TORONTO OF OLD. 165 



had its name, of course, from the General officer slahi at Qneenston, and its extra widtli from 

 the example set in the avenue to the north,^ into which it merges after crossing Queen Street. 

 A little to the west of Brock Street was the old military huiying-ground, a clearing in the thick 

 brushwood of the locality : of an oblong shape, its four picketted sides directed exactly towards 

 the four cardinal points. The setting off of the neighbouring streets and lots at a different angle, 

 caused the boundary lines of this plot to run askew to eveiy other straight line in the vicinity. — 

 Over how many a now forgotten and even obliterated grave have the customary farewell volleys 

 here been fired ! — those final honours to the soldier, always so touchuig ; intended doubtless, ia 

 the old barbaric way, to be an incentive to endurance in the sound and weU ; and consolatory, 

 in anticipation, to the sick and dying. In the mould of this old cemetery, what a mingling 

 from distant quarters ! Hearts finally at rest here, fluttered in their last beats, far away, at 

 times, to old familiar scenes "beloved in vara" long ago ; to villages, hedgerows, lanes, fields, 

 in green England and Ireland, in rugged Scotland and "Wales. Many a widow, standing at an 

 open grave here, holding the hand of orphan boy or girl, has " wept her soldier dead ;" not slain 

 in the battle-field, indeed, but fallen, nevertheless, in the fulfilment of duty, before one or other 

 of the many subtle assailants that, even in times of peace, bring the career of the military man 

 to a premature close. — Among the remains deposited in this ancient burial-plot are those of a 

 chUd of the first Governor of Upper Canada, a fact commemorated on the exterior of the mor- 

 tuaiy chapel over his own grave in Devonshire, by a tablet on wliich York is spoken of as 

 " Yorktown." — Close to the military burial-ground was once enacted a scene which might have 

 occurred at the obsequies of a Tartar cliief in the days of old. Capt. Battersby, sent out to 

 take command of a Provincial corps, was the owner of several fine horses, to which he wa:j 

 greatly attached. On his being ordered home, after the war of 1S12, friends and others began 

 to make offers for the purchase of the anunals : but no ; he would enter into no treaty with any 

 one on that score. What his decision had been became apparent the day before his depa.rture 

 from York. He then had his poor dumb favourites led out by some soldiers to the vicmity of 

 the burying-ground ; and there he caused each of them to be deliberately shot dead. He did 

 not care to entrust to the tender mercies of strangers, in the future, the faithful creatures that 

 had served him so well, and had borne him whithersoever he listed, so wiUuigly and bravely. 

 The carcasses were interred on the spot where the shooting had taken place. 



Returning now again to Brook Street, and placing ourselves at the middle point of its great 

 width — immediately before us to the north, on the ridge which bounds the view in the distance, 

 we discern a white object. This is Spadiiia House, from which the avenue into which Brock 

 Street passes, takes its name. The word Spadina itself is an Indian term modified, descrijitive 

 of a sudden rise of land like that on which the house in the distance stands. Spadina was the 

 residence of Dr. W. W. Baldwin, to whom reference has already been made. A liberal in his 

 political views, he nevertheless was strongly influenced by the feudal feeling which was a second 

 nature with most persons in the British Islands some years ago. His purpose was to establish 

 in Canada a family, whose head was to be mauitained in ojjulence by the proceeds of an entailed 

 estate. There was to be forever a Baldwin of Spadina. It is singular that the first inheritor of 

 the newly-established patrimony should have been the statesman whose lot it was to carry 

 through the Legislature of Canada the abolition of the rights of primogeniture. The son grasped 

 more readily than tlie father what the genius of the North American continent will endure, and 

 what it will not. Spadina Avenue was laid out by Dr. Baldwin on a scale that would have 

 satisfied the designer of St. Petersburg or Washington. Its width is one hundred and twenty 

 feet. Its length from the water's edge to the base of Spadina Hill would be nearly three miles. 

 Garnished on both sides by a double row of full grown chestnut trees, it would vie in magnifi- 

 cence, when seen from an eminence, with the Long Walk at Windsor. 



Eastward of Spadina House, on the same elevation of land, was Davenport, the jpicturesqiie 

 and chateau-like home of Col. Wells, buUt at an early period. Col. WeUs was a fine example of 

 the English officer, wliom we so often see retu-ing from the camp gracefully and happUy into 

 domestic life. A faithful portrait of him exists, in which he wears the gold medal of Badajoz. 

 His sons, natural artists and arbiters of taste, inherited, along with their sesthetic gifts, also 

 lithe and handsome persons. One of them, like his father, now a Lieutenant-Colonel in the 

 army, was higlily distinguished in the Crimea ; and on revisiting Toronto after the peace with 



