower Canada banks had already suspended specie payment, and as a similar situation seemed to threaten Upper Canada, Sir Francis was forced to call a special session of the Legislature during the summer in order to deal with the crisis.

As yet, in spite of the mutterings of Sir Francis, no thought had ever been expressed by any Reform leader of resort to arms or of appeal to the United States. The resentment that was felt was not against Great Britain, but against the Lieutenant-Governor and his satellites. The question was entirely a political one, and a statesmanlike attitude on the part of the occupant of Government House might easily have settled it.

The feeling throughout the Province was quite as acute as that in Toronto. Samuel Lount whose seat also had been stolen from him by unfair means, joined with Mackenzie in furthering the agitation. At a meeting of Reformers held in Lloydtown, in North York, on June 30th, the first low murmurings of revolt were expressed. A resolution was passed declaring that as constitutional resistance to oppression had for years been tried in vain, it now behooved every Reformer to arm himself in defence of his rights and those of his fellow countrymen. And thus the movement for political rights, hitherto a matter for legislative and administrative action alone, now moved on to active physical resistance.

3

APPROACHING A CLIMAX

Events now moved rapidly to a climax. Without a change in viewpoint on the part of those in authority conditions were not likely to improve. Mackenzie, Ketchum, Lount and Rolph were for bloodless revolution, but Papineau, in Lower Canada, made no secret of his determination, if peaceful measures failed, to resort to arms. The reason was not far to seek.

In April the report of the British Royal Commission appointed to investigate conditions in that Province was made public. Its decisions, while containing some favourable clauses, were received with bitter hostility. In accordance with specific instructions given in advance by Lord Glenelg, it recommended against a responsible Executive and an elective Legislative Council, both paramount planks in the Reform programme. An Executive Council modelled on that in Great Britain would, according to Lord John Russell, who introduced the resolutions in the House of Commons, set up a claim for something incompatible with the relations which ought to exist between the Colony and the Mother Country. “These relations,” he pointed out, “require that His Majesty should be represented in the Colony, not by ministers, but by a Governor sent out by the King and responsible to the Parliament of Great Britain;” and as to the Legislative Council, all discussion was precluded by “the strong predilection of the King, the solemn pledges repeatedly given for the maintenance of the existing system and the prepossessions derived from constitutional analogy and usage.”

As the recommendations of the Commission would apply equally to the other British Provinces, the Report was received with acclaim by the friends of the Government in Upper Canada and by storms of protest by those of the Opposition. “The guards die—they never surrender!” shouted the Montreal Vindicator. The Canadian Alliance immediately joined forces with their friends in the east and the resolutions of the British House of Commons were mercilessly denounced.

Lord Gosford, the Governor-General, tried to stem the tide by issuing a proclamation assuring the people that the Imperial Parliament had no thought or intention of violating any of the just rights and privileges of his Majesty’s Canadian subjects, and he asked that all public meetings and writings of a seditious nature should be discontinued. But such soothing patter was of little avail; the meetings still continued to be held at the doors of the parish churches and Papineau, Lafontaine and Dr. Wolford Nelson became the heroes of the day.

In Upper Canada Sir Francis and his friends were jubilant. The report justified everything for which they had contended, and he refused to believe that there was any cause for dissatisfaction. Mr. Hume, however, knew otherwise. He understood public opinion better than the Commissioners. If the Canadians did not resist they deserved the slavish bonds which Lord John Russell’s resolutions had prepared for them, and he expressed the fervent hope that if justice were denied they would achieve the same kind of victory that had crowned the patriots in the American Republic.

Mackenzie, on August 2nd, published in The Constitution the “Declaration of the Reformers of Toronto to their Fellow Reformers in Upper Canada,” which had been endorsed by a meeting of some three hundred Reformers held at John Doel’s Brewery a few days before. This “Declaration” set out that the time had arrived for the assertion of popular rights and redress of the wrongs which had grown and multiplied during half a century. It contained also a pledge to make common cause with the Reformers of Lower Canada, and it asked for the appointment of delegates to meet with those from the other Provinces of Canada in a convention which should be armed with the powers of a Congress to “seek an effective remedy for the grievances of the colonies.”

This “Declaration” was the first step toward revolt in Upper Canada. A permanent Vigilance Committee was appointed for the purpose of organizing the Reformers of the Province into a political union along the lines followed by Papineau in Lower Canada. A network of local societies was planned, and Mackenzie, who became the organizing agent for the Committee, set out immediately to address a series of public meetings. These gatherings were often hectic affairs and the speakers were followed from place to place by gangs of Tory and Orange opponents in an effort to break up the meetings and discredit the movement. Mackenzie himself was frequently threatened with personal violence, and he and his friends had many anxious moments in the course of their campaign.

During the summer and autumn more than two hundred meetings were held throughout the Province. The Declaration was everywhere endorsed and delegates were appointed to the Convention which was to be held in Toronto early in 1838. By the end of October one hundred and fifty local Vigilance Committees had been appointed covering almost every settled section in the Province, and Mackenzie had accumulated the names of more than fifteen hundred persons as loyal supporters of the Declaration. In the course of the campaign there was undoubtedly much heated talk of tyrannous oppression, of a political condition that could not much longer be tolerated by a self-respecting people, of the kind of political slavery that had existed in the days of Charles the First and that which had provoked the American Revolution. Resort to arms was frequently hinted at, if not openly suggested, but it is very questionable whether anyone at the time really believed that anything more was intended than a demonstration to overawe the Governor and frighten him into submission. Revolution might be intended, but anything other than a bloodless one was unthinkable. Mr. Hume’s declaration that if there had been no display of force there would have been no Reform Bill gave heart to the movement, and as Honourable Peter McGill had recommended to the Montreal Tories that “there must be pikes and rifles as well as men and tongues,” the various Vigilance Committees took up the task of grouping their members into some form of military organization.

With no money and with few resources little could be done, but the drilling of small detachments of faithful followers went on secretly throughout the autumn months on the back concessions and side-lines, and rifle practice was indulged in under the guise of pigeon-shooting and turkey matches. Those to whom rifles were inaccessible drilled with pikes and staves, the local blacksmiths fashioning the pike-heads in their forges during their spare moments.

The Government during all this time was kept constantly informed through its friends as to these activities. It knew of the political meetings and the proposed Convention, and of the drilling and the turkey matches, and as Sir Francis himself had during the late summer made a tour of the Province, it had a good idea of all that was going on. And yet, when Sir John Colborne, now Commander-in-Chief of the Forces in Canada, had, late in November, become frightened over the possibility of civil war in Lower Canada, and had asked for assistance from Toronto, Sir Francis wilfully ignored the dangers at home, and sent all of the troops in the garrison to Montreal. He laughed at the thought of armed rebellion and treated the talk of the drilling and shooting as childish gossip.

In Lower Canada the situation was critical. The first clash took place on November 6th, when the members of the Doric Club undertook forcibly to prevent the Sons of Liberty from holding a procession. This was followed by an attack on the office of The Vindicator, the windows of Papineau’s home were stoned, and the editors of Le Liberal were arrested for sedition. Papineau lost no time in advising Mackenzie of the outbreak, and Jesse Lloyd was appointed as the emissary between the two Provinces.

Mackenzie immediately called a meeting of trusted friends at Doel’s and laid before it his plan for an attack on the City. He recalled to his hearers that Toronto was now practically defenceless, but that a consignment of four thousand rifles with ammunition had arrived and was stored at the City Hall. He assured the patriots that they could count absolutely on the co-operation of at least fifteen hundred men in the Home District alone and of from two to three thousand additional from outside districts. These he proposed to summon at once. With such a body of men they would march first to Government House, seize the Lieutenant-Governor and his Executive and carry them to the City Hall which with its rifles would then practically become a fortress. A Provisional Government would at once be proclaimed and Sir Francis would be permitted the option of granting the political rights which had so long been demanded or submit to the consequences. If the Lieutenant-Governor should refuse, the insurgents would immediately declare Independence and take steps to secure it. And all this, he was assured, could be attained without the firing of a single shot. Four-fifths of the citizens of the City, he believed, were behind the Reform movement, and of the remaining fifth at least one-half would remain neutral.

Such a daring and outlandish proposal naturally created a sensation. Such aggressive measures had never been contemplated, and the immediate possibility of resort to force appalled the gathering. Dr. Morrison denounced the scheme as rank treason and others declared it ridiculous nonsense. Later, however, when the idea had time to sink in, and after it had been talked over with Dr. Rolph, whose judgment was highly regarded, it did not seem quite so hare-brained. The fact that the City was without defences was in its favour. The citizens generally were undoubtedly sick of Sir Francis and his clique, and even the capture of Government House seemed a simple undertaking. Moreover, if by any chance the plans should fail and the insurgents should be compelled to seek refuge in the United States, their condition could hardly be worse. Many leading Reform sympathizers had already seriously considered emigration as preferable to present conditions.

Mackenzie went north early in November to sound the rural districts and discuss the question along the lines suggested, but with no authority to make definite plans without first consulting the leaders in Toronto. Three weeks later he returned and to the surprise of his confreres he reported his plans perfected and the details all worked out. At a secret meeting in East Gwillimbury with Lount, Matthews, Fletcher, Gorham, Jesse Lloyd and others, Thursday, December 7th, had been selected as the day for the attack on Toronto. He claimed to have received pledges from between 4000 and 5000 men who had agreed to meet on that date at Montgomery’s Tavern on Yonge Street, about four miles north of the City limits. They were to be in charge of Samuel Lount, an axe handle maker of Holland Landing and a member of the Assembly, and Captain Anthony Anderson, of Lloydtown, both of whom had some military experience; and in order to guarantee success he had secured the consent of Colonel Van Egmond, an elderly retired officer who had served under Blucher at the time of the battle of Waterloo and was now a large landed proprietor near Seaforth, in the Huron Tract, to give them the benefit of his skilled military leadership.

Mackenzie had already drafted a Constitution, based largely on that of the United States, which he proposed to submit to the Convention, and had published it in his paper on November 15th. An Independence Proclamation had also been issued calling upon “brave Canadians” to get ready their rifles and make short work of it. “Woe be to those who oppose us,” it declared, “for ‘In God we trust’.”

Word of all these activities and the plan for the attack soon leaked out and were carried to Toronto, but Sir Francis still refused to take the matter seriously. He had been hearing such stories for weeks, and like many of the Reformers themselves, he looked upon them merely as a demonstration and designed solely for the purpose of intimidating the Government.

“I was not ignorant of these proceedings,” he says in his despatch to Lord Glenelg following the Rebellion, “and in proportion as Mr. Mackenzie’s paper became more and more seditious, and in proportion as these armed meetings excited more and more alarm, I was strongly and repeatedly called upon by the peaceable portion of the community forcibly to suppress both the one and the other. I considered it better, however, under all the circumstances, to await the outbreak, which I was confident would be impotent, inversely as it was previously opposed; in short, I considered that, if an attack by the rebels was inevitable, the more I encouraged them to consider me defenceless the better.”

But if Sir Francis did not think it necessary to guard the City against attack, Colonel FitzGibbon, a fervent friend of the Government, thought otherwise. Vainly he had urged His Excellency to keep a few soldiers in the city, if only for their effect on the local militia.

“No,” was the arrogant reply, “the doing so would destroy the whole morale of my policy. If the militia cannot defend the Province, the sooner it is lost the better.”

“Then, sir,” urged the Colonel, “let us be armed and ready to defend ourselves.”

“No,” again responded Sir Francis, “I do not apprehend a rebellion in Upper Canada.”

But Colonel FitzGibbon did apprehend trouble, even if the Lieutenant-Governor did not. He was fearful for the safety of the City and he was worried about the rifles stored in the City Hall. As a veteran of the War of 1812 he understood the value of preparation, and in order to ensure against a surprise attack he organized a rifle company among the young men of the City and practised them in drill night after night. He also arranged for a voluntary night-watch of fifteen to twenty men to act as sentries at the City Hall, and two others were posted at the approaches to Government House.

When he asked for confirmation of these arrangements, Sir Francis, in order not to discourage entirely so valiant an officer, agreed to have the arms brought from the City Hall and placed in Government House “under the care and keeping of my domestics.”

But the Colonel was not satisfied. So confident was he of an armed attack that he prepared a list of persons living west of Yonge Street whom he thought dependable in case of danger, and he suggested that Mayor Gurnett should prepare another of those living east of Yonge Street. But His Worship had much the same view as His Excellency. To him the Colonel was an officious busybody and he refused to have anything to do with the matter.

The Colonel, however, went about his duty in his own way. He arranged personally that in case of an attack either by night or day word should be sent promptly to Upper Canada College, when the bell would at once be rung. This was to be the signal for the ringing of the other bells in the city warning every man west of Yonge Street to seize his arms and hurry to the Parliament Buildings, while those in the east end were to report themselves to the City Hall. He also took upon himself the task of making house to house calls upon those on his lists, but before one-half of the names had been covered the rebellion had begun.

When the Colonel called on Chief Justice Robinson to solicit his assistance he was snubbed for his impertinence in “alarming people” in this way. At a meeting of the Executive Council on December 2nd the probability of an outbreak was discussed at length but dismissed as too absurd for attention. Hardly had Attorney-General Hagerman finished his statement that not fifty persons in the Province could be found to take up arms against the Government when Colonel FitzGibbon arrived with startling news as to the activities of the rebels and the imminence of attack.

“Do you mean to say,” asked Judge Jonas Jones, sneeringly, “that these people are going to rebel?”

“Most distinctly I do,” responded the Colonel.

“Pooh, pooh!” answered the Judge, contemptuously.

Upon examining the man who had brought the information, the Attorney-General remarked: “The statement made to us by Mr. —— does not make half the impression upon one’s mind as was made by Colonel FitzGibbon’s statement; the information he brings is at third or fourth hand.”

“What would you have, gentlemen?” asked Mr. Allan, another member. “Do you expect the rebels will come and give information at first hand?”

Finally, it was decided to place the fort in charge of a body of militia, and an order was drawn up appealing for the support of various militia officers in the Province and embodying certain instructions. Colonel FitzGibbon was appointed Acting Adjutant-General and a warrant was issued for the arrest of Mackenzie. The circular of instructions was sent to the printer in the usual way and the Executive turned to other business. But before the order was actually issued the rebel forces were gathering at Montgomery’s tavern and the rebellion was on.

And now a curious thing happened. The date of the proposed march on Toronto had long been fixed for Thursday the 7th day of December. All arrangements had been based on that understanding. But by some strange fatality, and without notice to Colonel Van Egmond or to the leaders throughout the Province, the date was suddenly changed to Monday, December 4th, and upon this hung the defeat of the rebellion.

Dr. Rolph had soon learned of the meeting of the Executive Council on Saturday and of the warrant for Mackenzie’s arrest. He knew the City to be undefended, but he had learned also from a reliable source of the Government’s decision to call out the militia. He decided, therefore, to advise Mackenzie at once as to the change in conditions. Not knowing where to find him, a verbal message was sent to Gibson at his home, about three miles north of the City, as to the danger of delay, and he intimated that Lount with three hundred resolute men could, if the attack should be made at once, easily take the City. Gibson relayed the message to Lount at Holland Landing, thirty-five miles farther north, whose wife received it owing to his absence from home. By this time the message, originally a warning, had developed into a definite order, and Lount and Anderson, with such men as they were able to reach, started at once for Montgomery’s.

When Mackenzie arrived at Gibson’s on Sunday he was furious on learning that Lount was on the march. No arrangements had been made at Montgomery’s for food and shelter for an earlier date than the one originally fixed and no supplies of any kind had been provided for the forces that were expected. He promptly hurried a messenger off to Lount with orders to make no change. But it was too late, the men were already on their way, arriving towards evening on Monday. Although only eighty or ninety men had come, Mackenzie was now all for marching on the City at once, trusting to reinforcements from within, but Lount, Lloyd and Gibson protested. The men were completely exhausted after their long march in the muddy roads. They were inadequately armed, few having anything but pikes as weapons; and as no word from the City had been heard since morning it was considered advisable first to learn something of what was immediately before them. And thus was lost the only opportunity—if indeed an opportunity it was—of taking the City and attaining by force the objects of the rebellion.

4

GALLOWS HILL

Montgomery’s Tavern was an old-fashioned, clap-boarded wayside inn which stood a little back from the road on the west side of Yonge Street, between what are now known as Montgomery and Roselawn avenues. It was a well-known resort in those days, as it was on the main highway into the City, and as its owner, John Montgomery, was a keen Reformer, it seemed a logical place to assemble the insurgent troops. Montgomery had come to York with his parents in 1798, and in 1813 he had witnessed the death of General Pike at the taking of York. The tavern, which has become the most notable landmark of the Rebellion, had recently been taken over by a tenant, John Linfoot, but Montgomery and his family had remained as boarders pending the completion of their new house close by.

Lount and his ragged yeomanry arrived on Monday evening in a driving storm, having come in groups and by different routes in order to avoid attracting attention. As the landlord had not been notified of the change in plans, food had to be secured from the neighbouring houses. The men, now that the march to the City had been postponed until the following morning, were then permitted to stretch themselves on the floors for sleep wherever they could find room.

Mackenzie in the meantime, with Shepard, Smith and Captain Anderson, started off on horseback toward the City to reconnoitre and, if possible, bring back Dr. Rolph and Dr. Morrison. They left the tavern shortly after eight and when approaching Gallows Hill, a little south of the present St. Clair Avenue, they met two horsemen, Alderman Powell and Archibald Macdonald, evidently acting as patrols for the City. Mackenzie drew up and explained to them that an uprising had taken place, and as it was advisable that no word as yet should reach the City, he ordered the men placed under arrest; and Anderson and Shepard were deputed to take them back to Montgomery’s. The prisoners, however, had no such thought. Presently they met another horseman hurrying toward the City. Anderson challenged the rider, whereupon Powell appealed to him for protection. The stranger, recognizing Powell, hurriedly reported the coming of the rebels. In order to prevent his passing, Anderson discharged his pistol, but it failed to go off and the man escaped. He then threatened to shoot Powell, who did not appear to come willingly. As they approached Montgomery’s Powell made another effort to get away, and, falling back a little, he fired at Anderson, shooting him in the spinal cord of the neck, killing him instantly. He then wheeled around and, calling to Macdonald, they galloped back to the City.

About the same hour in the evening another death took place at Montgomery’s. Colonel Moodie, who lived near Richmond Hill, had seen the passing groups of armed men throughout the day and, sensing that trouble was ahead, he decided to carry the news to the City. When he attempted to pass Montgomery’s he was brought up short by the guards on duty.

“Who are you who dare stop me on the Queen’s highway?” demanded the indignant Colonel.

“You’ll know that soon enough,” was the reply.

Moodie then fired at the guard, whereupon several rifle shots rang out and the Colonel received wounds from which he died two hours later.

But if the insurgents had no word of happenings in the City, the City was kept well informed as to the movements of the insurgents. News of the arrivals at Montgomery’s soon reached Colonel FitzGibbon, and he, worried and impatient over what seemed a desperate situation, at once hastened to Government House. His Excellency, however, was already in bed, though it was but ten o’clock, but in dressing gown he listened impatiently to what the Colonel had to say, and then, insisting even yet that there would be no rebellion, he again retired. On returning to his office the Colonel had news that the rebels were actually on the march so ordering the signal bells to be rung to arouse the City he at once set out on horseback to notify the friends of the Government of the danger at their gates.

“What’s all this noise about?” demanded Judge Jonas Jones, as he got out of bed in response to the urgent summons. “Who desired you to call me?”

“Colonel FitzGibbon,” was the reply.

