IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) A .// .^"°^^. fi / v ^ 7a 1.0 I.I *'» IK I 40 IIM IM 1.8 1.25 1.4 1.6 .4 6" - ► 7>^/ (meaning "CON- TINUED"), or the symbol y (meaning "END"), whichever applies^ Un des symboles suivants apparaftra sur la derniire image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: la symbole — ► signifie "A SUIVRE ', le symbole V signifie "FIN". Maps, plates, charts, etc., mey be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diegrams illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre filmAs d des taux de reduction diff6rents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul clichi, 11 est film6 A partir de Tangle supirieur gauche, de gauche A droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images nicessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mithode. rrata :o pelure, 1 d □ 32X 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 k)"^^ TORONTO'S FIRST GERM r (FOKT TORONTO) \ .*♦.*: SOME EXPLANATORY NOTES IN RELATION THERETO, BY HENRY SCADDING, D.D., AUTHOR OP " TORONTO OF OLD. " \ "^' s? PRINTED BY DRSIRB OF JUE EXHIBITION COMMITTBB. TORONTO ; 1>HINTK,0 AT THl'i (HJA.RDIA.N" BOOK A.NU JOB OFFICK t COURT STREET 1878. TORONTO'S FIRST GERM. There is, in the heart of Switzerland, a famous hike, always visited by tourists, known as the Lake of tlie Four Forest Cantons. It is remarkable, not only for its great beauty and the sublime magnificence of its mountainous surroundings, but also for being the centre, so to speak, from which the Switzerland of to-day has been developed. Within view of its waters is Schwyz, the primitive settlement from which the whole country has taken its name ; and the four cantons which were the first to enter into a confederacy against the feudal claims of Albert of Hapsburg, line its shores. Now it seems to me that our Lake Simcoe possesses for Canadians — for Canadians of OnLtirio, at all events — an interest somewhat similar to that which invests the Lake of the Four Forest Cantons, in Switzerland ; while for the in- habitants of Toronto, in particular, so far as the name and initial germ of their city are concerned, it is, as it were, the very " hole of the pit whence they were digged." Our Lake Simcoe is not, of course, for one moment to be compared with the Swiss lake in point of natural scenery ; but it is curiously connected with the first beginnings of Canadian history : it even happens to have been in its day a " Lake of I^our Cantons," having been anciently encircled, and, in a sense, possessed, by the Hurons or Wyandots, a remarkable people, that consisted of four confederated nations or cantons, as the French expressed it. These associated " sava- ges " appear to have adopted the habits of a sedentary people to a degree beyond what was usual with the northern aborigines generally. Populous villages were to be met with everywhere throughout tlieir domain, rudely tortified in some instances, and surrounded by fields of maize. " Tlie people of the Huron 4 Toronto' 8 First Oerm. language," writes Charlevoix (TTistorieat Journal of Travel in North America, i. 1G6), " have always applied themselves more than others to cultivating the land. T'ley have also extended themselves much less. Hence, first, they are better settled, better lodged, and better fortified ; and there has always been among them more policy and a more distinguished form of government ; and, second, their country was more peopled, though they never allowed polygamy." Old clearings, traces of cultiva- tion, fragments of earthenware, stone hatchets, chisels, pipes, arrow-heads, frequently exhumed to this day, and especially the numerous extensive ossuaries, or burying-places, all attest the ([uondani populousness of the Huron country round Lake Simcoe, and the comparative civilization of its occupants at some period in the past. Neighbouring tribes, west, east, and north, were allies of the Huron confederacy, and acted on occasion with it. (One allied nation in the vicinity cultivated and traded in tobacco, and hence was known as the Tobacco Tribe — gens de petun) ; and in what is now the townsliip of Sunnidale, near the Nottawasaga River, there are the tangible remains oi an exten- sive Huron earthenware manufactory. The enemies dreaded by the Hurons were the hw^uois, five confederated nations known among the French by that name, and chiefly occupying at the time what is now the State of New York. " They come like foxes, tliey attack like lions, and fly away like birds : " so it was commonly said of the Iroquois, Charlevoix reports {ut supra, i. 170). These were the plague of the Hurons. Ever and anon they nuide their raid, plund'^ring and burning villages ; slaughtering the inhabitants ; robbing the traders, en route to Montreal by the Ottawa waters, of