TORONTO OF OLD. 443 



property known and described as Nolanville or German Mills, in the third concession of the 

 township of Markham, consisting of four hundred acres of land, upwards of fifty under good 

 fences and improvements, with a good dwelling-house, barn, stable, saw-mill, grist-mill, distil- 

 lery, brew-house, malt-house, and several other out-buildings. The above premises will be 

 disposed of, either the whole or in part, by application to the subscriber, William Allan, York, 

 January 26, 1828. The premises can be viewed at any time by applying to Mr. Joha Duggau 

 residing there." 



In the absence of striking architectural objects in the country at the time, wo remember, 

 about the year 1828, thinking the extensive cluster of buildings constituting the German Mills 

 a rather impi-essive sight, coming upon them suddenly, in the midst of the woods, in a 

 deserted condition, with all their windows boarded up. 



One of our own associations with the German Mills is the memory of Mr. Charles Stewart 

 Murray, afterv/ards well-known in York as connected with tlie Bank of Upper Canada. He 

 had been thrown out of employment by Capt. Nolan's relinquishment of the Mills. He was 

 then patronized iiy Mr. Thorne of Thornhill. In our boyish fancy, a romantic interest attached 

 to Mr. Murray from his being a personal friend of Sir Walter Scott's, and from his being 

 intiimtely associated witli him in the excursion to the Orkneys, while the Pirate and the Lord 

 of the Isles were simmering in the Novelist's brain. " Not a bad Re-past," playfully said Sir 

 Walter after partaking one day of homely meat-pie at the little inn of one Rae. Lo ! from Mr. 

 Murray's talk, a minute grain to be added to Sir Walter's already huge cairn of ana. Mr. M., 

 too, was imagined by us, quite absurdly doubtless, to be an hereditary devotee of the Pretender, 

 if not closely allied to him by blood. (His grandfather, or other near relative, had, we believe, 

 really been for a time secretary to Prince Charles Edward Stuart.) 



A mile or two beyond where the track to the German Mills turned off, Y^onge Street once 

 more encountered a branch of the Don, flowing, as usual, through a wide and difficult ravine. 

 At the point where the stream was crossed, mills and manufactories made their appearance at 

 an early date. The ascent of the bank towards the north was accomplished, in this instance, 

 in no round-about way. The road went straight up. Horse-power and the strength of leather 

 were here often severely tested. On the rise above began the village of Thornhill, an attractive 

 and noticeable place from the first moment of its existence. Hereabout several English 

 families had settled, giving a special tone, to the neighbourhood. In the very heart of the 

 village was the home, unfailingly genial and hospitable, of Mr. Parsons, one of the chief 

 founders of the settlement ; emigrating hither from Sherborne in Dorsetshire in 1820. Nearer 

 the brow of the hill overlooking the Don, was the house of Mr. Thorne, from whom the place 

 took its name : an English gentleman also from Dorsetshire, and associated with Mr. Parsons, 

 in the numerous business enterprises which made Thornhill for a long period a centre of great 

 activity and prosperity. Beyond, a little further northward, lived the Gappers, another family 

 initiating here the amenities and ways of good old west-of-Bngland households. Dr. Paget was 

 likewise an element of happy influence in the little world of this region, a man of high culture ; 

 formerly a medical practitioner of great repute in Torquay. Another character of mark asso- 

 ciated with Thornhill in its palmy days was the Rev. George Mortimer, for a series of years 

 the pastor of the English congregation there. Had his lot been cast in the scenes of an 

 Oberlin's labours or a Lavater's, or a Felix Neff's, his name would probably have been conspic- 

 uously classed with theirs in religious annitls. He was eminently of their type. Constitution- 

 ally of a si)iritual temperament, he still did not take theology to be a bar to a scientific and 

 accurate examination of things visible. He deemed it " sad, if not actually censurable, to pass 

 blindfolded through the works of God, to live in a world of flowers, and stars, and sunsets, and' 

 a thousand glorious objects of Nature, and never to have a passing interest awakened by any 

 one of them." Before his emigration to Canada he had been curate of Madeley in Shropshire,, 

 the parish of the celebrated Fletcher of Madeley, whose singularly beautiful character that of 

 Mr. Mortimer resembled. Though of feeble frame his ministerial labours were without inter- 

 mission; and his lot, as Fletcher's also, was to die almost in the act of officiating in his 

 profession.— An earlier incumbent of the English Church at Thornhill was the Rev. Isaac 

 Fidler. This gentleman rendered famous the scene of bis Canadian ministry, as well as his 

 experiences in the United States, by a book which in its day was a good deal read. It was 

 entitled " Observations on Professions, Literature, Manners, and Emigration in the United 

 States and Canada." Although he indulged in some sharp strictures on the citizens of the 



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