TORONTO OF OLD. 375 



eonclusiou of this report, that the most ancient inhabitants of Youge Street have been th« 

 most negleutful in clearing the street ; and I have reason to believe that some trifle with ths 

 requisition of government in respect of clearing the street." Mr. Berczy brought over his 

 sixty-four families in 1794. Tlie most ancient inliabitants were thus of about seven years' 

 standing. If we men of the second generation regarded Yonge Street ai; a route difficult to 

 travel, what must the first Immigrants from the Genesee country and Pennsylvania have found 

 it to be ? They brought witli them vehicles and horses and families and some household stuff. 

 " The body of their waggons," we are tuld in an account of sucli new-comers in the Ga&ctUi'.r of 

 1799, " is made of close boards, and the most clever have the ingenuity to caulk the seams, and 

 so by shifting off the body from tlie carriage, it serves to transport the wheels and the family." 

 Old settlers round New Market used to narrate how in their first .journey from York to th« 

 Lauding they lowered their waggons down the steeps by ropes passed round the stems of 

 saplings, and then hauled them up the ascent on the opposite side in a similar way. 



We meet with Mr. Stegmann, the author of the above-quoted report in numerous documents 

 relating to surveys and other professional business done for the Surveyor General. His clear, 

 bold handwriting is always recognizable. Plis mode of expressing himself is vigorous and to 

 the point, but slightly affected by his imperfect mastery of the English language. He gives 

 the following account of himself in his first application to the Surveyor General, asking for 

 employment. " My name is John Stegmann," he says, " late lieutenant in the Hessian 

 Regiment of Lossberg, commanded by Major General de Loos, and served during the whole war 

 in America till the reduction took place in the month of August, 1783, and by the favour and 

 Indulgence of His Excellency, Lord Dorchester, I obtained land in this new settlement and 

 township of Osnabruck, and an appointment as Surveyor in the Province ; he has a wife and 

 small family to provide for." Descendants of liis are still to be found in the neighbourhood of 

 Pine Grove in Vaughan. Their name is now Anglicised by the omission of one of the final n'a. 



The names of other early surveyors may be learned from the following notice, taken from a 

 Gazette: "Surveyor General's Office, York, 25th April, 1805. That it may be knoAvn who are 

 authorized to survey lands on the part of the Crown, within this Province, the following list is com- 

 municated to the public of such persons as are duly licensed for that purpose, to be surveyors 

 therein, viz., William Chewett, York; Thomas Smith, Sandwich; Abraham Iredell, Thoma» 

 Welch, Augustus Jones, William Fortune, Lewis Grant, Richard Cockrell, Henry Smith, John 

 Eider, Aaron Greeley, Thomas Eraser, Reuben Sherwood, Joseph Fortune, Solomon Stevens, 

 Samuel S. Wilmot, Samuel Ryckraan, Mahlon Burwell, Adrian Marlet, Samuel Ridout, George 

 Lawe. (Signed,) C. B. Wyatt, Surveyor General." 



Of Mr. Berczy, above spoken of, we shall soon have to give further particulars. We must 

 now push on. 



Just bej'-ond the Blue Hill ravine, on the west side stood for a long while a lonely unfinished 

 frame building, with gable toward the street, and windows boarded up. The inquiring stage- 

 passenger would be told, good-hnmouredly, by the driver, that it was Rowland Burr's Polly. 

 It was, we believe, to have been a Carding or Pulling Mill, worked by peculiar machinery driven 

 by the stream in the valley below ; but either the impracticability of this from the position of the 

 building, or the as yet insignificant quantity of wool produced in the country made the enter- 

 prise abortive. Mr. Burr was an emigrant to these parts from Pennsylvania in 1303, and from 

 early manhood was strongly marked by many of the traits which are held to be characteristic of 

 the speculative and energetic American. Unfortunately in some respects for himself, he was 

 in advance of his neighbours in a clear perception of the capabOities of things as seen in the 

 rough, and in a strong desire to initiate works of public utility, broaching schemes occasionally, 

 beyond the natural powers of a community in its veriest infancy. A canal to connect Lake 

 Ontario with the Georgian Bay of Lake Huron, via Lake Simcoe and the valley of the Humber 

 was pressed by him as an immediate necessity, years ago ; and at his own expense he minutely 

 examined the route and published thereon a report which has furnished to later theorizers on 

 the same subject much valuable information. Mr. Burr was a born engineer and mechanician 

 and at a more auspicious time, with proper opportunities for training and culture, he would 

 probably have become famed as a local George Stephenson. He built on his o'vvn account, or 

 for others, a number of mills and factories, providing and getting into working order the com- 

 plicated mechanism required for e.'WJh; and this at a time wlien such undertakings were not 



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