their packs of furs. In the year 1648-9, they succeeded in reducing the region round Lake Simcoe to the condition of a desert ; and from the blow then inflicted, the country, as an Indian country, never recovered. So early as 1615 twenty-two soldiers were sent up by Cham- plain from Quebec, for the protection of French interests, antl to give confidence to the friendly Hurons. At the same time a mission began to be organized in this locality; first, by the Kecollets, or reformed Franciscans ; and, then, by the Jesuits ; ^jajjsummmmmm Toronto's First Gei'm. and here some of the members of the latter society umlerweut dreadful sufferings and, in several instances, a most cruel death, in their heroic effort to Christianize, in their peculiar way, the native j)opulation. After shifLinj^ its head-quarters from place to place on the mainland, and thence at length to the neighbour- ing island of St. Joseph — known to the passing tourist now as Christian Island — the mission WEi withdrawn in 1G50 ; and some hundreds of the converts followed their spiritual instruc- tors to the vicinity of Quebec, where their descendants still inhabit the villages of Lorette. Willi profound regret the mis- sionaries abandoned a country which tliey rightly regarded as the key to a vast heathendom beyond. The residue of the confed- eracy dis])ersed far and wide. " AVe have seen with astonish- ment," exclaims Charlevoix (i. ITOj, " one of the most numerous nations and the most warlike of the continent, and the most esteemed of all for their wisdom and understanding, disappear almost entirely in a few years." The early history of the region which surrounds Lake Simcoe is thus, we see, associated with the annals of the city of Quebec and its environs. The villages of Old and New Lorette still tell of the Hurons of these pavt:^. Ihit the Lake Simcoe region is much more intimately connected with the history of the city of 1 oronto. The name " Toronto " did not spring from any matter or thing appertaining to the locality ou which the city of Toronto now stands. That name is wholly due to the circumstances of the Lake Simcoe region at the time of the existence of the Franciscan or Jesuit Mission in that quarter. If we look at a map of Canada and observe the triangular area shut in by the waters of the Ottawa, Lake Nipissing, and French liiver on the east and north ; by the waters of the St. Lawrence and Lakes Ontario and Erie on the south; and by the waters of Lakes St. Clair and Huron and Georgian Bay ou the west, — we shall see that Lake Simcoe occupies the position of a centre or focus within it. In accordance with this physical fact we find Lake Simcoe had become, in the year 1615, a marked rallying-point, a grand rendezvous, a distinguished " place of meeting " for the Huron tribes and their allies ; and hence arose the expression which came at length to be applied to it geographically, namely. 6 Toronto's First Oemi. Toronto — a word explained by Gabriel Sagard, tbe Franciscan, in bis Dictionari/ of the Huron Tonijue, (Paris, 1032), to mean, in French, Beaucoup, much or plenty. Under the form Toronton it is applied by him to persons as well as things : as in the phrase, " He has killed a number of S."isay Sonnontouans or Senecas), Toronton S. ahouyo. So that, taken as an appellation of the Lake Siracoe region, it probably denoted in French, Lieu ou il y a heaucoitp cle yens — a place where there is a numerous popula- tion. (In another connection Sagard gives the word as 0-toronton. In Lahontan's Quelqiu.s Mots Haron-'i (see his Nouveaux Voyaye.% ii. 220), it is A-toroaton). Other waters besides those of Lake Simcoe sometimes had the term " Toronti; " a})plied to them. Thus in some old maps the lakes leading to the Itiver Trent and Bay of Quiul(^, are calleil the Toronto Lakes, dmibtless because one of the highways to the Toronto region from the south-east lay through them. Some- times the River Humber was sjioken of as the Toronto Kiver, its valley and that of the Holland liiver containing a well-beaten trail to the great Huron rendezvous. The intricate, island- studded inlet of the Georgian Bay, at tlie mouth of the Severn River, now known as (Uoucester and Matchedash Bay, was styled the "Bay of Toronto," its waters penetrating far into the Toronto region. This extensive estuary of Lake Huron, drawn, however, with only an approximation to its real shape, figures conspicu- ously as " The Bay of Toronto " on Herman Moll's maj) of 1720, a oopy of which I possess — a map constructed from authorities of a much earlier date. Lahontan, in 1()92, says, " It was called the Bay of Toronto Ijecause it received a river which ran out of a small lake of the same name" (iVoveaux Voynyes, ii. 19); so that if we chose to press the point, it might be maintained that Lake Couchiching