York was a town and the second capital of the colony of Upper Canada. It is the predecessor to the old city of Toronto (1834–1998). It was established in 1793 by Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe as a "temporary" location for the capital of Upper Canada, while he made plans to build a capital near today's London, Ontario. Simcoe renamed the location York after Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, George III's second son. Simcoe gave up his plan to build a capital at London, and York became the permanent capital of Upper Canada on February 1, 1796. That year Simcoe returned to Britain and was temporarily replaced by Peter Russell.
The original townsite was a compact ten blocks near the mouth of the Don River and a garrison was built at the channel to Toronto Harbour. Government buildings and a law court were established. Yonge Street was built, connecting York to the Holland River to the north. To the east, Kingston Road was built to the mouth of the Trent River. In 1797, the town site was expanded to the west to allow for public buildings and expansion. One of the new area's public functions, a public market, was started in 1803. It continues today as St. Lawrence Market.
The settlement was attacked by American troops during the War of 1812. As the British garrison retreated, they detonated their powder magazine, inflicting numerous casualties on the invading U.S. forces, who proceeded to loot and destroy the town. The victorious Americans chose not to occupy the town and the British eventually returned without conflict. A reprisal attack was made on the American capital of Washington, D.C. a year later. After the war was over, the town continued to grow, expanding to the west, leaving the original town site, a less desirable location, somewhat undeveloped. A new parliament building was erected, near the original location, but this burned down and a new building was built in the new lands to the west.
A permanent fort, Fort York, was built on the site of the garrison. Dundas Street was built to connect York to towns to the west. In the 1820s, the town experienced a surge of immigrants, expanding from 1,000 residents to over 9,000 by the time the town was incorporated as the "City of Toronto" in 1834. During its existence, the town did not have its own government; it was governed by the province of Upper Canada, with a mix of elected officials and an aristocracy known as the Family Compact controlling the government. By 1830, this led to an ongoing political conflict, which would later lead to the 1837 Upper Canada Rebellion.
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History
When Europeans first arrived at the site of York, the vicinity was inhabited by the Seneca people (from the Five Nations Haudenosaunee of New York State), who by then had displaced the Wendat (Huron) tribes that had occupied the region for centuries before c. 1600. By 1701, the Haudenosaunee villages that had been established along the north shore of Lake Ontario during the sixteenth century had been abandoned. The Algonkian Mississaugas then moved into the York region, created alliances with the former Iroquoian residents, and established their own settlements; one near the former Seneca village of Teiaiagon on the Humber River.
The name Toronto is derived from indigenous sources. A portage route from Lake Ontario to Lake Huron running through this point, the Toronto Carrying-Place Trail, led to widespread use of the name. The word "toronto", meaning "plenty" appears in a French lexicon of the Wendat language in 1632, and it appeared on French maps referring to various locations, including Georgian Bay, Lake Simcoe, and several rivers. In Mohawk, the word tkaronto, meant "place where trees stand in the water". It refers to the northern end of what is now Lake Simcoe, where the Wendat and preceding inhabitants had planted tree saplings to corral fish.
The shoreline was likely sandy and parts sloping down to Lake Ontario (see Geography of Toronto). The original shoreline followed what is now Front Street. Everything now south of Front Street is the result of land fill. The Toronto Islands were still connected to the mainland. It was wooded, with marshes in what is now Ashbridge's Bay and the then natural mouth of the Don (Keating Channel did not exist yet). Other than Lake Ontario, other waterways into old town included the Don and several other small creeks, such as Garrison Creek, Russell Creek and Taddle Creek.
Between 1710 and 1750, French traders established two trading posts on the Humber River, Magasin Royale, and Fort Toronto. The success of Fort Toronto led the French to build Fort Rouillé on the current Exhibition grounds in 1750. It only lasted until 1759, abandoned after the fall of Fort Niagara, when the French retreated to Montreal. The British arrived the next year with an army to secure the location. The British claimed all of New France after the 1763 Treaty of Paris, and extended the province of Quebec to present-day Ontario.
Founding of York
After the American Revolutionary War, the region saw an influx of British settlers as United Empire Loyalists arrived in numbers north of Lake Ontario, as the British offered free land to many. As plans were being made to create the new province of Upper Canada, British North America Governor-General Lord Dorchester selected the area north of Toronto Bay for a new capital. Dorchester arranged for the Toronto Purchase with the Mississaugas of New Credit, thereby securing more than a 250,000 acres (1,000 km2) of land. The purchase was disputed in 1788, and a further agreement was made in 1805, but a final settlement of the purchase would only come 200 years later in 2010, for a total of CA$145 million.
