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Un des symboles suivants apparaJtra sur la dernidre image de chaque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbole — ^ signifie "A SUIVRE", le symbole V signifie "FIN". a Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmad at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmad beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre filmis d des taux de reduction diff^rents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul cliche, ii est film6 A partir de I'angle sup6rieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images nicessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mdthode. f errata d to It la palura, ;on d n 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 S 6 32X (From The Canadian Magazine of June, iSgs ) ^' THE STORY OF l»|: CASTLE FRANKJORONTO BY THE REV. HENRY SCADDING, D.D. (Read before the Pioneer Historical Society of the County of York, May 7th, 1895.) iKovcnto : HUNTER, ROSE & CO. 1895. "--"^rf J THE STORY OF GASTbB FRANK, TORONTO. BY H. SCADDING, D.D. I The widely-extended limits of To- ry nto now enclose several localities which once bore independent appella- tions of their own, significant and in- teresting as having been derived from the properties or residences of early inhabitants. Thus, (Jaer-Howell, a well-known place of resort, situated on the west side of Queen-street Avenue, was the name given by Chief Justice Powell to his park lot extending from Queen to Bloor-streets. The name signifies the stronghold or headquarters of the Hoels, and has reference to the noble Welsh family name borne by the Chief Justice Powell, that is Ap-Hoel. On this lot, but somewhat nearer Queen-street, was the mausoleum or family vault of the Chief Justice, since transferred to St. James' Ceme- tery. Along Queen-straet, a little to the west on the north side, where the expansion occui-s between Beverley- street and Spadina Avenue, was for- merly a property entitled " Peterstield," denoting the park lot or farm of the celebrated Peter Russell, whose name remains attached to Peter-street, leading up from the south into the expansion aforesaid, which marks ex- actly the frontage of the property formerly known as " Petersfield." The name Spadina, now so exten- sively applied, in the first instance properly appertained only to the site of Spadina House, situated on the ris- ing land immediately to the north of the avenue. In fact, the word Spa- dina is a modification of a native In- dian term, sounding somewhat like E8padinong,and denoting a hill or rise of land, an expression selected by Dr. William Baldwin, the former owner of the spot, who also affixed the In- dian term Mashquoteh,* signifying a meadow or plain, to the adjoining pro- perty. At a later time, " Deer Park," just to the eastward, extending to Yonge- street, had its name likewise suggest- ed by the level character of the land around. Captain Elmslie surrounded a number of acres here with a picket fence eight feet high, for the pur- pose of keeping deer. Mr. Heath, who at a later period became the owner, changed the name to Lawton Park, but the old title is still often to be heard. Kussell Hill was another portion of the rise of land hereabout, as is also Summer Hill, across Yonge-street to the eastward. Westward from Spadina, on the same rise, was Davenport, a name given by Colonel Wells to his property there ; and further westward still, but to the south, were Oak Hill and Pine Grove, the former the home anciently of General Eneas Shaw, and the latter that of his neighbor and old friend, Colonel Givins. Bellevue Place and Bellevue Ave- nue, a little to the east of these pro- perties, preserve the name of Bellevue, a primitive and central home of the Denisons. A pretty expression, long attached to a considerable strip of the Elmslie estate west of Yonge-street and some- what south of Bloor — Clover Hill — is now I fear banished from Toronto nomenclature. The extensive area known by the pleasant nane of " Rosedale," contains a reminiscence of the picturesque re- sidence and grounds of Stephen Jar- * Longfellow adopts the orthography, "Muskoday." See Hiawatha, 6th seotion. " By the river's brink he wandered, Torougb the Muskoday, the meadow,' THE STORY OF CASTLE FRANK, TORONTO. vis, Registrar of the County and father of the first Sheriff, William Botsford Jarvi& The fine approach to the Rosedale region from the south, known as Jar- vis-street, derives its name from the distiuL hed Secretary Jarvis of the early Simcoe period, through the