The German Mills were founded by Mr. Berczy, either on his own account or acting as agent for an a.s.sociation at New York for the promotion of German emigration to Canada. When, after failing to induce the Government to reconsider its decision in regard to the patents demanded by him for his settlers, that gentleman retired to Montreal, the German Mills with various parcels of land were advertised for sale in the _Gazette_ of April 27, 1805, in the following strain: "Mills and land in Markham. To be sold by the subscriber for payment of debts due to the creditors of William Berczy, Esq., the mills called the German Mills, being a grist mill and a saw mill. The grist mill has a pair of French burs, and complete machinery for making and bolting superfine flour.
These mills are situated on lot No. 4 in the third concession of Markham; with them will be given in, lots No. 3 and 4 in the third concession, at the option of the purchaser. Also, 300 acres being the west half of lot No. 31, and the whole of lot 32 in the second concession of Markham. Half the purchase money to be paid in hand, and half in one year with legal interest. W. Allan. N.B.--Francis Smith, who lives on lot No. 14 in the third concession, will show the premises.
York, 11th March, 1805."
It appears from the same _Gazette_ that Mr. Berczy"s vacant house in York had been entered by burglars after his departure. A reward of twenty dollars is offered for their discovery. "Whereas," the advertis.e.m.e.nt runs, "the house of William Berczy, Esq., was broken open sometime during the night of the 14th instant, and the same ransacked from one end to the other; this is to give notice that whoever shall lodge an information, so that the offender or offenders may be brought to justice, shall upon conviction thereof receive Twenty Dollars. W.
Chewett. York, 18th April, 1805."
We have before referred to Mr. Berczy"s embarra.s.sments, from which he never became disentangled; and to his death in New York, in 1813. His decease was thus noticed in a Boston paper, quoted by Dr. Canniff, p.
364, "Died--In the early part of the year 1813, William Berczy, Esq., aged 68; a distinguished inhabitant of Upper Canada, and highly respected for his literary acquirements. In the decease of this gentleman society must sustain an irreparable loss, and the republic of letters will have cause to mourn the death of a man eminent for genius and talent."
The German Mills were purchased and kept in operation by Capt. Nolan, of the 70th Regiment, at the time on duty in Canada; but the speculation was not a success. We have heard it stated that this Captain Nolan was the father of the officer of the same name and rank who fell in the charge of the Light Brigade at the very first outset, when, at Balaclava,
"Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred."
The _Gazette_ of March 19, 1818, contains the following curt announcement: "Notice. The German Mills and Distillery are now in operation. For the proprietors, Alexander Patterson, Clerk, 11th March, 1818." Ten years later they are offered for sale or to lease in the _U.
C. Loyalist_ of April 5, 1828. (It will be observed that they once bore the designation of Nolanville.) "For sale or to be leased," thus runs the advertis.e.m.e.nt, "all or any part of the 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, distillery, 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. John Duggan, residing there."
In the absence of striking architectural objects in the country at the time, we remember, about the year 1828, thinking the extensive cl.u.s.ter of buildings const.i.tuting the German Mills a rather impressive 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 a.s.sociations with the German Mills is the memory of Mr.
Charles Stewart Murray, afterwards well-known in York as connected with the Bank of Upper Canada. He had been thrown out of employment by Capt.
Nolan"s relinquishment of the mills. He was then patronized by 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 intimately a.s.sociated with 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, Yonge 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 a.s.sociated 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-England 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 pract.i.tioner of great repute in Torquay.
Another character of mark a.s.sociated 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 conspicuously cla.s.sed with theirs in religious annals. He was eminently of their type. Const.i.tutionally of a spiritual 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 pa.s.s blind-folded through the works of G.o.d, to live in a world of flowers, and stars, and sunsets, and a thousand glorious objects of Nature, and never to have a pa.s.sing 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 intermission; and his lot, as Fletcher"s also, was to die almost in the act of officiating in his profession.
An earlier inc.u.mbent of the English Church at Thornhill was the Rev.
Isaac Fidler. This gentleman rendered famous the scene of his 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 ent.i.tled "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 United States, in relation to the matters indicated, and followed speedily after by the never-to-be-forgotten Mrs. Trollope, his work was reprinted by the Harpers. Mr. Fidler was a remarkable person,--of a tall Westmoreland mould, resembling the common pictures of Wordsworth. He was somewhat peculiar in his dress, wearing always an extremely high shirt-collar, very conspicuous round the whole of his neck, forming a kind of spreading white socket in which rested and revolved a head, bald, egg-shaped and spectacled. Besides being scholarly in the modern sense, Mr. Fidler possessed the more uncommon accomplishment of a familiarity with the oriental languages.
