Part 47
He was a Hungarian; born at Raab in 1784; and had been ordained a presbyter in the National Church of Austria. On emigrating to the United States, he, being himself a Franciscan, fell into some disputes with the Jesuits at Philadelphia, and withdrew from the Latin communion and attached himself, in company with a fellow presbyter named Huber, to the Lutheran Reformed. As a recognized minister of that body he came on to Buffalo, where he officiated for four years to three congregations, visiting at the same time, occasionally, a congregation on the Canada side of the river, at Limeridge. He here, for the first time, began the study of the English language. Coming now into contact with the clergy of the Anglican communion, he finally resolved to conform to the Anglican Church, and was sent by Bishop Stewart, of Quebec, to the German settlement in Markham and Vaughan. Here he officiated for twenty years, building in that interval St. Stephen's Church in Vaughan, St. Philip's in the 3rd concession of Markham, and the Church in Markham village, and establishing a permanent congregation at each.
He was a vigorous, stirring preacher in his acquired English tongue, as well as in his vernacular German. He possessed also a colloquial knowledge of Latin, which is still a spoken language in part of Hungary. He was a man of energy to the last: ever cheerful in spirit, and abounding in anecdotes, personal or otherwise. It was from him, as we remember, we first heard the afterwards more familiarized names of Magyar and Sclave.
His brother clergy of the region where his duty lay were indebted to him for many curious glimpses at men and things in the great outer world of the continent of Europe. During the Napoleonic wars he was "Field Chaplain of the Imperial Infantry Regiment, No. 60 of the Line," and accompanied the Austrian contingent of 40,000 men furnished to Napoleon by the Emperor of Austria.--He was afterwards, when the Austrian Emperor broke away from Napoleon, taken prisoner with five regiments of the line, and sent to Dresden and Mayence. He was at the latter place when the battle of Leipsic was fought (Oct. 16, 17, 18, 19, 1813.) He now left Mayence without leave, the plague breaking out there, and got to Oppenheim, where a German presbyter named Muller concealed him, till the departure of the French out of the town. After several adventures he found his way back to the quarters of his regiment now acting in the anti-French interest at Manheim, where he duly reported himself, and was well received. After the war, from the year 1816, he had for three years the pastoral charge of Klingenmunster in the diocese of Strasbourg. He died in Whitby, in 1859.
A memoir of Mr. Meyerhoffer has been printed, and it bears the following title: "Twelve years a Roman Catholic Priest; or, the Autobiography of the Rev. V. P. Meyerhoffer, M.A., late Military Chaplain to the Austrian Army and Grand Chaplain of the Orders of Free Masons and Orangemen of Canada, B.N.A., containing an account of his career as Military Chaplain, Monk of the Order of St. Francis, and Clergyman of the Church of England in Vaughan, Markham and Whitby, C.W."
He had a musical voice which had been properly cultivated--This, he used to say, was a source of revenue to him in the early part of his public career, those clergy being in request and receiving a higher remuneration, who were able to sing the service in a superior manner. His features were strongly marked and peculiar, perhaps Mongolian in type; they were not German, English, or Italian. Were the concavity of the nose and the projection of the mouth a little more pronounced in "Elias Howe," the medallions of that personage would give a general idea of Mr. Mayerhoffer's profile and head.
In his younger days he had acquired some medical knowledge, which stood him in good stead for a time at Philadelphia, when he and Huber first renounced the Latin dogmas. His taste for the healing art was slightly indulged even after the removal to Canada, as will be seen from an advertisement which appears in the _Courier_ of February 29, 1832. (From its wording it will be observed that Mayerhoffer had not yet become familiarized with the English language.) It is headed thus: "The use and direction of the new-invented and never-failing Wonder Salve, by D. V. P. Mayerhoffer, of Markham, U.C., H.D., 5th concession."