“Oh,” exclaimed the Judge, impatiently, “the over-zeal of that man is giving us a great deal of trouble.”

The Colonel, returning again to arouse the sleepy Governor, found that Powell had been there before him. Sir Francis, now at midnight wide awake, had heard the bells, but as he regarded this as only another evidence of the activity of the pestilential FitzGibbon, he had turned over and gone to sleep again. After arranging for the members of his own family and those of Chief Justice Robinson to be taken on board a vessel in the harbour for safety, he hurried to the City Hall as fast as his short little legs could carry him.

The City was now thoroughly aroused and the streets were alive with excitement. Several hundred men at once enrolled for service, including members of the Government, judiciary and civil service, and mounted messengers were hurriedly despatched to Allan MacNab at Hamilton and to the militia colonels in the Newcastle and Midland districts. At sunrise the volunteers were formed into platoons, a gun was mounted at the City Hall, and rifles were distributed among the men.

FitzGibbon early in the day rode out to investigate for himself, and while he found that the insurgents now numbered upwards of five hundred, they were practically without arms and had made no preparation for defence. He therefore recommended to Sir Francis that an attack be made at once before the rebels had time to strengthen their position. But His Excellency, unwilling to take suggestions, absolutely refused. “I will not fight them on their ground,” he stated, “they must fight me on mine.” Later in the day when he found that FitzGibbon had placed a picket in the north of the City he was visibly annoyed. “Do not send out a man,” he insisted, “we have not enough to defend the City. Let us defend our posts.”

The Lieutenant-Governor was now obviously frightened, fearing that the City would fall into the hands of the rebels. The number of volunteers had been disappointingly small, and the only thing he could do now was to spar for time and wait for reinforcements from out of town.

Presently it was suggested, probably by Sir Francis himself or by the Attorney-General, that valuable time might be gained by opening negotiations with the rebel leaders. As the former expressed it in his despatch to Lord Glenelg, “I parentally called upon them as their Governor to avoid the effusion of human blood.” Sheriff Jarvis was first selected to make the approach, but as he had taken every opportunity in days gone by to make enemies among the Reformers and had many political sins to account for, better counsels prevailed and Dr. Rolph and Robert Baldwin who had just returned from England, were asked to visit the camp of the insurgents and learn what they wanted. James Hervey Price, a strong opponent of the Government, had first been approached by the Sheriff, but he had declined, claiming to have little influence with the insurgents, and had suggested Baldwin, Bidwell or Rolph. Bidwell absolutely refused to have anything to do with the parley, but Rolph, who was not known at the time to be in sympathy with the insurrection, accepted in order to avoid throwing suspicion on his Reform friends or on himself.

The two envoys rode out at mid-day to the rebel camp accompanied by a youthful mechanic, Hugh Carmichael, carrying a flag of truce. They met the main body of the insurgent forces at Gallows Hill on their way to the City.

With the death of Captain Anderson the rebels were now without military leadership. Colonel Van Egmond was not expected until the seventh, and Lount had not sufficient experience; but it was felt that if an attack was to be made at all it should be made at once before the City could be strengthened against them. Mackenzie, therefore, volunteered to lead one body of troops and enter the City by way of College Avenue, which then extended to Bloor Street, while the other, under Lount, was to continue south on Yonge Street. The two forces later were to meet in front of Osgoode Hall.

The men had halted at Gallows Hill while Mackenzie set about securing rations from the neighbours, and here the emissaries from the Lieutenant-Governor met them and presented his message. Dr. Rolph as spokesman represented that His Excellency was anxious to avoid bloodshed, and in order to do so he was willing to grant an amnesty to all the insurgents for all offences committed up to date on condition that they disperse and return to their homes. Mackenzie and Lount after a short conference returned word that as no reliance could be placed on the word of Sir Francis, any proposal he had to make would have to be put in writing, that no act of hostility would take place in the interval, but that an answer must be returned by two o’clock. In the meantime the rebel forces would proceed as far as the toll-gate just north of Bloor Street and there await his reply.

This insolent demand naturally was promptly refused. Sir Francis had by this time regained some of his nerve. His spirits had been stimulated by Colonel FitzGibbon’s report as to the meagre and undisciplined forces at Montgomery’s, and he had been heartened by the news that help from outside places was on the way.

Rolph and Baldwin returned to communicate His Excellency’s message. After delivering it, however, Dr. Rolph, it is said, returned and advised Mackenzie and Lount to advance. “Wend your way into the City as soon as possible at my heels,” he said. On reaching the City he first visited Elliott’s Tavern, at Yonge and Queen streets, to report to friends the result of the flag of truce episode; he then called a meeting at Doel’s Brewery to devise means for aiding Mackenzie on his arrival, which he confidently expected would be before nightfall.

The truce was now at an end. But instead of advancing at once Mackenzie returned to Montgomery’s, and it was not until six o’clock that the men were ready to march. Mackenzie, nervous and excited with the strain of the occasion, could not resist the opportunity of showing off and taking private vengeance on a political enemy. As they were passing the home of Dr. R. C. Horne, Assistant Cashier of the Bank of Upper Canada, just opposite Davenport Road, he halted his troops while he walked over and deliberately set the house on fire. He purposed also burning the home of the Sheriff across the ravine to the east, but was persuaded by Lount to desist on account of illness in the Jarvis family. At this a number of the men, already suspicious because of Dr. Rolph’s association with the flag of truce, and doubtful as to the success of the rebellion, decided to break ranks and make for home.

Before resuming the advance, Mackenzie again addressed his troops in an effort to inspire them with confidence. The Government, he assured them, had found itself friendless in the City and had been unable to muster more than a paltry one hundred and fifty men and boys, and even the Lieutenant-Governor himself had became so alarmed over the situation that he had put his family on board a vessel in the harbour ready for flight. On the other hand, he said, there were in the City six hundred true Reformers ready to join forces with them the moment of their arrival.

The insurgents, now numbering about seven hundred, again moved forward. Those bearing rifles were in the lead, followed by men carrying pikes, old muskets and shotguns, and after these the rank and file armed only with cudgels. Lount marched in front, with Mackenzie riding a dark bay horse at the side. By this time they had decided to go as one body entering by way of Yonge Street.

No opposition was encountered until they reached Maitland Street, where, concealed behind a garden fence on the east side of the street, a picket of sixteen men had been posted by Sheriff Jarvis, with eleven more on the other side of the road in the Elmsley grounds.

All unsuspecting the invaders approached their hidden enemy. When they came within range the Sheriff’s order to fire rang out, and twenty-seven rifles responded in a volley; but no sooner had they fired than every man in the picket seems to have been seized with an uncontrollable panic, and, turning, took to his heels toward the City as fast as his legs could move. In vain the Sheriff called to them to stop, but they were soon beyond hearing.

As soon as he found the direction of the shooting Lount called upon his riflemen to fire. The front rank discharged their arms first, and then, in order to give those in the rear an unobstructed view, they promptly fell on their faces so that their companions behind might shoot over their heads. But those in the rear misunderstood the movement. They imagined when they saw them fall that they had been shot, whereupon they also, after discharging their arms, followed the example of the enemy, and, turning tail, fled in the opposite direction back to the toll-gate whence they had come. Lount and Mackenzie made every effort to rally them, but nothing would induce the timorous warriors to again face fire until daylight.

Nothing more ludicrous could well be imagined—two bodies of troops, following but a single volley, fleeing in terror in opposite directions, unpursued and unpursuing! Sheriff Jarvis by his lucky volley had saved the City; the insurgents lost several men; and as John Charles Dent in his chronicle The Story of the Upper Canadian Rebellion, concludes, “Thus passed away the last opportunity for success on the part of the insurgents.”

Reinforcements began to arrive in the City that evening. Allan MacNab, of Hamilton, Speaker of the Assembly, with his first instalment of sixty “Men of Gore,” was welcomed with cheers, and detachment after detachment from east and west came flocking in to take their places at the City Hall. Rolph and Morrison looked on with grave concern. Their last hope was now gone, and they sent word to Mackenzie at Montgomery’s advising abandonment of the whole enterprise.

By Wednesday there was little heart in the revolution. Mackenzie upbraided his followers for their folly the previous evening. Had they but followed on, the City by now might have been taken and their enemies destroyed. As it was the rifles at the City Hall were now to be used against them. Messengers were despatched urging Dr. Duncombe, of the London district, who had there staged a minor rebellion, to make haste with the help he had promised. In the meantime, while waiting reinforcements, Mackenzie and Lount went out to Peacock’s hotel, at the corner of Bloor and Dundas streets, to intercept the western mail and try to learn something of the Government’s plans. Later in the day, however, they were appalled by the news that Morrison had been arrested and that Rolph had fled, headed evidently for the United States border.

In the City conditions had steadily improved. The Governor now had upwards of twelve hundred men under arms, but as these included groups from Hamilton, Niagara, St. Catharines, Whitby, Cobourg, and other outside places, the enlistment from Toronto, a city of eleven thousand people, must have been pitifully disappointing. FitzGibbon, who was in charge, held a council and decided to attack Montgomery’s on Thursday morning. He planned to approach the enemy in three divisions, one consisting of seven hundred men under MacNab was to go up Yonge Street; another of two hundred under Colonel S. P. Jarvis was to go north through the open fields east of Yonge Street; and a third under Colonel William Chisholm of Oakville would approach by the College Avenue. All three divisions were to converge at Montgomery’s. Attached to the main body were two guns under Major Carfrae. The City in the meantime was to be guarded by a body of militia under Judge Macaulay.

The Lieutenant-Governor by request gave the order to march. Two bands accompanied the expedition, and as they passed through the streets they were acclaimed by the populace gathered to witness their departure.

Colonel Van Egmond arrived early on Thursday, but as the greater part of the rebel forces were not due until later in the day, it was decided at a council meeting during the morning to try and delay the expected attack until evening. Mackenzie had urged another offensive against the City, but Van Egmond declared such a move to be “stark madness.” No new attack should be made until the arrival of larger reinforcements. Desertions the night before had now reduced the rebel forces to about five hundred, of whom not more than half had weapons of any kind. In the meantime sixty men under Peter Matthews, of Pickering, were detailed to burn the Don Bridge in order to cut off communications from the east and to try and divert attention in that direction.

The attacking force came into contact with the rebel outposts about one o’clock as they mounted Gallows Hill. Word passed quickly to Montgomery’s. Van Egmond and Mackenzie rode out to verify it, but returned hurriedly to organize their motley force into some form of defence. About one hundred and fifty men were posted in a belt of trees a short distance west of Yonge Street, south of Montgomery’s, and about seventy-five others were placed on the east side of the street, while those without arms were left inactive at the tavern.

The loyalist troops moved rapidly into position. The main body was drawn up on the east side of Yonge Street, near what is now Eglinton Avenue, with the two guns on the west side, and fire was opened in a north-westerly direction upon the men in the woods. The rebels, protected somewhat by the trees and brush, made an attempt at a return of the fire, but with the arrival of the west wing of the loyalists under Colonel Chisholm, they realized that all hope was gone, and fled in confusion into the open country. The cannon were then moved farther north and two shots were directed against the tavern. This created a stampede among those concealed within, and they poured out of the building like bees from a hive and also fled helter-skelter for safety.

The battle, which had lasted barely twenty minutes, was now over. The insurgents were scattered in all directions. The loss of life was small, one man having been killed outright and a number wounded, four of whom died later in hospital. Among the Loyalist forces several were wounded, but none seriously.

Sir Francis, who had followed the troops with Dr. Strachan, now approached the tavern. Several prisoners that had been taken were brought before him, but in view of the glorious victory he was in a generous mood, and after a severe lecture they were pardoned and released. In order, however, to “mark and record” the occasion, as he himself puts it in his book, The Emigrant, published in 1846, he decided on an act of stern vengeance. He therefore gave orders that the tavern, which, he said, had long been a rendezvous for the disaffected, should be destroyed. He personally issued orders to some of the soldiers to set the building on fire. The conflagration, according to his flamboyant record, “was a lurid telegraph which intimated to many an anxious and aching heart at Toronto the joyful intelligence that the yeomen and farmers of Upper Canada had triumphed over their perfidious enemy, ‘Responsible Government.’ ” Gibson’s home at Lansing, several miles further north on Yonge Street, was also burned to the ground by the express instructions of the avenging Lieutenant-Governor, probably in reprisal for the burning of Dr. Horne’s home two days before.

The destruction of the tavern was now complete. A good deal of looting took place of things that could easily be carried away and among the articles saved was a banner bearing the legend, “Bidwell and the Glorious Minority, 1837, and a Good Beginning.” This obviously was an old campaign banner which had been used in the general elections of 1832, but with the 2 changed to a 7. It was brought to the Lieutenant-Governor, who looked upon it as a valuable find. It apparently linked up his old enemy Bidwell with the rebellion and he made much of it in his correspondence with Lord Glenelg, who, some time before, had urged Bidwell’s appointment to a judgeship.

Sir Francis, treasuring this banner as a trophy of war, carried it with him when he returned to England. Sixty years later, when Sir Wilfrid Laurier visited England on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, this old banner, to which at the time so much odium had been attached, was brought out and offered by one of the members of the Bond Head family to form part of the decorative scheme of the room at a dinner tendered to the Canadian Prime Minister by political friends in London.

In the course of the day a proclamation was issued offering rewards of £1000 for the apprehension of Mackenzie and £500 each for Gibson, Lount, Lloyd and Silas Fletcher, and searching parties immediately started out in every direction in the hope of capturing the fleeing fugitives. But most of the rebel leaders were by this time well on their way to safety.

Although it was now on into the second week of December, the weather was open, but even at that many of the fugitives suffered hardship from exposure. Mackenzie, after four days of wandering, reached the Niagara frontier and crossed to Grand Island. Gibson, after remaining concealed at Oshawa for more than a month, finally succeeded in crossing Lake Ontario in an open boat to the United States and safety. Rolph had already reached Lewiston. Bidwell, who had taken no part in the rebellion was advised by Sir Francis to leave the country. Fletcher, Lloyd, Gorham and others had escaped. But Lount, in an attempt to cross Lake Erie from Long Point, had been driven back by rough weather and was arrested as a smuggling suspect. Peter Matthews, after setting fire to the Don Bridge, had been seized while seeking shelter with friends in East York, and John Montgomery, Colonel Van Egmond and others, unable to escape, had been arrested. Dr. Duncombe, owing to the collapse of the rising in Toronto, found it necessary to leave the Province; and when, a week later, MacNab with five hundred men arrived at London to suppress the movement there he found that all opposition to the Government had vanished.

But the generous spirit which Sir Francis had shown to the unfortunate prisoners brought before him after the burning of Montgomery’s Tavern soon passed. Mackenzie’s foolish attempt to carry on the rebellion from Navy Island, in the Niagara River, did not help matters. From this safe vantage point he had announced by proclamation a Provisional Government and with the co-operation of certain United States associates planned an invasion of Canada. He even had the audacity to offer £500 for the apprehension of Sir Francis himself, so “that he may be dealt with as may appertain to justice.” For a time the situation at this point was disquieting in the extreme, and MacNab with twenty-five hundred men was sent over in case an invasion might actually take place. Sir Francis himself even was there for a week giving the military operations the benefit of his moral support.

Parliament met on December 28th, and on January 14th Sir Francis sent word to both Houses that his resignation had been accepted by the Colonial Office. As a matter of fact this resignation had been a defiance of the Colonial Minister over the Ridout dismissal and the appointment of Bidwell to a judgeship, and its unexpected acceptance was a great disappointment to him. It was virtually a condemnation of his administration, and the publication of two volumes, A Narrative in 1839, and The Emigrant in 1846, failed to exculpate him in public estimation either in England or in Canada. Sir George Arthur, his successor, another military Governor, arrived in Toronto on March 27th, 1838.

1

OUT OF PARLIAMENT

With the dissolution of the Legislature in 1834 Jesse Ketchum definitely retired from Parliamentary life. He had been a member of the Assembly for six years, but although he had taken his full share in the discussions and activities of the House, he had little liking for the tumult and acrimony of the legislative arena. He was essentially a man of peace, and he disliked the personal antagonisms that existed between the members of the two political parties.

But though retiring from the Assembly he was by no means out of public life. He still remained as staunch and fervent in his support of the Reform movement as ever. During his years in the House he had fought side by side with his colleagues in defence of the principles of Responsible Government; he had contested Dr. Strachan’s claim to control of the Clergy Reserves for the exclusive support of the Church of England; he had moved for the revision of the banking system and the placing of the Bank of Upper Canada, which was controlled by members of the Government, under the oversight of the Assembly; he had fought by Mackenzie’s side for an investigation of the financial scandals attached to the Welland Canal Company, and for the transfer of the Postal System of the Province from Imperial to Canadian control; and he had been one of the earliest advocates for the introduction of the secret ballot into parliamentary elections.

Men in those days did not enter parliamentary life for its financial advantages—at least those in opposition to the Family Compact did not do so. For years members had served in the Legislature for mere nominal payment, the fee being raised by the local magistrates. The salaries of members of the Government were high, but members of the Assembly received but a pittance. When, in 1831, an allowance was made for payment of members, the rate agreed upon was but ten shillings ($2.00) per day for attendance, and four shillings (eighty cents) per league for travelling expenses, an amount too small to be an inducement from a pecuniary standpoint.

Jesse Ketchum resented bitterly the high-handed way in which Mackenzie had been treated, and he welcomed the municipal elections of 1834 as an opportunity for teaching the Government a wholesome lesson. The general elections, which followed in October, were to him a travesty in political discussion. Hume’s “baneful domination” letter had, naturally, furnished the key-note. But to the Reformers loyalty was a condition of the mind rather than a flag-waving gesture, and men who voted for Responsible Government were quite as loyal as their more vociferous neighbours who supported the Administration.

Fortunately the parliamentary elections did not take place until five months after the publication of the ill-advised letter. The voters by that time had opportunity to canvass the situation and appreciate the inconsistency of the Tory protestations; and again the Reform party was victorious.

The Canadian Alliance Society, which was founded in December, was a natural outcome of the contest. It was organized largely by Ketchum, Mackenzie and Morrison. Alderman James Lesslie was elected President, and Mackenzie Corresponding Secretary, but the operations of the Vigilance Committee, with special oversight of the proceedings of the Legislature, were entrusted to Ketchum.

The friends of the Government denounced the Alliance roundly, declaring its purposes to be revolutionary and mischievous. Its activities drew fire from the Administration at the opening of the House in January on the election of Speaker. Solicitor-General Hagerman branded Bidwell, the Reform nominee, as disloyal, claiming that he “wished to overthrow the Government and institutions of the country;” but Mackenzie who defended the Alliance, was able to show that Bidwell was not one of its members.

The Vigilance Committee kept up a vigorous campaign throughout the session. The appointment of the Grievance Committee gave it ample scope, and it proceeded at once to collect evidence of injustice and maladministration for presentation before the Committee. It also arranged for the circulation of petitions for signature throughout the Province, appealing to His Majesty to see that the principles of the British Constitution were initiated in the Province. The bulky Seventh Report, prepared for the House by Mackenzie, and sent afterwards to the Colonial Office, was due in no small measure to the painstaking and diligent work of Ketchum and the members of his committee.

In November, 1835, Mackenzie and Rev. Dr. W. J. O’Grady, whose paper The Correspondent had been merged with the Advocate, were sent by the Committee to Quebec to establish friendly relations between the Reformers of the two Provinces.

