THE SETTLEMENT OF YORK COUNTY

by John Mitchell

Charters Publishing Company Ltd.

In 1791, Quebec was divided and its wild bush county lying west of the Ottawa River became, as Upper Canada, a separate province under the British Crown. It was split up into counties the year following, and thus on the 16th of July 1792, came into being the County of York. It was created to provide a territorial unit as an electoral division and for the militia. For the next 58 years it served no further purpose.
In 1850, the townships and villages of this part of Canada were entrusted with the management of their local affairs under elected councils. The County of York became in that year a municipal body corporate to provide services of common interest to local townships, villages and towns that sent representatives to sit upon its county council. Toronto had previously been granted a charter as a city and has had a separate history in municipal affairs but not otherwise.
The pen that marked out the original limits of the county was in the hand of John Graves Simcoe, the first Lieutenant Governor of the province. On the table before him lay maps of the lake waters and surveys showing lands recently purchased from the Indians. The area of the county has since varied, but when created a municipality it had a frontage on Lake Ontario of 30 miles from the mouth of the Etobicoke River on the west to that of the Rouge on the east, and extended north to Lake Simcoe. It now has an area of less than 30 miles square.
The territory fronting on Lake Ontario had been Indian hunting grounds from time immemorial and in 1788 was the tribal property of the Mississauga Indians whose winter lodges, covered with elm bark, stood on the banks of the Credit River. In that year they sold to the Crown lands that now comprise the County of York. For reasons that need not be detailed, the vendors were afterwards hazy as to the terms of the bargain they had made at a three day council fire. (Sloshed!!)
The County of York thus came into being in a state of nature, but it was not naked. It was clothed in virgin forest save for a clearing of 300 acres that the French had made around Fort Rouille, which stood till 1758 on the grounds now occupied by the Canadian National Exhibition. John Baptiste Rousseau, a fur trader, was living with his family near the mouth of the Humber River. It was here that his wife, whose maiden name was Margaret Clyne, gave birth to the first white child born in the County of York.
Conditions that were present in the pioneer days of Upper Canada exerted a controlling influence on other important developments. In particular, the manner in which the province received its settlers impressed a character on its population that time has not effaced. This character differed widely from that which was building up in the United States. There a stream of mixed humanity poured west to extend the American frontiers. In this throng were many families emigrating from the British Isles, but they found themselves a small minority in the communities they helped to settle. In the course of time their children absorbed the views and sentiments of their new home, and from their homesteads, came men who helped to establish isolation as the traditional policy of the American Union. On the other hand, the great majority of the settlers in Upper Canada were British subjects who arrived in small, group migrations. They felt isolated enough with an aggressive young republic to the south and a French speaking population on their seaboard. As a result, sentiment became at times more audibly British in the province than in Great Britian itself. Separation from the Crown, annexation to the United States and isolation in international affairs have never for this reason become live issues in this part of Canada.

AN ACT OF GOVERNMENT

In 1758, the Mississaugas had drifted down from the north to obtain squatter rights to the lands in the County of York, but the pathway along the Humber remained in service.
After the British conquest of Canada, its fur trade continued for many years the only extensive commercial undertaking in Canada, and in the hands of canny Scots at Montreal, it became a profitable one. In 1788, these fur interest were seeking a shorter and a safer route to their posts on the upper lakes than the Ottawa River afforded.
They decided to establish a depot on the bayshore at Toronto and convey their supplies to northern waters by cutting a wagon road along the Toronto Carrying-place. Plans were worked out to the detail of pasturing horses on the peninsula that is now Toronto Island. An application was made to the government for a grant of lands and the necessary powers. It met with favourable consideration. A government survey was made of the bayshore and soundings were taken in the harbour. Purchase was made from the Indians of the lands in the County of York. The fur traders were afterwards obliged to abandon this project, but it was on the table at the time the province of Upper Canada was created.
Time, money and patience have made the Toronto area an excellent site for a large city, but under the conditions of 1793, it was an unpromising location for a hamlet of any kind. It did not possess a mill seat and the streams in the vicinity were not navigable. Had the settlement of the County of York been left to individual enterprise, its development would have commenced at a later date, and its growth would have taken a different course.
The authorities had some reason for locating the capital of the province on marshy ground in an uninhabited wilderness. The project of the fur traders to transfer some of their activities to the Toronto Bay area may have had an influence. An Indian footpath gave its name to the largest city in Ontario.

