84 CANADIAN LOCAL HISTORY : 



mental thanksgiving before meals, that always took place after every one had taken his seat at 

 the table ; a brief pause was made, and all bent for a moment slightly forwards. The act was 

 solemn and impressive. Old Mr. Playter was a man of sprightly and humorous temperament, 

 and his society was accordingly much enjoyed by those who knew him. A precise attention to 

 his dress and person rendered him an excellent type in which to study the costume and 

 style of the ordinary unofficial citizen of a past generation. Colonel M. P. Wliitehead, of 

 Port Hope, in a letter kindly expressive of his interest in these reminiscences of York, which 

 we are endeavouring to record, has incidentally furnished a little sketch that wiU not be out 

 of place here. "My visits to York, after I was articled to Mr. Ward, in 1819," Colonel White- 

 head says, "were frequent. I usually lodged at old Mr. Playter's, Mrs. Ward's father. [This 

 was when he was stUl living at the homestead on the Don.] The old gentleman often walked 

 into town with me, by Castle , Prank ; his three-cornered hat, silver knee-buckles, broad-toed 

 shoes and large buckles, were always carefully arranged. " To the equipments, so well described 

 by Colonel Whitehead, we add from our own boyish recollection of Sunday sights, white stockings 

 and a gold-headed cane of a length unusual now. According to a common custom prevalent 

 at an early time, Mr. Playter set apart on his estate on the Don a family burial-plot, where his 

 own remains and those of several members of his family and their descendants were deposited. 

 Mr. George Playter, son of Captain George Playter, was some time Deputy Sheriff of the Home 

 District ; and Mr. Eli Playter, another son, represented for some sessions in the Provincial 

 Parliament the North Riding of York. A daughter, who died unmarried in 1832, Miss Hannah 

 Playter, "Aunt Hannah" as she was styled in the family, is pleasantly remembered as well 

 for the genuine kindness of her character, as also for the persistency with which, like her 

 father, she carried forward into a new and changed generation, and retained to the last, the 

 costume and manners of Queen Charlotte's days. As a specimen of the mode in which 

 marriages were occasionally announced in our York papers in the olden time, we subjoin the 

 record of a wedding in Captain Playter's family, as given in the Gasette and Oracle of Decem- 

 ber 29, 1798. "Married last Monday," the record runs, "Mr. James Playter to the agreeable 

 Miss Hannah Miles, daughter of Mr. Abner MUes of this town." 



XSXII.— QUEEN STREET— SOME MEMORIES OP THE OLD COURT HOUSE. 

 Immediately in front of the extreme westerly portion of the park-lot which we are now 

 passing, and on the south side of the present Queen Street in that direction, was situated an 

 early Court House of York, associated in the memories of most of the early people with their 

 first acquaintance with forensic pleadings and law proceedings. This building was a notable 

 object in its day. In an old plan of the town we observe it conspicuously delineated in the 

 locality mentioned — the other public buildings of the place, viz. , the Commissariat Stores, the 

 Government House, the Council Chamber (at the present north-west corner of York and Wel- 

 lington Streets), the District School, St. James's Church, and the Parliament House (by the 

 Little Don), being marked in the same distinguished manner. It was a plain two-storey frame 

 building, erected in the first instance as an ordinary place of abode by Mr. Montgomery, father 

 of the Montgomerys, once of the neighbourhood of Eglinton, on Yonge Street. It stood in a 

 space defined by the present line of Yonge Street on the west, by nearly the present line of 

 Victoria Street on the east, by Queen Street on the north and by Richmond Street on the south. 

 Though situated nearer Queen Street than Richmond Street it faced the latter and was 

 approached from the latter. It was Mr. Montgomery who obtained by legal process the opening 

 of Queen Street in the rear of his property. In consequence of the ravine of wliich we have 

 had occasion so often to speak, the allowance for this street as laid down in the first plans of 

 York had been closed up by authority from Yonge Street to Caroline Street. It was seriously 

 proposed in 1800 to close up Queen Street to the westward also from Yonge Street "as far as 

 the Common," that is, the Garrison Reserve, on the ground that such street was wholly 

 imnecessary, there being in that direction already one highway into the town, namely Richmond 

 Street, situated only ten rods to the south. In 1800 the southern termination of Yonge Street 

 was where we are now passing, at the comer of Montgomery's lot. At this point the farmer's 

 waggons from the north turned ofi' to the eastward, proceeding as far as Toronto Street, do^v^l 

 which they wended their way to Richmond Street, and so on to Church Street and King Street 