The appointment of Sir Francis Bond Head was the first ray of hope to the harassed Reformers. A new Whig government had recently come into office in England, and Sir John Colborne, the echo of the old Tory point of view, was withdrawn for military service in Lower Canada. Lord Glenelg seemed sympathetic, if indolent, and Sir Francis before sailing for Canada spent several days with Mr. Stephens, the permanent Under Secretary, who for years had dealt with the various Canadian petitioners to the Colonial Office. Hume, too, was impressed with the appointment, and in writing to Mackenzie he congratulated the Province and suggested that the Reformers “should receive Sir Francis in the best possible manner and do everything consistent with principle to meet his views and wishes.”

The arrival of Sir Francis on January 23rd, 1836, was a notable event. Elaborate preparations had been made by the Reformers to welcome him, and as he passed through the cheering crowds he was able to read on the placards placed on the walls by the Alliance, “Sir Francis, the Tried Reformer.” The Tories, however, were not quite so enthusiastic. They were shy and distrustful, and while the leaders of the Government made a show of cordiality they were fearful that the coming of a “Tried Reformer” might mean an end to their control. The House was in session on his arrival, and, acting on the assumption that he was sympathetic to their enemies, the Government supporters actually challenged the very first act of his administration and petitioned His Majesty in regard to the appointment of a Surveyor-General whom he had recommended. When, therefore, he found it necessary three weeks later to add to his Executive Council, it was not to the Tories but to the Reformers that he turned, and Dr. Rolph and Robert Baldwin were his nominees.

It did not take His Excellency long, however, to get his bearings and to reveal the shallowness of his liberal views. The honeyed tones of his first address to the House soon gave place to acerbity. The demand of Rolph and Baldwin for recognition of the Executive Council as official advisers was resented, and from that moment to the close of his administration never again did he defer to any member of the Reform party.

The appointment of a brand new Executive Council to take the place of that containing Reform influences immediately raised a storm. The House was indignant, and in spite of its large normal Tory membership, it passed a resolution by fifty-three to two assertive of the principles which the late councillors had tried to maintain. Presently also came a deluge of petitions from all directions, engineered by the Alliance—now known as the Constitutional Reform Society—protesting against the new councillors and demanding responsibility for ministers of the Crown.

The meeting which took place at the City Hall on March 25th for the purpose of furthering the protest was also sponsored by the Society but attended by all classes in the community, and the delegates who were appointed to carry its resolutions to His Excellency were Colonel George Ridout, Judge of the District Court of Niagara, representing the Conservative rather than the Tory point of view, and Dr. O’Grady as representative of the Radical element. The insolence of the reply of the Lieutenant-Governor, therefore, was an insult not only to the Reformers but to the friends of the Government as well.

The indignation meeting called for the following evening at the home of Mayor Morrison, however, was of a different character. This was a gathering of Reformers only, and the scorching rejoinder then drawn up, drafted largely by Dr. Rolph, Dr. O’Grady and Jesse Ketchum, was probably the most outspoken indictment ever addressed to a Lieutenant-Governor.

This address was signed by Jesse Ketchum, James Hervey Price, James Lesslie, Andrew McGlashan, James Shannon, Robert McKay, M. McLellan, Timothy Parsons, William Lesslie, John Mills, E. T. Henderson, John Doel, John E. Tims and William J. O’Grady. In order to ensure it reaching the hands of Sir Francis himself, it also was entrusted to a delegation, and Jesse Ketchum and James Lesslie were instructed to deliver it in person to Government House, and then retire without waiting for a repetition of the insolence shown to the former ambassadors.

Sir Francis in a passion immediately sent the petition to George Ridout, thinking that he had had a hand in its preparation. But Ridout returned it at once with his compliments; he knew nothing whatever about it. A few weeks later Ridout was dismissed, not only from his Judgeship, but also from his Regiment as well, on the ground, afterwards found to be mistaken, that he was a member of the Constitutional Reform Society.

Ridout appealed to the Colonial Office, and the heated correspondence which ensued between the Colonial Minister and the Lieutenant-Governor resulted, ultimately, in Sir Francis tendering his resignation. Unfortunately, however, before the resignation was accepted the Rebellion had taken place and Sir Francis had been eliminated in disgrace.

The dissolution of the recalcitrant House and the holding of a new general election was the next move on the part of the surprising Sir Francis, and once more the Constitutional Reform Society leaped into action. The dismissal from his office as Surrogate Judge of the Home District of Dr. W. W. Baldwin, and as Commissioner of the Court of Requests to Toronto of James E. Small, following that of George Ridout, added fuel to the flames. Their sins, too, had been those of outspoken criticism in regard to the resignation of the Executive Councillors; but whereas Baldwin was a member of the Society and was even at the time its President, Ridout and Small were not.

As an offset to the activities of the Constitutional Reform Society the Tories now had an organization of their own—the British Constitutional Society. Its founders, as an excuse for its existence, professed to call it but a reorganization of an old society of the same name which functioned during the war of 1812; but the main plank in its platform was that of the perpetuation of British connection, the cause which Sir Francis had succeeded in making the issue of the elections.

Mackenzie was heart-broken over the disastrous defeat sustained by the Reform forces. It was a tragic climax to twelve years of continuous and almost superhuman effort. Smarting also under the sting of his personal defeat in York County, he determined to devote his whole time henceforth to the strengthening of the Reform forces. To destroy the Government by any means in his power was his aim; his personal interests and those of his family were subordinate.

His publication in The Constitution, on August 2nd, 1837, of the text of the “Declaration of Independence” at once focussed attention and showed the direction in which the cause was moving. This document had been submitted to a large meeting at Doel’s Brewery a few days before, and as it called upon the Reformers of the Province to make common cause with those of Lower Canada, who already had more than hinted at the possibility of resort to arms, it created a sensation. The “Declaration” was signed by Mayor Morrison as Chairman of the Committee, John Elliott, Assistant City Clerk, as Secretary, and by seventeen others, but it was noteworthy that the names of Dr. John Rolph, Marshall Spring Bidwell, James and William Lesslie, Dr. W. W. Baldwin and his son, Robert Baldwin, all conspicuous leaders in the Reform movement, were missing.

Up to this point Jesse Ketchum had been thoroughly in accord with everything that had taken place. He had been behind every activity, and he was as ardent and enthusiastic as any of those whose names were attached to the Declaration. But he had not yet despaired of attaining parliamentary and governmental reform by lawful means, and was not prepared to resort to arms to secure them. He had been born under the shadow of the American Revolution. His childhood had been coloured by the sorrows and tears of suffering women and children. Some of his own kindred had known the pangs of banishment and impoverishment in behalf of a cause which they believed to be sacred and just, and he could not but look with abhorrence upon the very thought of armed intervention. Further, the memories of the War of 1812, also, were too recent and too tragic to be readily forgotten. It was not the glory of war nor the blare of trumpets that touched his heart, but rather the pain and the suffering, the desolation and the hardship.

From the date of the publication of the “Declaration” Jesse Ketchum ceased to have any part in the Reform movement. He refused to share in the counsels of the party or give countenance to the inflammatory campaign which his old companions in arms continued to carry on throughout the Provinces.

2

WILLIAM KETCHUM

The meeting at Doel’s Brewery on July 28th was one of portentous significance. The sun had scarcely set before the Reformers began to arrive, and by the time the meeting was called to order upwards of three hundred had assembled. Many of them were men from the fields and factories, still dressed in their working-clothes; a few were obviously a little better off in the matter of worldly goods. But even though some were but beardless youths, they were on this occasion all grave and serious-minded men, gathered to consider a problem of keen political importance to their country.

As they entered the large, dark, low-ceilinged malting-room, redolent of the alluring odor of fermenting barley, some of the men at once lighted the candle-dips which they had brought and inserted them in the crude lanterns which hung upon the walls and from the rafters.

Dr. Morrison on taking the chair immediately announced the purpose of the meeting, and produced a document which he said had already been approved by a committee at a meeting at Elliott’s, and which he proceeded to read and explain. This was the “Declaration” which pledged the Reformers of Toronto to co-operation with Lower Canada and demanded a Convention representative of both Provinces, and with the powers of a Congress.

In presenting the “Declaration,” however, the Doctor expressed the view that members of the Legislature should not be called upon to sign it; documents of this sort, he insisted, should be prepared by those outside the House, and it was the duty of members to see that the demands of the people were carried out. To this view James Lesslie expressed emphatic dissent. He claimed that members of the House should be the first to give leadership in political matters, and he declined to acknowledge any such arbitrary division of responsibility.

Finally, and after long discussion, the “Declaration” was accepted. Dr. Morrison, as Chairman of the meeting, was authorized to attach his signature, together with those of the Secretary and the members of the Vigilance Committee appointed by the meeting to carry into “immediate and practical effect” the resolutions contained in the Declaration.

The appointment of this Committee was not accomplished without difficulty. James Lesslie thought that Dr. John Rolph should be a member, but as the Doctor was not present his name could not be added without his consent. Charles Lindsey, probably on Mackenzie’s own statement, claims, however, that Dr. Rolph and Dr. O’Grady were mainly responsible for the Declaration. Lesslie, therefore, refused to accept nomination himself, and he persuaded his brother William to withdraw his name after he had already consented to serve. Many of the other leading Radicals also were absent, Dr. W. W. Baldwin had recently lost his Judgeship; his son Robert was in England; Bidwell, though thoroughly in sympathy, had, as Speaker, always kept aloof from agitation; Jesse Ketchum, too, was absent. He had known all about the committee meeting and the terms of the Declaration, but as he feared the results of its adoption he declined to give countenance to the meeting.

But his eldest son, William, recognized no hazards such as disturbed his father. Not only did he attend the meeting, but he allowed his name to be added to the roll of the Vigilance Committee.

William Ketchum, however, was no novice in the Reform movement. He was himself a man of some distinction in the life of the City. He was now in his thirtieth year, unmarried, prosperous, good-looking and well regarded. People still called him “Sonny.” He had been well educated, too, as education went in those days, having attended both the Common School, of which his father was a trustee, and the old Blue School under Dr. Strachan. At sixteen he had gone into the tannery to learn the business, and in recent years he had added the responsibility of a partnership in a private banking enterprise in association with Walter Rose, who had married his sister Anna. Further, he was himself not without political experience, for he had been a member of the City Council for two years, having succeeded John Armstrong as Councilman for St. Andrew’s Ward in 1835.

William, therefore, was in a position to think and act for himself. He loved his father and respected him for his character and for his political sagacity, but he was without his background of experience, and he was unable to appreciate his sensitiveness to suffering. He had long been an enthusiastic follower of Mackenzie, and as the Reform movement gained impetus he was more and more inclined to throw himself into the campaign. With youthful enthusiasm, therefore, he eagerly responded to the call for service and added his name to the Declaration.

Although by this action of the eldest son the Ketchums were now definitely committed to the cause, not much in the way of actual service was demanded of the Vigilance Committee. Mackenzie, as the Organizing Secretary of the Committee, eagerly took the work upon his own shoulders. When he was in action there was little for others to do. He went everywhere throughout the Province carrying the fiery cross into the villages and towns and hamlets, organizing the Reformers, enrolling members in defence of the liberties of the people, and securing the appointment of delegates to the Toronto Convention. His campaign during these months was an amazing example of zeal, energy and determination.

The collapse of the Rebellion was sudden, but it took some time for the tumult and the shouting to die away. Following the defeat of the insurgents men began to pour into the Capital from all directions to the support of the Government. Public opinion changed overnight. Defeat had caused a complete reaction. Men who had previously held aloof were now ardent enemies of Mackenzie and all his works; and even of those who had been active supporters, some experienced a rapid change of heart and hastened to protest their allegiance to the Government.

Sir Francis himself soon repented of the impulse which prompted him to be merciful to the prisoners brought before him at Montgomery’s, and promised himself that he would not again be caught in such foolishness. Fortunately for him the burning of the tavern had yielded a treasure of rare importance. Among the loot was a carpet-bag belonging to Mackenzie which contained not only his personal papers and correspondence, but also a complete list of the friends of the revolt throughout the Province—those whom Mackenzie had counted on for support in case of conflict and whose names had been collected with such painstaking care during the weeks of his campaign.

With this as a basis the Government and its friends at once proceeded to arrest and prosecute all upon whom they could lay their hands of those known to be sympathetic to the Reform cause. Whether the persons arrested had knowledge of the uprising or not or were associated in any way with it, made little difference. Scant attention was paid to legal technicalities. Authority was arrogated to seize any persons professing radical opinions and lock them up without the intervention of law or magistrate. In the country districts men were often arrested in their homes or in their fields, pinioned together by one arm to a main rope, and paraded along the highways in gangs, sometimes of a score or more, toward the City, to the accompaniment of the hootings and jeerings of their captors. Even the personal property of Reformers was not free from invasion. Guards were placed over the shops of merchants, their correspondence was seized, they were robbed of their goods, and during the incarceration of their owners their families were often subjected to humiliation and hardship.

Before the end of December the gaols in the Home District were crowded to suffocation; the men were herded in cells without ventilation or heat, and the gaols in the London, Gore and Midland districts also were filled.

In spite of his personal popularity “Sonny” Ketchum could not, under such circumstances, have expected to evade arrest. He had taken no active part in the Rebellion itself, but as he had signed the “Declaration” he was a marked man. For weeks he was under constant surveillance. Living with his parents as he was, they also were under suspicion. While guards placed by the authorities watched the tannery, watchmen placed by Jesse Ketchum protected the house. Day and night for many weeks following the 7th of December the family lived in constant terror. Friends and neighbours had been molested and their homes plundered. Hostile demonstrations took place frequently in the streets; there was always the dread of an incendiary fire; and the coming of each gang of rebel prisoners seemed to provoke a fresh outburst of passion.

The Constitutional Reform Society, or such of its members as were not already in custody or in exile, extended congratulations to Sir George Arthur on his arrival in the city, and ventured at the same time to express the hope that merciful consideration might be shown to the political offenders under arrest. But the appeal fell on deaf ears. Sir Arthur was not that kind of a Governor. His years as Governor of Honduras, a slave colony, and of Van Diemen’s Land, a penal colony, did not incline him in the direction of mercy or charitableness. The law must take its course, not only as punishment, but also as a warning to others.

William was arrested on February 7th, exactly two months after the rebel defeat. The real reason for the delay had been the crowded condition of the gaol. Already more than three hundred arrests had taken place in the Home District, and the machinery for taking care of the cases in the courts and clearing them for bail, for examination, or for trial, had become congested. It had been impossible to arrest the whole Reform party at one time.

The prisoner came before the magistrate on the following day, and as the gaol was already packed to capacity, he was admitted to bail, the bonds being furnished by his father. With the arrest surveillance was relaxed, and, taking advantage of the absence of guards from the house, William decided to visit his uncle Zebulon, in Buffalo. He left home secretly a day or two later, taking with him a horse and a cutter belonging to his father, and two days later was safely settled in his uncle’s home.

And now came the trials. Lount and Matthews, as the most important, came first. They both pleaded guilty, and after a brief trial were sentenced by Chief Justice Robinson to be hanged on April 12th. Though probably not unexpected, such a sentence created a profound impression throughout the Province, and petitions for clemency, signed by Reformers and Government supporters alike, poured in upon the Lieutenant-Governor. One containing many thousands of names was presented personally by Mrs. Lount. But all was without avail, and the execution took place in the gaol yard on King Street within view of a vast assemblage, while prisoners within the gaol watched it from the windows of their cells.

Sir Arthur reported to the Colonial Office that he was “happy to say it had produced the most salutary effects;” but Lord Glenelg, when he learned the facts, was greatly shocked and expressed the hope that no further executions would be found necessary.

The trials now continued relentlessly. Lindsey’s biography of Mackenzie lists upwards of 880 persons who were arrested during these eventful months on charges of insurrection or treason, of whom one-half were in the Home District alone. In Toronto, John Montgomery, John Anderson, Ira Anderson and Charles Durand were condemned to death, but owing to the intervention of the Colonial Minister the sentences were changed to transportation. The first three, with nine others, later escaped from Fort Henry, where they were confined, and reached the United States in safety. In the Niagara District twelve received the death sentence, in the London District two, and in Gore three.

Transportation seems to have been the popular sentence in those days, as upwards of forty, in addition to those whose death sentences were commuted, were so sentenced; and as though in compliment to the Lieutenant-Governor, most of these were designated for transport to Van Diemen’s Land.

Dr. Morrison, after a lengthy trial, was acquitted, but rather than face his fellow citizens again under the circumstances, he went to Rochester, where he joined Dr. Rolph and others of his Toronto friends. Colonel Van Egmond died in the hospital before trial, the result of exposure during his flight to safety. Indictments for high treason were found by the courts against sixty-one others, but as these had all succeeded in evading arrest and escaping from the Province, nothing but the record remained against them. William Ketchum, having absconded after obtaining bail, was not tried. In any event the result of the Morrison trial would probably have been accepted as a precedent.

The amnesty toward political prisoners proclaimed by Lord Durham on the Coronation of Queen Victoria, though it proved disastrous to his Lordship, was welcomed by the rebels and accepted as a gesture of good-will. But it was not until 1843 that the Canadian Government issued a general amnesty to the exiles permitting them to return to Canada. Mackenzie, however, was not allowed to return until 1849.

Under the Durham amnesty, William, against whom no indictment had been found, was again free to return to his home in Toronto and before the end of the year he was again under his father’s roof.

3

THE UNION ACT

The collapse of the Rebellion was to Jesse Ketchum not altogether unexpected, but he was heart-broken over the tragic fate of those of his friends who had met with disaster. Although Sir Francis had gone, the people soon learned that little might be expected from his successor. Sir George Arthur not only took possession of Government House, but he took command of the Province as well. His harshness toward Lount and Matthews was characteristic, but the petty happenings which followed the uprising along the border at the Niagara and Detroit Rivers were so alarming that he was kept in a constant fever. So terrified was he, indeed, that he ordered the Old Fort at Toronto to be enlarged for four hundred men and its defences strengthened, and he set up around the City a series of small forts or blockhouses for its protection. These forts, which remained without serving any useful military purpose for nearly forty years, were erected, one on the bank of the Garrison Creek just north of Queen Street, in what is now Trinity Park; one on the north-east corner of College Street and Spadina Avenue; one on the Blue Hill—the first hill south of Crescent Road on Yonge Street—and one on the north-west corner of Bloor and Sherbourne streets.

The appointment of Lord Durham to unravel the complicated Canadian tangle was a stroke of statesmanship. Bred in the atmosphere of the liberalism of Charles James Fox, the new Governor-General was not only a trained diplomat, but he had already an apprenticeship in the solving of political problems. As a member of the Grey Ministry he had a share in the preparation of the Reform Bill of 1832, and though naturally arrogant and tempestuous, he was looked upon as one of the foremost men in English public life. Wide powers were given to him, he being appointed High Commissioner as well as Governor-General, with special authority to adjust “certain important questions depending in the Provinces of Lower and Upper Canada.”

Lord Durham addressed himself to the problem in hand with characteristic energy, but as his first administrative act in Canada—that of a general amnesty to all the rebel prisoners in Canada with the exception of the leaders—brought down upon his head not only the criticism of political opponents in England but also the disallowance of his action by the Government which appointed him, he promptly resigned his offices after but five months service.

During that time, however, he had seen enough to enable him to grasp the situation, and his report on Canadian affairs is one of the most masterly State documents of his time. He saw at a glance the defects of the Colonial system, and with unerring accuracy and skill he pointed the way to relief. The capacity of the people of Canada for self-government was unquestioned, but the incapacity of men like Sir Francis Bond Head, the abomination of the Family Compact, the abuses of the administration of public lands, the grievances over the Clergy Reserves: these were matters requiring urgent attention. The union of the two Canadas as a first step was recommended in order to establish a common interest between the French and English-speaking sections of the community. In order to bring this about Right Honourable Charles Poulett Thomson—afterwards Lord Sydenham—was sent to Canada with the rank of Governor-General. The Union Act of 1841 was the result.