The notices in his book, of early colonial life have now to us an archaic sound. We give his narrative of the overturn of a family party on their way home from church. "The difficulty of descending a steep hill in wet weather may be imagined," he says, "The heavy rains had made it (the descent south of Thornhill) a complete puddle which afforded no sure footing to man or beast. In returning from church, the ladies and gentlemen I speak of," he continues, "had this steep hill to descend.
The jaunting car being filled with people was too heavy to be kept back, and pressed heavy upon the horses. The intended youthful bridegroom (of one of the ladies) was, I was told, the charioteer. His utmost skill was ineffectually tried to prevent a general overturn. The horses became less manageable every moment. But yet the ladies and gentlemen in the vehicle were inapprehensive of danger, and their mirth and jocularity betrayed the inward pleasure they derived from his increasing straggles.
At last the horses, impatient of control, and finding themselves their own masters, jerked the carriage against the parapet of the road and disengaged themselves from it. The carriage instantly turned over on its side; and as instantly all the ladies and gentlemen trundled out of it like rolling pins. n.o.body was hurt in the least, for the mire was so deep that they fell very soft and were quite imbedded in it. What apologies the gentleman made I am unable to tell, but the mirth was perfectly suspended. I overtook the party at the bottom of the hill, the ladies walking homewards from the church and making no very elegant appearance."
As an example of the previously undreamt of incidents that may happen to a missionary in a backwoods settlement, we mention what occurred to ourselves when taking the duty one fine bright summer morn, many years ago, in the Thornhill Church, yet in its primitive unenlarged state. A farmer"s horse that had been mooning leisurely about an adjoining field, suddenly took a fancy to the shady interior disclosed by the wide-open doors of the sacred building. Before the churchwardens or any one else could make out what the clatter meant, the creature was well up the central pa.s.sage of the nave. There becoming affrighted, its ejection was an awkward affair, calling for tact and manoeuvring.
The English Church at Thornhill has had another inc.u.mbent not undistinguished in literature, the Rev. E. H. Dewar, author of a work published at Oxford in 1844, on the Theology of Modern Germany. It is in the form of letters to a friend, written from the standpoint of the Jeremy Taylor school. It is ent.i.tled "German Protestantism and the Right of Private Judgment in the Interpretation of Holy Scripture." The author"s former position as chaplain to the British residents at Hamburg gave him facilities for becoming acquainted with the state of German theology. Mr. Dewar, to superior natural talents, added a refined scholarship and a wide range of accurate knowledge. He died at Thornhill in 1862.
The inc.u.mbent who preceded Mr. Dewar was the Rev. Dominic E. Blake, brother of Mr. Chancellor Blake; a clergyman also of superior talents.
Previous to his emigration to Canada in 1832, he had been a curate in the county of Mayo. He died suddenly in 1859. It is remarked of him in a contemporary obituary that "his productions indicated that while intellect was in exercise his heart felt the importance of the subjects before him." These productions were numerous, in the form of valuable papers and reports, read or presented to the local Diocesan Society.
It is curious to observe that in 1798, salmon ascended the waters of the Don to this point on Yonge Street. Among the recommendations of a farm about to be offered for sale, the existence thereon of "an excellent salmon fishery" is named. Thus runs the advertis.e.m.e.nt (_Gazette_, May 16, 1798): "To be sold by public auction, on Monday, the 2nd of July next, at John McDougall"s hotel, in the town of York, a valuable Farm, situated on Yonge Street, about twelve miles from York, on which are a good log-house, and seven or eight acres well improved. The advantages of the above farm, from the richness of its soil and its being well watered, are not equalled by many farms in the Province; and above all, it affords an excellent salmon fishery, large enough to support a number of families, which must be conceived a great advantage in this infant country. The terms will be made known on the day of sale."
As we move on from Thornhill with Vaughan on the left and Markham on the right, the name of another rather memorable early missionary recurs, whose memory is a.s.sociated with both these townships--Vincent Philip Mayerhoffer.
Notwithstanding its drawbacks, early Canadian life, like early American life generally, became, in a little while, invested with a curious interest and charm; by means, for one thing, of the variety of character encountered. A man might vegetate long in an obscure village or country town of the old mother country before he rubbed against a person of V.
P. Mayerhoffer"s singular experience, and having his wits set in motion by a sympathetic realization of such a career as his.
He was a Hungarian; born at Raab in 1784; and had been ordained a presbyter in the National Church of Austria. On emigrating to the United States, he, being himself a Franciscan, fell into some disputes with the Jesuits at Philadelphia, and withdrew from the Latin communion and attached himself, in company with a fellow presbyter named Huber, to the Lutheran Reformed. As a recognized minister of that body he came on to Buffalo, where he officiated for four years to three congregations, visiting at the same time, occasionally, a congregation on the Canada side of the river, at Limeridge. He here, for the first time, began the study of the English language. Coming now into contact with the clergy of the Anglican communion, he finally resolved to conform to the Anglican Church, and was sent by Bishop Stewart, of Quebec, to the German settlement in Markham and Vaughan. Here he officiated for twenty years, building in that interval St. Stephen"s Church in Vaughan, St.
