Miss Confederation

by Anne McDonald

  * * *

  * A bumper is a glass full to the brim of an alcoholic drink and is usually drunk as a toast.

  ** The Ottawa and Prescott Railway was the first rail line between Ottawa and the St. Lawrence River and the towns along Lake Ontario’s north shore.

  *** Feo Monck had written, “John A. Macdonald is always drunk now” earlier, but Christopher Moore points out that no men at the conference had suggested that Macdonald had begun drinking seriously. Nevertheless, Mercy’s comment may support Feo’s note, and also provides a potential reason why Macdonald was so markedly absent over the rest of the tour.

  **** General manager of the Grand Trunk Railway.

  Ten

  Sightseeing in Toronto, 1864 Style

  Thursday, November 3

  Mercy and the delegates arrived in Toronto at 10 o’clock at night, in style. They were accompanied to the Queen’s Hotel by a torchlight procession of five thousand people! There were brass bands and fireworks. The obviously impressed — maybe even star-struck — Nova Scotian delegate Johnathan McCully said the next day at the banquet given for the delegates, “We have been received with a continued ovation; it has been one carnival, from the beginning till now.”1

  In Toronto, the whole group was taken on a whirlwind sightseeing tour. They went to Osgoode Hall, Upper Canada College, the Normal School (containing all of Egerton Ryerson’s eclectic collections of miniature implements and curiosities), and the music hall in the Mechanics’ Institute, which was the forerunner of the Toronto Public Library. The Normal School was the future Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, as well as the future Royal Ontario Museum.

  Osgoode Hall, Toronto, about 1860.

  Toronto, Queen’s Hotel, Thursday November 3rd

  We arrived at Mr. Cockburn’s* last night at 8 o’clock. Such a beaut-iful place, he gave us a magnificent supper the only pity was we had such a short time to stay. They had illuminations and all sorts of grandeur. We arrived here at 10 o’clock. Such a grand affair torch light procession. 5,000 people were in front of the hotel. Dr. Tupper, Mr. Tilley and Mr. Brown made speeches from a gallery just beneath my bedroom window.

  We have just had breakfast and are now off sightseeing.

  8 o’clock I am just going to dress for the Ball.

  We started off this morning to visit the Public Institutions, first we went to the Public School [Upper Canada College]. All the elder boys formed a guard of honour from the gate to the entrance by the Professors. We went to the schoolroom and the head master read an address to which Col Gray PEI replied. The boys received a holiday and we started for the Lawyer’s Hall [Osgoode Hall], a splendid building, the centre hall is right up to the roof stained glass in the dome. The floor is mosaic.** They showed us the library and the Judges rooms. We drove from there to the University. It is a splendid building, nearly as handsome as the Ottawa Departmental Building. There all the students wore caps and gowns. The doctor made a very nice speech to us to which Dr. Tupper replied.*** We then visited the Museum in which is a very fine collection of birds and small animals. The Butterflies were beautiful.**** We had to hasten away for time was short. The students formed a line and cheered us as we drove down the avenue. From there we went to the normal school which is certainly the most varied institution I ever saw. It combines a Picture Gallery, a statutory Gallery, all kinds of mini-ature implements and nearly everything one can think of that is curious. The little boys and girls sang when we went to their school rooms. I saw a boy who looked so much like Russell [Mercy’s young brother]. We had to hurry back to the Hotel for the gentlemen had to go to the Music Hall***** to luncheon. Ma and I had a carriage and went for a drive and to do some shopping. We went to the luncheon for about an hour, heard Mr. Palmer, Carter, a Red River man Louis Riel****** and part of a speech from Mr. Brown. Mr. Bernard was waiting in the parlour for us when we came home and took us down to dinner. He has been laid up with the gout for three days. He looks awful. I tease him about it, it is a great shame but I can’t help it [emphasis mine].*******

  Whelan’s reports of the same visits provide more context. Two hundred some students at Upper Canada College “were ranged on either side [of the carriageway], all having Enfield rifles, which they carried at the ‘present’.… ” Whelan said of the Normal School, “[though] not so attractive in architectural construction as the University, the interior arrangements and objects of interest were of a more diversified character, and attracted much longer attention.”