The Tory party in Upper Canada viewed the Durham proposals with disfavour. Sir George Arthur, whose theory of government was the use of forceful methods, sneeringly pointed out that many of the proposals were practically the same as those advocated by Mackenzie, Rolph and Bidwell; they therefore must be unsound. The Union Act did not pass the British Parliament without much hesitation and conflict. Chief Justice Robinson took advantage of an extended leave to try and influence the Duke of Wellington and other public men against it, so much so that protests against his continued presence in England were made by members in the House of Commons. His book, Canada and the Canada Bill, written while in England and published in January, 1840, presenting the Family Compact point of view both as to this and the Clergy Reserves question, which was also before Parliament, put up a vigorous argument; and the final acceptance of the Act by the Legislature of Upper Canada was due solely to the skill and finesse of Mr. Charles Poulett Thomson, who, curiously enough, lived while in Toronto in the house of the Chief Justice, the enemy of the Act he had come to support.

The Assembly, while approving of the principle of the Union Act, made, however, one stipulation which was accepted by His Excellency: that the capital of the united Canadas should remain in Upper Canada. But when it became known that Kingston, the town which had been passed over by Governor Simcoe on the foundation of the Province nearly half a century before, had been selected, there was keen disappointment. Three years later the capital was shifted to Montreal.

The first general election under the Union Act was, if that were possible, more bitter than those which preceded it. The fate of the Tory party was in peril. In the past it had mattered little whether the majority in the House was Reform or Tory, the Tory Government remained in power just the same. Under the new conditions there was no such assurance.

Toronto, with a population of 11,000 was now entitled to two members. The Tory candidates were George Munro, Mayor of the City, and Henry Sherwood; on the Reform side, John Henry Dunn and Isaac Buchanan. Open voting was still in use, and the polls remained open for a week. The contest was marked by riots and bloodshed, and the services of the military had to be called to ensure protection for those anxious to vote. The result was a victory for the Reform candidates. William Ketchum was a member of their election committee. The returns from the Province showed the Family Compact party to be completely routed, and in a House of forty-two members it had but seven supporters.

A curious fatality seems to have pursued the early governors of Canada following the Rebellion. Lord Durham, one of the most sagacious statesmen ever sent to Canada, remained only five months. “So my Lord Durham has broken reins and traces, and kicked himself out of harness!” laughs Sir Francis Bond Head in a letter to Chief Justice Robinson after his resignation reached London. He died within two years after his return to England. Lord Sydenham, whose sane judgment promised so well, died within two years, the result of an accident, unhappily long before his work was finished. Sir Charles Bagot, who succeeded him lived little more than a year and died of a lingering illness. Sir Charles Metcalfe returned to England after two years and eight months.

Sir Charles Bagot, though an English Tory and successor to a brilliant Whig, brought a new and refreshing angle of mind to the tangled web. Sydenham, owing to the fact that for some time Lower Canada had been without a Legislature, was disposed to ignore the French Canadians in the appointment of his Executive Council. Bagot promptly invited them in. Sydenham’s Executive—obviously a compromise one—was, with the exception of Draper, Sullivan and Baldwin, made up largely of novitiates. Bagot reorganized it until it had a commanding majority in the House.

But in spite of the Durham Report and the promises of Sydenham, Responsible Government was not yet assured. Sydenham had been willing to concede Executive responsibility to the House, but he was not prepared to have the Governor placed under it.

“I am not a bit afraid of the Responsible Government cry,” he says, in a letter to a friend under date of December 12th, 1839; “I have already done much to put it down in its inadmissible sense, namely, that the Council shall be responsible to the Assembly and that the Governors shall take their advice and be bound by it. But,” he continues, “I have told the people plainly that, as I cannot get rid of my responsibility to the Home Government, I will place no responsibility on the Council; that they are a Council for the Governor to consult, but no more. . . . Either the Governor is the Sovereign or the Minister. If the first, he may have ministers, but he cannot be responsible to the Government at home, and all Colonial government becomes impossible. He must, therefore, be the Minister, in which case he cannot be under the control of men in the Colony.”

The question of Responsible Government was raised on the opening of the first session of the Canadian Parliament, Baldwin had resigned from the Council when he discovered the omission of French speaking members, and in a test vote on the Address the Sydenham principle of executive responsibility was upheld.

Baldwin, however, was not content. Later in the session he again raised the question in a series of resolutions. But the Government, backed by a safe majority, was not disposed to allow him to gain prestige at its expense. A series of amendments was submitted by Hon. S. A. Harrison, Provincial Secretary for Upper Canada, and these, according to Alphæus Todd’s Parliamentary Government in the British Colonies, “constitute, in fact, articles of agreement upon the momentous question of Responsible Government between the executive authority of the Crown and the Canadian people.” As these amendments were dictated by the Governor-General, and, as, according to Scrope’s biography of Sydenham, “these several declarations contain a formal and complete record of Lord Sydenham’s views on the subject of Responsible Government,” it is apparent that during recent months he had experienced a decided change of heart.

The state of the Governor-General’s health during the whole period of his stay in Canada was a source of great anxiety. He was a prey to gout, fever and mental prostration. In July, unable to carry on longer, he sent his resignation in to the Colonial Office, but on September 4th, while returning from a ride, he was thrown from his horse and dragged some distance, his foot fast in the stirrup. This accident, added to an already impaired physical condition, resulted in his death on the 19th, the day following the close of the session.

Sir Charles Bagot arrived at Kingston in January, accompanied by a large retinue of servants and forty-two tons of luggage belonging to himself and his staff. His advent was welcomed by the Family Compact remnant. But Sir Charles, though an old-fashioned Tory, was a man of experience: he had been at the Hague and had assisted in the consolidation of the union of Belgium and Holland—a situation not unlike that in Canada. He refrained from taking sides, and as Responsible Government had been granted to Canada he was prepared to advance it in every way possible.

“Lord Sydenham had a Constitution of Government to establish,” writes Reverend Egerton Ryerson, in a review of the work of Sir Charles in Canada; “Sir Charles Bagot had a system of Government to work. Lord Sydenham had two Provinces to unite; Sir Charles had two Provinces to cement. The former had an Administration to create; the latter had an Administration to establish. The one had to inspire the country with hope and confidence; the other had to inspire it with charity and enterprise.”

Sydenham’s Government had managed through its first session, but the Cabinet was anything but a unit, and the omission of the French was disastrous. Bagot determined to govern according to his instructions; his Cabinet must represent the majority in the Assembly; and it mattered not whether that majority was Tory, Reform, Rebel or what not. Some of the old ministers obviously had to give way, and in 1842, Robert Baldwin and Francis Hincks from Upper Canada, and L. H. Lafontaine and A. N. Morin from Lower Canada, took their places. Lafontaine, by a curious chance was, at the time, the representative for the Fourth Riding of York, the seat having been offered to him by Baldwin who had been elected in two constituencies. A year later Lower Canada returned the compliment, and Baldwin was elected in Rimouski after his defeat in a by-election in his own constituency. In the House of Assembly the newly constructed Government was able to command the support of sixty as against twenty-four Conservatives who followed the leadership of Sir Allan MacNab.

Sir Charles Metcalfe took the reins of government from the feeble hands of the dying Sir Charles Bagot on March 30th, 1843. He had for years been in the India Civil Service, and more recently been Governor of Jamaica, where, subsequently, the people erected a statue to his memory. He was highly spoken of everywhere, and his appointment to Canada seemed to be quite in keeping with the standard of those who had immediately preceded him. But governorship in Canada was far removed from that in Jamaica or in India. In those countries the people had no voice in public affairs, and his experience was the worst possible background for successful administration here. Of parliamentary government as understood in Canada he had no experience whatever, and for it, apparently, little sympathy.

The Union in Canada was now well under way. Responsible Government had not only been conceded, but by this time had become established. A new Administration had been formed representative of both Provinces, and it had a substantial majority behind it in the House. The way was now clear for making full steam ahead if only the Home Office or the Governor-General would refrain from tossing brick-bats into the machinery.

Sir Charles soon found himself in what to him was a dilemma. The Government was in the hands of the Reform party, the same group which had actually but six years before taken up arms against the Government of the day, while those who had stood loyally by the Crown, and who included a large majority of the wealthy and educated people of the country, were represented by a beggarly minority in the House. And as for the French Canadians, they had formed a coalition with the Reformers and actually shared in the exercise of power. The only people, therefore, whom the Mother Country could depend on in her hour of need were absolutely shorn of all power and authority! Intolerable! He saw no remedy for this, so he informed the Colonial Secretary, “without setting at defiance the operation of Responsible Administration which has been introduced into this Colony to an extent unknown, I believe, in any other.”

Sir Charles thus discovered, according to his official biographer, that he was “called upon to govern or to submit to the government of Canada by a party; and the party by which he was to govern was one with which he had no sympathy.” He therefore went out of his way to cultivate the leaders of the Opposition. He took pains to accentuate the differences of opinion between himself and the members of the Government. A private conversation between Captain Higginson, his private secretary, who undoubtedly was speaking for His Excellency, and Mr. Lafontaine, as to the meaning of the phrase “Responsible Government,” brought the matter to a head. Sir Charles realized that should he concede the principle of government as outlined by Lafontaine and based on the Harrison resolutions passed by the House in September, 1841, he would be shorn of all real authority. And this he was unwilling to accept.

“I have no intention of tearing up Her Majesty’s Commission by submitting to the presented conditions,” he writes to Lord Stanley, following the interview which had been reported to him in detail by Captain Higginson. “The sole question is, to describe it without disguise, whether the Governor shall be solely and completely a tool in the hands of the Council, or whether he shall have any exercise of his own judgment in the administration of the Government? Such a question has not come forward as a matter of discussion; but there is no doubt that the leader of the French party speaks the sentiments of others of his Council besides himself. . . . As I cannot possibly adopt them, I must be prepared for the consequences of a rupture with the Council, or at least the most influential portion of it.” And still there was no reprimand from Lord Stanley.

Both during the session which followed, and after, the Governor took opportunity to belittle the responsibilities of the ministers and magnify his own. He made appointments to office without advice or consultation, oftentimes to friends of the opposition; and Ministers were sometimes twitted in the House with the fact of the Governor’s disrespect for them. MacNab and Draper exercised greater influence with him than did his Cabinet. Remonstrance from the Ministry had little effect. Sir Charles insisted on his own interpretation of the resolutions of September, 1841, declaring any other system of Government than that which recognizes responsibility to the people and to the Assembly as impracticable. But he either could not or would not recognize that he was acting in any way out of harmony with the spirit of Responsible Government as already established. The entire Government, therefore, with the exception of Hon. Dominic Daly, Provincial Secretary from Lower Canada, resigned in a body.

The fat was now in the fire. Sir Charles prorogued the House two weeks later without the formation of a new Government. Portfolios were offered right and left, but none could be found to accept them; no one but ex-ministers would be able to command popular support. Three days after prorogation, however, two new Ministers were appointed, Hon. W. H. Draper from Upper Canada and Hon. D. B. Viger from Lower Canada. They both took office without enrolment, forming as it were a Provisional Government, and these with the assistance of Captain Higginson, the Governor’s private secretary, carried on the service of an Executive Council from December 12th, 1843, until the following midsummer.

Meanwhile throughout the country the political situation was at fever heat; not only was Responsible Government on trial, but Sir Charles Metcalfe also was on trial. The Reformers everywhere impeached the Governor and his Government in unmeasured terms, while the Tories declared that Baldwin, Lafontaine and Hincks were intriguing to bring about the annexation of Canada to the United States. Overtures were made again and again to various persons, until finally, after an interregnum of nine months the Governor succeeded in inducing six others to join his rump administration.

To call the House again would be fatal. Such a Government could never survive. A dissolution was therefore decided on, and a new election took place on September 24th, 1845. Responsible Government was now on trial in earnest. The Governor, as had Sir Francis Bond Head, in 1836, had to justify himself. The whole question had again to be fought out. There was intense bitterness and rioting and the militia in many places were held in readiness in case of necessity.

The result of the elections was a small majority in favor of the Governor and his Administration. The Tories had flocked to his support in order to maintain the cause of the Sovereign—it was the Rebellion all over again. Many Reformers, with the remembrance of the elections of 1836 and its consequences fresh in mind, supported His Excellency, thankful that even a measure of Responsible Government had been attained.

In November Sir Charles resigned because of ill-health, and died soon afterward. His presence in Canada at this time, however, cannot be viewed as anything but a misfortune. Responsible Government got a set-back from which it did not recover for years. Earl Cathcart, who was in command of the British forces was appointed Administrator of the Government and held office for two years; but it was not until 1848, following the arrival of the Earl of Elgin, a son-in-law of Lord Durham, that a saner view was brought to bear on the situation, and Responsible Government, the real fruit of the Rebellion, was actually and permanently secured.

4

DR. STRACHAN AND HIS UNIVERSITY

The progress of education in York received a decided reverse when, in 1820, by the arbitrary action of Dr. Strachan, the Government grant from the Common School fund had been withdrawn from Thomas Appleton and the Trustees were forced to turn over the School to Joseph Spragg.

Although Doctor Strachan had been a schoolmaster all his life he had never been particularly interested in elementary schools; he was always more concerned about higher education. A Provincial University which had been dangled as a bait before his eyes in Scotland and had lured him to come to Canada, was the great ambition of his life. He never lost sight of this vision, and in season and out of season he planned and worked and schemed for a college modelled on those of the old world, of which he should be the head, and which should be distinctly a Church of England institution.

The Government early in the century had set apart a quarter of a million acres of Crown lands as an endowment for such a college, but nothing definite was done until 1819, when Sir Peregrine Maitland took the matter up with the Imperial Government and recommended the granting of a Royal Charter. But again there was delay. Another seven years passed without action. Doctor Strachan became impatient. Finally, in order to expedite attention, he decided to go to England and present the case in person. The response was immediate, and on March 31st, 1827, Earl Bathurst notified Sir Peregrine that the Charter had been granted.

So far so good. The dream of a lifetime was at last to be realized, and Doctor Strachan returned in triumph. The British Government had agreed to advance £1000 from the receipts from the Canada Company toward the building, and although Oxford University had refused to make a donation of books, the Church Missionary Society had offered to subscribe £200 per annum towards salaries and scholarships.

This was the most liberal university charter ever granted, says Bishop Bethune in his biography of Doctor Strachan; and perhaps it was; but when the details of the Charter were published it soon became apparent that the people of the Province were not likely to share Doctor Strachan’s enthusiasm. The new university was not to be a strictly Anglican college; oh, no; but the Bishop of the diocese was to be the official Visitor, the President must be a clergyman in holy orders of the United Church of England and Ireland, the Archdeacon of York for the time being must, by virtue of his office, be the President of the college, and the seven professors in the arts and faculties must be members of the same Church and subscribers to the Thirty-nine Articles!

The fight of protest began almost before Doctor Strachan had time to reach home. In view of the fact that in numbers the Church of England was so largely in a minority in the Province the provisions in the Charter seemed monstrous to those of other communions.

When the House assembled, early in 1828, protests and petitions poured in in a continuous stream. On February 16th, according to the Journals of the House, “the Petition of Mr. Jesse Ketchum and two hundred and fifty others of the Home District” was presented. This petition, with others representing more than six thousand names, was referred to a Select Committee of the House for consideration and report.

The Committee in its report recommended that an address be forwarded to His Majesty protesting against the terms of the Charter. “As the great body of your Majesty’s subjects in the Province,” reads the resolution adopted by the House, “are not members of the Church of England, they have seen with grief that the Charter contains provisions which are calculated to render the Institution subservient to the particular interests of that Church, and to exclude from its offices and honors all who do not belong to it.” In consequence of this, it continues to point out, others of His Majesty’s subjects far more numerous and equally loyal and deserving will be shut out from participation in them; its influence will be limited and partial, and it naturally will be an object of jealousy. The House therefore recommended to His Majesty’s Government that the Charter be cancelled and that another, free from these objectionable features, be granted in its place.

This seemed reasonable. Sir Peregrine’s attitude however was not encouraging. “I will transmit your address,” he says in his reply, “but,” he pointed out, “the great importance of providing for religious instruction and for education generally is happily exemplified in the moral conditions of the people of the United Kingdom, and the measures which have been taken by His Majesty in order to secure the same blessing in this Colony, subjecting no portion of its inhabitants to burthens, or to civil disabilities of any kind, cannot fail in the end to be rightly understood and greatly appreciated.”

Such innocuous platitudes, however, did not avail. The address of the Assembly was referred to a Select Committee of the House of Commons, which, after hearing Rev. George Ryerson and others from Canada, advised that radical changes should be made in the constitution of the College and the religious tests at least eliminated. It further recommended that for the present at least the theological department should be enlarged by the appointment of a professor of the Church of Scotland.

In the session of 1829 a further series of resolutions was passed by the Assembly dealing with the University question. These resolutions, which were prepared and sponsored by Jesse Ketchum, Dr. Rolph, and W. L. Mackenzie and others, pointed out that the granting of such a charter had been due to “erroneous” information which had been communicated to His Majesty’s Government, and that the conditions governing the proposed college were quite unsuited to the conditions and wishes of the people for whose benefit it was intended; and they urged that everything of a sectarian character should be eliminated, that the teaching staff should be elected by a senate, and that such liberal principles be adopted as will open up opportunities of education to all who desire them.

Fortunately Sir John Colborne had ideas of his own in matters of education. He did not see eye to eye with Strachan on the University question, and he failed to see any pressing need for a college representing the highest type of education so long as preliminary education was so sadly deficient. His idea was to first elevate the standard of the junior schools and thus ensure a supply of pupils qualified for advanced learning. He therefore proposed the founding of a new college in York to replace the District Grammar School, and built on lines similar to those of colleges in England. Within a year of his arrival Upper Canada College was established and the founding of King’s College deferred indefinitely.

Meanwhile the educational needs of the rank and file of the citizens were practically neglected. Apart from the private schools conducted without supervision, Joseph Spragg with his Bell and Lancaster system of education occupied the entire field. The Government’s none too generous original grant of £6000 for schools throughout the entire Province had been reduced, in 1820, to £2500, and at this figure it remained for years. In 1824 an additional allowance of £150 was made for the purchase of books and tracts, but it was not until 1833 that the Government was moved, owing to the increase in the number of schools in the Province, to increase the annual grant to £8150, of which the Home District, in which the York school had a share, received £750. It was not, however, until 1841 that the principle was adopted of granting money to each County on condition that the County raise an equal amount by taxation.

The original school building which had been built by Jesse Ketchum and his friends—now the York Central or National School—continued to do duty until after the absorption of the District Grammar School by the new Upper Canada College, when the old “Blue School” building was moved over to Jarvis Street and added to its plant. This now became the largest school in York, having, in 1833, a staff of three teachers and an attendance of 200 boys and 138 girls. There had been a registration during that year of 402 boys and 205 girls, but as people generally in those days were not keenly interested in education, and there was no compulsory attendance law, the average of attendance was often quite out of relation to the number of names entered on the register during the year.

In the first Directory published in Toronto, in 1834, the year of its incorporation, appears this advertisement:

Doctor Strachan’s election as Bishop of Toronto, in 1839, opened the way to a reorganization of the system of education throughout the Province, and with the appointment, in 1844, of his old antagonist, Rev. Egerton Ryerson, as Superintendent of Education, the control of the schools finally passed out of political hands, and Toronto, with other municipalities, established its own system of public schools.

