344 CANADIAN LOCAL HISTORY. 



studied in the construction of early Canadian houses, in both Provinces, were warmth and 

 comfort in the long winters. Sanitary principles were not much thought of, and happily did 

 not require to be much thought of, when most persons passed more of their time in the pure 

 outer air than they do now. Jordan's York Hotel answered every purpose very well. Mem- 

 bers of Parliament and other visitors considered themselves in luxurious quarters when housed 

 there. Probably in no instance have the public dinners or fashionable assemblies of a later era 

 gone off with more eclat, or given more satisfaction to the persons concerned in them, than did 

 those which from time to time, in every season, took place in what would now be considered 

 the very diminutive ball-room and dining-hall of Jordan's. 



As the sidewalks of King Street were apt to partake, in bad weather, of the impassableness 

 of the streets generally at such a time, an early effort was made to have some of them paved. 

 Some yards of foot-path, accordingly, about Jordan's, and here and there elsewhere, were cov- 

 ered with flat flagstones from the lake-beach, of very irregular shapes and of no great size : the 

 effect produced was that of a very coarse, and soon a very uneven mosaic. At Quebec, in the 

 neighbourliood of the Court House, there is retained some pavement of the kind now described ; 

 and in the early lithograph of Court House Square, at York, a long stretch of sidewalk is given 

 in the foreground, seamed-over curiously, like the surface of an old Cyclopean or Pelasgic wall. 

 On April the 26th, 1823, it was ordered by the magistrates at Quarter Sessions that " £100 from 

 the Town and Police Fund, together with one-fourth of the Statute Labour within tlie Town, be 

 appropriated to flagging the sidewalks of King Street, commencing from the corner of Church 

 Street and proceeding east to the limits of the To-\vn, and that both sides of the streets do pro- 

 ceed at the same time." One hundred pounds would not go very far in such an undertaking. 

 We do not think the sidewalks of the primitive King Street were ever paved throughout their 

 whole length with stone. 



After Jordan's came Dr. Widmer's surgery, associated with many a pain and ache in the 

 minds of the early people of York, and scene of the performance upon their persons of many a 

 delicate, and daring, and successful remedial experiment. Nearly opposite was the property 

 of Dr. Stoyell, an immigrant, non-practicing medical man from the United States, with Eepub- 

 lican proclivities as it used to be thought, who, previous to his purchasing here, conducted an 

 inn at Mrs. Lumsden's corner. (The house on the other side of Ontario Street, westward, was 

 Hayes' Boarding House, noticeable simply as being in session-time, like Jordan's, the temporary- 

 abode of many Members of Parliament). 



After Dr. Widmer's, towards the termination of King Street, on the south side, was Mr. 

 Small's, originally one of the usual low-looking domiciles of the country, with central portion 

 and two gabled wings, somewhat after the fashion of many old country manor-houses in 

 England. The material of Mr. SmaU's dwelling was hewn timber. It was one of the earliest 

 domestic erections in York. When re-constructed at a subsequent period, Mr. Charles Small 

 preserved, in the enlarged and elevated building, now known as Berkeley House, the shape 

 and even a portion of the inner substance of the original structure. We have before us a 

 curious plan (undated but old) of the piece of ground originally occupied and enclosed by Mr. 

 Small, as a yard and garden round his primitive homestead ; occupied and enclosed, as it would 

 seem, before any building lots were set off by authority on the Government reserve or common 

 here. The plan referred to is entitled "A sketch shewing the land occupied by John Small, 

 Esq., upon the Reserve appropriated for the Government House at York by His Excellency, 

 Lt. Gov. Simcoe." An irregular oblong, coloured red, is bounded on the north side by King 

 Street, and is lettered within — "Mr. Small's Improvements." Bound the irregular piece thus 

 shewn, lines are drawn enclosing additional space, and bringing the whole into the shape of a 

 parallelogram : the parts outside the irregularly-shaped red portion, are coloured yellow : and 

 on the yellow, the memorandum appears — "This added would make an Acre." The block thus 

 brought into shapely form is about one-half of the piece of ground that at present appertains to 

 Berkeley House. — The plan before us also incidentally shows where the Town was supposed to 

 terminate: — an inscription — "Front line of the Town"— runs along the following route: up 

 what is now the lane through Dr. Widmer's property ; and then, at a right angle eastward along 

 what is now the north boundary of King Street opposite the block which it was necessary to 

 get into shape round Mr. SmaU's first "Improvement." King Street proper, in this plan, 

 terminates at "Ontario Street:" from the eastern limit of Ontario Street, the continuation of 