It then proceeds: "Amongst all in the medicine-invented unguents his salve takes the first place for remedy, whereby it not in vain obtains the name of Wonder Salve for experience taught in many cases to deserve this name; and being urged to communicate it to the public, I endeavour to satisfy to the common good of the public. It is acknowledged by all who know the virtue of it, and experienced its worth, it ought to be kept in every house, first for its inestimable goodness, and, second, because the medicine the older it gets the better it is: money spent for such will shew its effect from its beginning for twenty years, if kept in a dry place, well covered. In all instances of burns, old wounds, called running sores, for the tetter-worm or ring, &c., as the discussions and use will declare, wrapped round the box or the medicine.
"It is unnecessary to recommend by words this inestimable medicine, as its value has received the approbation of many inhabitants of this country already, who sign their names below for the surety of its virtue and the reality of its worth, declaring that they never wish to be without it in their houses by their lifetimes. In Markham, Mr. Philip Eckhardt, jun., do. do., sen., Godlieb Eckhardt, Abraham Eckhardt, John Pingel, jun., Mr. Lang, Mr. Large, John Perkins, John Schall, Charles Peterson, Luke Stantenkough, Peter March. In Vaughan, Jacob Fritcher, Daniel Stang. Recommended by Dr. Baldwin, of York. The medicine is to be had in the eighth concession of Markham, called Riarstown, by Sinclair Holden; in the fifth concession by Christopher Hevelin and T. Amos; in the town of York, in J. Baldwin's and S. Barnham's stores; on Yonge Street, by Parsons and Thorne. Price of a box, two shillings and sixpence, currency. January 11, 1832."
Military associations hang about the lands to the right and left of Richmond Hill. The original possessor of Lot No. 22 on the west side, was Captain Daniel Cozens, a gentleman who took a very active part in opposition to the revolutionary movement which resulted in the independence of the United States. He raised, at his own expense, a company of native soldiers in the royalist interest, and suffered the confiscation of a considerable estate in New Jersey. Three thousand acres in Upper Canada were subsequently granted him by the British Crown. His sons, Daniel and Shivers, also received grants. The name of Shivers Cozens is to be seen in the early plans of Markham on lots 2, 4 and 5 in the 6th concession.
Samuel died of a fit at York in 1808; but Shivers returned to New Jersey and died there, where family connexions of Captain Cozens still survive. There runs amongst them a tradition that Captain Cozens built the first house in our Canadian York. Of this we are informed by Mr. T. Cottrill Clarke, of Philadelphia. We observe in an early plan of York the name of Shivers Cozens on No. 23 in Block E, on the south side of King Street: the name of Benjamin Cozens on No. 5 on Market Street: and the name of Captain Daniel Cozens on No. 4 King Street, (new town), north side, with the date of the grant, July 20, 1799. It is thus quite likely that Captain Cozens, or a member of his family, put up buildings in York at a very early period.
We read in the Niagara _Herald_, of October 31, 1801, the following: "Died on the 6th ult., near Philadelphia, Captain Daniel Cozens." In the _Gazette & Oracle_, of January 27, 1808, we have a memorandum of the decease of Samuel Cozens: "Departed this life, on the 29th ult., Mr. Samuel D. Cozens, one of the first inhabitants of this town [York]. His remains were interred with Masonic honours on the 31st."
Another officer of the Revolutionary era was the first owner, and for several years the actual occupant, of the lot immediately opposite Captain Cozens'. This was Captain Richard Lippincott, a native of New Jersey. A bold deed of his has found a record in all the histories of the period. The narrative gives us a glimpse of some of the painful scenes attendant on wars wherein near relatives and old friends come to be set in array one against the other.
On the 12th of April, 1782, Captain Lippincott, acting under the authority of the "Board of Associated Loyalists of New York," executed by hanging, on the heights near Middleton, Joshua Huddy, an officer in the revolutionary army, as an act of retaliation,--Huddy having summarily treated, in the same way, a relative of Captain Lippincott's, Philip White, surprised within the lines of the revolutionary force, while on a stolen visit of natural affection to his mother on Christmas Day.