The University, however, for which the Royal Charter had been granted in 1827 was still in abeyance, and it was not until January, 1843, that it was actually opened for work. But by this time the Charter had been pretty well shorn of its distinctive Church of England features. Parliament had amended and re-amended the Act, but by the founding of the Divinity professorship and the maintenance of a chapel service those in control had endeavored to keep up a connection between the Church of England and the University, contrary to the wishes of the majority of the people of the Province.

Ultimately even this connection had to go. By the Act of 1849 the Divinity faculty was eliminated, and four years later those of law and medicine also were abolished. From this point the institution for whose maintenance so large a portion of Government lands had been set apart became a non-sectarian university; its functions consisted purely in the setting of examinations and the granting of degrees in various departments; but its collegiate work was vested in another institution, called University College.

The Bishop was defeated but not discouraged. He had other cards still to play. “On the 1st of January, 1850,” says his pastoral to the clergy and laity of the Diocese, “the destruction of King’s College as a Christian institution was accomplished. . . Deprived of her University, what is the Church to do?” He therefore proposes that a petition be forwarded to the Queen asking for the restoration of the University; failing in that, he suggests that a general appeal be made to the Church in Britain and Ireland for aid in supplying another to take its place. He also proposed to go himself to England to further this appeal. “Eight thousand pounds will be secured to the University before this meets the public eye,” he says, “and I have some reason to believe that an equal amount is already set apart in England. . . . I shall have completed my seventy-second year before I can reach London, of which more than fifty years have been spent in Upper Canada, and one of my chief objects during all that time was to bring King’s College into active operation; and now after more than six years of increasing prosperity, to see it destroyed by stolid ignorance and presumption, and the voice of peace and prayer banished from its halls, is a calamity not easy to bear.”

The appeal was successful beyond measure. A new Royal Charter was obtained by the doughty Bishop for Trinity College in 1852 with all the rights and privileges of “our Universities of our United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland,” and he raised a fund of upwards of £25,000 for the erection of buildings. In order, however, that there may be no question this time about the character of this institution, the Bishop saw to it that the charter contained the same provisions as those in the original King’s College Charter: the professors must be members of the Established Church of England and Ireland, and upon their admission they must sign and subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer and the Three Articles of the Sixth Canon.

And thus, after a lifetime of struggle and controversy Dr. Strachan at last obtained the University he had so long and so ardently desired.

5

DOMESTIC CHANGES

The echoes of Jesse Ketchum’s first Parliamentary triumph had scarcely died away when he was stricken with a tragic domestic bereavement. Early in 1829, Ann Love, the laughing, bright-eyed young widow, who, with her baby daughter, had come to keep house for himself and his brother Seneca in the far distant days, and to whom when in his twenty-second year he had been married in the little primitive log church of St. James, had, after a brief illness, passed to the beyond. It was a sad blow, and the brave spirit was bowed in grief.

What mattered it now that prosperity beyond his most sanguine hopes had come to him; that he was surrounded by a splendid family of sons and daughters, and that grandchildren even had come to bring joy into the hearts of the older generation; that honors and distinctions, too, were his, and that he was now a member of the Legislature of the Province to which as a friendless youth he had come thirty years before? Nancy Love—jolly, home-loving and home-making Nancy—was dead!

Ann had for twenty-five years been a splendid wife to Jesse Ketchum. She was capable, industrious, thrifty and ambitious. But her ambitions were for her husband and his interests rather than for herself. Apart from her family, her church, and the social life and contacts which these involved, she had few interests. But life on the whole had been good to her and she was contented and happy. Her husband and his business, political and religious associations furnished her with plenty of scope. He was interested in everything of a community character, and she was his confidant, his inspiration, his associate in all his undertakings.

Dr. John Carroll, who knew Ann intimately since his childhood, thus somewhat rhetorically describes her in his book, My Boy Life: “She was shrewd, capable, managing, and very industrious, and aided him in both gaining and saving. She ‘looked well to the ways of her household.’ The heart of her husband safely trusted in her. She did him good and not evil all the days of his life. She sought wool and flax, and her hands held the spindle and the distaff. All her household for years were clothed by her home manufactures. Her husband, therefore, was known in the gate, sitting among the elders. Nor did she forget to ‘stretch forth her hands to the poor, or to reach them down to the needy.’ She was a cordial co-operator in all her husband’s charities.”

Almost from the first their home had been headquarters for the numerous Ketchum family connection. Responsibility automatically gravitated to Jesse as the one best fitted to assume it. Following the arrival of his derelict father, whom he had cared for until his death in 1825, came other members of the family—brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, singly, attached, or in groups. Some of these he took into his own home, others he established in homes of their own. But on his own house the “Welcome” sign always hung on the outside, and it was usually filled with visitors—staying, paying in services of one kind or another, and otherwise. Circuit-riders and preachers of all denominations visiting the town usually made the home their regular port of call; students, school-teachers, and men and women of talent often stayed there, some for shorter, others for longer periods. Committees and organizations in which Jesse Ketchum was interested held their meetings in his big drawing-room—or whatever such a room was called in those days—and the first school treat ever given to the children of any Sunday School in York was given in his home.

Ann Love’s life with Jesse Ketchum had been one of singular charm and serenity. It had been a busy one, full of hard work and much responsibility. Not only were there the services of cooking, preserving, dress-making, and the usual cares of housekeeping, but there was the making of the clothes for the boys as well as the girls. The big tannery across the street also called for a woman’s oversight in addition to that of her husband. The welfare of the employees; attention to their wives and children in times of sickness and distress; the boarding, education and clothing of the young apprentices who lived in their master’s home; these were responsibilities which Ann willingly assumed as part of the daily round.

The Ketchum’s also had been favored, as were most families in those days, with many sons and daughters. Large families in pioneer days were looked upon as an economic necessity rather than a liability. But these carried with them sorrows as well as joys. Fidelia, the eldest daughter, had married the young pastor of Knox Presbyterian Church and was settled in the new manse which her father had built for them on Bay Street, across the orchard from her father’s home. Mary—or Polly as she was usually called—the second daughter, had also married. Her husband was Colonel Edward W. Thomson, afterwards a member of the Legislature and Chairman of the Board of Agriculture of Upper Canada, but unfortunately she died several years later, leaving an infant son to be cared for and brought up by his grandfather. Anna, the younger girl, was now fast growing up and later became the wife of Walter Rose, the private banker. She died in early life. William, the eldest son, was already taking on responsibilities in connection with the tannery, and Jesse, junior—Jesse III—was a husky boy of nine. John, another son, had been killed by an accident when thirteen years of age, much to the sorrow of his parents.

Lily Love, the little bright-eyed lass who had been the first to gain the affections of the shy young Jesse Ketchum in the early days of the century, had long since grown up to lovely womanhood and had been married to young Harry Sherbourne, and gone to live in a home of her own on Lot Street where it now crosses Sherbourne Street. Unfortunately, however, she was widowed early, and with her baby daughter she also came back to her step-father’s house to live. The close affection which existed between Mr. Ketchum and his step-daughter was extended to little Elizabeth, and she remained a member of the household until the time of her own marriage to Baron Rudolph de Fleur^[8], a French teacher of music who had settled in Toronto.

Baron de Fleur, a refugee from France came to Canada following the revolution of 1830 and the fall of the Bourbon monarchy. Some years later when Prince Louis Napoleon became President of France and better relations were established between England and France, the debonair Baron went to Europe on a visit, accompanied by William Ketchum. They were presented at Court in London, and while William returned to Toronto the Baron went to France to seek information about his family fortunes. Unfortunately the vessel in which he sailed for America foundered at sea with all hands, and from that time his widow and her young daughter Adèle made their home with Mr. Ketchum.

But however bitter his grief, it was not to be expected that Jesse Ketchum should forever remain without a helpmate. He was still only forty-eight, and with his large family interests and responsibilities it was almost essential that his home should have a mistress of its own. Within a little less than a year he married Mary Ann Rubergall, sister-in-law to James Hervey Price, a young Englishman who had come to Toronto with his family three years before, and who for some time had been actively associated with the Reform movement.

Mr. Ketchum had taken a personal interest in the young man and his wife and attractive sister-in-law and the families had soon become fast friends. Mr. Price, who had studied law after his arrival in Canada, was elected, in 1841, for York to the first Parliament of United Canada, and for years he was one of its most influential members, holding office in the Lafontaine-Baldwin Government from 1848 to 1851 as Commissioner of Crown Lands.

The management of a large industry and his duties as a member of the Legislature occupied a great measure of Mr. Ketchum’s time during these eventful years. It was a difficult period, and the conflict with the Government of the day was of such a character as to test the qualities of the best of men. But with it all he found opportunities for all kinds of public service. He was interested in everything of a community nature. He had been not only a generous contributor to subscriptions for public improvements, such as the building of the Common School, the construction of the King Street bridge over the Don River, and, later, the building of two additional bridges and the extension of a road into the Peninsula in order to make what is now Toronto Island available to the people, but he also gave himself to services requiring personal duty. When, in 1826, it was decided to organize a Volunteer Fire Company in York to replace the old bucket brigades, he was one of the first to offer his services. And this was not merely nominal work. Under the rules drawn up for the operation of the Company, fines were levied for lateness, for failure to attend fires promptly, for not remaining until the end, and for appearing at a fire without the distinguishing hat. William Ketchum was chairman of this fire company in 1836.

Again, in 1830, Jesse assisted in the founding in York of an Institute similar in character to that of the Mechanics Institute and School of Art organized in Edinburgh in 1821 and in London in 1824. The name chosen was that of the “York Mechanics Institute or Society for Mutual Improvement in the Arts and Sciences.” Jesse Ketchum was one of the earliest subscribers and office bearers of the Institute. Others whose names are associated with its early management are Dr. Baldwin, Dr. Rolph, Dr. Dunlop, Sheriff Jarvis, John Ewart, David Patterson and James Lesslie. The Society was under the patronage of the Lieutenant-Governor, and it held public lectures from time to time on scientific, literary, artistic and other subjects. The nucleus of a library was formed at an early date, and in 1835 the Government gave it an allowance of £200 for the purchase of scientific apparatus. The Society continued until 1884, when its building and library were handed over to the newly-founded Toronto Public Library.

The Home of Jesse Ketchum,
N. W. corner of Yonge and Adelaide streets,
Toronto.

During the same year Mr. Ketchum also assisted in the formation of the Home District Savings Bank, an institution organized on a strictly philanthropic basis for the purpose of encouraging the savings of earnings by (according to a notice in the Upper Canada Gazette) “Journeymen, Tradesmen, Mechanics, Servants, Lawyers, etc,” The idea was suggested originally by Sir John Colborne. The Bank, which opened for business on Saturday, June 5th, 1830, at the office of the treasurer of the Home District, was to be open only on Saturdays between eleven and one o’clock, and it was to receive “such small sums as may be saved by the above description of persons, and to manage the same for the benefit of depositors, and thus enable the industrious and frugal, by commencing early in life with saving only a few shillings weekly, to make a provision for times of need.” No smaller amount than one shilling and three pence would be accepted, and when the deposit amounted to twenty shillings interest at the rate of five percent was to be allowed, this rate having been promised by the Bank of Upper Canada, with which the deposits were to be lodged. The Savings Bank was operated by a committee of citizens consisting of John Henry Dunn, the Receiver General, Hon. James Baby, Dr. W. W. Baldwin, Joseph Wells, Alexander Wood, George Munro, William Proudfoot, F. T. Billings, the Treasurer of the Home District, and Jesse Ketchum. This service also was by no means a mere perfunctory duty on the part of the Committee. They took over all the actual work themselves, two of the members acting as collectors for six-month periods, at the end of which the accounts of the depositors were balanced, interest added, and the charge and responsibility for the work taken over by two others.

6

MOVING TO BUFFALO

The necessity which caused the enforced absence of his son William, following the Rebellion, was a serious blow to Jesse Ketchum. He had a great respect for the law, and, with the exception of an indictment which once had been found against him for maintaining a fence on Yonge Street, due to the extension of the street south from Lot Street to the waterfront, he had never before been involved with courts of law or litigation. The prosecution of rebel offenders, however, was another matter. A principle of government was here involved, and though he had been opposed to resort to arms, he felt that undue hardship had been shown by those in authority.

William remained with his uncle Zebulon the greater part of a year, but during that time he had not been idle. Although he had been in Buffalo many times, it had been merely as a visitor. Marooned, as he now was, probably for an indefinite period, he looked at the City from an entirely new point of view. It was now a place to live in, and he looked about to see what he could make of it. In population there was at the time not much to choose between Buffalo and Toronto, but seeing it as he now did, the former seemed to hold many attractive possibilities for the future. The real value of the Erie Canal, which had been completed in 1825 at the then enormous cost of seven millions of dollars, was just becoming recognized. Situated as it was at the head of the Canal and at the foot of the Great Lakes, the city seemed to occupy a position of great strategic importance. All water-borne traffic east and west must here be transhipped—foodstuffs and raw materials from the West on their way to the seaboard, and the manufactured products of the Eastern States and of Europe on their passage to the far West. Moreover, with the exception of the disturbances on the Niagara River following the Rebellion, Buffalo had no political and social problems such as handicapped the progress of Toronto.

William saw all this. He recognized a great potential development in the young border city, and having made an analysis of the situation he submitted to his father a proposal for the founding of a branch of the tanning business in Buffalo as an enterprise that would likely return substantial profits. Jesse Ketchum on receipt of the suggestions visited the City and in the light of the examination that had been made he looked over the situation for himself. Not only did he approve of the proposal, but he decided that he would do more; he would move his entire plant from Toronto and re-establish it in the young and growing American city, with his son as its manager.

Jesse Ketchum’s decision to move his business did not necessarily involve reflection on his home city. Toronto had been kind to him beyond measure. His business here had been abundantly successful. But the land on which his plant was located was now in the best business portion of the City, and he felt that it could now be used to greater advantage. Further, the tanning business in Upper Canada was not what it had been, and the future of the trade did not appear encouraging. The policy of the Government in tying up so much land in idleness had had a serious effect on the development of the country. The growth of the towns, with the exception of those on the lake front, had not been encouraging; and even in the most of these there were already in operation sufficient tanneries to take care of all local needs. But his boy, through a series of unfortunate circumstances, was now unable to return to his home, and he was anxious to make any reasonable sacrifice for his son’s future welfare.

William knew the tanning business thoroughly. He had been carefully trained both in the works and in the details of the management, and he responded eagerly to his father’s action in placing the business in his hands. In a few weeks the removal was accomplished and the plant in operation.

The general amnesty declared by Lord Durham on June 28th was entirely unexpected. It was quite as much a surprise to the people of Canada as to the political leaders in England. Lord Brougham and Lord Lyndhurst, in the House of Lords, flayed Durham mercilessly, and had not Melbourne, the Prime Minister, ultimately given way and disallowed the ordinance, the Government might have been destroyed. In Canada the Family Compact was disgusted, but the liberation of prisoners went on, and after his Lordship’s departure in a huff rebellion in sections of Lower Canada broke out anew.

William Ketchum welcomed the amnesty because it held out hope of relief from persecution and return to Toronto. He had soon tired of the tannery and the responsibilities that went with it, and he was sick of the smell and grit of the tan bark. Moreover, he wanted to get back into the banking business, in which he had been interested with Walter Rose. This was a cleaner business and one that better suited his fastidious tastes. Ever since leaving home he had been in communication with his partner, who had kept him posted as to details of the business and the progress of political movements.

In a letter from Toronto, dated April 25th, 1838, Walter Rose writes:

Ten days later Rose writes again:

William remained in Buffalo only long enough to get the business well established and to secure an experienced man to take over the management. Instead of being rid of the tannery and sitting back in slippered ease, Jesse Ketchum now realized that he had acquired another business to look after. Instead of but crossing the road from his home to his office, he had now to cross Lake Ontario and make a lengthy trip by stage in order to see his plant. Instead of turning over his business to his son, his son had turned back the business to him. It was no bright outlook that now stared him in the face.

The business, however, was successful from the first, and that was something. Its owner, already well-to-do as the result of judicious business and real estate investments in Toronto and its neighborhood, did not require the profits from the tannery for the expenses of living; and as he was periodically in touch with the Buffalo markets he cast about for safe local investments. In looking for a site for his plant he had early realized that if Buffalo was to grow at all it would inevitably spread to the north. His first purchase, therefore, was on the east side of Main Street, just south of North Street, then open country and on the edge of the city limits. Taking that as his basis, therefore, he turned back into the neighboring lands the profits produced year by year by the tannery in order to be ready for the development that was sure to come.

The wisdom of this decision was soon recognized. When the city in its own good time saw fit to jump its boundaries, Jesse Ketchum, as the owner of an enormous acreage just outside, was ready, and in a few years his Buffalo possessions were almost equal in value to those which he had in Toronto.

It is doubtful if Jesse Ketchum at the time had any thought of himself moving to Buffalo. He was well and comfortably situated and he was surrounded by his family and friends. He had many interests—church, charitable, social and financial—and it seemed almost as though he were anchored here for the remainder of his life. Gradually, however, his Buffalo interests began to take an increasing share of his time and attention. With the development of the City came the responsibility of supervising the planning and laying out of his property for occupation. It was a big undertaking and one that required much time and personal attention.

Further, Mr. Ketchum at this time had a new young family growing up around him. The youngest of Ann Love’s children was now grown up and some of the grandchildren about the house were nearly of an age with members of his second family. An acceptable distribution of attention from one of such wide sympathy and kindness of heart would, under the circumstances, be difficult, if not impossible. What would be more natural, therefore, than the suggestion, at first timid and tentative, that as his worldly interests were now so well and evenly divided between the two cities, it might be possible so to arrange them that in the future those in Toronto might be allocated to the earlier family, which had been concerned more or less in their accumulation, and that the second family whose future was still all in the making, should ultimately be the inheritors of the Buffalo interests. That these young children should be permitted to grow up in the environment of their possessions seemed a reasonable action.

Mr. Ketchum with his wife and young family moved to Buffalo in 1845.

One may be sure that Jesse Ketchum did not decide to move to another city and to the shadow of another flag without keen regret and heart burning. True, he was born in New York State; but that did not make him an American. His birth had taken place prior to the recognition in 1783 of the American Colonies as a nation by the British Government. He was still and always had been a British subject. This fact, indeed, had been recognized and confirmed by the Legislature of Upper Canada itself twenty years before, during the dispute over Barnabas Bidwell. The House, in response to advice from the Colonial Office that the anomalies in regard to aliens in Canada should be cleared up, had, in 1824 laid it down as a principle that no one in the Province who had been born in British America before 1783 could be regarded as an alien. He was therefore quite as good a British subject as many of those who had been among his keenest political antagonists.

Jesse Ketchum had always been proud of his British birth, and Canada had been good to him. Toronto, too, had opened its doors when he was in sore need, and here he had found love and home and happiness. Buffalo, on the other hand was strange and comparatively unknown. The presence of his brother Zebulon, who had gone there from York many years before, and his family were his only human contacts. But the circumstances of his domestic conditions seemed to suggest that the move was a wise one; so after arranging that each member of his family was safely and comfortably located, he left Toronto.

In making provision for his sons and daughters and their families Mr. Ketchum justified himself to himself with the explanation that he was but giving Ann’s share to her children. William, as the eldest son, acquired the homestead; but as the house had already outlived its usefulness he took it down shortly afterwards and, in conjunction with his brother, erected a row of stores on the Yonge Street frontage, which they called the Elgin Buildings, in honor of Lord Elgin, the Governor General at the time. Fidelia Harris with her husband and family had moved from the Manse to the old farm and summer home in Eglinton, the disturbance in the Presbyterian community following the Church Union movement in Scotland furnishing a timely opportunity for Mr. Harris to make way for another pastor for Knox Church. Jesse Junior was now married, having taken to wife Elizabeth Wilson, sister of Judge R. A. Wilson, at one time United States Minister to Mexico, and to him was given a splendid farm on Yonge Street immediately north of the present St. Clair Avenue; and Jesse Thomson and his young wife took up residence on the next farm to the north. All these were properties owned by Mr. Ketchum.

