234 CANADIAN LOCAL HISTORY t 



deration of its name, and the transmutation thereof into that of Toronto. In a letter to the 

 Niagara Spectator, he says :— " The tumult excited stiffens every nerve and redoubles the proofs 

 of necessity for action. If the higher classes are against me, I shall recruit among my hrother 

 farmers, seven in eight of whom will support the cause of truth. If one year does not make 

 Little York surrender to us, then we'U batter it for two ; and should it still hold out, we have 

 ammunition for a much longer seige. We shall raise the wind against it from Amherstburgh 

 and Quebec— from Edinburgh, Dublin and London. It must be levelled to the very earth, and 

 even its name be forgotten in Toronto." 



But to return for a moment to Mr. McKenzie. On the steps of the Court House, which we 

 are to suppose ourselves now passing, we once saw him under circumstances that were deeply 

 touching. Sentence of death had been pronounced on a young man once employed in his print- 

 ing-office. He had been vigorously exerting himself to obtain from the Executive a mitigation 

 of the extreme penalty. The day and even the hour for the execution had arrived ; and no 

 message of reprieve had been transmitted from Stamford, across the Lake, where the Lieutenant- 

 Governor was then residing. As he came out of the Sheriff's room, after receiving the final 

 announcement that there could be no further delay, the white collars on each side of his face 

 were wet through and through with the tears that were gushing from his eyes and pouring dovra 

 his cheeks. He was just realizing the fact that notliing further could be done ; and in a few 

 moments afterwards the execution actually took place. 



We approach comparatively late times when we speak of the cavalcade which passed in grand 

 state. the spot now under review, when Messrs. Dunn and Buchanan were returned as members 

 for the town. In the pageant on that occasion there was conspicuous a train of railway car- 

 riages, drawn, of course, by horse power, with the inscription on the sides of the carriages — 

 "Do you not wish you may get it?"— the allusion being to the Grand Trunk, which was then 

 only a thing in posse. And stUl referring to processions associated in our memory with Court 

 House Square, the recollection of another comes up, which once or twice a year used formerly 

 to pass down King Street on a Sunday. The townspeople were familiar enough with the march 

 of the troops of the garrison to and from Church, to the sound of military music, on Sundays. 

 But on the occasions now referred to, the public eye was drawn to a spectacle of an opposite 

 character : namely, to a procession of the " Children of Peace," so-called, through the street. 

 These were a local oflf-shoot of the Society of Friends, the followers of Mr. David Willson, who 

 had his headquarters at Sharon, in Whitchurch, where he had built a " Temple," a large wooden 

 structure, painted white, and resembling a high-piled house of cards. Periodically he deemed 

 it proper to make a demonstration in town. His disciples and friends, dressed in their best, 

 mounted their waggons and solemnly passed down Tonge Street, and then on through some 

 frequented thoroughfare of York to a place previously announced, where the prophet would 

 preach. His topic was usually "Public Affairs and their Abuses." The text of all his dis- 

 courses might, in effect, be the following mystic sentence, extracted from the popular periodical, 

 already quoted— "Patrick Swift's Almanac"; "The backwoodsman, while he lays the axe to 

 the root of the oak in the forests of Canada, should never forget that a base basswood is grow- 

 ing in this his native land, which, if not speedUy girdled, will throw its dark shadows over the 

 country, and blast his best exertions. Look up, reader, and you wUl see the branches — the 

 Eobinson branch, the Powell branch, the Jones branch, the Straehan branch, the Boulton twig, 

 &c. The farmer toils, the merchant toils, the labourer toUs, and the family compact reap the 

 fruit of their exertions." (Almanac for 1834.) Into all the points here suggested Mr. Willson 

 would enter with great zest. When waxing warm in his discourse, it was his practice suddenly, 

 without making any pause, to throw off his coat, and proceed in his shirt-sleeves. His address 

 was divided into sections, between which "hymns of his own composing" were sung by a com- 

 pany of females dressed in white, sitting on one side, accompanied by a band of musical instru- 

 ments on the other. Considerable crowds assembled on these occasions :" and once a panic 

 arose as preachmg was going on in the public room of Lawrence's hotel : the joists of the floor 

 were heard to crack ; a rush was made to the door, and several leaped out of the windows. — A 

 smaU brick school-house on Berkeley Street was also a place where WiUson sometimes sought 

 to get the ear of the general public. — Captain Bonnycastle, m "Canada as it Was, Is, and May 

 Be," i. 285, thus discourses of David WiUson, in a strain somewhat too severe and satirical ; but 

 his words serve to shew opinions which widely prevailed at the time he wrote : "At a short 