cen- tre of whose park lot, all the way from Queen to Bloor-street, it was made to pass in after times by his son, Samuel Peters Jarvis. Jarvis-street is now applied to the whole thoroughfare leading southward to the bay. Street names, as we have seen in various other instances, perpetuate the designation by which certain dis- tinct localities in Toronto were for- merly known. Two or three of such localities still remain, not as yet wholly absorbed into the sum total, so ot speak, of the city, although that ab- sorption is steadily going on, and must ultimately be complete. The domain around Beverley House is perceptibly diminishing, and the same must be said of that surrounding Berkeley House in the eastern portion of the city, the old seat of the Smalls; as also of the spacious surroundings of Moss Park, wnich extended until quite recent times northerly to Bloor-street. The Grange, at the head of John- street, associated so intimately with memories of the Boulton family, seems likely to be the last to succumb before the aggressions of city extension. There remains to be mentioned a notable locality now enclosed within the limits of Toronto, towards the north-east, and bounded by the River Don. I refer to the Castle Frank por- tion of the city, where a Castle Frank avenue and a Castle Frank Crescent, have been authoritatively established. The name of Castle Frank is in- vested with a number of associations now become quite historic in Canadian annals, and of these I proceed to make some record. The Castle Frank region may be roughly defined as the piece of land bounded on the east by the River Don, on the west by Parliament-street, on the north by Bloor, and on the south by Wellesley-street. It consisted of the northern halves of lots 16 and 17, in the first survey made of this part of the county of York, and contained about 225 acres. The southern halves of these lots, stretching to the water's edge on the south, formed the reserve set apart for the Government build- ings of the province and grounds at- tached thereto. The 225 acres just referred to were patented by Lieut.-Gov. Simcoe to his son Francis Gwillim Simcoo, a child born prior to his father's mission to Canada, from whom the property was styled " Castle Frank Farm," as may be seen in a plan drawn from the sur- vey of Augustus Jones, attested by the acting Surveyor-General, D.W. Smith. This plan, drawn on a s^:.ie of four chains to an inch, shoves the exact situation of a building erected on the property, with the track leading thereto from the westward cut out through the woods ; it also shows the windings of the Don, by means of which Castle Frank could be ap- proached in boats coming up from the mouth of the river. The attractions of the spot where the building was placed must have been its picturesque wildness and its elevation above the level of the river. The heights here were covered with tall pines; below, in the Don valley, were fine elms, (clothed, some of them, with the Virginia creeper), bass- wood (the linden), and buttonwood trees (platinus or plane). On the opposite side of the valley were clus- ters of the wild apple, or crab, notice- able for its beautiful and fragrant blossoms, the prickly ash, shad-bush, or service berry, dogwood, sassafras bushes, and white birch ; the hemlock, spruce and white cedar, the high bush cranberries, alder, dark willow, nine bark spirea, etc., in moist situations. Several " Hog's Backs," as they are termed, or long, narrow ridges, ran down to the valley, on both sides of ^ I [ THE STORY OF CASTLE FRANK, TORONTO. $ the River Don, at this point. In far back pre-historic times, I-Ake Ontario spreaa its water*- «». good way to the north of this, au ^ . ^ the land slowly ascended, the wa > s correspondingly descended, and scooped out for them- selves various channels in the Drift along the shore, thereby forming these so-cdled " Hog's Backs," two or three of which come out into the valley of the Don just here in a curiously con- verging way, probably from some peculiar conformation of rock below. Immediately under the site of Castle Frank, to the west, was a deep ravine SIMCOE CHAPEL, ENGLAND. containing a perennial stream known and marked on plans as " Castle Frank " Brook, which entered the Don at the southern point of one of the " Hog's Backs " referred to, where also was a small island formed in the river, covered with vines of the wild black grape, close to which island, and in some way connected with it, was a large patch of genuine wild rice, duly visited every fall by discerning wild