TORONTO OF OLD. 93 



&e. Hitherto, the Constellation continues, in the season of ■winter our intercourse with that 

 part of the province has heen almost totally interrupted. Mr. Danforth has already made 40 

 miles of excellent road, the editor encourages his patrons by saying, and procured men to the 

 number sufficient for doing the whole extent by the setting in of winter. It would be desirable 

 also, Mr. Tiffany suggests, were a little labour expended in bridging the streams between Bur- 

 lington Bay and York : indeed the whole country, it is sweepingly declared, affords room for 

 amendment in this respect." 



It is plain from this extract that if the men of the present generation would have a just con- 

 ception of what was the condition of the region round Lake Ontario seventy years ago, they 

 must pay a visit to the head of Lake Superior and perform the joui'ney by the Dawson-road and 

 the rest of the newly opened route from Port William to Wiimipeg. 



The road referred to above in the Niagara paper, as being about to be opened by Mr. Danforth 

 in 1799, is still known as the Danforth Boad. It runs somewhat to the north of the present 

 Kingston Road, entering it by the town line at the " Four Mile Tree." Yonge Street, which 

 we purpose duly to perambulate hereafter, has its name from Sir George Yonge, a member of 

 the Imi^erial Government in the reign of George III. He was of a distinguished Devonshire 

 family, and a personal friend of Governor Simcoe's. 



The first grantee of the par]»-lot which we next pass in our progress westward was Dr. 

 Macaulay, an army surgeon attached successively to the 33rd Regiment and the famous Queen's 

 Bangers. . His sons. Sir James Macaulay, first Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and Colonel 

 John Simcoe Macaulay, a distinguished officer of Engineers, are well remembered. Those who 

 have personal recollections of Dr. Macaulay speak of him in terms of great respect. The 

 southern portion of this property was at an early period laid out in streets and small lots. 

 The collection of houses that here began to spring up was known as Macaulay Town, and was 

 long considered as bearing the relation to York that Yorkville does to Toronto now. So late 

 as 1833 Walton in his Street Guide and Register speaks of Macaulay Town as extending from 

 Yonge Street to Osgoode Hall. 



James Street retains the Christian name of Dr. Macaulay. Teraulay Street led up to the site 

 of his residence, Teraulay Cottage, which after having been moved from its original position 

 in connection with the laying out of Trinity ScLuare off Yonge Street, was destroyed by fire in 

 1848. The northern portion of Macaulay Town was bounded by Macaulay Lane, described by 

 Walton as "fronting the fields." This was Louisa Street. 



Of the memorable possessor of the property on the south side of Queen Street opposite 

 Macaulay Town, Mr. Jesse Ketchum, we shall have occasion to speak hereafter, when we pass 

 his place of abode in our proposed journey through Yonge Street. The existing Free Kirk 

 place of worship, known as Knox's Church, stands on land given by Mr. Ketohum, and on a 

 site previously occupied by a lone oblong red brick chapel which looked towards what is now 

 Richmond Street, and in which a son-in-law of his, Mr. Harris, officiated to a congregation of 

 United Synod Presbyterians. The donor was probably unconscious of the remarkable excel- 

 lence of this particular position as a site for a conspicuous architectural object. The spire 

 that towers up from this now central spot is seen with peculiarly good effect as one approaches 

 Toronto by the thoroughfare of Queen Street whether from the east or from the west. 



XSII.— QUEEN STREET— DIGRESSION SOUTHWARD AT BAY STREET. 



Old inhabitants say that Bay Street, where we are now arrived, was at first in fact "Bear 

 Street," and that it was popularly so called from a noted chase given to a bear out of the 

 adjoining wood on the north, which, to escape from its pursuers, made for the water along this 

 route. Mr. Justice Eoulton's two horses, Bonaparte and Jeffisrson, were once seen, we are 

 told, to attack a monster of this species that intruded on their pasture on the Grange property 

 a little to the west. They are described as plunging at the animal with their fore feet. In 

 1809, a straggler from the forest of the same species was killed in George Street by Lieut. 

 Faweett of the 100th regiment, who cleft the creature's head open with his sword. This Lieut. 

 Fawcett was afterwards Lieut. Col. of the 100th, and was severely wounded in the war of 1812. 



Bay Street, as we pass it, recalls one of the early breweries of York. We have already in 

 another place briefly spoken of Shaw's and Hugill's. At the second north-west corner south- 



