16J: CANADIAN LOCAL HISTORY. 



"Captain Bonnycastlc's cottage," with garden and picturesque grove attached; all Ordnance 

 property in reality, and once occupied by Col. Coffin. The whole has now heeu literally eaten 

 away by the ruthless tooth of the steam excavator. On the beach to the west of this promor- 

 tory was a much frequented bathing-place. Captain Bonnycastle, just named, was afterwards 

 Sir Rieliard, and the author of "Canada as it was, is, and may be," and "Canada and the 

 Canadians in 1S4G." 



Tlie name "Peter," attached to the street which flanks on the west the ancient homestead 

 and extensive outbuildings of Jlr. Crookshank, is a memento, we believe, of the president or 

 administrator, Peter Russell. 



We come here to the western boundary of the so-called New Town — the limit of the first 

 important extension of York westward. Tlie limit, eastward, of the New Town, was a thorough-- 

 fare known in the former day as Toronto Street, which was one street east of Yonge Street,, 

 represented now, not by the modern Toronto Street, but by Victoria Street. At tlie period 

 when the plan was designed for this grand western and north-western suburb of York, Yonge 

 Street was not opened southward farther than Lot [Queen] Street. The roadway there suddenly 

 veered to the eastward, and then, after a short interval, passed down "Toronto Street," that is,. 

 Victoria Street, or rather a roadway a little to the west of the existing Victoria Street. — The 

 tradition in Boston used to be, that some of the streets there followed the line of accidental 

 cow-paths formed in tlie olden time in the uncleared bush ; and no doubt other old American 

 towns, like the ancient European towns generally, exhibit, in the direction of their thorough- 

 fares, occasionally, traces of casual circumstances in the historji- of the first settlers on their 

 respective sites. Tlie practice at later periods has been to make all ways run as nearly as ijos- 

 sible in right lines. In one or two "jogs" or irregularities, observable in the streets of the 

 Toronto of to-day, we have memorials of early waggon tracks which ran where they most conve- 

 niently could. Tlie slight meandering of Front Street in its course from the garrison to the site 

 of the first Parliament Buildings, and of Britain Street, (an obscure passage between George' 

 Street and Caroline Street,) may be thus es:plained ; as also the fact that the southern end of 

 the jiresent Victoria Street does not connect immediately with the present Toronto Street. This 

 last-mentioned irregularity is a relic of the time when the great road from the north, namely, 

 Yonge Street, on reaching Queen Street, slanted off to the eastward across vacant lots and open 

 ground, making by the nearest and most convenient route for the market and the heart of the 

 town. 



After the laying-out in lots of the region comprehended in the first great expansion of York,, 

 of which we have spoken, inquiries were instituted by the authorities as to tlie improvements 

 made by the holders of each. In the chart accompanjing the report of the surveyor appointed 

 to make the examination, the lots are coloured according to the condition of each, and appended 

 are the follov/ing curious particulars, which smack somewhat of the ever-memorable town-plot 

 of Eden, to which Martin Chuzzlewit was induced to repair, and which offered a lively picture 



■ of an infant metropolis in the rough. ("We must represent to ourselves a chequered diagram ; 



: some of the squares wliite or blank ; some tinted blue ; some shaded black ; the whole entitled 

 " Sketch of the Part of the Town of York east of Toronto Street.") — " Explanation : The blank 

 lots are cleared, aga-eeable to the notice issued from his Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor, 

 bearing date Sej)tember the fourth, ISOO. The lots shaded blue are chiefly cut, but the brush 

 not burnt ; and those marked with the letter A, the brush only cut. The lots shaded black, no 

 work done. The survey made by order of the Surveyor-General's office, bearing date AprU the 

 23rd, ISOl." A more precise examination appears to have been demanded. The explanations 

 appended to the second plan, which has squares shaded bro'wn, in addition to those coloured 

 blue and black, are: "1st. The blank lots are cleared. 2nd. The lots shaded black, no work 



• done. 3rd. The lots shaded brown, the Irusli cut and limit. 4th. The lots shaded blue, the 

 brush cut and not hurnt. N.B. The lots 1 and 2 on the north side of Newgate Street [the site 

 subsequently of the dwelling-house of Jesse Ketchum, of whom hereafter], are mostly clear of 

 the large timber, and some inish cut also, but not hurnt; therefore omitted in the first report. 

 This second examination done by order of the Honorable John Elmsley, Esq." 



The second extension of York westward included the Government Common. The staking out 

 of streets here was a comparatively late event. Brock Street, to which we have now approached. 



