THE SETTLEMENT OF YORK COUNTY

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 bay shore 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 bay shore 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 posess 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.

PUNTS AND FROG PONDS

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 Niagra 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 bushlands 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 hang-man 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.

YORK'S BLOODED GENTRY

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.

QUAKER BONNETS

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 meeting house 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 grey 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.

SILVER SNUFF BOXES

In 1817, Robert Gourlay recorded complaints from every section of the province of lack of schools, churches, capital, markets, cash money and especially passable roads. It was agreed on every hand that what Upper Canada required was an active immigration of farm settlers bringing some capital with them.
In startling contrast to the stagnation in Upper Canada, was the stir and bustle that was taking place across the border. Humanity continued to pour westward from New England . Such a mass movement of landseekers carried prosperity with it, and was drawing from Upper Canada discouraged settlers who left their lonely clearings to join the westbound throng.
In 1825, a streak of light pierced the clouds of gloom. In that year, 12,818 immigrants came up the St. Lawrence and thus began a great migration of landseekers that in 15 years cleared and fenced the fields of York County. By 1831, the influx into the province exceeded 50,000 persons a year.
This wave of immigration, which retained its distinct character till 1838, was composed of tenant farmers who came from all sections of the British Isles to resume farming on "estates" of their own in Upper Canada. Theirs had not been a hurried flight, and for most of them it had been a forced departure. The conditions in their homeland that dislodged them tell the sort of people they were.
By 1825, wars, and their costly victories, laws and their unforseen effects, had destroyed the security of the Old Country farm tenant. For centuries the English parish had its lord of the manor who dwelt amid the fields of his estate and enjoyed exclusive sporting on the parish commons over which others had defined rights to gather fuel and graze livestock. Of the seperate farms in a parish, some were occupied by freeholders, others were held under lease, often for a term of 3 lives. The remaining lands, sometimes a third of the whole, were cultivated under an ancient common field system.
Such farming practice may have been uneconomic, but it provided the parish labourer with the right to gather fuel, graze a cow or two, work a garden patch, harvest a strip of grain and thatch a rick of his own. The farm labourer was on the bottom of the ladder, and under such conditions, there was slow growth in the population of England.
To increase agricultural returns, a series of Enclosure Acts were passed, and by 1790, and end had been made to common field tillage, a change that increase manyfold the marketed farm produce of the kingdom, but in the process the parish cottager lost his rights on the land and was reduced to the position of a casual day labourer tethered to his parish by the laws of settlement. The only security left him was his right to parish pauper relief. Small farmers held on for a long time, but the years of despair saw the farmers of York County coming up the St. Lawrence in 1825.
Tenant families who joined in this exodus usually made an orderly departure in a dignified manner, after diligent enquiries and careful preparations. Neighbours marked the occasion by giving a farewell party, and as the Tory Islands faded from sight, the emigrant felt a lump in his throat and in his waistcoat pocket a small silver box on which was engraved: "Presented on the occasion of your departure for America by a few friends as a token of personal esteem."
A family with some means could establish its settlement in Upper Canada in comparative comfort. The voyage from Plymouth to New York on a clipper consumed from 4-7 weeks. The captain of the fast sailing ship, The Ontario, provided a good table. The dinner included soups, fresh mutton, beef, pork and veal, roasted turkeys, geese, plum pudding, pastry, oranges and wines. A cabin fare was $140. There was a library aboard and in fair weather a pleasant time was had. Steerage passengers who stayed below deck and found for themselves paid $18 passage money. The great majority of the settlers came steerage to the St. Lawrence, conserving what funds they had. Unpartitioned living and sleeping quarters were provided in the hold that had a height of five and a half feet between decks, and for provisions, a passenger was required to bring aboard 50 pounds of oatmeal or its equivalent.
Farm lots in York County were more expensive than in districts further west, and it follows that those who settled in this area had more than the average amount of money in their wallets. In 1831, newcomers deposited 1,600,000 pounds in the banks, and the townships of Scarborough, Markham, Vaughan, York and Etobicoke felt the benefit of this immigration from its opening days.

THE VOICE OF TORONTO

In 1833, the Town of York had govenment 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 malegnant 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 increase 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 centre of the province.

*Taken from the book The Settlement of York County by John Mitchell, 1950