page_title: York, Upper Canada
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: York, Upper Canada / History
caption_attribution_description: English: A map of York Harbour (now Toronto Harbour noting the site for the city of York, Upper Canada (ten blocks labelled with 'D'). The proposed site for Fort York is labelled with a 'C' at the mouth of the stream furthest to the left. The Don River is also marked.
context_page_description: York was a town and second capital of the district of Upper Canada. It is the predecessor to the old city of Toronto. 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.
context_section_description: When Europeans first arrived at the site of York, the vicinity was inhabited by the Iroquoian Seneca tribe (from the Five Nations Iroquois of New York State), who by then had displaced the Wyandot (Huron) tribes that had occupied the region for centuries before c. 1600. By 1701, the Iroquoian 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 Huron 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 Huron 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.
  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 Mississauga 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
caption: A map detailing the plan for York Harbour from 1793. On the map, Fort York is labelled as C, whereas the settlement of York was labelled as D.
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