Nevertown Chronicles - Phantom City of Newcastle-Neverwas: Schooner Days DCCCLXXXVI (886)

by C. H. J. Snider

AND what was this Newcastle Never-to-be, which we must plead guilty to dangling before readers almost as long as it dangled before our ambitious forebears at the beginning of the 19th century?

It really never was, so must not be confused with the Newcastle that is, in Clarke township of Durham County, a flourishing town fifty miles west of the town that never flourished.

The phantom metropolis ninety-three miles east of Toronto had been surveyed and laid out by Alexander Aitken, Deputy Surveyor General, in November, 1797, when the Home District, of which York was the capital, had not yet been subdivided.

SUCCESSFUL RIVALS

Remember, in 1801 Toronto had a population of 346, which grew to 577 by 1809. Cobourg was one shanty in 1789, Belleville three and a bridge at the beginning of the century, Kingston's population was 345 in 1794. Brighton had two houses by 1817. Newcastle Neverwas at the time of the Speedy, had a population of twenty. The early settlers were Capt. Charles Selleck, the Gibson family, father son and daughter, Obadiah Simpson and his wife, born in North Carolina and New York state 1755 and 1760 and buried in the Presquisle sand dune, 1809; John Lawson, Nehemiah Hubel, John Singleton, John Loomis, Rev. Joshua Strevil, Samuel Waite, John Sprung, Aaron Hinman, Joseph Morden, R. Spencer, Nathaniel Thayer, Benjamin Davidson and Robert Carr. These were scattered over an area five miles square. Only three families settled at Presquisle Point.

THE HARBOR

The Cove in Presquisle Bay, between Salt Point and the Calf Pasture, was designated "Newcastle Harbour." Salt Point, sometimes a point, sometimes an island, and sometimes a reef, was firmly outlined and labelled "Government Reserve," and a range-light erected on it in pencil, later in wood. A second range light in the same tractable medium was marked and later erected on the spit across the little bay inside Salt Point. We saw the stump of its lantern mast eight years ago. These two lights gave the range for and from the treacherous harbor of Weller's Bay at the Carrying Place, six miles farther east.

On Presquisle Point, south from "Newcastle Harbour" the "Main Light" was placed in 1797, coming into being 43 years later, in stone, and 70 feet high. It still stands, but without its top.

THE TOWN

The town was laid out in three blocks of lots, in 76 one-acre plots.

Between the blocks a wide "East Passage" and "West Passage" ran north and south. Water street, Second street, Third street and Glebe street crossed the town east and west, 66 feet wide. Glebe street cut off a 10-acre block labelled "Clergy's 7th for the Town." There was a 5 acre plot too for "Parson" south of the East Passage, and north of the East Passage the Market Square continued to the harbor shore south, of the inner range light. Hospital street was the east boundary of the town, with four acres reserved from the government between the street and the water for the "hospital."

Across town to the west Grave street, with a 4-acre "burying ground" corresponded to Hospital street and ended the vista. Going west" meant what it said in Newcastle Neverwas. At the harbor end of the West Passage was a 6-acre "prison square" and at the other end a "School" reserve of similar size. In the very centre of the town, between Second and Third streets and fronting on both, was a 4-acre plot labelled "Church." There was only one church in 1797, and officialdom saw that it got its sevenths and its tithes. There was no park, playground, recreation centre, village green or fairground. The 18th century, unmindful of the French revolution and the American revolution, wasted no time on such things, especially in the "plantations" of British North America.

The combined courthouse, jail and government tavern often mentioned was not so labelled in the surveyor's plan, but an unnamed acre-square on the harbor front was set out for that purpose, and it was built. Market, hospital, church, school, jail and graveyard — what more could people desire? Even if the stocks, whipping post and branding platform had been left out?

The one reality of the imagined city, the courthouse built for the murder trial, served sketchily as an inn and housed the Selleck family after the death of the captain of that name in 1809. I. M. Wellington, first white child in the community, was born there, his father having married Capt. Selleck's widow. Its third story, never occupied, perhaps never finished, decayed and was removed. In the end the, building was burned.

LAST OF LOCAL FLEET

Presquisle fishboats were sloop or mackinaw rigged and notable for their very high sheer and hollow racy clipper bows. Harry Quick has a beautiful old sample yet at Brighton wharf, used as a power boat.

Sim Weaver's small white yacht-like schooner Eugenie was the last Presquisle vessel. She rotted in the Cove, on the old planned Market Square, in 1898. When the 20th century crept in swiftly and silently on rubber tires the Point blossomed into a surprisingly fine collection of summer cottages and camps, with boathouses, a landing pier, hotel with well kept grounds, and a charming provincial park; all attainable in a two hour drive from the little old "York, U.C." which the Speedy sailed from for the last time, on Oct. 7th. 1804. She took twenty-four hours to measure the ninety miles to Presquisle; and has still to enter Newcastle Harbour of Never Never Never Nevertown, where now in summer a fleet of a hundred yachts rides and a thousand automobiles come and go.

THAT OLD LOG HOUSE

"SPEEDY" GREAT GRANDSON

Sir—I do not think the log house you took the picture on Presqu'ile Point, was the one your friend Roy Edwards saw forty years ago.

The one you took the picture of was the old Wm. Mason house, while the one to which your friend refers, was further to the east of the hotel on opposite side of the road, and has been gone for sometime.

I do not recall that it ever was used for a meeting of parliament, though it was at or near the site, where the government buildings, were to be established. This place has now been occupied by a large cottage, which lately has been altered as a restaurant or snack bar, with tourist cottages in connection. I think that the sign may have referred to the location being site of what was to have been the government buildings, but I never heard of a meeting being held there, but being on the route by water, between Kingston and York, members of the government might easily have had a meeting, while en route, in those early times.

Rev. Dr. C. W. DeMille, DD. is the oldest living camper at Presqu'ile Point, both as a boy with his parents, who had a camp, at Calf Pasture Point, just west of the hotel, and later his own cottage now about 74 years old, and recently resigned, as Secretary of Temperance Society of United Church. His great-grandmother was the widow of Capt. Selleck, spoken of in your articles, the widow having married a Mr. Wellington and whose son, I. M. Wellington, grandfather of Rev. DeMille, was the first white baby to be born on Presqu'ile Point.

With kind regards,

OSCAR L. MORROW,

Clerk and Treasurer of the Corporation of Brighton Village.

INTERNATIONAL L.R.Y.A. FLEET OF YACHTS IN LONG AGO PROJECTED "NEWCASTLE HARBOUR," PRESQU'ISLE POINT. AUGUST 2, 1947.