When I visited the spot a few weeks since I encountered not a little
difficulty in fixing upon the exact site, which is covered by an
unprepossessing row of dark red brick, presenting the aspect of having
stood there from time immemorial, though as I am informed, the houses
have been erected within the last quarter of a century. Unattractive as
they appear, however, they are the least uninviting feature in the
landscape, which is prosaic and squalid beyond description. Rickety,
tumble-down tenements of dilapidated lath and plaster stare the
beholder in the face at every turn. During the greater part of the day
the solitude of the neighbourhood remains unbroken save by the tread of
some chance wayfarer like myself, and a general atmosphere of the
abomination of desolation reigns supreme. Passing along the
unfrequented pavement, one finds it difficult to realize the fact that
this was once a not unfashionable quarter of the capital of Upper
Canada.

The old house stood forty or fifty feet back from the roadway, on the
north side, overlooking the waters of the bay. The lot was divided from
the street by a low picket fence, and admission to the enclosure was
gained by means of a small gate. In those remote times there were few
buildings intervening between Duchess street and the water front, and
those few were not very pretentious; so that when the atmosphere was
free from fog you could trace from the windows of the upper story the
entire hithermost shore of the peninsula which has since become The
Island. The structure itself, like most buildings then erected in York,
was of frame. It was of considerable dimensions for those days, and
must have contained at least eight or nine rooms. It was two stories
high, and had a good deal of painted fret-work about the windows of
the upper story. A stately elm stood immediately in the rear, and its
wide-spreading branches overshadowed the greater part of the back yard