{"id":10674,"date":"2015-05-13T17:35:22","date_gmt":"2015-05-13T21:35:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=10674"},"modified":"2015-05-28T01:31:15","modified_gmt":"2015-05-28T05:31:15","slug":"inside-aurora-a-rough-road-ahead-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/inside-aurora-a-rough-road-ahead-2\/","title":{"rendered":"INSIDE AURORA: A Rough Road Ahead (2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Scott Johnston<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was early summer in 1796. Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe was coming out of his office in the Town of York, after a full day of attending to the many varied demands of the recently created province of Upper Canada.
\nHe was exhausted. There were just so many details that required his attention.
\n\u201cSir\u201d, came a voice. He turned to find one of his men standing smartly behind him.
\n\u201cYes, Ashby. What is it?\u201d
\n\u201cWell, sir,\u201d Ashby said, then shifted nervously. \u201cIt\u2019s\u2026 um\u2026\u201d
\n\u201cCome on. Out with it, man.\u201d Simcoe stated. \u201cIt\u2019s been a long day, and I wish to get home.\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s Machell\u2019s Corners, sir,\u201d Ashby said, in a rush. There are problems with Yonge Street in that area.\u201d
\n\u201cWait a moment,\u201d Simcoe said, eyeing the young man closely. \u201cYou reported to me only a few months ago that the locals there were complaining about the state of that recently-completed north-south road. There were hills, swamps, and holes that were slowing down traffic. They wanted it smoothed out. Didn\u2019t you send a crew up there as I told you, to deal with all the issues?\u201d
\n\u201cYes, sir, they did a very thorough job,\u201d Ashby stated, a drop of sweat starting to trickle down from his hairline. \u201cBut the people up there\u2026\u201d
\n\u201cYes?\u201d
\n\u201cNow they\u2019re complaining traffic is moving too quickly. They want some sort of calming devices installed.\u201d
\n\u201cTraffic calming devices!\u201d Simcoe stammered, feeling his blood pressure go up a notch. The past few years had taken a toll on his health, and the seemingly endless issues associated with this little hamlet thirty miles away at the corner of Yonge and Wellington had not helped any.
\n\u201cYes, apparently with all the recent improvements the road is quite straight and level. People were delighted at first, but the carts and horses using that stretch are moving quite quickly, making it dangerous for pedestrians along that stretch of road.\u201d
\n\u201cBut that road\u2019s been built to speed troops north in the event of an American invasion. It\u2019s supposed to be in good condition.\u201d
\n\u201cI guess it\u2019s in too good a condition, sir,\u201d Ashby stated. \u201cThey\u2019d like us to install some sort of \u2026\u201d he consulted a piece of paper he was carrying, \u201c\u2026 speed humps.\u201d
\n\u201dSpeed humps? What the devil are those?\u201d
\n\u201cThey\u2019re a kind of a small hill put in the middle of a street to reduce the pace of traffic.\u201d
\n\u201cBut they just made us get rid of all the hills in that road to speed it up!\u201d Simcoe exploded.
\n\u201cI guess they want them back, sir,\u201d Ashby winced. \u201cThey\u2019re quite insistent about it.\u201d
\nSimcoe breathed heavily for a moment, then sighed. There were just too many other important considerations in the fledgling province to spend more time worrying about this.
\n\u201cAll right. Dispatch more men to put in some of these \u2018speed humps\u2019.\u201d
\n\u201cYes, sir. Right away,\u201d said the young man thankfully, with a salute.
\n\u201cAnd Ashby,\u201d said Simcoe, pointing a finger at his junior officer, \u201chaving insisted on a smooth road, then deciding it should have bumps in it, the settlers in that area had better not change their minds again about this and want them taken out.\u201d
\n\u201cOh, no, sir. I can\u2019t imagine anyone would ever do to that.\u201d
\nFor anywhere else, Simcoe would have believed him. But when it came to this frustrating community of Machell\u2019s Corners, the Lieutenant Governor wasn\u2019t as sure.<\/p>\n

Feel free to e-mail Scott at: machellscorners@gmail.com<\/strong><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Scott Johnston It was early summer in 1796. Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe was coming out of his office in the Town of York, after a full day of attending to the many varied demands of the recently created province of Upper Canada. He was exhausted. There were just so many details that required […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-2Ma","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-03 09:32:50","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10674\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}