112 CANADIAN LOCAL HISTORY. 



after the attainment of eminence in tlie newly adopted profession, there was a return to the 

 original pursuit, with the acquisition in that also, of a splendid reputation. Both acquired the 

 local style of Honourahle : Dr. Rolph by having been a member of +he Hincks-ministry from 

 1S51 to 1854 ; Dr. Baldwin by being summoned, six months before his decease, to the Legislative 

 Council of United Canada, while his son was Attorney-General. 



Mr. William Willcocks, allied by marriage to Dr. Baldwin's family, selected the park-lot at 

 which we arrive after crossing Spadina Avenue. A lake in the Oak Eidges (Lake Willcocks) has 

 its name from the same early inhabitant. In 1802 he was Judge of the Home District Court. 

 He is to be distinguished from the ultra-Reformer, Sheriff Willcocks, of Judge Thorpe's day, 

 whose name was Joseph ; and from Charles Willcocks, who in 1818 was proposing, through the 

 columns of the Upper Canada Gazette, to publish, by subscription, a history of his own life. 

 The advertisement was as follows (what finally came of it, we are not able to state) : — "The 

 subscriber proposes to publish, by subscription, a History of his Life. The subscription to be 

 One Dollar, to be paid by each subscriber ; one half in advance ; the other half on the delivery 

 of the Book. The money to be paid to his agent, Mr. Thomas Deary, who will give receipts 

 and deliver the Books. Charles WUlcocks, late Lieutenant, City of Cork Militia. York, March 

 17, 1818." — This Mr. Charles WiUcocks once fancied he had grounds for challenging his name- 

 sake, Joseph, to mortal combat, according to the barbaric notions of the time. But at the hour 

 named for the meeting, Joseph did not appear on the ground. Charles waited a reasonable 

 time. He then chipped oif a square inch or two of the bark of a neighbouring tree, and, 

 stationing himself at duelling distance, discharged his pistol at the mark which he had made. 

 As the ball buried itself in the spot at which aim had been taken, he loudly bewailed his old 

 friend's reluctance to face him. " Oh, Joe, Joe !" he passionately cried, " if you had only been 

 here ! " Although Joseph escaped this time, he was not so fortunate afterwards. He fell, as 

 we have already noted in connexion with the Early Press, " foremost fighting" in the ranks of 

 the invaders of Upper Canada in 1814. The incident is briefly mentioned in the Montreal Herald 

 of the 15th October in that year, in the following terms : " It is ofiicially announced by General 

 Ripley (on the American side, that is), that the traitor Willcocks was killed in the sortie from 

 Fort Erie on the 4th ult., greatly lamented by his general and the army." Undertaking with 

 impetuosity a crusade against the governmental ideas which were locally in the ascendant, and 

 encountering the resistance customary in such cases, he cut the knot of his discontent by joining 

 the Republican force when it made its appearance. 



The Willcocks park-lot, or a portion of it, was afterwards possessed by Mr. Billings, a well- 

 remembered Commissariat officer, long stationed at York. He built the house subsequently 

 known as Englefield, which, later, was the home of Colonel Loring, who, at the time of the 

 taking of York, in 1813, had his horse killed under him ; and here he died. Mr. Billings and 

 Colonel Loring both had sons, of whom we make brief mention as having been in the olden time 

 among our own school-boy associates, but who now, like so many more personal contemporaries, 

 already noted, are, after brief careers, deceased. 