1

SENECA KETCHUM

Seneca Ketchum, Jesse’s older brother, was something of a religious fanatic. Ever since, back in 1804, he had been out-distanced in the race for the hand of their pretty housekeeper, Ann Love, he had continued to live on in his Eglinton home on Yonge Street. He was a man of simple tastes, quiet and sedate, and although a successful man of affairs, he had little of the ability and enterprise which characterized his younger brother. He had been greatly disappointed over the way in which his love affair had turned out, but some years later he married Ann Mercer, a comely young woman of York Mills, who made him an excellent wife, even if she lacked the charm and affability of his earlier love. Unfortunately they had no children.

Unlike Jesse, who, according to Dr. John Carroll, never “professed any very marked Christian experience,” Seneca was devoted to religious study. He was a man of great natural benevolence and rarely missed an opportunity of speaking to young people and offering them counsel and encouragement. It had been a keen disappointment that he had been unable to complete his studies and take holy orders, but as he was a religious zealot he determined to give such talents as he possessed to the service of the Church. As a charter member of St. James’ he attended church every Sunday morning, picking his way over the six miles of rough waggon-track through the deep woods leading to York; and in the evenings around his own fireside he gathered in the neighbors for another service for the benefit of those unable to have the ministrations of Mr. Stuart or Doctor Strachan.

In Seneca’s view Jesse had fallen away from the faith. He had followed the gods of the non-conformists, or dissenters, as Doctor Strachan was fond of calling them. He had taken up first with the hated Methodists, and then with the Presbyterians, whom he despised. But, for his own part, there was but one Church—the Established Church of England; other denominations were anathema; and to his own Church and to religious work he gave himself eagerly, patiently, reverently and unstintingly.

With the growth of interest in the services held in his home, and the increase in population in the neighborhood, there came a demand for greater accommodation. A church building was suggested, and in a picturesque spot in the woods close to Yonge Street, near where the Don River crosses in the detour to the east on its way to Lake Ontario, this little group set about the erection of a little church, building it with their own hands. James Hogg, a Scottish miller, had some years before set up a flour and grist mill at this point, and a small community had gathered about it; and although there was already a Presbyterian chapel there it seemed the logical place for the new Church of England mission. For years the settlement was known locally as Hogg’s Hollow, but officially even in those days it was York Mills.

The little Anglican church, built in 1816, was a plain log structure with a chimney in the centre, and, as was the custom of the time, it was surrounded by a small burial-ground, or churchyard.

Three years later James Strachan, brother of Doctor Strachan, accompanied the rector of St. James’ to York Mills during the period of his stay in Upper Canada, and in the record of his trip, published on his return to Scotland, he thus recalls his visit to the little church at York Mills: “My brother had, by his exertions and encouragement among the people, caused a chapel to be built about eight miles from York, where he officiates once a month, one of the young students under his care reading the service and a sermon on the intermediate Sundays. On his day of duty I went with him and was highly gratified. The chapel is built in a thick wood. . . . The dimensions are sixty by thirty feet; the pews are very decent, and what was much better, they were filled with an attentive congregation. As you see very few inhabitants on your way out, I could not conceive where all the people came from.”

In spite of this tribute to the work of his distinguished brother it was not so much to the rector in York as to Seneca Ketchum and Joseph Shepard that the credit was due. Mr. Shepard gave three acres of land for the site and the churchyard, and a donation in cash, and Seneca contributed the greater portion of the cost of the building. Some of the neighbors gave labor, others gave materials.

But however modest the church, even it had its own purple day. The laying of its corner stone was a great ceremonial occasion. In the presence of a great throng, chiefly from York, a bottle containing a medal with these words on one side “Francis Gore, Esq., Lieutenant-Governor, 1816,” and a half-penny, was solemnly deposited in a hole in the ground and covered by a stone, which was then duly laid by His Excellency Lieutenant-Governor Gore. The people, who were seated on boards set on timbers arranged around the site, were then addressed by Rev. Dr. Strachan, rector of the mother church.

Seneca Ketchum’s contribution to the new church was, however, much more than the cash donation toward its construction. From the day it opened he practically took charge of the work. He was the most active man in the parish. There was of course no regular preacher for a time, and, unable to depend on student help from town, Seneca took many of the services himself, reading the lessons and addressing the assembled people. When conditions became a little better he decided to carry the church to those unable to come to York Mills. In 1819 he organized a circuit of services in several places in the surrounding districts, setting out before daylight on Sunday mornings on his self-imposed journey. His first stop on this circuit was at Thornhill, about five miles farther out on Yonge Street, where, at sunrise, he held a service in one of the private homes. He then passed on to Markham and two other places during the day, returning to his own home on Monday.

But even this soon proved insufficient to satisfy this ardent churchman. His zeal for missionary work was insatiable. As Thornhill soon followed the example of York Mills in establishing and building its own chapel, and the other places seemed likely to follow suit, he began to look around for other fields of activity. The back country, into which population was now penetrating, attracted him. In these districts the people were entirely without “benefit of clergy.” The more remote and inaccessible the settlement the greater was their need. So, after placing the matter before Doctor Strachan and obtaining his consent, he set out, in 1830, with such of his worldly possessions as he could carry to take up his home and begin work in the newly-surveyed Township of Mono, in what is now Dufferin County.

The Church of England at this time, though the dominant religious body in Upper Canada, was by no means a large group. When the Bishop of Quebec visited York, in 1820, there were but eighteen Anglican clergymen in the whole of Upper Canada, including the master of the Grammar School at Cornwall and the Navy chaplain at Kingston, and of these sixteen were gathered to meet him. This was said at the time to have been the largest convention of Anglican clergy ever held in Canada.

In selecting Mono Township as his field of operations Seneca Ketchum was, therefore, not trespassing on any denominational preserve or duplicating the work of any other missionary. It was all virgin territory, untouched as yet by any other worker, and the people there gave him a genuine welcome.

One can scarcely at this time appreciate the difficulties which confronted the eager missionary as he set out upon his brave and courageous enterprise. He was now nearing sixty, a time of life when one might reasonably look forward to the enjoyment of some of the comforts which years of industry and frugality had brought. For more than thirty years Seneca Ketchum had lived on his Yonge Street homestead, and, now, in the afternoon of his life, he was abandoning it and setting out to begin all over again in a remote, unknown and almost inaccessible district. But to him the call was insistent; and as in their heavily-laden ox-drawn waggons his party climbed the wild and beautiful Caledon Hills to the watershed of Lake Huron, Lake Erie, Lake Ontario and Lake Simcoe, his heart was light and he rejoiced to realize that his life was to be spent in such splendid natural surroundings.

From the Government Seneca had obtained a grant of unbroken wild land in the lofty Mono hills, and here he promptly set to work to build his first home, cut out a clearing in the forest, and break the land for the season’s crop. Missionary service in those early days carried neither salary nor house, nor even expense allowance; it was merely a permission to the one designated, after providing for his own needs and those of his family, to give himself unreservedly to the service of others. Settlers had already began to arrive. A small community was soon established, and before long the little village of Orangeville began to grow up almost on the edge of Seneca Ketchum’s farm property. From time to time as opportunity arose Seneca added extra acreage, and before many years he became recognized as one of the largest land-owners in the district.

From the first Seneca held religious services in his own home, and, as the settlement extended, he went out to the neighbouring districts to carry to the people the ministrations of his Church. Although the population in 1837 was still small—that of the entire Township even in 1842 being barely one thousand—he built a little log church on his own land on the First Line of Mono, about a mile from the present town of Orangeville, and there for years he personally conducted the services. As the surrounding districts grew he encouraged the people to have churches of their own, himself giving liberally to the cost of the buildings and land. Later on, toward the end of the ’40’s, when, owing to increasing years and bodily infirmities, he was unable to continue the travelling and labor which so active a missionary life exacted of him, it became necessary to ask Doctor Strachan for assistance. He then took the young missionary, Rev. John Fletcher, who came into the field, into his own home, and personally for some years defrayed most of his expenses. Later he built for him a rectory at Caledon.

Seneca lived and labored in Mono for twenty years. He died in 1850, almost four-score years of age, at the home of Rev. James Harris in Eglinton and was buried in the little churchyard at York Mills, the scene of his first active missionary labor. In all during his life at Mono he built six churches and two rectories, and he left a definite mark on the district and its community. As Mrs. Ketchum had predeceased him his property passed to his natural heirs.

Jesse Ketchum returned from Buffalo to close the estate. He took over the property himself, paid off the other heirs, and handed the Orangeville and neighboring lands to his son Jesse the younger, who then took up his residence in the town and soon became one of its most distinguished citizens. In 1854 the little wooden church was replaced by a stone building, but as most of the members were now Orangeville people, the new church was built within the town limits, on a site given by Jesse Junior, who also gave $250.00 toward the cost. St. Mark’s Church, the natural successor to the stone building, still pays tribute to the sterling qualities of its original benefactor.

Westminster Church, Buffalo,
Erected, 1858.

Jesse Ketchum Junior died in 1874, leaving a family of eleven children. During his life in Orangeville he contributed much by his energy and enterprise to its progress and development. He opened up large portions of the residential area, laid out the streets, widened Broadway, and personally planted many of the splendid trees which add so much to the charm and beauty of the town. His daughter, Mrs. George Burland Bull, inherited the old ivy-covered homestead at the corner of First Avenue and East Second Street.

2

BUFFALO YEARS

Jesse Ketchum moved his plant to Buffalo at a strategic time. That City had for some time been riding high on a wave of prosperity such as it had never seen before nor since. Incorporation had taken place in 1832, but two years prior to that of Toronto, and during the three following years its population had almost doubled.

The completion of the Erie Canal, which had already more than justified all expectations, was largely responsible for this rapid development. At first Black Rock, a near-by town on the Niagara River, and at this time the more populous, had seemed a dangerous rival to Buffalo for the honour of being the western terminus. It had the better harbour, as that at Buffalo was subject to the dangers from an ice blockade in the spring long after Lake Erie was clear. On the other hand, the Lake was higher at Buffalo than at Black Rock, and if the latter was chosen it would be necessary to construct a protecting pier along the margin of the river to carry the stream to the open waters of the Lake.

It had been a great relief, therefore, to the citizens when, in 1822, the Canal Commission decided to carry the Canal to Buffalo. The town at once took on a new lease of life and started definitely on the road toward becoming a big city. A further stimulus was the settlement, between 1825 and 1832, of the indemnity claims of those whose homes and property had been burned by the Indians in the British raid on Buffalo during the War of 1812. After many years of delay these were at last adjusted, and a great deal of money was put into circulation in the district.

Buffalo seemed now destined to become the most important shipping port on the Great Lakes. The export business of the west and east was focussed here. A steam railway—one of the earliest in America—was opened to connect the City with Niagara Falls in 1836, and people came in large numbers to share in the general prosperity. Land values during these few years jumped to unheard of values. The demand for houses far exceeded the supply. Property which, in 1835, was worth but $500 an acre, was sold and resold during the next three years as high as $10,000 an acre. Upwards of 25,000 conveyances of land are said to have been executed during this period, and more than $3,000,000 was spent in the erection of buildings.

“Never,” says H. Perry Smith in his History of Buffalo and Erie County, when dealing with this period, “did the fever of speculation rage more fiercely than it did in Erie County, and especially in Buffalo in 1835 and 1836.”

This condition of affairs, however, could not last indefinitely. The inevitable followed. The rapidly pyramiding values presently began to crumble, urged by an order from President Jackson that only specie would be accepted in payment of public lands. Such an order came as a thunderbolt. There was not enough actual money to go round. Investment was crippled; speculation stopped overnight; and prices and values toppled from their lofty altitudes.

It was just at this moment that Jesse Ketchum came to survey the situation. He saw at once that Buffalo by reason of its location was assured of a great future; that the orgy of speculation to which its citizens had succumbed, though unhealthy, was not necessarily fatal; and he was convinced that when the fever was past intrinsic values which time alone would reveal would still remain.

The City, in 1838, was small, extending only as far as North Street on the north and to Jefferson Avenue on the east, but settlement was still far from reaching these limits. Part of this section, both inside and outside the city limits, had originally been owned by Henry Clinton Ketchum. He had come to Buffalo in 1807 to join Zebulon, who for a time had lived with Seneca and Jesse in York; and in 1812 he had obtained the deed to his property and built his home at the corner of Main Street and Chippewa Avenue. The destruction of the house and its contents on December 31st, 1813, however, had forced the family to flee for their lives, and they never again returned to make their home in the City.

When Jesse Ketchum came to Buffalo he built his tannery on part of Henry’s old property. The buildings were erected on the east side of Main Street, between Allen and High streets; and as suburban lands had now begun to shrink in value and were readily obtainable, he continued year by year to add to his holdings in order to be in readiness for the demand which he believed was sure to come. By the time he came to Buffalo to live, in 1845, his ownership of farm lands on the edge of the City exceeded that of any other property owner in the district. The house of Zebulon Ketchum, his brother, was on High Street, not far from the tannery.

The expected revival in business set in about the middle of the ’40’s, and before long another boom, fortunately less irrational and under better control than the other, was in motion. The vast transcontinental traffic was now in flood, and as it passed the gates of Buffalo it left its trail of golden dividends in the laps of the city merchants and manufacturers. The population, which in 1835 was 15,661, jumped within ten years to 29,773. Five years later it was 42,261; and in 1860 it reached 81,129.

In all this phenomenal growth and development Jesse Ketchum had an abundant share. He held a strategic position. He sold his plant and gave his whole time to his property interests. Piece by piece his farm land was cut up and laid out in industrial and residential areas. He opened streets and laid out roadways. He built houses, and, to encourage occupation, he even at times rented them to deserving tenants, allowing the rents to apply on the purchase price.

The Ketchum house was a large three-storey brick building, set well back from the street in spacious grounds, and was known as “Tulip Garden.” It was located on North Street, immediately west of Delaware Avenue, and is said to have been one of the show places in the City at that time. The lot, having 264 feet in frontage with a depth extending through to Summer Street, contained a splendid grove of oak, chestnut and tulip trees with ample gardens, lawns and orchards. In the stables were horses and carriages, and through the gardens for the pleasure of his children and their friends Mr. Ketchum constructed a miniature railway equipped with a car and railway barns.

The tide of prosperity which set in about the time of Jesse Ketchum’s arrival continued its steady course year by year for more than a decade. The demand for land and houses went on with increasing momentum. The growth of the City was chiefly in the northern direction. By 1851 the boundaries which had been established nearly twenty years before had become altogether inadequate and demands were made for extension. The newer streets which had been laid out in the suburban areas were now so filled with houses and people that the municipal authorities in order to safeguard the health and needs of the citizens were compelled to take action. A new Charter was obtained from the Legislature in 1853; the town of Black Rock and an enormous area of other land were taken within the city limits, and Buffalo, which hitherto had been a small town, now became a city nine miles in length and from three to six miles in width.

This wave of prosperity was not checked until 1857, when financial disaster swept over the entire country; but by this time Jesse Ketchum was safe. From now on he was interested in spending money or in giving it away for the good of the community rather than in accumulating it.

It must not be supposed, however, that during all these years Mr. Ketchum was without his anxieties, financial and otherwise. He was constantly in touch with the members of his family in Toronto, and he had many an appeal for counsel and assistance. In a letter dated from “Tulip Garden” December 28th, 1847, he writes to his son Jesse in reply to a request for advice in regard to a new business venture upon which he has entered.

Jesse Junior who had but recently been married, also tells his father about the new house which he has built and discusses with him the question of its furnishings. The new business, too, is probably worrying him and the matter of financing the cost of the home and its contents is pressing.

3

THE PASSING OF THE PATRIARCH

The death of Jesse Ketchum on September 7th, 1867, at the age of eighty-five years and five months, brought to a close the life of one of the most interesting personalities of his time. When he came to Buffalo most of his active business days were over and the people of that City knew him only as a man advanced in years; but he still had large personal interests, and during the last twenty-two years of his life he achieved a place in the community quite unlike that of any other man of his day.

Mr. Ketchum’s life in these later years was for the most part singularly placid and uneventful. His stormy days were now past and he was content to live at peace. But he was none the less a man of vital and unique personality, never ceasing to take a keen interest in public affairs and to align himself definitely on the side of any cause which he believed to be right.

He took his American citizenship seriously. As he was now definitely resident under the flag of the United States and sharing its protection, he was eager also to share in the responsibilities which this involved. During the cholera epidemic of 1849 he was active in service and generous in his givings. This was the third time that dreadful scourge had visited Buffalo and in spite of the precautions of the health authorities and the experiences of the past it swept the City with pestilential severity, carrying mourning and anxiety to nearly every family. He was a member of the citizens relief committee with other public-spirited men, and he gave himself unreservedly to the service of the needy during that dreadful summer.

Again, when the shadows of the Civil War hung over the City and the very foundations of the country were shaken there came another call. The bombardment of Fort Sumter on April 15th, 1861, had but one meaning, and the entire nation rose at once to place its resources in readiness. The militia promptly reported for service and the citizens of the City organized to care for the families and dependents of the volunteers sent to the front. An initial fund of $30,000 was hurriedly subscribed, supplemented by $50,000 from the City treasury and many of the older men enrolled under ex-President Fillmore as a company of “Union Continentals” to act as a home-guard.

Although hating war as an evil thing Jesse Ketchum did not shrink from the dangers and difficulties of the contest. Unable because of his years—he was then seventy-nine—to take part with the home-guard, he devoted himself to the administration of the fund for the families of the enlisted men; and as each succeeding call for the formation of new companies demanded further contributions and renewed activities, this was no light task. But this was not all. On his visits to the schools week by week during these dark years he talked to the children of the great issues the nation was facing, of the questions of national honour and humanity involved, and of the supreme necessity for preserving the union of the States at all costs. His purse, too, during these eventful years was always open, and no appeal for help for the stricken families passed unheeded.

In his domestic life during these years Jesse Ketchum was again singularly fortunate and happy. The segregation of interests for the members of the first family, as distinct from those of the second, had proven a wise and provident move. In this way all possibility of friction was removed and the young people in Buffalo grew and thrived in an atmosphere entirely removed from dissension of any kind.

His relations with his sons and daughters in Toronto were of the most friendly and intimate character, and he made frequent trips to his former home on matters of business, to attend the meetings of the Bible and Tract Societies, and to visit his old friends in the schools. After the death of William, Fidelia Harris and his son Jesse with their families continued to visit in Buffalo from time to time, especially during the summer months, when the boat trip between Toronto and Youngstown, at the mouth of the Niagara River, made it a pleasant holiday excursion.

During practically all his years in Buffalo he continued his visits to the schools. These were the great joys of his life, and as he went from school to school he made friends with the teachers and tried his utmost to encourage them in their work. His addresses to the children on these occasions were usually couched in quaint and picturesque language adapted to the youthful minds, and he tried to insert a lesson in every talk for his audience to carry away.

A mischievous or troublesome boy, he used to say, was like a baulky horse—“it had too much democracy in its constitution.”