  The Normal School, founded by Egerton Ryerson, was for the training of teachers. It eventually became the Toronto College of Teachers, which later became OISE, the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Its hist-ory is really the history of education and art in Ontario. Mercy’s comment calling it “the most varied institution” puts it mildly. The pictures, statues, miniatures, and all the other odd things Mercy writes of were collected by Ryerson himself on trips to Europe in the 1850s. This collection eventually led to the creation of the Royal Ontario Museum; the Ontario School of Art, which became the Ontario College of Art and Design; and the Ontario Agricultural College, which then became part of the University of Guelph. The Normal School building itself is no longer in existence, but part if its facade forms the Ryerson University arch, at the entrance to the athletics building.

  Now, whether Louis Riel was actually at the talks in Toronto is a matter of speculation. Riel had only just turned twenty, and was supposed to be in school at the seminary in Montreal, but he was often absent. His father had died in January of 1864, and Riel was upset, and not doing well. None of Louis Riel’s papers from this time survive. But there is no reason Mercy Coles would know of Riel in 1864 if she hadn’t heard his name. It’s clear from her handwritten diary that she wrote his name after the original diary entry, as it is written above “a Red River man.” But just when after the fact did she write it? In 1869, Emma Tupper went with her husband, Donald Cameron (William McDougall’s right-hand man in setting up the Boundary Commission, which set the stage for the Red River Rebellion), to Pembina, Manitoba, and there they had a run-in with Riel. Maybe Mercy knew of this, and added the name Riel then, for certainly by 1869, Riel was widely known. There’s no way of knowing if Mercy added Riel’s name later on the same day that she wrote the diary entry, or later that week. If this were the case it would seem more likely that Riel was in Toronto. In comparison, Mercy writes of Abraham Lincoln’s re-election while she and her family travel through the States, and although he was assassinated only five months later, she didn’t add anything to her diary about that.

  It’s clear from the speech that Whelan quotes in his Union of the British Provinces that James Ross was at this Toronto event. Ross was a former editor of the Nor’ Wester in Red River, and was reading law in Toronto at the time. In his speech at the banquet Ross says he is the only representative from Red River there. Louis Riel, however, was not against the idea of Confederation in 1864, and he knew and supported George-Étienne Cartier; it thus remains a bit of an unsolved mystery whether Riel may also have been in Toronto. It’s unlikely, but possible.

  * * *

  * James Cockburn, solicitor general for Canada West.

  ** You can still see the stained-glass dome and the mosaic floor in Osgoode Hall. They are in the Benchers’ Wing, which is the oldest part of the building.

  *** Whelan notes this was in Convocation Hall. The current Convocation Hall at the University of Toronto was built in 1907.

  **** According to Whelan, they also saw the library and the observatory.

  ***** The music hall was in the Mechanics’ Institute, at the northeast corner of Church and Adelaide — which also housed Toronto’s Free Library, which became the Toronto Public Library.

  ****** Whelan says this was James Ross; more on this later.

  ******* Hewitt Bernard
’s notes on the conference meetings end on Tuesday, October 25. Perhaps he was already sick. His gout was likely rheumatoid arthritis.

  Eleven

  Niagara Falls

  Friday, November 4

  After Toronto, the Maritimers, with dignitaries from Hamilton, St. Catharines, and Welland, go on to Niagara Falls for the grand finale of the official tour of the Canadas. As everything has only just begun for her a week earlier, Mercy is loath to have it all stop. She has been recording all the events and places, what’s been done and said, and she wants to go on filling and filling her dance card.

