TORONTO OF OLD. 337 



Its site previously had been the brickyard of Henry Hale, a builder and contractor, who put 

 up the residence, possessing some architectural pretensions, on the south-east angle of the 

 same intersection, diagonally across ; occupied in the second instance by Mr. Moore, of the 

 Commissariat; then by Dr. Lee, and afterwards by Mr. J. Murchison. (The last named was 

 for a long time the Stultz of York, supplying all those of its citizens, young and old, who 

 desired to make an attractive or intensely respectable appearance, with vestments in fine 

 broadcloth.) A little to the north, on the left side of George Street, was the fanious Ladies' 

 School of Mrs. Goodman, presided over subsequently by Miss Purcell and Miss Kose. This 

 had been previously the homestead of Mr. Stephen Jarvis, of whom again immediately. Ad- 

 vancing on Duke Street eastward a little way, we came, on the left, to the abode of Sir William 

 Campbell. (The still extant hrick mansion it of the late date of 1822.) Then on the right, one 

 square beyond, at the south-easterly corner where Caroline Street intersects, we reached the 

 house of Mr. Secretary Jarvis, a man of great note in his day, whose name is familiar to all 

 who have occasion to examine the archives of Upper Canada in the administrations of Governors 

 Simcoe, Hunter and Gore. A fine portrait of him exists, but it has been transmitted to relatives 

 in England. Mr. Stephen Jarvis, above named, was long the Registrar of Upper Canada. His 

 hand-writing is weU-known to all holders of early deeds. He and the Secretary were first 

 cousins ; of the same stock as the well-known Bisliop Jarvis of Connecticut, and tlie Church- 

 historian, Dr. Samuel Farmer Jarvis. Both were officers in incorporated Colonial regiments 

 before the independence of the United States ; and both came to Canada as United Empire 

 Loyalists. Mr. Stephen Jarvis was the founder of the leading Canadian family to which the 

 first Sheriff Jarvis belonged. Mr. Samuel Peters Jarvis, from whom "Jarvis Street" has its 

 name, was the son of Mr. Secretary Jarvis. On the left, one square beyond the abode of Mr. 

 Secretary Jarvis, came the premises and home of Mr Surveyor General Ridout, the latter a 

 structure still to be seen in its primitive outlines, a good specimen of the old type of early 

 Upper Canadian family residences of a superior class ; combining the qualities of solidity and 

 , durability with those of snugness and comfort in the rigours of winter and the heats of summer. 

 In the rear of Mr. Ridout's house was for some time a family burial-ploc ; but, like sevei aj 

 similar private enclosures in the neighborhood of the town, it became disused after the estab- 

 lislmient of regular cemeteries. 



Nearly opposite Mr. Ridout's, in one of the usual long, low Upper Canadian one-storey 

 dwellings, shaded by lofty Lombardy poplars, was the home of the Mclntoshes, who are to be 

 commemorated hereafter in connection with the Marine of York ; and here*, at a later period, 

 lived for a long time Mr. Andrew Warffe and his brother John. Mr. Andrew "Warffe was a 

 weli-known employe in the office of the Inspector General, Mr. Baby, and a lieutenant in the 

 Incorporated Militia. 



By one of the vicissitudes common in the history of family-residences eveiywhere, Mr. 

 Secretary Jarvis's house, which we just now passed, became afterwards the i)lace of business 

 of a memorable cutler and gunsmith, named Isaac Columbus. During the war of 1812, Mr. 

 Columbus was employed as armourer to the Militia, and had a forge near the garrison. Many 

 of the swords used by the Militia officers were actually manufactured by htm. He was a native 

 of France ; a liberal-hearted man, ever ready to contribute to charitable objects ; and a clever 

 artizan. Whether required to "jump" the worn and battered axe of a backwoodsman, to put 

 in order a surveyor's theodolite, or to replace for the young geometrician or draughtsman an 

 instrument lost out of his case, he was equally au-fait. On occasion he could even supply an 

 elderly lady or gentleman with a set of false teeth, and insert them. In our boyhood we had 

 occasion to get many little matters attended to at Mr. Columbus's. Once, on leaving word that 

 a certain article must be ready by a particular hour, we remember being informed that "must" 

 was only for the King of France. His political absolutism would have satisfied Louis XIV. 

 himself. He positively refused to have anything to do with the "liberals" of York, expressly 

 on the ground that, in his opinion, the modern ideas of government "hindered the King from 

 acting as a good father to the people." An expressson of his, "first quality, blue !" used on a 

 particular occasion in reference to an extra finish to be given to some steel-work for an extra 

 price, passed into a proverb among us boys at school, and was extensively applied by us to 

 persons and things of which we desired to predicate a high degree of excellence.— Over Colum- 

 bus's workshop, at the corner of Caroline Street, we are pretty sure his name appeared as here 



