TORONTO OF OLD. 187 



At times pereliaiice frail Nature held the sway, 

 Yet dimm'd not it the intellectual ray : 

 Eeason and Truth triumphant held their course, 

 And list'ning hearers felt conviction's force : 

 No precept mangled, text misunderstood, 

 He thought and acted but for public good : 

 His reasoning pure, his mind all manly light. 

 Made day of that which else appear'd as night. 

 In him instruction aim'd at this great end — 

 Our fates to soften and our lives amend. 

 Yet he was man, and man 's the child of woe. 

 Who seeks perfection, seeks not here below." 



Of Col. W. Chewett, whose name appears next, we have made mention more than once. 

 His name, like that of his son, J. G. Chewett, is very familiar to those who have to examine 

 the 'plans and charts connected with early Upper Canadian history. Both were long dis- 

 tinguished attaches of the Surveyor-General's department. In 1802, Col. W. Chewett was 

 Registrar of the Home District. 



Alexander Macnab, whose name occurs next in succession, was afterwards Capt. Macnab. 

 who fell at Waterloo, the only instance, as is supposed, of a Canadian slain on that occasion. 

 In 1868, his nephew,' the Bev. Dr. Macnab, of Bowmanville, was presented by the Duke of 

 Cambridge in person with the Waterloo medal due to the family of Capt. Macnab. 



Alexander Macnab was also the first patentee of the first plot of ground whereon stands the 

 house on Bay Street noted, in our account of the early press, as being the place of publication 

 of the Upper Canada Gazette at the time of the taking of York, and subsequently owned and 

 , occupied by Mr. Andrew Mercer up to the time of his decease in 1871 . 



Of Messrs. Ridout and AUan, whose names are inscribed conjointly on the following pai'k 

 lot, we have already spoken ; and Angus Macdonell, who took up the next lot, was the barrister 

 who perished, along with the whole court, in the Speedy 



The name that appears on the westernmost lot of the range along which ^y& have been 

 passing is that of Benjamm Hallowell. He was a near connection of Chief Justice Elmsley's, 

 and father of the Admiral, Sir Benjamin Hallowell, K.C.B. We observe the notice of Mr. 

 Hallowell's death in the Gazette and Oracle of the day, in the following terms : " Died, on. 

 Thursday last (in March 28th, 1799), Benjamin Hallowell, Esq., in the 75th year of his age. 

 The funeral will be on Tuesday next, and wiU proceed from, the house of the Chief Justice to 

 he Garrison Burying Ground at one o'clock precisely. The attendance of his friends is 

 requested." 



Associated at a later period with the memories of this locality is the name of Col. Walter 

 O'Hara. — In 1808 an immense enthusiasm sprang up in England in behalf of the Spaniards, 

 who were beginning to rise in spirited style against the domination of Napoleon and his family. 

 Walter Savage Landor, for one, the distinguished scholar, philosopher and poet, determined 

 to assist them in person as a volunteer. In a letter to Southey, in August, 1808, he says : "At 

 Brighton, I preached a crusade to two auditors : i. e., a, crusade against the French in Spain: 

 Inclination, he continues, was not wanting, and in a few minutes everything was fixed." The 

 two auditors, we are afterwards told, were both Irishmen, an O'Hara and a Fitzgerald. Landor 

 did not himself remain long in Spain, — although long enough to expend, out of his own resources, 

 a very large sum of money ; but his companions continued to do good service in the Peninsula, 

 in a military capacity, to the close of the war. In a subsequent communication to Southey, 

 Landor speaks of a letter just received from his friend O'Hara. " This morning," he says, "I 

 had a letter from Portugal, from a sensible man and excellent oflScer, Walter O'Hara. The 

 officers do not appear," he continues, "to entertain very sanguine hopes of success. We have 

 lost a vast number of brave men, and the French have gained a vast number, and fight as well 

 as under the republic." The Walter O'Hara whom we here have Landor speaking of as "a 

 sensible man and excellent officer," is the Col. O'Hara at whose homestead, on a portion of the 

 Hallowell park-lot, we have arrived, and whose name is one of our household words. Colonel 

 O'Hara built on this spot in 1831, at which date the surrounding region was in a state of 

 nature. The area cleared for the reception of the still existing spacious residence, with its 

 lawn, garden and orchards, remained for a number of years an oasis in the midst of a grand 

 forest. A brief memorandum which we are enabled to give from his own pen of the Peninsular 



