a sentinel. The juries for some years held their
consultations under the shade of a tree. Doubtless it was pleasanter
than the close lock-up jury-room of the present day. My father, in
addition to his other commissions, was appointed Judge of the District
Court and Judge of the Surrogate Court. Turkey Point is a very pretty
place; the grounds are high, and from them there is a very fine view of
the bay and lake. General Simcoe had selected it for the county town,
and the site of a future city. Now it boasted of one house, an inn kept
by Silas Montross. There was also a reservation of land for military
purposes. But the town never prospered; it was not in a thoroughfare,
and did not possess water privileges. Twenty years afterwards it
contained but the one solitary house. The county town was changed to a
more favourable situation, Vittoria. My father's young family now gave
him great anxiety. How they were to be educated was a question not
easily solved. Schools there were none, nor was it possible to get a
tutor. A man of education would not go so far into the woods for the
small inducement which a private family could offer.

"Magistrates were not allowed to marry by license, nor could the parties
be called in church, for there were no churches in the country. The law
required that the parties should be advertised--that is, that the banns
should be written out and placed in some conspicuous place for three
Sundays. The mill door was the popular place, but the young lads would
endeavour to avoid publicity by putting the banns on the inside of the
door; others would take two or three witnesses and hold it on the door
for a few minutes for three successive Sundays, allowing no one but
their friends to see it. In many places marriages used to be solemnized
by persons not authorized, and in a manner that made their legality very
doubtful; but the Legislature have very wisely passed Acts legalizing
all marriages up to a certain date. The marriages that took place at my
father's used to afford a good deal of amusement. Some very odd couples
came to be united. The only fee my father asked was a kiss from the
bride, which he always insisted on being paid; and if the bride was at
all pretty, he used, with a mischievous look at my mother, to enlarge
upon the pleasure that this fee gave him, and would go into raptures
about the bride's youth, beauty, and freshness, and declare that it was
the only public duty he performed that he