  Mercy writes of Macdonald one last time, at the end of their tour in Toronto. He’d chosen to ride in the carriage with her and her mother on the trip from Cobourg to Toronto, on Wednesday, November 2. There would have been a number of carriages, and Macdonald chose to travel with Mercy’s group. This was a day after he had “a palpitation” in Ottawa and could not give his speech. Was this decision to ride with her another indication of possible courting? Interestingly, even though Macdonald did go to Toronto, he gave no speeches there. He didn’t go on any of the sightseeing events Mercy and Whelan write of, and he didn’t attend the big luncheon at the music hall. He indeed may have been drunk in Ottawa, as Mercy specu-lated. Macdonald often started on a drinking binge, not when something was finished, but as he got increasingly tired. Certainly he’d been working hard at the conference talks for the sixteen days in Quebec City, and the four weeks previous preparing the way for the talks. He may well have been disappearing into drink, as he did not return to his office until over a week later.

  Friday, November 4th, Great Western Railway

  [en route from Toronto to Niagara Falls]

  11 o’clock we started from Toronto this morning at 10 o’clock. We expect to get to Kingston [Hamilton] in 2 hours. We had a glorious Ball last night. I danced every dance and had several engaged when I came away. Mr. Bernard had told one of the stewards about me. He got Mr. Brydges to introduce him and then he got me partners for every dance, the ladies were dressed to death and some of them were very pretty. The music was not as good as I expected, the 16th Regiment. We did not get home until nearly three o’clock. I am so sorry we part from the party today at Niagara Falls. Most of them go back to Toronto. We go to Ohio. I should like to have gone home with the party but that is impossible. I have not seen John A. since he came up in the carriage with us at Cobourg. He did not appear at all yesterday. Mr. Bernard was at the station this morning to say good bye. I told him to say everything kind for me to John A [emphasis mine].

  By the 1917 Guardian extract, Mercy is editing what she says about the people and events of the conference and tour. Mercy’s detailed note and reference to John A. in her diary becomes:

  I did not see Mr. J.A. Macdonald, but Mr. Bernard said he had asked him to say good-bye.

  The diary continues:

  Buffalo, 8 o’clock, Friday, November 4

  We have just arrived here from Niagara. We got to Niagara at 2 o’clock. There was a very nice luncheon given by Mr. Swinyard, the manager of the Great Western Railway. Directly after lunch we got into carriages and drove to the falls. I can’t it is quite impossible to describe them. They far exceeded anything I expected to see. I saw them from all points. Mr. Swinyard took me down under the falling water on Table Rock. Such fun as we had getting up and down the stairs. He painted my name on the inside of the place where we went down. It was raining the whole time but we did not mind. The water in the middle of the Great Horse Shoe was a splendid aqua marine color — and looked as if it was beautifully fluted. After we saw everything there was to be seen we drove to Mr. Streets,* a gentleman who has the most beautiful grounds I ever saw — beautiful suspension bridges, little platforms right on the very edge of the rapids, it was such fun the boards were so slippery with the rain it was almost impossible to stand. Ma and Pa both fell, a gentleman went to help them, his heels slipped up and down he came. Mr. Swinyard took very good care of me. He is such a very nice man. I took quite a fancy to him [emphasis mine]. After we had seen all that was to be seen we drove back to the station. There we had to say goodbye to all the party and take the train for here. The Tuppers are gone to New York, Col Grey [sic] is going to stay a few days at Niagara, all the rest have gone back to Toronto, perhaps we shall go back that way. We remain here at this Hotel Mansion until 12 o’clock. We then take the cars for Cleveland.

  Mercy clearly still hoped she and her parents might yet return to Toronto, where perhaps there would be social events, with the possibility of more opportunities for courtship. Many of the other Maritimers, along with most of the single young women and the widowed Mrs. Alexander, were returning the way they had come — back to Toronto, then Montreal and Quebec, and on to the east coast. Leonard Tilley; Thomas Haviland and his sister, Mrs. Mary Alice Alexander; William Steeves and his two daughters; Adams Archibald and his daughter Joanna; Charles Fisher and his daughter Jane; and Charlotte Gray, and her father, Colonel Gray of New Brunswick, were returning via Toronto. Mercy misses their company, and whatever last chances there might be for her.