is Lake Toronto proper. But our present distinction between Lake Couchiching and Lake Simcoe is not observed in the old maps, and the whole of Lake Simcoe is, iu them, unmistakealjly " Lake Toronto." I will not now enter at any length u[)ou the sul)Ject of the slight variations iu the form of the word " Toronto," observable in some old documents and maps. It might easily be shown that the substitution of an a or an <■ for the o, arose sometimes froui a defective ear in the t ^ 1^ T ( IP Toronto's First Germ, 7 reporter, and sometimes from his illiteracy ; and in the maps, from a misreading of the engraver. Hai)pily, in the now firmly- established and familiar household word Toronto, we have secured for ever the exact literal form of the term which was most current with the highest French authorities during the French regime, and must be regarde I as its true normal form, so far as such a thing can be said of any aboriginal and anciently unwritten term. In some maps Lake Simcoe appears as Ouenda- ronk, probably the same term us Toronto, witli a nasal prefix common in Indian words, but which in other names besides Toronto disappeared in the lapse of time; as in Niagara for Onyakara, Cboueguen for Ochoueguen (Oswego), Alaska for Onalaska. It Is to be remarked, too, that in Ouentaronk, the nasal soutul of the final syllable of Toronto, or rather Toronton, is represented. In the small map prefixed by Parkman to his Jesuits in Am»rica, the word is Wentctron, that is, Ouentaron, And in La Crcux's map, 1660, reproduced in Bressani's Abridg- ment of the Eelations, wherein tlie names are given in J^atin, Lake Simcoe appears as Lacus Ouintaronius, still plainly the same name in Latinized form. It will thus be seen that there can be little doubt that " Place of Meeting," place of concourse, place where unusual numbers congregate, is the true interpretation of " Toronto." It is, as we gather froni Sagard's dictionary, a Huron or Wyandot expression, not an Iroquois word. It originated in the Huron country, the Lake Simcoe region, and not in the locality where the City of Toronto stands. So that " Trees rising out of the water," or " Log floating on the water," as conjectured by Mohawk or Seneca etymologists (see Lewis H. Morgan, Lcnyiie of the Iroquois, p. 74, and Lossing's Field Book of the War of 1812, p. 587), from resemblance in sound to an Iroquois word having some such meaning, is illusory. It was by a popular misuse of terms that the word Toronto came to be a[)plied to the small trading-post or " fort," established in 1749, on the north shore of Lake Ontario, not far from the mouth of the Humber. The proper and official name of this erection was Fort Ilouillt^, so called in com[)liment to Antoine Louis liouille, the Colonial minister of the day. But traders and 8 Toronto's First Oerm. coureAirs du hois preferred to speak of Fort Eouille as Fort Toronto, because it stood at the landing-place of the southern terminus of the trail which conducted up to the well-known " Toronto," the place of concourse, the great Huron rendezvous sixty miles to the north ; and the popular pliraseology ultimately, prevailed. In 1752, in a despatch to Eouille himself, still Colonial minister, given at length in " Documents relating to the Colonial History of the State of New York," x. 246, published at Albany in 1858, the Baron de Longueuil, successor to La Jonquiere in the governor-generalship, refers to the post under both names ; first as Fort Eouille, and then, falling into the cus- tomary way of speaking, as " Toronto." The establishment of this new depot of trade witli the Indians was due to the policy recommended by the enlightened Count de la Galissoniere, who was appointed ad interim Governor of New France during the absence of the Marquis de la Jonquiere, taken prisoner by the English, i.e., 1747-49. (To obtain a lively idea of Galissoniere and his times, let the reader peruse with attention Mr. Kirby's earefully-worked-out historical tale, en- titled, Le Chien d'Or.) Materials for the erection of Fort Toronto had already been collected during Galissoiiiere's brief reign ; and La Jonc^uiere, on his liberation and assumption of the Government in 1749, was authorized to complete tlie work begun, and to furnish the post with goods suited for traffic with the Indians, who were thereby to be induced not to take their furs to the British trading of Choueguen, i.e., Oswego. (See Documents, etc., as above, X. 246.) Some pieces of cloth, which he*.' been recently sent out from France as a sample of the goods to be offered to the Indians, were instantly condemned at Quebec, and ordered to be sent back. " The article is frightful," Governor La Jonquiere and tlie Intendant Bigot both declare ; " the red cloth is brown," they say, " and unpressed, and the blue is a very