In 1791, Upper Canada was established, with Newark (Niagara-on-the-Lake) its first capital. The first Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe arrived in 1792 and first visited the Toronto Purchase site in May 1793. Impressed by the site and harbour, he moved the capital to Toronto, on a "temporary" basis, while he worked on plans to build a capital in the vicinity of London, Ontario. Simcoe renamed the townsite York, rejecting the aboriginal name. The name of York was chosen to please King George, as a compliment to the Duke of York, his son. Simcoe founded York on August 27, 1793.
Simcoe and his family took residence in July 1793. They found the location to be an isolated wilderness, with dense forest right to the shore. A few families of Mississaugas were the only residents and "immense coveys of fowl". They lived in a tent that once belonged to Captain James Cook the explorer, at the foot of today's Bathurst Street. It would be the temporary capital until 1796, when Simcoe abandoned his plans to make London the capital. The first parliament in the new capital convened in June 1797, after Simcoe had returned to England and Peter Russell was named administrator of Upper Canada.
The townsite was first surveyed in 1788, but Simcoe developed a new town plan. The Town of York was laid out in ten original blocks between today's Adelaide and Front streets (the latter following the shoreline) with the first church (St James Anglican), Town Hall and Wharf (named St Lawrence after the river) on the west and the first parliament buildings, blockhouse and windmill on the east. Taddle Creek lay on the eastern boundary, the Don River and its wetland further to the east. Two main roads were laid out: Lot Street (today's Queen Street) and Yonge Street, which was built as far north as the Holland River. In 1797, a garrison was built east of modern-day Bathurst Street, on the east bank of Garrison Creek.
Battle of York
The Battle of York was fought on April 27, 1813. An American force supported by a squadron consisting of a ship-rigged corvette, a brig and twelve schooners landed on the lake shore to the west of the garrison, defeating the British and capturing the fort, town and dockyard. The Americans suffered heavy casualties, including Brigadier General Zebulon Pike who was leading the troops when the retreating British blew up the fort's magazine. The American forces carried out several acts of arson and looting in the town before withdrawing. Although the Americans won a clear victory, it did not have decisive strategic results as York was a less important objective in military terms than Kingston, where the British armed vessels on Lake Ontario were based.
The Town of York did not fill the small original blocks, instead development spread to the west; the area west to Peter Street had been annexed in 1797 on the order of the province. The town grid was extended west and plots of land near New (Jarvis) and Church streets were set aside for public buildings. St. Lawrence Market, St. James' Cathedral and the Courthouse and Jail on King would be built on the public reserves. The Town was also extended in the east along King Street (then a part of Kingston Road) to the Don River. There, Angell's Bridge stretched across the Don. A path led from Angell's Bridge south to the peninsula and the lighthouse.
The chief business part of the town was King and Front streets, the western limit being Yonge street, and the eastern limit the Don bridge. There were, however, many private residences west of York on Yonge, Front and Lot Streets, and as far west as the garrison. In comparison, the original town site itself was not fully developed by the time of incorporation. The Parliament buildings, destroyed in 1813 by war and later by fire, were moved to the west, helping to draw persons to the west. The town became fully developed as far west as York Street, with some built-up areas west to Peter. North of Lot Street, Spadina Avenue was already laid out to the north, and the two north–south roadways that would become University Avenue. 150 acres (61 ha) of land had been purchased in 1825 to be the campus of King's College, today's University of Toronto, at the north end of the roads.
Rougher conditions existed in several area. "Macaulaytown", (named after the Queen's Ranger who had been given the park lot) basically a shanty town, and the site of many poor immigrants, was north of Lot and west of Yonge. Squatters lived a meager existence along the Don River and the lakefront. Conditions were poor on both sides of Church Street in back lanes. The worst was reputed to be Henrietta Lane, off King, west of Church, south to Market (Wellington today), which in 1832 was a center of a cholera epidemic. Pearson recalls the muddy and filthy lane as being the site of a few shanties inhabited by widows, who kept cows. The cows would be led to the garrison common each day to graze. Two stables were also nearby, making the neighbourhood "odiferous" in his opinion. The area around Henrietta would eventually be cleared of the slum, its north end on King closed off first, and the area redeveloped around the new Colborne Street. March Street (Lombard today) was also noted as being rough and having a red-light district.
