page_title: Battle of York
section_title: Burning of York
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of York / Surrender / Burning of York
caption_attribution_description: English: A 95 x 203 mm pen and ink drawing of the first Upper Canada Parliament, destroyed in the War of 1812. The site was first developed for the colony's Parliament commencing in 1794, and the buildings were burned to the ground by American forces on 27 April 1813. This drawings dates to the 1890s. An interpretive centre was opened on the site, located in what is now Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 2012. According to the displays in the centre, the buildings were one storey, red brick, measuring 24 by 40 feet, built 75 feet apart. The walkway connecting the two building was made of wood and added later. Committees met in smaller wooden outbuildings, also added later.
context_page_description: The Battle of York was fought on April 27, 1813, in York, the capital of the colonial province of Upper Canada, during the War of 1812. An American force supported by a naval flotilla landed on the lake shore to the west and advanced against the town, which was defended by an outnumbered force of regulars, militia and Ojibway natives under the overall command of Major General Roger Hale Sheaffe, the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada.
  Sheaffe's forces were defeated and Sheaffe retreated with his surviving regulars to Kingston, abandoning the militia and civilians. The Americans captured the fort, town and the dockyard. They themselves suffered heavy casualties, including force leader Brigadier General Zebulon Pike and others killed when the retreating British blew up the fort's magazine. The American forces subsequently carried out several acts of arson and looting in the town before they withdrew several days later.
  Though the Americans won a clear victory, it did not have decisive strategic results as York was a less important objective in military terms than Kingston, where the British armed vessels on Lake Ontario were based.
context_section_description: Between April 28 and 30, American troops carried out many acts of plunder. Some of them set fire to the buildings of the Legislative Assembly, and Government House, home to the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada. It was alleged that the American troops had found a scalp there, though folklore had it that the "scalp" was actually the Speaker's wig. The Parliamentary mace of Upper Canada was taken back to Washington and was only returned in 1934 as a goodwill gesture by President Franklin Roosevelt. The Printing Office, used for publishing official documents as well as newspapers, was vandalized and the printing press was smashed. Other Americans looted empty houses on the pretext that their absent owners were militia who had not given their parole as required by the articles of capitulation. The homes of Canadians connected with the Natives, including that of James Givins, were also looted regardless of their owners' status. Before they departed from York, the Americans razed most of the structures in the fort, except the barracks.
  During the looting, several officers under Chauncey's command took books from York's first subscription library. After finding out his officers were in possession of looted library books, Chauncey had the books packed in two crates, and returned to York. However, by the time the books arrived, the library had closed, and the books were auctioned off in 1822. Several looted items ended up in the possession of the locals, with Sheaffe later alleging that local settlers had unlawfully come into possession of government owned farming tools or other stores looted and discarded by the Americans, and demanded that they be handed back.
  The looting of York occurred in spite of Pike's earlier orders that all civilian property be respected, and that any soldier convicted of such transgressions would be executed. Dearborn similarly emphatically denied giving orders for any buildings to be destroyed and deplored the worst of the atrocities in his letters, but he was nonetheless unable or unwilling to rein in his soldiers. Dearborn himself was embarrassed by the looting, as it made a mockery of the terms of surrender he arranged. His soldiers' disregard for the terms he arranged, and local civil leaders' continued protest against them, made Dearborn eager to leave York as soon as all the captured stores were transported.
caption: The first building of the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada, along with a number of other buildings was set ablaze in the days after the battle.
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