fowl. On the east side of the site of the building the bank of the Don was steep and precipitous, and a' little way to the north was a singular conical mound always spoken of as the "Sugar Loaf," the apex of which must long have appeared, above the retiring waters, as a minute island. Castle Frank itself, situate en a narrow plateau between two steep declivities, was a structure of care- fully hewn logs, covered with a wid- ish clapboard. It was an oblong about 80 feet in length and 40 feet in width, and some 20 feet to the eaves. The entrance door was in the middle of the south- ern end, where the stout bolep of four pine trees, with the bark carefully preserved, support- ed a projecting gable somewhat after the manner of pillars at the end of a Gre- cian temple. The windows were on the sides. Out of the middle point of the roof arose a massive chimney containing several flues. It may a once be said that ,the building was never thorough- ly completed or oc- cupied, and was never intended to be in any sense an official residence or anything more than a kind of occasional summer pic- nic resort The term Gdstle, which was intended to be simply synony- mous with the French Chateau, has been somewhat misleading. It is amusing to observe how con- spicuously the name figures on the American Plan of the capture of York in 1812, to be seen in Lossing, page 590. D. W. Smith also, in a plan of his Maryville estate, marks the road to Castle Frank in large letters. On the plan drawn by Augustus Jones the whole plot of ground is described as " Castle Frank Farm," and is stated to be the property of THE STORY OF CASTLE FRANK, TORONTO. Francis Simooe, Esq. This, as we have already seen, meant the very youthful son of the Governor; the " Esquire " is possibly appended in a somewhat playful strain. The plan also shows the exact situation c i the house of Mr. Playter, whose name is j^ven. This was Mr. George Playter, the first patentee of the surrounding land. His house stood exactly where the modern " Drumsnab " is now seen. FRANK O. SIMCOE. The full name of the young paten- tee was Francis Gwillim Simcoe, the middle name being that of his mother's family. During the progress of the building he was often' seen, I have been told, clambering with boyish glee, in company with a young sister, up and down the steep and thickly wood- ed bank on the river side, passing to and from the boats, in the stream be- low, which had found their way to the spot, though the innumerable sinuosities of the Don, all the way from its mouth in Toronto Bay. The after life and premature end of the youth from whom this region has taken its name imparts to the story of Castle Frank a certain degree of romance. Goveknor Simcoe was a well-read and scholarly man. His journal of the operations of the " Queen's Ran- gers,' printed in quarto, for private circulation, in 1787, and reprinted in jctavo at New York in 1844, by Bart- lett and Walford, for general circula- tion, has become a classic in the liter- ature connected with the American Revolution. In that work, to avoid the appear- ance of egotism, the writer uses the third person and not the first — in this respect, as also in purity and con- ciseness of style, reminding us of Xenophon in his " Retreat of the Ten Thousand," and Ctesar in the com- mentaries. In the course of his military studies Governor Simcoe may have had his attention arrested by operations under the walls of the old town of Castelle Franco, in the north of Italy, in the Venetian territory ; or, under the walls of another old town of the same name, Castel Franco, in the territory of Benevento, in the south of Italy ; or it may be his attention had been directed to campaigns near the town of Castle Franc in the south-west of France, not far from Bordeaux. Accordingly, where a name was to be given to the quaint chateau of pine- logs overlooking the valley of the Don, erected on the property lately patented to his little son and heir, Francis Gwillim Simcoe, "Castle Frank " may have suggested itself, at first probably not in serious earnest, but at last good-humoredly adopted as a sufficiently descriptive appella- tion. The young son of the Governor thus commemorated figures again in the accounts which we have of the Gov- ernor's life at Navy Hall, on the oppo- site side of Lake Ontario. Navy Hall, as will be remembered, was the f THE STORY OF CASTLE FRANK, TORONTO. \ s< title given, probably also in a mood somewhat jocose, to a long and capa- cious frame building adapted £or the reception of marine stores and materi- al for