On Huddy's breast was fastened a paper containing the following written notice, to be read by his co-revolutionists and friends when they should discover the body suspended in the air.--"We, the Refugees, having long with grief beheld the cruel murders of our brethren, and finding nothing but such measures carrying into execution, therefore determined not to suffer without taking vengeance for the numerous cruelties; and thus begin, having made use of Captain Huddy as the first object to present to your view; and further determine to hang man for man while there is a Refugee existing. Up goes Huddy for Philip White."
When the surrender of Capt. Lippincott was refused by the Royalist authorities, Washington ordered the execution of one officer of equal rank to be selected by lot out of the prisoners in his hands. The lot fell on Capt. Charles Asgill of the Guards, aged only nineteen. He was respited however until the issue of a court-martial, promised to be held on Capt. Lippincott, should be known. The court acquitted; and Capt. Asgill only narrowly escaped the fate of Andre, through prompt intervention on the part of the French Government. The French minister of State, the Count de Vergennes, to whom there had been time for Lady Asgill, the Captain's mother, to appeal--received directions to ask his release in the conjoint names of the King and Queen as "a tribute to humanity." Washington thought proper to accede to this request; but it was not until the following year, when the revolutionary struggle ended, that Asgill and Lippincott were set at liberty.
The former lived to succeed to his father's baronetcy and to become a General officer. Colonel O'Hara, of Toronto, remembered dining at a table where a General Sir Charles Asgill was pointed out to him as having been, during the American revolutionary war, for a year under sentence of death, condemned by General Washington to be hanged in the place of another person.
Capt. Lippincott received from the Crown three thousand acres in Upper Canada. He survived until the year 1826, when, aged 81, and after enjoying half-pay for a period of forty-three years, he expired at the house of his son-in-law in York, Colonel George Taylor Denison, who gave to his own eldest son, Richard Lippincott Denison, Captain Lippincott's name. (A few miles further on, namely, in North and East Gwillimbury, General Benedict Arnold, known among United States citizens as "the traitor," received a grant of five thousand acres.)
In connexion with Richmond Hill, which now partially covers the fronts of Captain Cozens' and Captain Lippincott's lots, we subjoin what Captain Bonnycastle said of the condition of Yonge Street hereabout in 1846, in his "Canada and the Canadians."
"Behold us at Richmond Hill," he exclaims, "having safely passed the Slough of Despond which the vaunted Yonge Street mud road presents between the celebrated hamlet of St. Albans and the aforesaid hill."
And again: "We reached Richmond Hill, seventeen miles from the Landing, at about 8 o'clock (he was moving southward) having made a better day's journey than is usually accomplished on a road which will be macadamized some fine day;--for the Board of Works," he proceeds to inform the reader, "have a Polish engineer hard at work surveying it; of course, no Canadian was to be found equal to this intricate piece of engineering; and I saw a variety of sticks stuck up; but what they meant I cannot guess at. I suppose they were going to grade it, which is the favourite American term."
The prejudices of the Englishman and Royal Engineer routinier here crop out. The Polish engineer, who was commencing operations on this subdivision of Yonge Street, was Mr. Casimir Stanislaus Gzowski, whose subsequent Canadian career renders it probable that in setting up "the variety of sticks," the meaning of which Capt. Bonnycastle does after all guess at, he understood his business. We are assured that this portion of Yonge Street was in fact conspicuous for the superior excellence of its finish.
Captain Bonnycastle indulges in a further little fling at civilians who presume to undertake engineering duties, in a story which serves to fill a page or two of his book, immediately after the above remarks on Yonge Street, about Richmond Hill. He narrates an incident of his voyage out:--
"A Character," he says, "set out from England to try his fortune in Canada. He was conversing about prospects in that country, on board the vessel, with a person who knew him, but whom he knew not. 'I have not quite made up my mind,' said the character, 'as to what pursuit I shall follow in Canada; but that which brings most grist to the mill will answer best; and I hear a man may turn his hand to anything there, without the folly of an apprenticeship being necessary; for if he have only brains, bread will come; now what do you think would be the best business for my market?' 'Why,' said the gentleman, after pondering a little, 'I should advise you to try civil engineering; for they are getting up a Board of Works there, and want that branch of industry very much, for they won't take natives: nothing but foreigners and strangers will go down.' 'What is a civil engineer?' said the Character. 'A man always measuring and calculating,' responded his adviser, 'and that will just suit you.' 'So it will,' rejoined Character, and a civil engineer he became accordingly, and a very good one into the bargain, for he had brains, and had used a yard measure all his lifetime."--Who "the Character" was, we do not for certain know.