  George Brown’s Globe wrote on Saturday, November 5, in “Excursion of the Delegates to Niagara Falls,” that Swinyard had lined up “a special train, consisting of the official car of the company and three splendid new first-class cars. The engine was tastefully decorated with evergreens and flags.…” Not a “glorious” ball, but there were still good times to be had.

  Mercy writes she “took quite a fancy to” Thomas Swinyard, the general manager of the Great Western Railway. Swinyard was thirty-one years old and married with children in 1864. In 1873, when PEI joined Confederation, he was appointed by the federal government to assess the PEI railway. We don’t know whether Mercy had any contact with him then, but by her 1917 recollections, all Thomas Swinyard gets is, “At Buffalo we saw the falls: a Mr. Swinyard accompanied us.”

  Street’s gardens, to which Mercy refers, are still in Niagara Falls, with their walkways through the woods, little wooden bridges, and views of the top of the falls. There are no more platforms or suspension bridges; nevertheless, the view of the falls and rapids above them is impressive. Thomas Street became the first member of Parliament for Welland in 1867. A portion of Street’s house is part of the mansion that mining multi-millionaire Sir Harry Oakes built in the 1920s, and the grounds are part of the Niagara Parks Commission. The “gardens” are now the Dufferin Islands. Oak Hall is the administration office for the Niagara Parks Commission. The ground floor of the house is open to the public. There is a teak table on which the Boxer Rebellion Treaty (bringing peace to unrest in China) was signed in 1901, as well as the twelve chairs used at a luncheon in 1919 to honour the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII, who abdicated to marry Wallis Simpson in 1937). There are lots of paintings and pictures of Niagara Falls and the surrounding area done by leading artists in the 1800s and 1900s. But there is not a word on the fact that the Fathers of Confederation visited in November 1864. Whelan has a small note on it, and the Globe of November 5 mentions it. Mercy’s diary is the only one to give this detailed account of the day and of the garden. Thomas Street’s garden was well-known as a tourist attraction in 1864, and Feo Monck also writes of visiting it in her journal when she and a party were visiting Niagara Falls for a week, from Thursday, October 6, to Wednesday, October 12, 1864.

  We [Feo; her husband, Dick; and Lord Lyons, the British ambassador to Washington] all sallied out to see the Island [Goat Island, by the American falls], where the rapids rush past you in the walk, and make you giddy under shaky bridges. It is beautiful and peculiar.… I think Mr. Street had not shown good taste in putting fantastic seats about near the curious rapids and among the wonderful underwood and trees at the waters’ edge: it looks too like a tea garden business.1

  Feo was also very impressed by Niagara Falls:

  I almost felt as if I must say, in the Litany, “Oh! Thou who madest Niagara, have m
ercy upon us.” I say this in all reverence. It was better than any sermon, seeing what we saw today. The falls are magnificent, when you are close to them, and the rapids really too wonderful. The little bits of red colouring made everything look twice as beautiful.

  Later she adds,

  We had another look at the falls from the Canadian side; they are more and more beautiful and grand every time you look at them. The water in parts of them is of the deepest green!

  Mercy’s joie de vivre, humour, and sense of adventure come through in her account of Niagara. She doesn’t mind the rain. They go merrily tripping across bridges and platforms over the rapids, slipping on the wet stone under Table Rock. She’s joyous and happy to be out and participating in everything, noting all the interesting things to see, with little time for reflection. She’s twenty-six, with the thrill of everything heightened after her illness.

  Nevertheless, as much as Mercy wants to continue with the group, she and her parents leave Niagara Falls, and go on alone.

  * * *

  * Thomas Clark Street, a lawyer and businessman who was the first MP for Welland after Confederation.

  Twelve

  Family and Travel

  Saturday, November 5 to Thursday , November 10