358 CANADIAN LOCAL HISTORY : 



painted before the raising. The operation of raising commenced about 2 o'clock p.m., and 

 about 8 in the evening, the spire and vane were seen erect, and appeared to those unacquainted 

 ■with what was going on, to have risen amongst the trees, as if by magio. The work was 

 performed by Mr. John Richey ; the framing by Mr. Wetlierell, and the raising was superin- 

 tended by Mr. Josepli Hill. The plan adopted was this : three gin-poles, as they are called, 

 were erected in the form of a triangle : each of them was well braced, and tackles were rove at 

 their tops : the tackles were hooked to strong straps about fifty feet up the spire, with nine 

 men to each tackle, and four men to steady the end with following poles. It was raised in 

 about four hours from the commencement of the straining of the tackles, aud had a very 

 beautifal appearance while rising. The whole operation, we have been told, was conducted as 

 nearly as possible in silence, the architect himself regulating by signs the action of the groups 

 at the gin-poles, being himself governed by the plumb-line suspended in a high frame before him. 

 " No workman steel, no ponderous axes rung ; 

 , Like some tall palm, the noiseless fabric sprung." 



Perhaps Fontana's exploit of setting on end the obelisk in front of St. Peter's, in Rome, sug- 

 gested the possibility of causing a tower and spire complete to be suddenly seen rising above 

 the roof of the Yorkville St. Paul's. On an humble scale we have Fontana's arrangements 

 reproduced. While in the men at the gin-poles worked in obedience to signs, wc have the old 

 Egyptians over again— a very small detachment of them indeed, — as seen in the old sculptures 

 on the banks of the Nile. 



The original St. Paul's, before it acquired in this singular manner the dignified appurtenance 

 of a steeple, was a long, low, barn-like, wooden building. Mr. Howard otlierwise improved it, 

 enlarging it by the addition of an aisle on the west side. AVhen some twenty years later, viz., 

 in 1861, the new stone church was erected, the old wooden structure was removed bodily to 

 the west side of Yonge Street, together with the tower, curtailed, however, of its spire. We 

 have been informed that the four fine stems, each eighty-five feet long, which formed the interior 

 frame of the tower and spire of 1841, were a present from Mr. Allan, of Moss Park ; and that 

 the Rev. diaries Mathews, occasionally officiating in St. Paul's, gave one hundred pounds in 

 cash towards the expense of the ornamental addition now made to the edifice. The history of 

 another of Mr. Howard's erections on Yonge Street, which we are perambulating, illustrates 

 the rapid advance and expansion of architectural ideas amongst us. In the case now referred 

 to it was no shell of tnnber and deal-boards that was taken down, but a very handsome solid 

 edifice of cut-stone, which might have endured for centuries. Tlie Bank of British North 

 America, budt by Mr. Howard, at the corner of Yonge Street and Wellington Street in 1843, 

 was deliberately taken down, block by block, in 1871, and made to give place to a structure 

 which should be on a par in magnificence and altitude with the buildings put up by the other 

 Banks. Mr. Howard's building, at the time of its erection, was justly regarded as a credit to 

 the town. Its design was preferred by the directors in London to those sent in by several 

 architects there. Over the principal entrance were the Royal Arms, exceedingly well carved in 

 stone on a grand scale, and wholly disengaged from the wall ; and conspicuous over the parapet 

 above was the great scallop-shell, emblem of the gold-digger's occupation, introduced by Sir 

 John Soane, in the architecture of the Bank of England. 



The Cemetery, tlie gates and keeper's lodge of which, after crossing the concession road and 

 advancing on our way northward, we used to see on the left, was popularly known as " The 

 Potter's Field"— "a place to bury strangers in." Its official style was "The York General 

 or Strangers' Burying Ground." In practice it was the Bunliill Fields of York — the receptacle 

 of the remains of those whose friends declined the use of the St. James's churchyard and other 

 early burial-plots. Walton's Directory for 1833, gives the following information, which we 

 transfer hither, as well for the slight degree of quaintness which the narrative has acquired, 

 as also on account of the familiar names which it contains. " This institution," Walton says, 

 "owes its origin to Mr. Carfrae, junior. It comprises six acres of ground, and has a neat 

 sexton's house built close by the gate. The name of the sexton is John Wolstencroft, who keeps 

 a registry of every person buried therein. Persons of all creeds and persons of no creed, are 

 allowed burial in this cemetery : fees to the sexton, 5s. It was instituted in the fall of 1825, and 

 incorporated by Act of Parliament, 30th January, 1826. It is managed by five trustees, who 

 are chosen for life ; and in case of the death of any of them, a public meeting of the inhabitants 



