page_title: Old Toronto
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Old Toronto / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Celebrating the incorporation of the City of Toronto, Upper Canada, in 1834. With a population of 10,000, it became the province's first incorporated city.
context_page_description: Old Toronto is an administrative district and the retronym of the area within the original city limits of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, from 1834 to 1998. It was first incorporated as a city in 1834, after being known as the town of York, and became part of York County.
  In 1954, it became the administrative headquarters for the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto. The city expanded in size by annexation of surrounding municipalities, reaching its final boundaries in 1967. Finally, in 1998, it was amalgamated with the other cities of Metropolitan Toronto; and the borough of East York, into the present-day city of Toronto. It was not a traditional annexation of the surrounding municipalities in which a city absorbs the said municipalities but officially remains the same city, but it was rather a new municipal entity that is the successor of the original city.
  Historically, "Old Toronto" referred to Toronto's boundaries before the Great Toronto Fire of 1904, when much of city's development was to the east of Yonge Street. Since the amalgamation, the former city is variously referred to as the "former city of Toronto" or "Old Toronto."
context_section_description: The former town of York was incorporated on March 6, 1834, reverting to the name Toronto to distinguish it from New York City, as well as about a dozen other localities named "York" in the province (including the county in which Toronto was situated), and to dissociate itself from the negative connotation of "dirty Little York", a common nickname for the town by its residents. The population was recorded in June 1834 at 9,252.
  In 1834, Toronto was incorporated with the boundaries of Bathurst Street to the west, 400 yards north of Lot (today's Queen) Street to the north, and Parliament Street to the east. Outside this formal boundary were the "liberties", land pre-destined to be used for new wards. These boundaries were today's Dufferin Street to the west, Bloor Street to the north, and the Don River to the east, with a section along the lakeshore east of the Don and south of today's Queen Street to the approximate location of today's Maclean Street. The liberties formally became part of the city in 1859 and the wards were remapped.
  William Lyon Mackenzie, a Reformer, was Toronto's first mayor, a position he only held for one year, losing to Tory Robert Baldwin Sullivan in 1835. Sullivan was replaced by Dr. Thomas David Morrison in 1836. Another Tory, George Gurnett, was elected in 1837. That year, Toronto was the site of the key events of the Upper Canada Rebellion. Mackenzie would eventually lead an assault on Montgomery's Tavern, beginning the Upper Canada Rebellion. The attacks were ineffectual, as British regulars, and the Canadian militia in Toronto went out to the rebel camp at Montgomery's Tavern and dispersed the rebels. Mackenzie and other Reformers escaped to the United States, while some rebel leaders, such as Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews, were hanged. Toronto would elect a succession of Tory or Conservative mayors, and it was not until the 1850s that a Reform member would be mayor again. Shortly after the rebellion, Toronto was ravaged by its first great fire in 1849. The fire was one of two great fires to occur in the city, with the other occurring in 1904.
  It is a matter of deep regret that political differences should have run high in this place, and led to most discreditable and disgraceful results. It is not long since guns were discharged from a window in this town at the successful candidates in an election, and the coachman of one of them was actually shot in the body, though not dangerously wounded. But one man was killed on the same occasion; and from the very window whence he received his death, the very flag which shielded his murderer (not only in the commission of his crime, but from its consequences), was displayed again on the occasion of the public ceremony performed by the Governor General, to which I have just adverted. Of all the colours in the rainbow, there is but one which could be so employed: I need not say that flag was orange.
  — Charles Dickens, commenting on 1841 Toronto Orange violence in American Notes for General Circulation, 1842
  In their efforts to control the city and its citizens, the Tories were willing to turn to extra-governmental tools of social control, such as the Orange Order in Canada. As historian Gregory Kealey concluded, "Following the delegitimation of Reform after the Rebellions were suppressed, the Corporation (of Toronto) developed into an impenetrable bastion of Orange-Tory strength." By 1844, six of Toronto's ten aldermen were Orangemen, and over the rest of the 19th century, twenty of twenty-three mayors would be as well. A parliamentary committee reporting on the 1841 Orange Riot in Toronto concluded that the powers granted the Corporation made it ripe for Orange abuse. Orange influence dominated the emerging police force, giving it a "monopoly of legal violence, and the power to choose when to enforce the law." Orange Order violence at elections and other political meetings was a staple of the period. Between 1839 and 1866, the Orange Order was involved in 29 riots in Toronto, of which 16 had direct political inspiration.
  At its height in 1942, 16 of t
caption: Residents celebrate the incorporation of York into the City of Toronto in 1834.
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