A short distance beyond Richmond Hill was the abode of Colonel Moodie, on the right,--distinguished by a flag-staff in front of it, after the custom of Lower Canada, where an officer's house used to be known in this way. (In the neighbourhood of Sorel, as we remember, in the winter of 1837, it was one of the symptoms of disaffection come to a head, when in front of a substantial habitan's home a flag-staff was suddenly seen bearing the inscription "----, Capitaine, elu par le peuple.")
Colonel Moodie's title came from his rank in the regular army. He had been Lieut.-Colonel of the 104th regiment. Sad, that a distinguished officer, after escaping the perils of the Peninsular war, and of the war with the United States here in 1812-13, should have yet, nevertheless, met with a violent death in a petty local civil tumult. He was shot, as all remember, in the troubles of 1837, while attempting to ride past Montgomery's, regardless of the insurgent challenge to stop.
"Thou might'st have dreamed of brighter hours to close thy chequered life Beneath thy country's victor-flag, sure beacon in the strife; Or in the shadow of thy home with those who mourn thee now, To whisper comfort in thine ear, to calm thine aged brow. Well! peaceful be thy changeless rest,--thine is a soldier's grave; Hearts like thine own shall mourn thy doom--meet requiem for the brave-- And ne'er 'till Freedom's ray is pale and Valour's pulse grown cold Shall be thy bright career forgot, thy gloomy fate untold."
So sang one in the columns of a local contemporary paper, in "Lines suggested by the Lamented Death of the late Colonel Moodie."
At a certain period in the history of Yonge Street, as indeed of all the leading thoroughfares of Upper Canada, about 1830-33, a frequent sign that property had changed hands, and that a second wave of population was rolling in, was the springing up, at intervals, of houses of an improved style, with surroundings, lawns, sheltering plantations, winding drives, well-constructed entrance-gates, and so on, indicating an appreciation of the elegant and the comfortable.
We recall two instances of this, which we used to contemplate with particular interest, a little way beyond Richmond Hill, on the left: the cosy, English-looking residences, not far apart, with a cluster of appurtenances round each--of Mr. Larratt Smith, and Mr. Francis Boyd. Both gentlemen settled here with their families in 1836.
Mr. Smith had been previously in Canada in a military capacity during the war of 1812-13, and for many years subsequently he had been Chief Commissary of the Field Train Department and Paymaster of the Artillery. He died at Southampton in 1860.
Mr. Boyd, who emigrated hither from the county of Kent, was one of the first, in these parts, to import from England improved breeds of cattle. In his house was to be seen a collection of really fine paintings, amongst them a Holbein, a Teniers, a Dominichino, a Smirke, a Wilkie, and two Horace Vernets. The families of Mr. Boyd and Mr. Smith were related by marriage. Mr. Boyd died in Toronto in 1861.
Beyond Mr. Boyd's, a solitary house, on the same side of Yonge Street, lying back near the woods, used to be eyed askance in passing:--its occupant and proprietor, Mr. Kinnear, had in 1843 been murdered therein by his man-servant, assisted by a female domestic. It was imagined by them that a considerable sum of money had just been brought to the house by Mr. Kinnear. Both criminals would probably have escaped justice had not Mr. F. C. Capreol, of Toronto, on the spur of the moment, and purely from a sense of duty to the public, undertaken their capture, which he cleverly effected at Lewiston in the United States.
The land now began to be somewhat broken as we ascended the rough and long-uncultivated region known as the Oak Ridges. The predominant tree in the primitive forest here was the pine, which attained a gigantic size; but specimens of the black oak were intermingled.