He urged continuously, as he had in Toronto, against liquor and tobacco and the use of bad language; and he never failed to admonish his hearers against the dangers of marrying those addicted to these vices. Thrift was to him one of the outstanding virtues, and he often talked of it to the boys and girls. He had seen much of prodigality and wastefulness during his life, and he thoroughly detested it; “but,” he warned, “do not eat up your seed potatoes. . . . nor, in making up your mind on any question. . . . spend all your time on the wind of the subject—mere talk.”

To the very end of his life he never forgot his mother, whom as a little child he had lost, and he always spoke of her with the greatest reverence, almost in a tone of tender mystery. Every child, he often said, should have the benefit of a mother’s care.

“I have hope of a child though he may have a bad father,” he would say, “but if he has a bad mother I can’t expect much good of him.”

Mr. Ketchum made it a practice to visit every room in every school in the City at least once each year, and it was his aim to see that every pupil and every teacher should receive from him the gift of some worth-while book during the year. These visits he carried on almost to the very end of his life, and on account of his advanced age it must at times have been a severe tax on his strength to reach the upper floors in some of the larger schools.

It was while driving to one of the distant schools on the day of the school opening, on the first Monday in September, that he was seized with a chill and forced to return home. He was promptly put to bed, but it was soon realized that his call had come, and on the following Saturday he passed peacefully away.

From the first onset of his illness he himself felt that he would not get better, but he had no desire to have prayers offered for his recovery. On Saturday morning, though entirely conscious but quite unable to speak, he made a sign to those in attendance; and then one by one, beginning with his aged brother Henry and his sister Abigail and following through to the youngest grandchild, the members of the family filed silently past his bedside, each pressing his feeble hand as the gentle spirit of the old patriarch passed to his reward.

The funeral, which took place from Westminster Church on the following Tuesday, was one of the largest and most impressive ever seen in Buffalo. The church was crowded to its capacity with the mourners and the friends who had gathered to pay their tribute of respect. Every class in the community was represented excepting the children, who, on account of the large attendance, were not encouraged to attend.

The members of the City Council were present in a body, and as the schools were closed in tribute to a generous benefactor, the teachers were there in large numbers, and they, with the municipal authorities, the church officers and members, and a large number of others, followed on foot in the funeral procession from the house to the church and from the church to Weed’s Tomb, at the corner of Delaware Avenue and North Street, where the remains were deposited until they should be taken later to Forest Lawn Cemetery.

The pall-bearers consisted of two representatives each from Westminster Church, the First Presbyterian Church, the North Church, and Lafayette Street Church, and the service was conducted by Rev. Dr. A. T. Chester, who preached the funeral sermon, assisted by Rev. Alex. McLean, Rev. Dr. J. C. Lord, Rev. Dr. Clarke and Rev. Dr. Heacock.

A special meeting of the school-teachers of the Buffalo schools called for the purpose was held on the morning of the funeral and the following resolution was adopted:

The City Council at its regular meeting on the Monday following his death appointed a special committee to draft a suitable resolution of recognition and sympathy. The following is the resolution as passed and forwarded to Mrs. Ketchum, suitably engrossed and signed.

1

CHURCHES, SUNDAY SCHOOLS AND TEMPERANCE

It may be, as Dr. Carroll suggests, that Jesse Ketchum never “professed any marked Christian experience,” but he certainly throughout his long life displayed many of the characteristics of a Christian gentleman. True, he had not Seneca’s fanatical zeal for active church work, and he was inconsistent in his denominational affiliations; but he held family worship in his home twice every day, he kept open house for all travelling ministers coming his way, the first Sunday school was organized in his home, and he allowed no manner of work in his own household on the Sabbath day either by his family, his servants or his horses.

With the tragic example of his father’s blighted career before him he took advanced ground against the use of intoxicating liquor, and with it tobacco and snuff, and he took every opportunity of warning young and old against their use. The drinking of liquor in those early days was not considered a major vice. Such a thing was general among all classes of the community. Even in Toronto, with a population of less than twelve thousand, there were in 1837 no less than seventy-six taverns for the sale of liquor. John Doel and Joseph Bloor, both prominent laymen in the Methodist Church, were brewers, and though strongly opposed to the use of the product of his industry, Jesse Ketchum was for many years one of Doel’s most intimate friends and a close political ally.

But throughout his life Ketchum worked diligently in the cause of temperance. He spoke against the manufacture and sale of liquor on every opportunity, and he gave liberally to recognized organizations engaged in fighting the evil. When he presented the small library to the little church built on his Eglinton property he placed on the gift a stipulation that the children should have the free use of the books on condition of promising to abstain from the use of liquor and tobacco, and on practically every visit which he made to Sunday schools during his long life he made reference to the evils of intemperance and the dangers attending those who married men addicted to the use of liquor.

At the time Jesse Ketchum was preparing to move to Buffalo he carried through a project which he had carefully planned long before, that of opening a street from Yonge Street to Bay Street through his garden and about midway between Adelaide and Richmond streets. This he proposed to call Temperance Street, and in the deeds covering the building lots thus created he placed restrictions providing that at no time in the future should intoxicating liquors be sold in any building erected on them. He also erected on the south side of Temperance Street a public hall called the Temperance Hall, which he presented to the Temperance Reformation Society, the largest and most important temperance society in the city. Within the building, in addition to the large assembly room for the holding of public meetings, were a number of smaller rooms, and in these the various temperance and other societies and lodges held their meetings from time to time. In recent years the building was remodelled and used as a theatre. The Hall was occupied by the Normal School from 1849 to 1852 prior to the opening of its own new building.

Not content with this contribution to the cause which he had so much at heart, Mr. Ketchum returned to Toronto several years later for the purpose of conferring a like gift on the Village of Yorkville, a small community immediately north of Bloor Street and later incorporated within the city limits. He set apart a lot on Davenport Road a short distance west of Yonge Street, and built upon it a little red brick building; and this, in 1853, he presented to the York Division of the Sons of Temperance for its use in the promotion of its work. The original building, now known as Ketchum Hall, is still standing, though not now used for temperance meetings.

Jesse Ketchum throughout his life refused consistently to rent, lease or sell any of his property for purposes of which he did not approve. Young Jesse, as custodian though not the occupant of the Eglinton homestead after his father’s removal to Buffalo, had an offer for some of the outbuildings on the property for use as a livery stable. This he passed on for approval. His father’s reply is characteristic:

Jesse Ketchum was a philanthropist at a time when philanthropy was little practised. To say that he was the first in Toronto may not be strictly true, but it is not very far astray. Certainly, with the exception of the gift by Chief Justice Robinson, in 1826, of the six acres of land on Queen Street for the erection of buildings for the use of the law courts of the Province, upon which Osgoode Hall now stands, there are few records in the early history of Toronto of substantial benefactions of a public or private nature. As an employer of labour Mr. Ketchum was quite unusual. For many years he made it a practice to present a building lot for a home of his own to every man in his service on the occasion of his marriage, and, as often as not, he also loaned him the money without interest with which to build the home. Later, when moving his tannery to Buffalo, he personally saw to it that every man in his employ who remained in Toronto was first safely and comfortably placed in another position.

Churches, too, were to him a public obligation. He considered them the strongest moral force in the community, and he looked upon it as a privilege to assist them in any way. It was not to be expected that he could always be as generous in his giving as he was with Knox Church; in that case to assist the church was to help his son-in-law; but he could always do something. When, in 1834, it was proposed to erect a new chapel for the growing settlement in Eglinton, he cut off half an acre from the Yonge Street frontage of his farm and turned it over to the church at the purely nominal price of £12.10 ($50). He then contributed that amount to the cost of the new building.

During that same year another group of people assembled in the Masonic Hall on Colborne Street for the purpose of organizing a Congregational Church—the first of the kind in the Province. When, a little later, they approached Mr. Ketchum with a view to the purchase of a portion of his property at the north-east corner of Bay and Adelaide Streets, he practically did the same for them. The Bay Street Presbyterian Church, which from 1848 to 1878 occupied the south-east corner of Bay and Richmond Streets, was also built on his property, and to it, too, he made substantial contributions. This church was organized by adherents to the United Secession Church, those who did not see eye to eye with the members of Knox Church, which, since 1843, was connected with the Upper Canada United Synod; but it was none the less welcomed by the broad-minded Ketchum.

The old Richmond Street Methodist Church, of such blessed memory to the older generation of Methodists in Toronto, which was built in 1844, on Richmond Street, directly across the street from Knox Church, also had Jesse Ketchum’s support and benediction. The lot which the church purchased from him also formed part of his garden, and the transaction took place at the time of the laying out of Temperance Street. The erection of the building which, later, was called the “Cathedral of Methodism in Canada,” was made possible in the first place by a bequest from the estate of Thomas Clarke, a King Street hatter who for some years had been a class leader and local preacher in the old King Street Church, and by friends from the outside like Jesse Ketchum.

This period in Toronto’s history was a time not only of denominational differences, but also of divisions among those in the same denomination. The original Methodist church on King Street had been organized by the American Conference and its ministers for years were drawn from the United States. Soon after the Rebellion differences arose over this connection and a portion of the congregation left the church and joined a new conference known as the British Wesleyan Conference, with a chapel on George Street. The new Richmond Street Church was the result of the rapid growth of this congregation and the necessity for more room. Still another branch of the Church was that known as the Methodist New Connexion^[9] Church which, in 1846, erected a chapel on Temperance Street, adjoining Temperance Hall.

A union of the certain sections of the Methodist Church in Canada took place in 1847. This was accomplished largely through the efforts of Rev. Robert Alder, who had been sent to Canada by the British Conference; but so strong was the feeling against the union that a number of the “loyal” British ministers refused to remain in Upper Canada and moved to the Maritime Provinces.

The organization, in 1818, of the first Sunday School in York was soon followed by others, and with each new church as it was organized arrangements were made for work to be carried on among the young. St. James’ Church, however, lagged behind. Dr. Strachan was unwilling to follow any such leadership. He had denounced the Methodists and all their works too bitterly to accept any of their “Yankee” innovations. He liked the idea well enough, but he did not like its sponsors. Friends pointed out the need for the work, but it was not until Miss Young, sister-in-law to Sir John Colborne, offered her services that he was moved to action. But instead of establishing the Sunday school in the church as the others had done he decided to organize it in the Common school and thus reach a wider circle.

The old Common school, which Doctor Strachan had taken from the Trustees in 1820 and turned over to Joseph Spragg to become a Bell and Lancaster school, was, in reality, a Church of England school, although many of its pupils were the children of persons of other denominations. But it was under the control of the Provincial Board of Education, and it would be a simple matter therefore to organize a Sunday school in connection with the educational system and carry it on under the direction of the Chairman of the Board, who happened also to be the rector of the church just across the street. So, with the countenance of His Excellency himself, and with the co-operation of Miss Young, of the Lieutenant-Governor’s own household, and Miss Fanny Dixon, a member of the Church, the school was launched. In addition to the classes which were held in the school building every Sunday the entire school was taken over to St. James’ Church every Friday afternoon during Lent for examination by Doctor Strachan as to their knowledge of the catechism.

Jesse Ketchum followed the Sunday school movement with keen interest. He continued his active connection with the King Street school long after the building of Knox Church, and when, owing to the pressure of public affairs, he found it necessary to give up his duties as teacher and secretary of the school, he made it a practice to visit the various other Sunday schools in the City from time to time in order to watch their progress and encourage the teachers and pupils in their work.

The late Rev. Dr. W. H. Withrow, in a monograph on the life of Jesse Ketchum written shortly after his death, recalls his early memories of one of these Sunday visits, probably in the ’40’s. “One of my earliest recollections,” he writes, “is of a silvery-haired old gentleman who used to visit the Sunday schools of Toronto. We all knew what to expect when he appeared. In the first place we received some kind and fatherly words of counsel and encouragement the burden of which was: Be good, be true, be honest, be brave! Then from the capacious pockets of his overcoat he would produce a number of instructive and interesting books which he loved to distribute with his own hands to the eager-eyed boys and girls. . . . His own childhood was poor and neglected, full of toil and sorrow, and he knew how to sympathize with the sorrows of childhood and he loved to add to their innocent joy.”

After his removal from Toronto Jesse Ketchum on the occasion of his frequent visits to his old home often spent his Sunday afternoons in renewing his acquaintance with the teachers in the schools as of old and in meeting the newer generations of children.

W. H. Pearson, former Secretary-Treasurer of the Consumers’ Gas Company of Toronto, who for nearly forty years was connected with the Richmond Street Methodist Church Sunday School, recalls in his Recollections and Records a visit which Jesse Ketchum paid to his school about 1860, when he gave some very kind words of encouragement to the children. Amongst other things, says Mr. Pearson, he advised the girls never to marry a man who smoked or chewed tobacco or who drank liquor. “I was very much impressed with his appearance,” he concludes, “and the energy with which he spoke, and his humor. He was then about eighty years of age with silvery hair and a plain but pleasant face.”

2

THE KETCHUM TRUSTS—TORONTO

Jesse Ketchum was the first man in York to encourage the placing of books in the hands of children. Books in the early days of Upper Canada were not readily accessible; they were almost exclusively among the privileges of the rich. Education was not general, and except for the few whose parents could afford to send them to the District Grammar School, the children never received more than a scant acquaintance with elementary subjects.

Mr. Ketchum, however, realized very early in life that food and clothing and crops and profits were not the important things in life. His acquaintance with educated people had taught him the value of cultural training, and as the way to this was largely through the medium of books he urged upon boys and girls on every possible occasion the value of reading and study. There had always since early times been a book store in York, but as few children had access to books either by purchase or loan, he proposed to bring the books to them.

The Sunday schools which had been formed in connection with the various churches seemed to provide the only opening. There were no other groups of children in the town at this time excepting those in the schools; but as these, with the exception of the Grammar School and the Common School—both dominated by Doctor Strachan—were private schools and therefore unavailable, he determined to try and introduce circulating libraries into the Sunday schools. In co-operation with Rev. James Harris, of Knox Church, therefore, he formed, in 1823, the York Sunday School Union, for the purpose, among other things, of establishing a library for the use of the children in the different Sunday schools in the town. Mr. Harris was President and Mr. Ketchum Treasurer of the organization.

There is no available information as to the measure of success attained by this Society, although the Upper Canada Gazette during several years makes frequent reference to its meetings and activities; but it certainly had the effect of bringing the churches and the workers in the Sunday schools into closer contact and establishing a common interest between them. The founding of the Upper Canada Religious Tract and Book Society in January of 1832 was a natural development of the movement.

This new and enlarged Society was formed, not as a branch of the London Religious Tract Society, which had operated in England and the Colonies since 1799 and already had an auxiliary in Kingston, but as a strictly Canadian organization. It was its intention to circulate the tracts and books of the London Society, but it was felt that the Canadian field was so large that all the funds that could be raised within the Province should be expended for the work at home. Further, while approving of the distribution of the religious tracts as prepared under the authority of the London Society, it intended to extend the scope of the work by including the circulation of approved works of literature as well; hence the use of the word “Book” in its name. The Rev. J. H. Harris, D.D., Principal of Upper Canada College, was elected President, and Jesse Ketchum, Charles C. Small, John Gamble, Capt. Phillpotts and Rev. Charles Matthews, Vice-Presidents. These with ten others constituted the committee of management.

The receipts of the Society from subscriptions and sales during the first full year of business amounted to £110.12.3; in 1835 to £306.11.5½; and in 1839 to £436.10.10½. In 1837 an auxiliary was organized in Toronto for the purpose of handling the local business, with His Excellency Sir Francis Bond Head as Patron and Hon. John Henry Dunn as President; another, a year later, was formed at Beamsville in the Niagara District.

Although the Society had for some years a considerable sale of books in addition to that of religious tracts, it was not until 1838 that it seriously took up the project so close to the heart of its first Vice-President—that of libraries for Sunday schools. Finally a request was made to the London Society that a series of books should be selected suitable for circulation among the young and adapted as far as possible to the local needs. The situation was carefully outlined and an order was placed for twenty-four libraries of one hundred volumes each.

During the following year the first ten of these libraries arrived, and almost at once they were disposed of to waiting schools. The price charged was £3.15. each, just about one-half of the purchase cost. The distribution was as follows: one each to the Episcopal Methodist, Wesleyan Methodist and Baptist Schools in Toronto, the Wesleyan Methodist on Yonge Street, Wesleyan Methodist in York Township, Wesleyan Methodist in Whitchurch Township, Wesleyan Methodist and Canadian Methodist in Hamilton, Primitive Methodist in Brampton, and one for a village library in Oakville. The library for the Wesleyan Methodist School on Yonge Street was that presented by Jesse Ketchum to the Sunday school on his property in Eglinton. That for the village of Oakville was probably the first public library in Upper Canada.

The work of the Society by this time had begun to attract attention. Auxiliaries were established in several other towns and its activities considerably extended. In 1839 the first consignment of Bibles with the metrical version of the Psalms and Paraphrases was received, and during the same year an order was placed for delivery in the following spring of an assortment of Sunday school publications and lesson helps for the use of teachers.

The second consignment of libraries consisted of twenty small collections similar to those already received and six larger ones of two hundred volumes each. These also were readily disposed of. “This is an occasion of high gratification,” says the report of the Society for the year, “as these books are lent out extensively and will long exist diffusing truth and cherishing love of pious reading which is so important in the rural districts of the Province.”

During the following year thirty-three libraries were sold, most of them to Protestant Sunday schools throughout the Province, but some were purchased as community libraries. The sale in 1842 was smaller, only fifteen being sold, but in the following year the number increased to seventy-six.

And thus the work went on. Jesse Ketchum’s optimism was more than justified. The reports received from time to time as to the pleasure brought by the libraries and by the visits of the workers connected with the Society confirmed him in his belief as to the intellectual starvation throughout the Province.

Even after his removal to Buffalo Mr. Ketchum continued to give the Society and its work his active support and assistance. So impressed indeed was he with it as an active agency for good that, after a careful canvass of the situation, he decided to give to it a permanent endowment for the carrying on of its work and to provide funds with which to purchase good books for the boys and girls in the Public and Sunday schools of the City.

In 1852 he returned to Toronto in order to carry out this project. Since 1839 the Society had carried on as two separate organizations, one the development of a society formed for the sale and distribution of Bibles and originally operating outside of the City, the other for the handling of books and religious literature. Both, however, were under one management and were operated from the one central bureau or depository. It was one of Jesse Ketchum’s ambitions that every young person in the schools of the City should own a copy of the Bible, and in his visits to the various class-rooms he had personally given away many hundreds of Bibles with his own hands. In order, therefore, that the work might be carried on and extended he executed a lease of the premises now known as 102 and 104 Yonge Street, and then owned by him and occupied by the Societies, to J. S. Howard and A. T. McCord as trustees, for a period of forty-two years, the rent to be paid in Bibles and other suitable books for distribution to the scholars in the Public and Sunday schools.

Six years later this lease was cancelled at his request and he executed in its place two Trust Deeds, one to the Upper Canada Bible Society, the other to the Upper Canada Tract Society. By the first of these he conveyed to the Bible Society a perpetual lease of the property occupied by the Societies as their headquarters on the sole condition that the amount of the ground rent at its existing valuation, £31.10 ($126.00), should be devoted to the purchase of books for distribution among the boys and girls attending the Public Schools of the City; one-half of this amount was to be spent on Bibles, the other half on books of a religious tone. The books were to be purchased from the Societies at cost price.

The second Trust Deed conveyed to the Upper Canada Tract Society the property immediately adjoining, and now known as 106 Yonge Street; but in this case the entire ground rent was to be devoted to Bibles and books for distribution among the boys and girls in the Protestant Sunday schools in the City. The two Societies were made Trustees with supervision over the administration of the funds. Subject only to these provisions the properties were to be used for the benefit of the Societies and the promotion of their work.