On the 30th of July, 1793, His Majesty's Ship, The Mississauga, a top- sailed schooner of 80 ton burden, approached the entrance to the bay of Toronto bringing from Niagara Governor Simcoe's family and personnel. The Governor arrived to establish the capital of his province. A large tent was pitched to serve for a time as the Governor's residence and audience chamber. Mrs. Simcoe had her baby Katherine with her, and she was thus the first of many housewives who have been inconvenienced by the scarcity of suitable housing in the Toronto area. She waited in good humour for a cottage to be built.
Not only was the Governor dissatisfied with the site that had been chosen for his capital, he thought its Indian name uncouth and displeasing to the ear. While still residing in his canvas house, the Governor drew up the Queen's Rangers on parade, and re-christened his capital the Town of York to a salute of 21 guns. It was also to go by the alias of Muddy Little York for the next 40 years. There was an adequate fall to drain the low lying bush lands that extended to the west, but ditches were not dug for many years, and as the hamlet grew slowly, its streets extended into undrained swamp lands. Until municipal government was established in 1834, much of its area was a morass in wet seasons and at all times there were ponds dotted around.
"The site," a visitor wrote in 1817, "is better suited for a beaver meadow and frog ponds than for the habitation of human beings." It was also written of Muddy Little York that its frogs gave advice to gentlemen plodding home from Abner's Tavern. "Knee-deep! Knee-deep!" piped the deceiving little fellows, but the huge bulls cautioned, "Better-go-round! Better-go- round!"
It was a sight to behold Captain George Playter, the squire of Todmorden, picking his way west along King Street by hopping from one stone to another. This gentleman of the old school, who carried a gold headed cane wore a 3 cornered hat, a skirted purple jacket, knee breeches and white stockings with silver garters. The broad toed shoes he soiled were garnished with gold buckles.
There was a lack of currency in Upper Canada and commercial transactions were marked by sharp fluctuations in prices, long terms of credit and heavy discounts for cash. As an instance, in 1806, 2 negro slaves in servitude for life, were publicly offered for sale at York. The owner of these chattels asked $150 for Peggy, a 40 year old woman skilled in soap making, and $200 for her son Jupiter, a sound 15 year old. Three years' credit at interest was offered a purchaser but a quarter of the price would be knocked off for ready money.
In 1805, an open air market was held on Saturdays where the St. Lawrence Market stands, and here were kept on display the public stocks and a whipping post. William Jarvis and William Willcocks were the police magistrates. Elizabeth Ellis was taught a lesson in their court for making her tongue a public nuisance. She was sentenced to stand in the pillory for 2 hours on each of 2 market days. Clamped in a wooden frame with her head sticking through a hole in the top, Elizabeth was presented to public scorn for an urchin to tickle her nose with a feather or a spiteful woman to break an egg over her face.
Many offences were classed as felonies, punishable by death after trial by jury. Among these were forgery and the theft of goods over the value of five dollars. In 1798, Humphrey Sullivan, a tailor from Ireland, was on a spree in York with his friend Flannery. Whilst they were in a tavern, the friend wrote out an order for 3 shillings and 3 pence, forging the name of one Flick. The befuddled Sullivan got the tavern keeper to accept it.
At the March assize, 1800, Sullivan was placed on trial for uttering the document knowing it to be forged, in other words, for getting 85 cents worth from the tavern keeper on a forged I.O.U. The jury found him guilty, and Chief Justice Elmsley pronounced the death sentence.
"Sullivan!" said the judge. "May all who behold you and shall hear of your unhappy fate take warning from your example. But although your crime is great, it does not exceed the boundless mercy of God to pardon."
The gallows consisted of 2 posts joined by a smooth crosspiece over which the rope was thrown. After Sullivan had been hoisted to dangle in the air, the noose slipped over his head, and he found himself on his feet again. The hangman readjusted his tackle. "I hope, McKnight," observed the unhappy tailor, "you get it right this time."
At the same assize, John Small, clerk of the Executive Council of the province, stood his trial for a felony. He had shot in a duel and killed John White, the Attorney General of the province. It was thought proper in York Society of that day for a gentleman to send his card to a social equal who had offended his honour, inviting him to a daybreak party of pistols for two, and breakfast for one. At his trial, the jury brought in a verdict of acquittal. The Crown prosecutor had refrained from calling witnesses to testify that the accused had fired upon the deceased.

