Ever Hear of a 'Colonel Denison?': Schooner Days DCCCLXXII (872)

by C. H. J. Snider

"SLABSY'S PORTRAIT," writes an Orillia correspondent in an undisguisedly feminine hand, "should hang in the City Hall."

Slabsy was a mild-mannered child and a modest man. He never aspired to that civic honor. In fact he was just as well pleased that not even a photograph of him should repose in the municipal pile or file. (They didn't keep them at the City Hall in they 1890's). But he would be pleased to learn that he had his share in immortalizing an acquaintance even if he did not count that acquaintance a particular friend.

Ever hear of such a hand as a Colonel Denison?

"Was glad your correspondent 'Curious' caused the reproduction of No. DLIII, SCHOONER DAYS," writes Cecil A. Culbert, 53 Lawrence ave. west.

"Living nearby, I was a frequenter of Toronto waterfront and the article recalled many memories of the gay 90's. Very few kids knew the waterfront better than I did and my initials appeared on more than one timber of the old W. T. Robb.

HIS HAIR WAS AUBURN

"No doubt your friend Slabsy was the notorious red top, secretly admired for his prowess and greatly feared by every small boy between the John st. pumping station and the Bathurst st. Dock where we went for a dip in lake water when the bay got too warm. Slabsy took it for granted that every kid could swim and his favorite pastime was tossing them off the deep end of the dock or the revetment wall around Waterworks Park. Many a kid learned to swim the hard way—and I was one of them.

"One day at the park Slabsy descended upon the gang while we were fishing for catfish and gave us all the heave-o off the deep end. While he was our nemesis and evil spirit, he had his own avenging Cyclops in One-eyed Al. who could lick the pants off Slabsy and often did. Al. happened along at that opportune moment and tossed Slabsy into the drink, thereby giving us an opportunity to crawl out. Slabsy feigned drowning several times, but Al. kept him in there for what seemed hours, and finally Slabsy had to swim through about a hundred yards of raw garbage which was being used as a fill at the west side of the park before he reached shore. After this incident we could always scare Slabsy off by threatening to 'tell Al.'

FAREWELL TO ALL THAT

"The last I heard of Slabsy was just before I left Toronto for the Spanish-American war. The police court news in The Tely mentioned that 'Slabsy, a pugnacious drunk,' was given Col. Denison's favorite sentence—30 days. Police Magistrate George Taylor Denison, holding the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Governor General's blue and white-plumed bodyguards, was then "the Colonel" to thousands who never heard a shot fired in anger or anywhere else.

"The holder of three tens in a poker game always called his hand 'Col. Denison' and the term became almost universal. I heard it in the Dakotas, and as far west as 'Frisco. Then in the far-off Philippines I found it a common expression among army men from every state in the union. I always inquired from the user of the term if he knew its origin and significance—but none of them ever did. They had just heard someone else using the phrase, but it must; have been 'the kurnel' who unwittingly coined it.

JOHN ST. SCHOOL GRADUATES

"I often clip 'Schooner Days' and' mail them to my brother Ernest in B.C. who spent some years on the Great Lakes.

"I used to live on King st., between Peter and Spadina, near the Orpens, Dotys and Obernessers. In one class of old John St. School I sat beside a delicate little fellow who wore thick glasses but who was a much better scholar than I. His name was Roy."

Yes, and he still covers the waterfront for The Tely.

That reference to "Waterworks Park"Park" must recall the one green oasis on the old mucky, grimy, coal-dusty, macadamized Esplanade, between Princess street and Black street on the old waterfront. At the foot of John street, then reached by a level crossing wagon road until the John street bridge was built, was the brick waterworks buildings, with surrounding coal sheds, and tower and chimney surmounted by ornamental grillwork.

These stood in a grass plot which throve in spite of the assaults of locomotive smoke, because the waterworks never stopped. There were two flower beds, and neat graveled driveways for the engineer's horse and buggy. There was even a fountain in the lawn, but for the sake of the appearance of economy it was only "turned on" for special occasions. Here through ever open doors, past a picture of Genesta losing the America's Cup race, the population wandered freely to watch the highly polished pistons plunging ceaselessly as they pumped the raw, unfiltered, unchlorinated, undiluted aqua ontarionensis to the brass taps of the 40,000 homes of the City of Toronto that "had water" in 1890.

Seeing the waterworks was one of the metropolitan sights no Exhibition visitor would miss. Engineer McRae would point with especial pride to the old Scotch engine, which hadn't yet worn its bearings enough to brighten them. And the Inglis engine of local manufacture had also some forgotten excellence to which attention would be called.

There was a later "park" where ball was played, in the filled land at the foot of Bay street, but from the reference to the revetment, this tiny pleasure ground at John street would be the one meant. The wharfage here consisted of one slip where the schooners Caroline Marsh, Albacore, Speedwell, Dundee, Vienna, W. Y. Emery, E. A. Fulton and St. Louis unloaded coal for the waterworks engines, hoisted out by horse and bucket. At the head of this slip, and on the stonework surrounding the site of the works, round iron rails kept visitors from falling into the bay unless assisted by Slabsy's zeal as a swimming instructor.

TORONTO BAY THEN

Schooner ST. LOUIS, hauled around from the Waterworks slip after unloading 700 tons of coal—astern of her, the clubhouses of the Toronto Canoe Club and Argonaut Rowing Club showing beyond the Royal Canadian Yacht Club moorings.