Down in one of the numerous clefts and chasms which were to be seen in this locality, in a woody dell on the right, was Bond's Lake, a pretty crescent-shaped sheet of water. We have the surrounding property offered for sale in a _Gazette_ of 1805, in the following terms; "For Sale, Lots No. 62 and 63, in the first concession of the township of Whitchurch, on the east side of Yonge Street, containing 380 acres of land: a deed in fee simple will be given by the subscriber to any person inclined to purchase. Johnson Butler. N.B. The above lots include the whole of the Pond commonly called Bond's Lake, the house and clearing round the same. For particulars enquire of Mr. R. Ferguson and Mr. T. B. Gough at York, and the subscriber at Niagara. March 23, 1805."
Bond's farm and lake had their name from Mr. William Bond, who so early as 1800 had established in York a Nursery Garden, and introduced there most of the useful fruits. In 1801 Mr. Bond was devising to sell his York property, as appears from a quaint advertisement in a _Gazette_ of that year. He therein professes to offer his lot in York as a free gift; the recipient however being at the same time required to do certain things.
"To be given away," he says, "that beautifully situated lot No. one, fronting on Ontario and Duchess Streets: the buildings thereon are--a small two-and-a-half storey house, with a gallery in front, which commands a view of the lake and the bay: in the cellar a never failing spring of fine water; and a stream of fine water running through one corner of the lot; there is a good kitchen in the rear of the house, and a stable sufficient for two cows and two horses, and the lot is in good fence.
"The conditions are, with the person or persons who accept of the above present, that he, she or they purchase not less than two thousand apple-trees at three shillings, New York currency, each; after which will be added, as a further present, about one hundred apple, thirty peach, and fourteen cherry trees, besides wild plums, wild cherries, English gooseberries, white and red currants, &c. There are forty of the above apple trees, as also the peach and cherry trees, planted regular, as an orchard, much of which appeared in blossom last spring, and must be considered very valuable: also as a kitchen garden, will sufficiently recommend itself to those who may please to view it.--The above are well calculated for a professional or independent gentleman; being somewhat retired--about half-way from the Lake to the late Attorney General's and opposite the town-farm of the Hon. D. W. Smith [afterwards Mr. Allan's property.] Payment will be made easy; a good deed; and possession given at any time from the first of November to the first of May next. For further particulars enquire of the subscriber on the premises. William Bond. York, Sep. 4, 1801."--The price expected was, as will be made out, 750 dollars. The property was evidently the northern portion of what became afterwards the homestead-plot of Mr. Surveyor General Ridout.
It would appear that Mr. Bond's property did not find a purchaser on this occasion. In 1804 he is advertising it again, but now to be sold by auction, with his right and title to the lot on Yonge Street. In the _Gazette_ of August 4, 1804, we read as follows:--"To be sold by auction, at Cooper's tavern, in York, on Monday, the twentieth day of August next, at eleven o'clock in the forenoon (if not previously disposed of by private contract), that highly cultivated lot opposite the Printing Office [Bennett's] containing one acre, together with a nursery thereon of about ten thousand apple, three hundred peach, and twenty pear trees, and an orchard containing forty-one apple trees fit for bearing, twenty-seven of which are full of fruit; thirty peach and nine cherry trees full of fruit; besides black and red plums, red and white currants, English gooseberries, lilacs, rose bushes, &c., &c., also a very rich kitchen garden.
"The buildings are a two-and-a-half storey house, a good cellar, stable and smokehouse. On the lot is a never-failing spring of excellent water, and fine creek running through one corner most part of the year. The above premises might be made very commodious for a gentleman at a small expense; or for a tanner, brewer, or distiller, must be allowed the most convenient place in York. A view of the premises (by any person or persons desirous of purchasing the same) will be sufficient recommendation. The nursery is in such a state of forwardness that if sold in from two to three years (at which time the apple trees will be fit to transplant) at the moderate price of one shilling each, would repay a sum double of that asked for the whole, and leave a further gain to the purchasers of the lot, buildings, and flourishing orchard thereon. A good title to the above, and possession given at any time after the first of October next.