In 1798, a mass immigration into Upper Canada had been planned of families whom the revolution had made exiles from France, and who had found an asylum in England where they had been living for years as a public charge. Roman Catholic priests, many noble families, and a multitude of other persons. Maintaining them in England had become a heavy burden and a special tax was being levied for the purpose. The British government proposed to form these French emigres into regiments of militia and to ration and maintain them until they became established on free land grants in Upper Canada.
The authorities at York had received instructions early in 1798 to make arrangements for this large immigration into the province. The council set aside Gwillimbury, Whitchurch and 2 unnamed townships, a block so remote at the time as to be inaccessible for man or beast save in the winter time.
In choosing this location, the Honourable Members of the Executive Council had a purpose of their own to serve. They felt that the hamlet of York lay exposed to a surprise attack by northern Indians whose youth were drawn to man's estate with their tomahawks unfleshed. The large body of Frenchmen in the north end of the county would provide the scalps required and form a protecting shield for the residents of the Town of York.
The Council expected a working party to arrive on the Durham boats. Quite to the contrary, they brought a notable company of aristocrats. A miserable time was had by the nobility who found themselves stranded without resources on bush lots in the upper Yonge Street wilderness. On the restoration of the French monarchy in 1815, they all flocked home to receive honours at court. Life in the wilds of Upper Canada proved a heart break for every member of the little party that disembarked in 1798.

In 1801, Timothy Rogers left Vermont and arrived at the Town of York. He selected his lands, and returned to Vermont to get the party of Quaker settlers he planned on bringing to York. In 1802, the 27 families from Vermont and Connecticut settled on their land in and around the Town of Newmarket. The Quakers were exclusive in their discipline, and their church policy of expelling members who contracted an out-marriage was suicidal. By 1830, York townships were becoming mixed settlements of Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists, Mennonites, Presbyterians and Tunkers with frequent intermarriages among neighbouring families. Every outmarriage occuring in the Quaker society resulted in the expulsion of a member.
The Quaker meetinghouse on Yonge Street was a small building, plain as plain could make it. The room was entered by separate doors, the one for the shawls and bonnets, the other for the broad brims and butternut homespun. There was no pulpit, no separate ministry, no sermon, no scripture reading, and no song. The congregation sat in a dead silence waiting for a spiritual message. As the worshipper spent hours staring at the solemn faced elders who sat with fixed eyes under the broad brims on the one side, and under the gray bonnets on the other, his mind was apt to wander off to the pressing cares of field and fold.
A contrast to the silence of the Quaker service was found in the noisy, open air camp meetings which the Methodists conducted on the farm of Jacob Cumner.

In 1833, the Town of York had government buildings of solid construction for its land offices, banking houses, many merchant shops and small frame churches. But, there were problems. No constable was available to preserve order, and there was no provision for removing filth from the streets and hogs were the public scavengers. Its main road remained a mud road along which stagnant water lay in open ditches.
Drinking water was carried indoors from shallow wells and in warm weather Asiatic cholera cast the shadow of its sickle on the muddy streets of York. In 1832, 600 persons died of this disorder over which medical science had no control. Many of the corpses were interred in the Strangers' Burying Grounds, a six acre potter's field a mile and a half out of town at the north west corner of Bloor and Yonge Streets. In 1833, the stricken were lying awaiting death in open sheds the government had provided at Richmond and Peter Streets. As a sanitary precaution, tar barrels were burnt in the vicinity to dispel some malignant humidity in the air, and at regular intervals, gunpowder was exploded.
The absence of local municipal services in York is easily explained: taxes were not being levied to pay for them. The community on Toronto Bay was called a town, but this was a courtesy title. It was an unorganized hamlet and for municipal purposes, it formed part of the Home District which included several counties.
By 1833, conditions were unbearable, and the official aristocracy, stirred up by Sheriff William B. Jarvis devised a remedy that proved startling. From an unorganized hamlet, York was suddenly was raised by statute to the proud estate of an incorporated city with wide powers of municipal self government under an elected council of 20 members. The first council of the City of Toronto, was elected by wards, in 1834 under open polling conducted at convenient Taverns. The Reform ticket won, and William Lyon Mackenzie was appointed the first Mayor of Toronto. Among his duties, the mayor sat as a magistrate in the police court, and the last person to stand in the public stocks at Toronto was a woman sent there by Magistrate Mackenzie for throwing her shoe at his face in open court.
The members of Toronto's first council borrowed money from the bank on their personal endorsements, promising to repay it out of a higher tax levy. The proceeds were used to lay plank sidewalks. The irate property holders seized their first opportunity to vote Mackenzie and his followers out of office.
For Muddy Little York, the horn of progress had sounded. Industry, Intelligence, and Integrity had climbed aboard the coach. Crack went the whip of higher taxes, the horses of industry sprang into their collars and the City of Toronto was on its was to glory. Steam engines were then being installed to supply industrial power. The population increased from 4,000 in 1832 to 15,000 in 1842. After a long struggle and many trials, Toronto had established itself as the commercial and industrial center of the province.