the general ecjuipment of Gov- ernment vessels on the lake. This editice, situated on the west bank of the Niagara, a little way up from its mouth, liad been partially cleared out and hurriedly fitted up as a temporary residence for the Governor and his family on their arrival at Newark, as Niagara on the Lake was styled in 1791 Navy Hall, of which I have an original water color drawing of the period, from the hand of Mrs. Simcoe herself, was tiie only fixed abode of the Governor while in Canada. During his sojourn at York, on the north side of the lake, he found shel- ter in a movable canvas house which had once been the property of the celebrated navigator, Capt. Cook, and was regarded as a curiosity through- out the whole country. At Navy Hall he dispensed a liberal hospitality, gave balls, and entertained passing visitors of eminence. As to the lite in the curious canvas house at York we have the following testimony of Commodore Bouchette : " Frail as was its substance, it was rendered exceedingly comfortable, and soon became as distinguished for the social and urbane hospitality of its venerated and gracious host, as for the pecularity of its structure." It was probably in one apartment, the ball-room say, of the rude struc- ture of Navy Hall that the first par- liament of Upper Canada was held. The Due de Liancourt in his " Trav- els in the United States, &c." vol. 1, p. 256, describes the scene as witnessed by him, it may have been in this very chamber, at the second session of the Parliament. " The Governor, " the Duke says, " entered the 'Hall dressed in silk, with his hat on his head, at- tended by his adjutant and two secre- taries, and the speech was then read." In this same book of travels by the Due de Liancourt, the son of the Governor, from whom Castle Frank takes its name, again appears. " The Governor," the Duke 8fi.ya, " was very anxious to oblige and please the Indians: his only son, a chili some four years of age, was dressed as an Indian and called Tioga, which name was given him by the Mohawks." " This little comedy," the Duke adds, " may be of use in the intercourse with the Indians : the child, we are told, was adopted as a chief." The term, Tioga, I was once assured by an intelligent Indian missionary (Mr. Elliot), designates something that stands between two objects tending to unite them : and so the child of the governor thus distinguished and titled might be hoped, in after time, to prove a link of union between ilie Govern- ment and the Indian community ; but it was destined to be otherwise. The after history of the boy, however, as we have already stated, served to form a link of association between the name of Castle Frank and certain events happening in the outer world on a broad scale. In after years, the child became, like his father, a soldier. Gen. Simcoe, on the occurrence of his fiftieth birthday, in 1801, uses the following language to the clergyman of his parish, while suggesting to him subjects for a jubilee sermon : — " There is a text in Leviticus, I be- lieve, that particularly enforces purity of heart to those who aspire to mili- tary command. As mine, in all views, is a military family, it may not be amiss in a more especial manner to in- culcate the remembrance of the.Creator to those who shall engage in the solemn duties of protecting their country at these times from foreign usurpation." For Leviticus here we should pro- bably read "the book of Joshua," whence the text selected by the clergy- man for the Jubilee Sermon was de- rived — chap. 24, verse 15. The young soldier was d^refully educated in accordance with the prin- ciples indicated in the General's letter. THE STORY OF CASTLE FRANK, TORONTO. Ho waH trained clatMically and ma- thonmtically at Kton, and in due time obtained a cuniniiNHion in the armv. That he was mathematically trained I have evidence in a volume which I am BO fortunate an to possoHS ; it is a Simson's Eucliehind him, thouKh fruquuntly ontruated by me to do HO in cjm» of aecidunt ; noithor did he iiinko r.ny rc»|u<«Nts whun I parted with him, hut oommitted his fatu entirely to Ilini who is the Dis{>o3or oi all events. " *• Proffering to you and your affiictod fam- ily my future Eervices in any way 1 can \ye useful, allow me tu Mubrcribe, etc., "Oeokob Jknkinh, *' Chaplain to the forces, 4th Division ; "Badajoz Camp, April 9th, 1812." From childhood to maturity had been passed in an atmosphere intense- ly military. In addition, as the Chap- lain's letter gives us to understand, the religious faculty had been devel- oped and