TORONTO OP OLD. 565 



■ Prom the great lakes of the Northland, 

 From tlie mountains, moors and fcnlands, 

 Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah, 

 •Feeds among the reeds and rushes — 



tell of an era jnst anterior to the period wlien that district becomes invested with interest for 

 us. Francis Parkman, however, in an agreeably written work, entitled "The Jesuits in North 

 America in the Seventeenth Centnrj'," has dwelt somewhat at length on the history of the 

 locality referred to^the well-peopled Toronto region, of which we obtain a kind of Pisgah-view 

 from the brow of the Ridges as we travel north. In the early Eeports of the Jesnit fathers 

 themselves, too, this area figures largely, Thej^, in fact, constructed a map of tlie locality, 

 which must have led the central mission-board of their association, at Rome, to believe that 

 this portion of 'Westeni Canada was as thicklj' strewn with villages and towns as a district of 

 equal area in old Prance. In the " Chorographia Regionis Huronum," attached to Father du 

 Creux's Map of New France, of the date 1660, given in Bressani's Abridgment of the Relations, 

 we have the following places conspicuously marked as stations or sub-missions in the peninsula 

 bounded by the bays and lakes and rivers above enumerated, Implying population in and 

 round eacli of them ;— St. Xavier, St. Charles, St. Louis, St. Ignatius, St. Denis, St. Joachim, 

 St. Athnnasius, St. Elizabeth, St. John the Baptist, St. Joseph, St. Mary, St. Michael, La Con- 

 ception, St. Mary Magdalene, and others. 



In Schoolcraft's American Indians, js. 130, ed. 1S51, the scene of the story of Aingodon and 

 Naywadaha is laid at Toronto, by which is meant probably a spot close to Lake Simcoe, and 

 not the trading-post of Toronto on Lake Ontario. 



LIV.— TONGE STREET, FROM THE SUMMIT TO THE RIDGES OF THE NEW- 

 MARKET ROAD. 



But we must push ou. The end of our journey is in sight. The impediments to our 

 advance have been innumerable, but unavoidable. In spite of appearances, " Semper ad 

 eventum festina "' has all along been secretly goading us forward. 



The farmhouses and their surroundings in the Quaker settlement through which, after 

 descending faom the Ridges on the northern side, we passed, came to be notable at an early 

 date for a characteristic neatness, completeness, and visible judiciousness ; and for an air of 

 enviable general cotufort and prosperity. The farmers here were emigrants chiefly from 

 Pennsylvania. Coming from, a quarter where large tracts had been rapidly transformed by 

 human toil from a state of nature to a condition of high cultivation, they brought with them 

 an inherited experience in regard to such matters ; and on planting themselves down in the 

 midst of an unbroken wild, they re.garded the situation with more intelligence perhaps than the 

 ordinary emigrant from the British Islands and interior of Germany, and so, uuretarded by 

 blunders and by doubts as to the issue, were enabled very speedily to turn their industry to 

 profltalile accoimt. 



The old GazetUer of 1799 speaks in an exalted sentimental strain of an emigration then going 

 ou from the United States into Canada. "The loyal peasant," it saj's, "sighing after the 

 government he lost by the late revolution, travels from Pemisylvania in search of his former 

 laws and protection ; and having his expectations fulfilled by new marks of favour from the 

 Crown in a grant of lands, he turns his plough at once into these fertile plains [the immediate 

 reference is to the neighbourhood of Woodhouse on Lake Erie], and an abundant crop reminds 

 him of his gratitude to his God and to his king." We do not know for certain whetlier the 

 Quaker settlers of the region north of the Ridges came into Canada under the influence of 

 feelings exactly such as tho.se described by the Gazetteer of 17C9. In 1S06, however, we find 

 them coming forward in a body to congratulate a new Lieutenant-Governor on his arrival in 

 Upper Canada, In the Gazette of Oct. ■!, 1S06, we read : "On Tuesday, the 30th September 

 (1S06), the foUoOTng address from the Quakers residing on Yonge Street was presented to his 

 Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor : " The Society of the people called Quakers, to Francis 

 Gore, GoA'ernor of Upper Canada, sendeth greeting. Notwithstanding we are a people who 

 hold forth to the world a principle which in many respects differs from the greater part of man- 

 kind, yet we believe it our reasonable duty, as saith the Apostle, ' Submit yourselves unto 

 •every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether it be the king as supreme, or unto gover- 



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