Government and politics
Upper Canada was established with a bicameral legislature. The upper chamber, the Executive Council of Upper Canada was appointed by, and served the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada. The lower chamber or Legislative Assembly, was elected from the various districts. York was situated in Home District and Home District Council was responsible for municipal matters for York.
Family Compact
The Family Compact was a small closed group of men who exercised most of the political, economic and judicial power in Upper Canada from the 1810s to the 1840s. Several were members of the Executive Council. It was noted for its conservatism and opposition to democracy.
Upper Canada did not have a hereditary nobility. In its place, senior members of Upper Canada bureaucracy, the Executive Council of Upper Canada and Legislative Council of Upper Canada, made up the elite of the Compact. These men sought to solidify their personal positions into family dynasties and acquire all the marks of gentility. They used their government positions to extend their business and speculative interests.
The centre of the Compact was York. Its most important member was the Rev. John Strachan; many of the other members were his former students, or people who were related to him. Another prominent member of the Compact was Sir John Beverley Robinson who was the Chief Justice of Upper Canada for 34 years from 1829. The rest of the members were mostly descendants of United Empire Loyalists or recent upper-class British settlers such as the Boulton family, builders of the Grange.
Reform opposition
Reform activity emerged in the 1830s when those suffering the abuses of the Family Compact began to emulate the organizational forms of the British Reform Movement, and organized Political Unions under the leadership of William Lyon Mackenzie. The British Political Unions had successfully petitioned for the Great Reform Act 1832 that eliminated much of the political corruption in the English Parliamentary system. Prominent politicians in reform city politics included James Lesslie, a bookseller and founder of the Mechanics Institute, Bank of the People and House of Refuge & Industry; Jesse Ketchum, the Member of the Legislative Assembly for the city; Dr Thomas David Morrison, founder of the Upper Canada Political Union, and mayor of the city in 1836; and William O'Grady, publisher of the reform newspaper, The Correspondent.
Political conflict
In 1826, in the "Types Riot", the printing press of William Lyon Mackenzie was destroyed by the young lawyers of the Juvenile Advocate's Society with the complicity of the Attorney General, the Solicitor General and the magistrates of Toronto.
Mackenzie had published a series of satires under the pseudonym of "Patrick Swift, nephew of Jonathan Swift" in an attempt to humiliate the members of the Family Compact running for the board of the Bank of Upper Canada, and Henry John Boulton the Solicitor General, in particular. Mackenzie's articles worked, and they lost control. In revenge they sacked Mackenzie's press, throwing the type into the lake. The 'juvenile advocates' were the students of the Attorney General and the Solicitor General, and the act was performed in broad daylight in front of William Allan, bank president and magistrate. They were never charged, and it was left to Mackenzie to launch a civil lawsuit instead.
There are three implications of the Types riot according to historian Paul Romney. First, he argues the riot illustrates how the elite's self-justifications regularly skirted the rule of law they held out as their Loyalist mission. Second, he demonstrated that the significant damages Mackenzie received in his civil lawsuit against the vandals did not reflect the soundness of the criminal administration of justice in Upper Canada. And lastly, he sees in the Types riot "the seed of the Rebellion" in a deeper sense than those earlier writers who viewed it simply as the start of a highly personal feud between Mackenzie and the Family Compact. Romney emphasizes that Mackenzie's personal harassment, the "outrage", served as a lightning rod of discontent because so many Upper Canadians had faced similar endemic abuses and hence identified their political fortunes with his.
See also: Mackenzie' own account
Buoyed by large public displays of support following his re-election in January 1832, Mackenzie called for a public meeting in York on March 23, in the face of an increasingly well organized opposition, and threats of violence. Both supporters and opponents of Mackenzie gathered in front of the Court House at noon, when Sheriff William Botsford Jarvis granted the chair of the meeting to Dr. Dunlop, of the Canada Company, rather than Reform MPP Jesse Ketchum, the reformers' choice, despite a reform majority. The tories then made short order of the meeting, passing a resolution in favour of the colonial administration, and adjourning.
Population
York's population was primarily from the British Isles (from Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland) with a few other European settlers (French, German and Dutch). York being a garrison town meant there were one or more regiments of Imperial troops stationed there. The officers were considered an acquisition to society, and, "many of the fair daughters of York formed marriages with these gallant fellows."
The town saw a wave of English immigrants in the later 1820s. In 1826, the population was 1,700, in 1830, 2,860 and in 1834, 9,254.