But Jesse Ketchum’s benefactions did not end here. He had long wanted to do something for the village of Yorkville, then a suburb, but now close to the heart of the City. On April 25th, 1856, he dedicated to the village two parcels of land on what is now Bay Street, at Davenport Road, “in consideration,” so reads the preamble to the deed, “of the public good and the strong desire said party of the first part (Mr. Ketchum) hath to promote the education of the young, the interest of free and Sabbath schools in Toronto and Yorkville, hath given, granted and bargained and by these presents doth give, grant and bargain unto the said George Bostwick and others (trustees for the Village of Yorkville) their successors and assigns in office forever.”

The first parcel was set apart as a site for a “free and common school” on condition that the village should erect a suitable school building; the other, a two-acre block immediately adjoining, was to be kept for all time as a public park for the free use of the citizens, enclosed with fences and laid out with trees, shrubs, walks and seats. This area, since extended by the City to four acres, is known as Ketchum Park; the rear portion provides a spacious playing field for the school and neighbourhood for both summer and winter sports, while another portion is equipped and operated as a supervised playground for younger children. The Jesse Ketchum School building, which many years ago replaced that of the original Yorkville School, is now one of the largest schools in Toronto.

A few months after the making of these splendid gifts the municipal authorities of Yorkville tendered a complimentary banquet to Mr. Ketchum in recognition of his benefactions to the village. Later on he sold a small parcel of land on Adelaide Street and with the proceeds ($357.50) he established a Trust for the purchase of Bibles and books for the pupils in the Yorkville School. This Trust was placed in the hands of the Bible and Tract Societies for administration.

At the time these various Trusts were established there were in Toronto but eight public schools and perhaps twice that number of Sunday schools. The public schools were John Street, Louisa Street, Victoria Street, Phoebe Street, George Street, Niagara Street the Park School and the Western School; but although the population of the City in 1858 was in excess of 45,000 the total registered attendance amounted to only 4543, with an average attendance of but 1863. So small a school population, however, seemed characteristic of the times, and Dr. Ryerson, the Superintendent of Education, on comparing the average with the registered attendance was tempted to conclude that the result of the free school experiment was after all anything but encouraging. During the same year the registers in the Sunday schools of the City showed a total of almost four thousand, with an average attendance in excess of fifteen hundred.

A foundation that would yield the sum of $126.00 a year for prize books for distribution in the Public Schools, was a generous contribution to community service. At the time it seemed abundant for the purpose and the awarding of the Jesse Ketchum prizes soon became a distinctive feature in the school life of the City. Portraits of the donor were hung in the senior class-rooms in each school, and for a time, as had been done on his visits to the schools, the pupils voted for those to whom the awards should be given. Later, after the appointment of James L. Hughes as Inspector of Schools in 1878, the Trustees of the fund were persuaded to make the basis of award the combined records of the pupils for good conduct, punctuality, regularity of attendance, and diligence in the performance of duty, and the winners were to be selected only from the senior classes.

With the rapid growth of the City, and the enormously increased number of schools and pupils, the funds years ago proved to be altogether inadequate for yearly disbursement in the Public Schools; they are therefore now accumulated and the awards are made only when sufficient funds are available to cover all the schools in one distribution. In the Sunday schools the awards are made every year and in 1924 schools to the number of 274 shared in the awards. The amount distributed was $4200; the minimum in value given to any one school $10.00, and the largest—that of St. Anne’s Anglican school—$60.00. In that distribution prize books were given to fifty-six Presbyterian, fifty-four Anglican, fifty-one Methodist, forty-six Baptist, seventeen Salvation Army, five Congregational, and forty-five schools belonging to other religious communions. The entire cost of the splendid building of the Upper Canada Bible Society at 14 College Street erected and dedicated April 24th, 1919, was paid from the accumulated surplus rental of the property given to it by Jesse Ketchum; that of the adjoining property is used for the promotion of the work of the Tract Society.

3

JESSE KETCHUM’S GIFTS TO BUFFALO

When Jesse Ketchum moved to Buffalo he was sixty-three, an advanced age at which to take up a new life, but he was active in body and in mind and keenly interested in all public and community activities. He was a decided loss to Toronto but a great acquisition to Buffalo. Curiously enough, his move from Canada to the United States involved no actual change in nationality; he was both a British and an American citizen, a fact that was established on more than one occasion.

As he had come bearing a certificate of membership in the Presbyterian Church in Toronto he immediately associated himself with the First Presbyterian Church of Buffalo, the nearest to his new home of the two churches of that denomination. The Methodists had been the first to organize a church in Buffalo, their original building having been erected on Pearl Street in 1819, but for ten years prior to that they had been holding services intermittently, first in private houses and later in the school house.

The First Presbyterian Church was organized in 1812. For a time the little congregation of twenty-nine bore the cumbersome title of “First Congregational and Presbyterian Church of Buffalo,” but the destruction of the Court House, in which they were holding services at the time of the New Year’s Eve visitation by the British during the War, eliminated the double title, and as Presbyterians the people worshipped in a barn at the corner of Main and Genesee streets until a permanent church home was erected.

Black Rock, however, was without the benefit of the Scottish Church service, and Jesse Ketchum, before he had been in Buffalo a twelve-month, bought a lot on Delaware Avenue for one thousand dollars as a site for a Presbyterian church for the district. Two years later he built on the lot a small brick chapel, at a cost of another thousand.

Population, however, was needed in order to make a congregation, and as there was little settlement at this time north of Virginia Street, the chapel for several years was seldom used. But Mr. Ketchum was not discouraged. He quietly went on with his plans. He put up a sexton’s house on the property at a cost of $750, then a home for a minister, costing $2000; and finally, in August, 1850, the population now seeming to justify the venture, he engaged a regular minister for the chapel and personally for the first three years paid his salary of $800 a year.

As the chapel was as yet far in the suburbs and the people few in numbers “Jesse Ketchum’s minister,” as he was called, devoted much of his time and service in districts farther out, to attendance at the Penitentiary, and to educational and philanthropic work in which his patron was interested. A Sunday school, known for years as the Delaware Avenue Sunday School, was organized, Mr. Ketchum giving it much personal attention, and this soon became one of the most important features of the work.

By 1853 the members of the Church, confident now in their ability to carry on, formed an organization which they called the Westminster Presbyterian Society and appointed a board of trustees, with Mr. Ketchum as its chairman, to take over the responsibility of the church and its management. The minister’s salary was at once advanced to $1200 and its payment guaranteed by the trustees, and plans were laid for the building of a larger church. In December Mr. Ketchum formally deeded the property to the trustees.

It was not long before the necessity for the larger church became acute. For a time an extension to the chapel helped a little, but in June, 1858, a building committee was appointed to consider plans for a new church. A subscription list was opened and, headed by Jesse Ketchum with a promise of $5000, forty-two members subscribed $18,000. Building operations began at once.

But Mr. Ketchum’s benefactions and interests were not confined to Westminster Church. Away off beyond the north-eastern limits of his farm, near where the City Hospital now stands and then far from the city limits, was a little pioneer settlement consisting chiefly of working people of small means. These people were entirely without church or school or any of the advantages of city life. This condition was brought to Jesse Ketchum’s attention, and in 1849 he cut off from his farm property a generous block of land, and on this he built at his own expense a frame building for a school house for the children of the district and as a community centre for the people. In addition to this he personally paid the salary of the teacher and all of the expense of the maintenance of the school.

For some years this continued to be but a little country school, its registered attendance in 1857 being but fifty-eight, and in 1867 only sixty-five; but its benefactor saw to it that it had a library of its own, and the records are still preserved showing the extent of the circulation of its books among the pupils. This was the first school library in Buffalo and antedated by many years any other public school library in the City. A new brick building replaced the original frame structure soon after the school became part of the educational system of the City and this, in 1868, gave place in turn to a still larger building. District School No. 23, at Delevan and Wyoming Avenues, now one of the largest schools in Buffalo, occupies the identical plot donated by Jesse Ketchum in 1849.

The educational needs of Black Rock at this time were almost as acute as those farther afield. Schools as yet were largely matters of private enterprise and working people often found difficulty in securing an education for their children. Jesse Ketchum, therefore, determined to do something for the boys and girls in the neighbourhood of his own home. In the laying out of a new sub-division on the north side of Jersey Avenue he set apart a plot of approximately five acres which he designated for school purposes as soon as the population of the district should warrant it. As this block, bounded now by Jersey Street, Normal Avenue, York Street and Fourteenth Street, was then farm land Mr. Ketchum proceeded to develop it for its intended purpose. He first fenced in the entire square, then, for decoration, he encircled it with a row of fine maple and chestnut trees. Opposite the plot, on Jersey Street, he set out a small triangular park, planting it with trees, shrubs and hardy flowers; and then during several seasons, with the assistance only of his gardener and his grandsons, he watered and tended the plantings until they were well on their way to maturity.

Across the Jersey Avenue frontage of the school plot Mr. Ketchum then built a row of white brick one-storey and basement school buildings, dividing it alternately into class-rooms and houses for the teachers. These buildings, erected long before the extension of the City limits, were for some years much more spacious than the school population justified, but they embodied certain ideals and were the first expression of a development which had been in his mind for years. For a time he paid the salary of the teachers and kept the premises in repair, and the housewives in the buildings were especially enjoined to run the water from their washtubs into barrels supplied for the purpose, in order that the trees and flowers in the grounds and in the triangle might have the benefit of the potash in the suds.

Although for some years these buildings were used for Public School purposes Jesse Ketchum had at the back of his head another purpose, one which was not definitely disclosed until after the close of the Civil War. An experience with schools and teachers extending back half a century had taught him long since that success depended almost entirely on the teacher. He saw that there were no adequate training schools, and now that Buffalo had become a large city with opportunities on every side for trained and experienced men and women teachers, he felt that the time was opportune for the founding of a training school in the City. As education was the responsibility of the municipality, the training of teachers must also be the duty of the City, or, at all events, of the State!

Mr. Ketchum, therefore, tendered to the Common Council of Buffalo, free from all encumbrance, the five acre school plot on Jersey Avenue, together with the buildings already erected, on condition that the municipality should maintain it as a training school. He even went further: in addition to the present building, which at the time embodied what were thought to be the best ideas for such a school, he proceeded to erect a chapel and gymnasium for the use of the students. The City, however, was forced to decline the gift. The educational system of New York State required that teachers should be trained in State Normal Schools and it was quite impossible for the City of Buffalo to set up an institution in competition with those under State control. The plan therefore had to be abandoned, and it remained dormant until the spring of 1866.

The increasing demand for teachers throughout New York State at this time prompted the Legislature, at the suggestion of the State Commissioners, to pass an appropriation authorizing the founding of four additional Normal Schools on condition that the cities chosen for their location should provide the site and erect and furnish suitable buildings. A committee was at once appointed by the Common Council and the Board of Supervisors of Buffalo to interview the State Commission in an effort to secure one of these schools for Buffalo. Jesse Ketchum, who was a member of this committee, again offered his property, his sole stipulation being that the City should enter into a bond for $4500 to ensure an amount of $300 per year to provide for medals and prizes for the students in the school to be erected.

The offer this time was now tentatively accepted, and in the preamble to the resolution of acceptance the gift is thus outlined:

The Board of Supervisors of Erie County, however, did more: on November 1st, 1866, they appropriated $45,000 toward the cost of the proposed building.

Unfortunately the Committee failed to land one of the proposed schools; but in the following spring the Legislature, in view of what had been done and of the anxiety shown by the City and County to secure such a training school, passed a special Act authorizing the founding of an additional school at Buffalo. The Jesse Ketchum offer was now officially and definitely accepted, and the Common Council passed an appropriation of an additional $45,000 to put with that of the Board of Supervisors. The corner stone of the new building was laid on April 1st, 1869, and on August 18th, 1870, the building committee notified the State Commissioners that what is now known as the State Teachers College of Buffalo was completed and ready for occupation.

Emma Ketchum, the only one of the three children of Jesse Ketchum’s second marriage (all born in Toronto) who lived to maturity, was married, in 1855, to Barnabas Hazlitt Brennan, then a young curate at St. Paul’s Anglican Church, Buffalo. Mr. Brennan was a Canadian, of United Empire Loyalist stock on his maternal side, having been born near Adolphustown, where the family had settled soon after the Treaty of 1783. As the Ketchum home was large and spacious Emma and her husband took up their residence in the North Street house, and here during the following fourteen years her ten children were born.

Emma was an attractive, gentle-spirited girl, and the story is that she met her husband first while staying at Clifton Springs. As Hazlitt Brennan watched her from the verandah of the hotel walking in the gardens with her parents he is said to have remarked: “There goes my future wife, if she will have me.”

Another romance associated with the Brennan and Ketchum families was that of Brennan’s two brothers, Charles and George, both at the time attending the Medical College in Buffalo. These young men, on the occasion of the marriage of their brother, had met for the first time Caroline and Mary Ketchum, daughters of Zebulon Ketchum, the two youthful cousins of their new sister-in-law, who, since the death of their father the previous year, had been wards of Jesse Ketchum. After their graduation George sought the hand of Caroline in marriage, and Charles that of her sister Mary. As both young ladies were heiresses to a considerable estate Hazlitt protested, urging the impropriety of three brothers all marrying into the same family, and all marrying heiresses.

George, however, refused to recognize the right of his elder brother to interfere, and shortly afterwards he and Carrie were married. Charles remained unmarried. He moved to New York, where he became a successful practicioner, and on his death, some years later, he left his estate to be divided between his nieces and the three daughters of his former sweetheart, Mary Ketchum, who, meanwhile, had been married to John Spence, and had gone to live at Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.

John Ketchum, of Buffalo, the brother of the winsome young beauties who had captivated the hearts of the two young medical students, had married, some years before, Adèle, the talented daughter of Elizabeth Sherbourne and Baron de Fleur, and thus another combination of Ketchum interests was created. Adèle had inherited much of the musical talent possessed by both of her parents; she was an accomplished musician, a soprano singer of rare quality and distinction, and after her marriage she carried on until her death in 1883 a highly successful conservatory of music at her new home in Santa Barbara, California.

As Jesse Ketchum had already from his Canadian estate provided amply, as he thought, for the members of his first family in Toronto, his entire Buffalo estate passed, on the death of his wife and only daughter, to the hands of his son-in-law, Hazlitt Brennan, for the benefit of himself and children. In value it was, for the period, no inconsiderable estate, running to well over two hundred thousand dollars, and consisting largely of Buffalo lands and houses along with mortgages and other investments.

Unfortunately at the time of his death Mr. Ketchum had not completed the details of the provision which he had intended making, as in Toronto, for the permanent endowment of a fund for prize books to be given to the children in the schools of Buffalo; it therefore fell to Hazlitt Brennan, as one of the executors under the will, to carry out as far as possible the wishes of his father-in-law. By a Deed of Trust, therefore, he conveyed to the City of Buffalo on September 7th, 1871, the sum of $10,000 with which to establish the “Jesse Ketchum Memorial Fund” as a permanent tribute to one of the City’s most distinguished citizens. The basis of the foundation of this Trust is thus expressed in the Deed:

In creating this Fund the stipulation was made that it should be invested in interest-bearing securities; but in order to provide for possible increasing demands owing to the growth of the City, provision was made that not more than one-half and not less than one-third of the income for each year was to be added to the capital, the balance only to be expended in the purchase of suitable prizes for presentation in the Public Schools of the City. Of the amount distributed not less than one-half was to be expended on gold and silver medals, stamped on one side with a medallion of the donor, and engraved on the other with the name of the scholar receiving it.

The Buffalo Sunday Times of March 6th, 1927, editorially refers to the presentation of medals which had taken place in the Hutchinson High School a few days before. This was the fifty-fourth annual distribution since the fund was established. Sixteen gold and 133 silver medals—and medals only be it observed—were presented on this occasion, and high tribute was paid to the “zeal and efficiency of pupils and teachers, to the scope and progress of education in Buffalo, and to the wisdom and foresight of the public benefactor who established in perennial perpetuity of renewal the Jesse Ketchum succession of acknowledgment, inspiration and record.”

Unfortunately one cannot help thinking that Hazlitt Brennan in the provisions which he made covering the distribution of prizes under the Ketchum Trust failed to appreciate the real spirit of the benefactor whose life and work he sought to perpetuate. Jesse Ketchum was modest and retiring in his nature and would have been the last man to countenance the placing of his portrait on any gifts he should make. He was interested in boys and girls because of the men and women they would become, and undoubtedly his thought in wishing to make a permanent endowment had been that good books because of their influence and inspirational value were the most suitable prizes to give.

History of Canada. William Kingsford.

Documentary History of Education. J. George Hodgins.

A History of the War of 1812-14. G. Auchinleck.

Toronto of Old. Rev. Henry Scadding, D.D.

The United States, A Political History. Goldwin Smith.

Canada and the Canadian Question. Goldwin Smith.

A History of Methodism in Canada. George F. Playter.

The Presbyterian Church in Canada. Rev. William Gregg, D.D.

Landmarks of Toronto. John Ross Robertson.

The Canadian Portrait Gallery. John Charles Dent.

The Story of My Life. Rev. Egerton Ryerson, D.D.

John Graves Simcoe. Duncan Campbell Scott.

My Boy Life. Rev. John Carroll, D.D.

Smith’s Canadian Gazetteer. Wm. H. Smith.

Robert (Fleming) Gourlay. The Hon. W. R. Riddell.

Pioneer Crimes and Punishments. J. Edmund Jones.

The Valley of the Humber. K. M. Lizars.

History of Toronto and York County.

The Story of the Upper Canadian Rebellion. John Charles Dent.

The Other Side of the Story. John King.

Humors of ’37. Robina and Kathleen Macfarlane Lizars.

In the Days of the Canada Company. Robina and Kathleen Macfarlane Lizars.

Sir John Beverley Robinson. Charles Walker Robinson.

Life and Times of W. L. Mackenzie. Charles Lindsey.

A Narrative. Sir Francis Bond Head.

Canada Past, Present and Future. W. H. Smith.

Memorial Volume, Toronto Past, Present and Future, by H. Scadding and J. C. Dent.

Toronto Past and Present. C. Pelham Mulvaney.

Lord Sydenham. Adam Shortt.

Memoir of the Rt. Rev. John Strachan. Rt. Rev. A. N. Bethune, D.D.

Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada. Anna Jameson.

Canada Since the Union. John Charles Dent.

Hand-Book of Toronto—1858.

Recollections and Records of Toronto of Old. W. H. Pearson.

History of the City of Buffalo and Erie County. H. Perry Smith.

Report of Semi-Centennial Addresses, Westminster Church, Buffalo.

Papers and Records, Ontario Historical Society.

History of the Province of Ontario (Upper Canada). Wm. Canniff, M.D.

Mary’s Rosedale and Gossip of Little York. Alden G. Meredith.

Annual Reports. Upper Canada Religious Tract and Bible Society.

Minor typographic errors were corrected silently.

The sentence “Zebulon followed Seneca and Jesse to York early in the eighteenth century.” was corrected to read “nineteenth century”.

Hyphenation was changed to match the predominant form. For example, the spelling of “Sunday school” was changed to be consistently unhyphenated. In a similar manner, the various forms, “water front,” “water-front” and “waterfront” were made consistent with the last spelling.

The spellings “Adelè” and “Adelé” were changed to “Adèle”.

The location of the decisive defeat by the British army in the American War of Independence was corrected from Yorkton to Yorktown.

The spellings of the following personal and place names were corrected:

The footnotes have been renumbered sequentially throughout the entire book.

[The end of Jesse Ketchum and his Times by E. J. Hathaway]