inferior quality to that of England, and, as long as such ventures are sent, they will not become favourites with the Indians." (x. 200.) At p. 202 it appears that a fear had been expressed by M. Bigot that the opening of the new trading-post at Toronto would injure the trade at Forts Ningaia and Frontenac. But tlien, it is added, if 1 i Toronto' 8 First Oerm. i there be less trade at these two last-meiitioneJ posts, there will be less transportation of mercliandize, so tliat what will be lost on the one side will be gained on tlie other, and it will amount to nearly tlie same in the end. Bigot also had ]»rop()sed "to oblige those who will farm (cvphifcr) Toronto, to sell tlieir goods at a reasona])le price." Garneau, in his History of Cana la, ii. 11 ti (Andrew liell's translation), says that tlie fort built at Toronto was of stone; but this was certainly not the case, as is proved by llie remains of tlie structure itself, and .dso l)y the language of the otUcial " Abstract of Despatches," kept at Paris or A''ersailles (see Documents as above), which speaks only of the transport of tiniber to the spot. Fort Toronto vis nothing more than a .stockaded storehouse, with rpiarters i- a keeper and a few soldiers, after the fashion of a small Hudson's Ijay trading-post. A large portion of the site which, 't-y years ag'^ used commonly t(, be visited as that of the " Oi.l French Furt,'' is now fallen into the lake; but depre-ss^jns, marking tV.e -situation of cellars and portions of some ancient foundations connected with out-buildings nre still dis'^ernible. as also indications of che line of the stockade on the north side. Formerly thev;, were conspicuous iLiuains of flagged flooring and the basement of chimneys. Tli" cleared space in which the fort stood is nuirked in an old plan in the Crown Lands Office, and shown also (without being designated in terms) on Sandforil Fleming's Topographical Plan of Toronto, 1851. It extended westward a little beyond the present Dufferin Avenue. This cleared space is to be seen also plainly marked on the plan illustrating " the battle of York," April 27, 1813, given by Auchinleck in his History of the War of 1812-13-14, p. 146, and also in that given, p. 590, in Lossing's Field Book of the War of 1812. The sketch of the remains of the Old French Fort, engraved in the latter work, p. 593, is based on a wrong supposition : the artist evidently mistook some of the " butts," put up of late years for rifle practice, as relics of the fort. The spot, however, on which the sketcher represents himself as sitting, is really a portion of the site of which he was in quest. It was the intention of General Dearborn, the United States commander of the expedition against York (Toronto) in 1813, to !0 Toronto's First Oerm. land his forces at the clearing round the Old French Fort, but "an easterly wind, blovins,' with violence, drove tlie small boats ill which the troops lett the fleet full half a mile farther west- ward, and beyond an effectual covering by the guns of the navy." The site of the t^^ading establishment which was thus, as we have seen, destined to be the initial germ of the present city of Toronto, is now enclosed within the bounds of the park apper- taining to the Exhibition Buildings of the city. The spot where the post stood is exactly in the south-west angle of the enclosure, overlooking the lake ; and iiere a cairn or mound, commemorative of the fact, has been erected by the Corporation (1878). On its top rests a massive granite boulder, bearing the following inscription: "This cairn marks the exact site of Fort Rouille, commonly known as Fort Toronto, an Indian Trading-post and Stockade, established A.I). 1749 by order of the Government of Louis XV., in accordance v/ith the recommendations of the Count de la Galissoniere, Administrator of New France, 1747-1749. Erected by the Corporation of the City of Toronto, A.I). 1878." The boulder which bears the inscription has been allowed to retain its natural features. It was dredged up out of the navi- gable channel which leads into the adjoining harbour. It may be subjoined as a rather curious circumstance that, while descendants of the ancient allies of the French, the Hurons of our classic Lake Simcoe region, are still to be seen in the Province of Quebec, namely, at the village of Old and New Lorette, in the neighbourhood of the city of Quebec, — descendants equally, if not more numerous, of their sworn foes, the lro([Uois, — the allies, on the whole, of England, are to be seen in our own Province of Ontario, namely, on the Grand River, in the neigh- bourhood of Brantford. It should be added, too, j)erhaps, that among the legends collected by Schoolcraft in his " American Indians," Itochester, 1851, there is one, p. 130, entitled Aingodon and Naywadaha, in which the. scone of the story is Toronto, meaning, thereby, the Toronto region of Lake Simcoe. A kind of aboriginal .loan of Arc figures in it, who has strange visions, and is the means of accomplishing for her tribe and its associates a great deliverance. Finally, the present opportunity should not be mi~sed of clearing i i 1 ?. > \ t f^rO ' / ^. .