190 CANADIAN LOCAL HISTORY: 



open track, ready, when the day for such further imx^rovements should arrive, for the reception, 

 of plank or macadam, was soon constructed. 



Immediately at the turn northwards, out of the line of Lot Street, on the east side, were 

 Sandford's Inn, a watering-place for teams on their way into York, provided accordingly with 

 a consjucuous pump and great trough, a long section of a huge pine tree dug out like a canoe. 

 Near by, a little to the east, was another notable inn, an early rival, as we suppose, of Sand- 

 ford's : this was the Blue Bell. A sign to that effect, at the top of a strong and lofty pole ia 

 front of its door, swung to and fro within a frame. 



Just opposite, on the Garrison Common, there were for a long while low log buildings 

 belonging to the Indian department. One of them contained a forge, in charge of Mr. Higgins, 

 armourer to the dei)artment. Here the Indians could get, when necessary, their fishing-spears, 

 axes, knives ancj tomahawks, and other implements of iron, sharpened and put in order. One 

 of these buildings was afterwards used as a school for the surrounding neighbourhood. 



Immediately across from Sandford's, on the park lot originally occupied by Mr. Burns, was 

 a house, shaded with great willow-trees, and surrounded by a flower-garden and lawn, the 

 abode for many years of tlie venerable widow of Capt. John Denison, who long survived her 

 husband. Of her we have^already once spoken in connexion with Peterfleld. She was, as we 

 have intimated, a sterling old English gentlewoman of a type now vanishing, as we imagine. 

 The house was afterwards long in the occupation of her son-in-law, Mr. John Fennings Taylor, a 

 gentleman well-known to Canadian M.P.'s during a long series of years, having been attached 

 as Chief Clerk and Master in Chancery first to the Legislative Council of United Canada and 

 then to the Senate of the Dominion. 



To the right and left, as we passed north, was a wet swamp, densely filled with cedars of aU 

 shapes and sizes, and strewn plentifully with granitic boulders : a strip of land held in light 

 esteem by the piassers-by, in the early day, as seeming to be irreclaimable for agricultural pur- 

 poses. But how admirably reclaimable in reality the acres hereabout were for the choices 

 human purposes, was afterwards seen, when, for example, the house and grounds known as 

 Foxley Grove, came to be established. By the outlay of some money and the exercise of some 

 discrimination, a portion of this same cedar swamp was rapidly converted into pleasure-ground, 

 with labyrinths of full-grown shrubbery ready-prepared by nature's hand. Mr. James Bealey 

 Harrison, who thus transformed the wild into a garden and plaisaunce, will be long remembered 

 for his skiU and taste in the culture of flowers and esculents choice and rare : as well as for his 

 eminence as a lawyer and jurist. He was a graduate of Cambridge ; and before his emigration, 

 to Canada, had attained distinction at the English bar. He was the author of a work well 

 known to the legal profession in Great Britain and here, entitled "An Analytical Digest of all 

 the Reported Cases determined in the House of Lords, the several Courts of the Common Law 

 in Banc and at Nisi Prius, and the Court of Bankruptcy, from Michaelmas Term, 1756, to 

 Easter Term, 1843 ; including also the Crown Cases Referred : in Four Volumes." During the 

 regime of Sir George Arthur, Mr. Harrison was Secretary of the Province and a member of the 

 Executive Council ; and at a later period he was Judge of the County and Surrogate Courts. 

 The memory of Judge Harrison, as an Englisli Gentleman, genial, frank, and straightforward, 

 is cherished among his surviving contemporaries. 



On turning westward into Dundas Street proper, we were soon in the midst of a magaiflcent 

 pine forest, which remained long undisturbed. The whole width of the allowance for road 

 was here for a number of miles completely cleared. The highway thus well-defined was seen 

 bordered on the right and left with a series of towering columns, the outermost ranges of an 

 innumerable multitude of similar tall shafts set at various distances from each other, and 

 circumscribing the view in an iiTegular manner on both sides, all helpmg to bear up aloft a 

 matted awning of deep-green, through which, here and there, glimpses of azure could be 

 caught, looking bright and cheery. The yeUow pine predominated, a tree remarkable for the 

 straightness and tallness of its stems, and for the height at whicli its branches begin. No 

 fence on either hand intervened between the road and the forest ; the rider, at his pleasure, 

 could rein his horse aside at any point and take a canter in amongst the columns, the under- 

 wood being very slight. Everywhere, at the proper season, the ground was sprinkled with 

 wild flowers, with the wild lupin and the wild columbine ; and everywhere, at all times, the 

 4iir was more or less fragrant with resinous exhalations. 



