158 CANADIAN LOCAL HISTORY. 



II.— FRONT STREET, FROM THE MxVRKET-PLACE TO BROCK STREET. 



The comer wliicli we approach after passing the Market-square, was occupied by an inn with 

 a sign-board sustained on a Mgli post inserted at the outer edge of ^tlie foot-path, in country 

 roadside fasliion. This was Hamilton's, or tlie White Swan. It was here, we believe, or in an 

 adjoining house, that a travelling citizen of the United States, in possession of a collection of 

 stuffed birds and similar objects, endeavoured at an early period to establish a kind of Natural 

 History Museum. Just beyond was the Steamboat Hotel, remarkable for the spirited delinea- 

 tion of a steam-packet of vast dimensions, extending the whole length of the building, just 

 over the upper verandah of the hotel. A little further on was the Ontario House, a hotel buUt 

 in a style common then at the PaUs of Niagara and in the United States. A row of lofty piUars, 

 weU-grown pines in fact, stripped and smoothly planed, reached from the ground to the eaves, 

 and supported two tiers of galleries, which, running behmd the columns, did not interrupt their 

 vertical lines. Close by the Ontario House, Market Street from the west entered Front Street 

 at an acute angle. In the gore between the two streets, a building sprang up, which, in con- 

 forming to its site, assumed the shape of a coffin. The foot of this ominous structure was the 

 office where travellers booked themselves for various parts in the stages that from time to time 

 started from York. It took four days to reach Niagara in 1816. We are informed by a contem- 

 porary advertisement now before us, that " on the 20th of September next [1816], a stage will 

 commence running between York and Niagara : it will leave York every Monday, and arrive at 

 Niagara on Thursdays ; and leave Queenston every Friday. The baggage is to be considered at 

 the risk of the oivner, and the fare to be paid in advance." In 1824, the mails were conveyed 

 the same distance, via Anoaster, in three days. In a post-office advertisement for tenders, 

 signed "William Allan, P.M.," we have the statement : "The mails are made up here [York] 

 on the afternoon of Monday and Thursday, and must be delivered at Niagara on the Wednesday 

 and Saturday following ; and within the same period in returning." In 1835, Mr. WiUiam WeUer 

 was the proprietor of a liiJte of stages between Toronto and Hamilton, known as the " Telegraph 

 Line." In an advertisement before us, he engages to take passengers "through by daylight, on 

 the Lake Road, during the winter season." Communication with England was at this period a 

 tedious process. So late as 1836, Mrs. Jameson thus writes in her Journal at Toronto (i. 182) : 

 " It is now seven weeks since the date of the last letters from my dear far-distant home. The 

 Archdeacon," she adds, "told me, by way of comfort, that when he came to settle in this coun- 

 try, there was only one mail-post from England in the course of^a whole year, and it was called, 

 as if in mockery, the Express." To this "Express" we have a reference in a post-office adver- 

 tisement to be seen in a Quebec Gazette of 1792 : "A mail for the Upper Countries, comprehend- 

 ing Niagara and Detroit, will be closed," it says, "at this office, on Monday, the 30th inst., at 4 

 o'clock in the evening, to be forwarded from Montreal by the annual vsdnter Express, on Thurs- 

 day, the 3rd of Feb. next." From the same paper we learn that on the 10th of November, the 

 latest date from Philadelphia and New- York was Oct. 8th : also, that a weekly conveyance had 

 lately been established between Montreal and Burlington, Vermont. Compare aU this mth 

 advertisements in Toronto daily papers now, from agencies in the town, of "'Through Lines" 

 weekly, to California, Vancouvers', Cliina and Japan, connecting with Lines to Australia and 

 New Zealand. 



On the beach below the Steamboat Hotel was, at a late period, a market for the sale of fish. 

 It was from this spot that Bartlett, In his "Canadian Scenery," made one of the sketches 

 intended to convey to the English eye an impression of the town. In the foreground are gi'oups 

 of conventional, and altogether too picturesque, flsh-svives and squaws : in the distance is the 

 junction of Hospital Street and Front Street, with the tapering building between. On the right 

 are the galleries of what had been the Steamboat Hotel : it here bears another name. Bartlett's 

 second sketch is from the end of a long wharf or jetty to the west. The large buUding in front, 

 with a covered passage through it for vehicles, is the warehouse or freight depot of Mr. William 

 Cooper, long the owner of this favourite landing-place. Westwards, the pillared front of the 

 Ontario House is to be seen. Both of these views already look quaint, and possess a value as 

 preserving a shadow of much that no longer exists. 



Where Mr. Cooper's wharf joined the shore there was a ship-building yard. We have a recol- 

 lection of a launch that strangely took place here on a Sunday. An attempt to get the ship into 