■ I { •' |— »-i) ->^A fi' Toronto^s First Oerm. li f up one more mystery connected with the employment of the term "Toronto." It has been discovered from certain title deeds of property in Port Hope thcic that place, at the outset of its history, bore for awhile the name of " Toronto." This, without doubt, arose from a suggestion on the part of Mr. Charles Fothergill, a resident in that quarter a' the time. Mr. Fothergill was a man of taste, and desired the revival and perpetuation of a beautiful appellation ; and so he contrived to have it attaclied to the newly -projected village. It had already been affixed to a townshij) and "gore" in the Home District, and its inappropriate- ness as the name of a village in the township of Hope must soon have become apparent. It is curious to observe that, before Mr. Fothergill's day, confusion had occurred between the sites of Port Hope and Toronto. Some have asserted that to the locality on which Toronto now stands the name of Teiaiasion or Teyaogen was .once applied, whilst others have maintained that Teiaigon or Teyaogen denoted the site of the present Port Hope. In Documents, etc., as above, ix. 218, we have the following note by the editor : " In Corouelli's map of 1688, this Indian village, Teiaiagon, is laid down about the present site of Port Hope, Canada West ; but on Charlevoix and later maps it occupies what is now Toronto. Possibly they moved," the writer adds, "from the former to the latter point." The truth, iiowever, appears to be that Teiaiagon or Teyaogen was a term applied, in Iroquois dialects, to any place where ooi/afjfeiirs had to leave tiieir canoes and undertaiie a tranqj over- land to Home distauco. So tliat the landing-place near tlie mouth of the Humber, and that near the mouth of Smith's Creek (the river at Port [Ioi)e), would each of them be a Teiaiagon or Teyaogen ; the former for traders or Indian baruls going to the Toronto region round Lake Simcoe, and the latter for parties on their way to Rico Lake and the back lakes generally. In "Documents," etc, as above, vii. 110, we are informed that Teyaog(3n in Innpiois, is "an inteivnl, or anything in the middle of or between two other things. Hence Teibcjhogen, the Forks of a river." The first Ca/etteer of U[)per Canada, ITHH, unhesitatingly says: "Teyaogen, on the niu'tb side of Like Ontario, lies about *./ «-;• ^y< 'IP' /^ / H^ t-o /'^"t C'^^ , Cff- 12 Toronto's First Germ. half-way between York (Toronto) and the head of the Bay of Qiiinte." This would indicate the site of the present Port Hope. It is to be observed that the maps of all the parts of this con- tinent were, of course, in the first instance very rudely and inartistically drawn. The contour of lakes, the course and length of rivers, the sites and relative positions of places, were jotted down, under every disadvantage, by transient explorers of limited experience and views, and from the mere verbal reports of canoe- men and Indians. Hence misconceptions and confusions, of the kind alluded to, were (]uite likely to occur. W6J| APPENDIX. I By way of Appendix I give the full text of se^'en I paHsages relating to the original Tcironto, from which, in the preceding paper, brief extracts were taken. I. Documenta relating to the Colonial History of the State of Xew York, (Paris Documents) x. 201. "From Abstract of D('s|tatches from Canada," [kept at Paris or Versailles.] (Date of Abstract, 30th April, 1749.) " Fort built at Toronto. On being informed that the northern Indians ordinarily went to Choueguen with their peltries, by way of Toronto [i.e. by the trail leading up the valley of the Humber], on the north-west side of Lake Ontario, twenty-five leagues from Niagara, [i e. going round the head of the lake] and seventy-five from Fort Frontenac, they [i.c the Governor and intendant at Ouebec] thought it advisable to estaldish a post at that jilace, and to send thither an officer, fifteen soldiers, and some workmen, to construct a small stockaded fort there. Its expense will not be great ; the timber is transported there, and the remainder will be conveyed by the barks belonging to Fort Frontenac . Too much care cannot be taken to prevent these Indians continuing their trade with the English, and to furnish tiiem, at this post, with all their necessaries, even as cheap as at Clioueguen. Messrs. de la Jon(|uiere and Bigot will permit some canoes to go there on licence, an^ '*v\> ^<^ U-^iJ^ V,^ (cVr )^ 4j.,,Y^^ V»jU> *"