Philip"s in the 3rd concession of Markham, and the Church in Markham village, and establishing a permanent congregation at each.
He was a vigorous, stirring preacher in his acquired English tongue, as well as in his vernacular German. He possessed also a colloquial knowledge of Latin, which is still a spoken language in part of Hungary.
He was a man of energy to the last: ever cheerful in spirit, and abounding in anecdotes, personal or otherwise. It was from him, as we remember, we first heard the afterwards more familiarized names of Magyar and Sclave.
His brother clergy of the region where his duty lay were indebted to him for many curious glimpses at men and things in the great outer world of the continent of Europe. During the Napoleonic wars he was "Field Chaplain of the Imperial Infantry Regiment, No. 60 of the Line," and accompanied the Austrian contingent of 40,000 men furnished to Napoleon by the Emperor of Austria.--He was afterwards, when the Austrian Emperor broke away from Napoleon, taken prisoner with five regiments of the line, and sent to Dresden and Mayence. He was at the latter place when the battle of Leipsic was fought (Oct. 16, 17, 18, 19, 1813.) He now left Mayence without leave, the plague breaking out there, and got to Oppenheim, where a German presbyter named Muller concealed him, till the departure of the French out of the town. After several adventures he found his way back to the quarters of his regiment now acting in the anti-French interest at Manheim, where he duly reported himself, and was well received. After the war, from the year 1816, he had for three years the pastoral charge of Klingenmunster in the diocese of Strasbourg. He died in Whitby, in 1859.
A memoir of Mr. Meyerhoffer has been printed, and it bears the following t.i.tle: "Twelve years a Roman Catholic Priest; or, the Autobiography of the Rev. V. P. Meyerhoffer, M.A., late Military Chaplain to the Austrian Army and Grand Chaplain of the Orders of Free Masons and Orangemen of Canada, B.N.A., containing an account of his career as Military Chaplain, Monk of the Order of St. Francis, and Clergyman of the Church of England in Vaughan, Markham and Whitby, C.W."
He had a musical voice which had been properly cultivated--This, he used to say, was a source of revenue to him in the early part of his public career, those clergy being in request and receiving a higher remuneration, who were able to sing the service in a superior manner.
His features were strongly marked and peculiar, perhaps Mongolian in type; they were not German, English, or Italian. Were the concavity of the nose and the projection of the mouth a little more p.r.o.nounced in "Elias Howe," the medallions of that personage would give a general idea of Mr. Mayerhoffer"s profile and head.
In his younger days he had acquired some medical knowledge, which stood him in good stead for a time at Philadelphia, when he and Huber first renounced the Latin dogmas. His taste for the healing art was slightly indulged even after the removal to Canada, as will be seen from an advertis.e.m.e.nt which appears in the _Courier_ of February 29, 1832. (From its wording it will be observed that Mayerhoffer had not yet become familiarized with the English language.) It is headed thus: "The use and direction of the new-invented and never-failing Wonder Salve, by D. V.
P. Mayerhoffer, of Markham, U.C., H.D., 5th concession."
It then proceeds: "Amongst all in the medicine-invented unguents his salve takes the first place for remedy, whereby it not in vain obtains the name of Wonder Salve for experience taught in many cases to deserve this name; and being urged to communicate it to the public, I endeavour to satisfy to the common good of the public. It is acknowledged by all who know the virtue of it, and experienced its worth, it ought to be kept in every house, first for its inestimable goodness, and, second, because the medicine the older it gets the better it is: money spent for such will shew its effect from its beginning for twenty years, if kept in a dry place, well covered. In all instances of burns, old wounds, called running sores, for the tetter-worm or ring, &c., as the discussions and use will declare, wrapped round the box or the medicine.
"It is unnecessary to recommend by words this inestimable medicine, as its value has received the approbation of many inhabitants of this country already, who sign their names below for the surety of its virtue and the reality of its worth, declaring that they never wish to be without it in their houses by their lifetimes. In Markham, Mr. Philip Eckhardt, jun., do. do., sen., G.o.dlieb Eckhardt, Abraham Eckhardt, John Pingel, jun., Mr. Lang, Mr. Large, John Perkins, John Schall, Charles Peterson, Luke Stantenkough, Peter March. In Vaughan, Jacob Fritcher, Daniel Stang. Recommended by Dr. Baldwin, of York. The medicine is to be had in the eighth concession of Markham, called Riarstown, by Sinclair Holden; in the fifth concession by Christopher Hevelin and T. Amos; in the town of York, in J. Baldwin"s and S. Barnham"s stores; on Yonge Street, by Parsons and Thorne. Price of a box, two shillings and sixpence, currency. January 11, 1832."