duly trained ; as a Christian soldier, his warfare wjis speedily ac- complished. Whatever in the order of Providence had been appointed for him to do was done, ancl the young life sacrificed in the doing of it was one more witness to the truth of the motto appended to the Simcoe Family Arms, Non aibi sed Patriae — " Not for himself, but for his Coun- try." Enough has been said to show that our familiar expression "Castle Frank" has associations of historical interest connected with it, and that its story involves the story of one, who, if not a distinctly individualized hero, died heroically in the direct discharge of duty as a soldier in the midst of cir- cumstances most appalling. We are told by Napier, in his description of the storming of Badajoz, that " When Wellington saw the havoc of the night, the firmness of his nature gave away for a moment, and the pride of conquest yielded to a pas- sionate burst of grief for the loss of his gallant soldiers." The young officer's remains were never removed from the spot where the good Chaplain saw them depos- ited. The interior wall of the pri- vate Chapel at Wolford, the seat of the Simcoe Family, shows the follow- ing inscription : — lO THE STORY OF CASTLE FRANK, T INTO. SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF FRANCIS GWILLIM SIMCOE, Liouteiiant in the 27th Regiment of Foot, ELDEST SON OF LiEDT. -General John Graves Simcob and Elizabeth His Wife, BORN AT WOLFORD LODGE, Fell in the breach at the Siege of Badajoz, April 6th, 1812, in the 2]8t year of his age. " Be of (food courage ; let \w behave ourselves valiantly for rur people, and let the Lord do that which is good in His 8i)fht."— Chron. 19. 13. difBcult expressions in the Iroquois and Algonquin languages. It is to be added that one night in the year 1829 the wooded structure so widely known as Castle Frank, left solitary and uninhabited on the steep height over-hanging the Don, was totally consumed by fire through the carelessness, I will not say the male- volence, of some fishermen who had ascended to the spot for shelter or some other purpose. A slight depres- sion in the sandy soil, a few yards to the north of St. James' Cemetery fence, WA.'^iFORD LODGE. " Badajoz " takes us back, first to the Moorish days in Spain, and second, to the Roman Period in the same coun- try, Badajoz being, we are told, a phonetic effort on the part of the Arabs to write down the words Pax Augusta (the name of a Roman military station), as Saragossa also was to be reproduced on paper from CsBsarea Augusta, the Latin name of another station. Some of our Indian local names in Canada are similar phonetic efforts on the part of Euro- peans to reduce to writing long and still shows the spot where the central chiriiney stack of Castle Frank was situated, on the hill overlooking the Don. In " Goad's Atlas of Toronto," 2nd edition, 1890, plate 27, showing the lately laid out Castle Frank Avenue and Castle Frank Crescent, there is a range of narrow building lots abutting southwards on the St. James' Ceme- tery fence, and northwards looking towards the Crescent. It is possibly on the lot No. 8 or Lot No. 9 on this range, that the depression referred to is situated. The modern residence, J THE STORY OF CASTLE FRANK, TORONTO. II built by Mr. Walter McEenzie, known popularly of late years as Castle Frank, IS situated some distance to the north- east of the site of the original Castle Frank. The depression on Lot No. 8 or 9 was visited by the writer on the 4th of May, 1895, in company with some friends, and was fully identified. On the same occasion a photograph was taken by Mr. Humphrey Wood. The boundary lines of the lots not having been marked out on the soil, it was impossible to ascertain accurately on which of these lots the depression was situated. It had been feared that building operations, etc., might have obliterated the depression, but this, happily, was not the case, and the writer, who was perfectly familar with the spot years ago, was able to recog- nize it easily. He hopes this brief sketch will prove of interest to those who may peruse it. The foregoing: paper was read in the first instance, be- fore a meeting of the York Pioneers in Toronto. At thn unanimous request of the members (>t that society, it is now published in its present shape. Some tew additions liave been made to the text. Of the engravings given, the author regrets that he is able to ha\e (nly those contained in this article repro- duced, though there are several others which were ex- hibited when the paper was first read.— H. 8. J