Captain Cook’s Canvas Houses, Matavi Bay, Tahiti, April 1769, watercolour. Two of these canvas houses were occupied by the Simcoes at Navy Hall and later on the edge of Garrison Creek at York. Courtesy of the Toronto Public Library, Toronto Reference Library, John Ross Robertson, JRR #4610.
Surveyor Joseph Bouchette[8] described the canvas house: “Frail as was its substance, it was rendered exceedingly comfortable and soon became as distinguished for the social and urban hospitality of its venerable and gracious host, as for the peculiarity of its structure.”[9] Also impressed was an American official, General William Hull, who was attending an Indian Council meeting held in Niagara,
On my account the Governor ordered supper in his canvas-house, which he brought from Europe … It is papered and painted, and you would suppose you were in a common house. The floor is the case for the whole of the room. It is quite a curiosity … Perceiving me so much pleased with the canvas-house, the Governor ordered breakfast in it.[10]
In the summer of 1793 one of the canvas houses was dismantled and transported across Lake Ontario to the site of York (future Toronto). Reassembled on a small knoll above the pristine shore of Lake Ontario, near the mouth of the Garrison Creek across from the chosen site for Fort York, the Simcoe family spent another cozy winter “under canvas.” Not all visitors to the canvas house were impressed. Bachelor Peter Russell reported to his half-sister, “you have no conception of the Misery in which they live — The Canvas house being their only residence.”[11] Eight months later the canvas house was back in Niagara on the edge of the Military Reserve/Commons and remained the official viceregal’s residence until the Simcoes returned to England in 1796. What became of Captain Cook’s well-travelled canvas houses is not known.
Chapter 4
A “Commodious Dwelling” on the Commons
Standing in the tall, wild grass in the middle of the Commons on the edge of a small creek,[1] it is hard to imagine that a fine Georgian estate stood there as early as 1793. “Springfield” was the home of Peter Russell, a veteran of the Seven Years’ and American Revolutionary Wars and an inveterate gambler. As the newly appointed Receiver General for the Province of Upper Canada, Russell arrived at Niagara in 1792 with his half-sister Elizabeth and a young Mary Fleming (possibly Peter’s illegitimate daughter).[2] The only accommodation they could find “near the Lieutenant Governor’s Residence at Navy Hall”[3] was a two-room “hut”[4] in the middle of the Military Reserve occupied by Widow Murray, for which Russell paid £70.[5] Lieutenant Duncan Murray had been an officer in the 84th Regiment of Foot (Royal Highland Emigrants), garrisoned during the early 1780s across the river at Fort Niagara.[6] While building grist and sawmills on his land grant on the Twelve Mile Creek[7] in 1786, Murray was killed by a falling tree. Perhaps in deference to her late husband, Widow Murray was allowed squatter rights in the middle of the reserve. Russell, realizing that the £70 purchase price was for Mrs. Murray’s improvements only, persuaded Simcoe to grant him a twenty-one-year lease for fifty acres, which included the Widow’s farm, at a nominal five shillings per year.[8] He also received an outright grant of 160 acres of prime land bordering the southern edge of the military reserve, along what is now John Street, that he would later sell for a very tidy profit.
Peter Russell (1733–1808), artist G.T. Berthon, watercolour. Russell, army officer, office holder, politician, and judge, was also the builder of Springfield on the Fort George Military Reserve/Commons. Courtesy of the Toronto Public Library, Toronto Reference Library, John Ross Robertson Collection, JRR #T34630.
Before winter set in, the Russells undertook extensive renovations to the hut. Peter complained of the “extravagant wages”[9] of the workmen, with carpenters demanding 7 shillings per day.[10] Within the first year they had already spent £400[11] and by 1796 Russell claimed to have spent £1200[12] on improvements, which included his governmental office on the premises. No exterior views of the house have survived, but a plan of the property drawn in 1797[13] reveals a full two-storey house, along with a coach house, stables, outhouses, root house, and cellars, as well as a formal fruit garden at the rear. Even a spring is shown on the plan. This may explain the name of Springfield, since the fields of the military reserve surrounded the estate. Despite much grumbling about the costs of their “Dear House” the little family seemed to have been very comfortable in their new home. In a letter to a friend in England, Elizabeth wrote:
We are comfortably settled in our new House and have a nice little farm about us. We eat our own Mutton and Pork and Poultry. Last year we grew our own Buck wheat and Indian corn and had two Oxen, got two Cows with their calves with plenty of pigs and a Mare and Sheep.[14]
Elizabeth’s fruit preserves became a much sought-after commodity amongst her fellow colonists. Even Mrs. Simcoe admired Elizabeth’s hobby of collecting and preserving botanical specimens gathered in the area.
Not interested in the whirl of social activities at Navy Hall, the Russells were content with small, intimate dinners at Springfield served on the family silver plate, accompanied by fine wines and followed by sonorous renditions given by Peter. This “little threesome” in the commodious house could not possibly have managed without help. The practice of slavery was still alive and well on the Commons in the 1790s. Peter had at least two manservants, Robert Franklin and Pompador. There were also at least two maids/cooks, including Milly and the “troublesome” Peggy. Russell’s attitude towards slavery was hypocritical. Although he supported Simcoe’s anti-slavery legislation through parliament,[15] and later as administrator of the province prevented an attempt to reverse the legislation, he owned at least five slaves. He paid for a tutor to teach the son of one of his slaves to read and write, and yet in 1806 he put Peggy and her son Jupiter up for sale.[16]
Well-established in her “commodious dwelling house,” Elizabeth Russell commiserated with the Simcoes who had “only a Canvas House”[17] to shelter them from the inclemency of the Canadian weather.
Government officials were well aware of Simcoe’s determination to move the temporary capital of Upper Canada across Lake Ontario to York, with the new parliament opening there in 1797. Many government officials were slow to make the move, and quite agreed with Elizabeth who proclaimed, “For my part I am determined to stay here where I am till there is a comfortable Place there to receive me.”[18] Eventually, her brother, who had by then been named administrator of the province with Simcoe on sick-leave in England, would find a suitable abode in York. However, the prospect of moving created a major quandary for Peter: how could he possibly recoup his investment in Springfield when he still did not have clear title to the property? One can clearly detect an air of desperation in his correspondence to the new Governor General Robert Prescott, in which Russell suggested that the military reserve need not be so large; if the reserve were to be reduced in size, his property would be outside the reserve and hence his land could be held in freehold.[19] In reply he received a harsh reprimand from Prescott’s secretary for even suggesting a change in the military reserve. Moreover, he was advised that the lease was invalid and he had no right to build on the land and would have to remove his house from the reserve.[20] To add to his woes, his new house in York for which he had paid £400, had “just burnt to the ground,”[21] putting his sister “in a low nervous state.”[22] In the end, the Governor General relented and permitted the much-chastened Russell to continue to lease the property on the military reserve. In an effort to sell his leased property in Niagara, Russell placed a large advertisement in the November 1796 edition of the Upper Canada Gazette for “A Commodious Dwelling, coach house, stable and other offices all built within three years.”[23] He commissioned Lieutenant