Military a.s.sociations hang about the lands to the right and left of Richmond Hill. The original possessor of Lot No. 22 on the west side, was Captain Daniel Cozens, a gentleman who took a very active part in opposition to the revolutionary movement which resulted in the independence of the United States. He raised, at his own expense, a company of native soldiers in the royalist interest, and suffered the confiscation of a considerable estate in New Jersey. Three thousand acres in Upper Canada were subsequently granted him by the British Crown. His sons, Daniel and Shivers, also received grants. The name of Shivers Cozens is to be seen in the early plans of Markham on lots 2, 4 and 5 in the 6th concession.
Samuel died of a fit at York in 1808; but Shivers returned to New Jersey and died there, where family connexions of Captain Cozens still survive.
There runs amongst them a tradition that Captain Cozens built the first house in our Canadian York. Of this we are informed by Mr. T. Cottrill Clarke, of Philadelphia. We observe in an early plan of York the name of Shivers Cozens on No. 23 in Block E, on the south side of King Street: the name of Benjamin Cozens on No. 5 on Market Street: and the name of Captain Daniel Cozens on No. 4 King Street, (new town), north side, with the date of the grant, July 20, 1799. It is thus quite likely that Captain Cozens, or a member of his family, put up buildings in York at a very early period.
We read in the Niagara _Herald_, of October 31, 1801, the following: "Died on the 6th ult., near Philadelphia, Captain Daniel Cozens." In the _Gazette & Oracle_, of January 27, 1808, we have a memorandum of the decease of Samuel Cozens: "Departed this life, on the 29th ult., Mr.
Samuel D. Cozens, one of the first inhabitants of this town [York]. His remains were interred with Masonic honours on the 31st."
Another officer of the Revolutionary era was the first owner, and for several years the actual occupant, of the lot immediately opposite Captain Cozens". This was Captain Richard Lippincott, a native of New Jersey. A bold deed of his has found a record in all the histories of the period. The narrative gives us a glimpse of some of the painful scenes attendant on wars wherein near relatives and old friends come to be set in array one against the other.
On the 12th of April, 1782, Captain Lippincott, acting under the authority of the "Board of a.s.sociated Loyalists of New York," executed by hanging, on the heights near Middleton, Joshua Huddy, an officer in the revolutionary army, as an act of retaliation,--Huddy having summarily treated, in the same way, a relative of Captain Lippincott"s, Philip White, surprised within the lines of the revolutionary force, while on a stolen visit of natural affection to his mother on Christmas Day.
On Huddy"s breast was fastened a paper containing the following written notice, to be read by his co-revolutionists and friends when they should discover the body suspended in the air.--"We, the Refugees, having long with grief beheld the cruel murders of our brethren, and finding nothing but such measures carrying into execution, therefore determined not to suffer without taking vengeance for the numerous cruelties; and thus begin, having made use of Captain Huddy as the first object to present to your view; and further determine to hang man for man while there is a Refugee existing. Up goes Huddy for Philip White."
When the surrender of Capt. Lippincott was refused by the Royalist authorities, Washington ordered the execution of one officer of equal rank to be selected by lot out of the prisoners in his hands. The lot fell on Capt. Charles Asgill of the Guards, aged only nineteen. He was respited however until the issue of a court-martial, promised to be held on Capt. Lippincott, should be known. The court acquitted; and Capt.
Asgill only narrowly escaped the fate of Andre, through prompt intervention on the part of the French Government. The French minister of State, the Count de Vergennes, to whom there had been time for Lady Asgill, the Captain"s mother, to appeal--received directions to ask his release in the conjoint names of the King and Queen as "a tribute to humanity." Washington thought proper to accede to this request; but it was not until the following year, when the revolutionary struggle ended, that Asgill and Lippincott were set at liberty.
The former lived to succeed to his father"s baronetcy and to become a General officer. Colonel O"Hara, of Toronto, remembered dining at a table where a General Sir Charles Asgill was pointed out to him as having been, during the American revolutionary war, for a year under sentence of death, condemned by General Washington to be hanged in the place of another person.
Capt. Lippincott received from the Crown three thousand acres in Upper Canada. He survived until the year 1826, when, aged 81, and after enjoying half-pay for a period of forty-three years, he expired at the house of his son-in-law in York, Colonel George Taylor Denison, who gave to his own eldest son, Richard Lippincott Denison, Captain Lippincott"s name. (A few miles further on, namely, in North and East Gwillimbury, General Benedict Arnold, known among United States citizens as "the traitor," received a grant of five thousand acres.)
In connexion with Richmond Hill, which now partially covers the fronts of Captain Cozens" and Captain Lippincott"s lots, we subjoin what Captain Bonnycastle said of the condition of Yonge Street hereabout in 1846, in his "Canada and the Canadians."