Dundas Street was named by John Graves Simcoe in honour of the Right Honourable Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville. Like Yonge Street, named in a similar example of cronyism, Dundas Street was created as a defensive road. Simcoe feared the impending invasion of the Americans following the Revolutionary War, an event which would occur in 1812. Dundas Street was to connect York with Detroit, then a British settlement; it reached as far as London, Simcoe's proposed new capital. The street was constructed by the Queen's Rangers between Dundas and the Thames River in 1794, and later extended east to York by pioneer road builder Asa Danforth in 1797.