John Graves Simcoe, 1752-1806

by Mary Beacock Fryer

  Pray give my love to Miss Hunt; tell her there are as many feathers, flowers and gauze dresses at our balls (which are every fortnight) as at Honiton Assembly & seldom less than eighteen couples. I have not attended them because I was, the greatest part of the winter in expectation of being confined.13

  On 4 February, Simcoe set off on a much longer journey than the mere stroll to Burlington Bay. His objective was Detroit, travelling by way of the La Tranche River, “no European having gone that track & the Indians are to carry Provisions.” Elizabeth was disappointed not to be with him, but she had not recovered her strength after the birth of Katherine. Simcoe’s first stop was the Mohawk village on the Grand River, where Captain Joseph Brant and a party of braves joined him to serve as helpers and guides. The “Gov. wore a fur Cap tippet & Gloves & Maucassins [sic] but no Great Coat. His servant carried two Blankets & Linen. The other Gentlemen carried their Blankets in a pack on their Back.” The other gentlemen were Major Littlehales, Lieutenant Talbot, and Lieutenant David William Smith. Escorting them came a dozen Queen’s Rangers. When the Mohawk warriors caught sight of the governor’s party, they fired a feu de joie in welcoming “His Excellency, the Representative of the King, Their Father.” The governor took with him a brace of pistols, a gift for Brant from the Duke of Northumberland.

  Enclosed with the pistols was a letter from His Grace:

  My dear Joseph

  Colonel Simcoe, who is going out [as] Governor of Upper Canada, is kind enough to promise to deliver this to you, with a brace of pistols which I desire you will keep for my sake. I must particularly recommend the Colonel to you and the nation. He is a most intimate friend of mine and is possessed of every good quality which can recommend him to your friendship. He is brave, humane, sensible and honest. You may rely upon whatever he says for he will not deceive you. He loves and honours the Indians, whose noble sentiments so perfectly correspond with his own. He wishes to live upon the best terms with them. In short he is worthy to be a Mohawk. Love him as your own …

  Your affectionate friend and Brother,

  Northumberland,

  “Thorighwegri”14

  During the governor’s absence, Elizabeth found plenty to do. She was entertained on Sunday 17 February by some ladies of the Queen’s Rangers at Queenston, now the headquarters of the regiment. The Rangers had built many huts as their new barracks. Elizabeth slept in Simcoe’s hut, which held the tapestry from the Marquis of Buckingham. On 21 February a letter arrived from the governor. The La Tranche River, 150 miles from its mouth, was as wide as the Thames at Reading. He had re-named the river the Thames in honour of its English counterpart. Snow still fell as March arrived, and ice in the Niagara River, pushed by the strong current from the Falls, was piling into a great jam. Early spring was again a time of boredom. Getting about when the snow was melting was as difficult as they had found it in Quebec City.

  Simcoe arrived at Newark on 10 March looking remarkably fit. His party had travelled 500 miles, part of the way by sleigh, but more often on foot or snowshoes. Life in the woods truly agreed with him. His only regret was lacking Elizabeth’s company. He had sketched many maps which she was eager to redraw for him. He had agreed to send tools and seeds to the Moravian village in time for planting. After meeting the missionaries, he thought them fine men, doing good work among the Delaware people. The inhabitants had fed Simcoe’s party and let them sleep in their houses. They were squatters, but they merited a grant of 5,000 acres. He had spent only four days at Detroit, and when he was leaving, the government ships in the harbour fired a salute. Simcoe had ordered prayers to be read in the woods on the Sunday of his visit. Forty attended, a small number, but the regular troops had their own chaplain. The 24th Regiment under Lieutenant Colonel Richard England, had replaced the 5th Regiment when it moved to Fort Niagara. The civilians at Detroit were mainly French speaking and Roman Catholic, residents whose forebears had settled along the Detroit River before the fall of New France.

  Simcoe had eaten raccoons, which he found rather like pork and quite tasty. Jack Sharp, their Newfoundland dog, had a nasty brush with a porcupine. The long barbed quills, which adhered to his neck when he attacked the slow-moving creature, proved difficult to remove, and the dog was ill for some days afterwards. A party of natives who preceded Simcoe and his officers had built shelters of bark and boughs each day. When the governor’s party stopped at five o’clock each evening, a meal was cooked and ready. After supping the officers sang “God Save the King” before settling down to sleep, feet close to a roaring fire. Best of all, Simcoe’s expectations for the site of his capital were confirmed. The forks would make the perfect spot. The land along the Thames was excellent — a fine plain at the forks, dry and, characteristic of virgin forest, lacking in underbrush. Nearby was a spring of petroleum which they found by its strong odour. Three days after his return, the pressures were again affecting Simcoe’s health. Though suffering from gout in one of his hands, he was anxious to begin work on the new capital, which he had decided to call New London. Rumours spread that Fort Niagara would soon be handed over to the Americans. In that event, Newark would be a tempting target. Britain and France were again on the verge of war. If the Americans renewed their former alliance with the French, they could destroy Newark in hours.

  He sent John Scadding and one of his deputy surveyors, Augustus Jones, to the forks of the Thames to explore the site more thoroughly. He trusted Scadding’s judgement in evaluating the land for agriculture. Jones had orders to lay out a line from the forks to Burlington Bay. Simcoe wanted his Rangers to build a road so that troops could reach Detroit by land. An enemy could easily cut off the Western District at Niagara. Of even greater importance than the capital was a safe naval base on Lake Ontario. He planned to take a party to explore the Toronto Carrying Place, so named because it was a portage route. He had heard that it had a fine harbour.

  A matter that required legislation at the next meeting of the legislature was slavery. On 21 March he called an executive council meeting over an outrage committed against a black woman. Appearing before the council, Peter Martin a free black soldier of Butler’s Rangers, testified to:

  … a violent outrage committed by one Fromond, an inhabitant of this Province, residing near Queenston (or the west landing) on the person of Chloe Cooley, a negro girl in his service by binding her and violently and forcibly transporting her across the river, and delivering her against her will to certain persons unknown …15

  Martin’s testimony was supported by William Gresley, who stated that Fromond had told him of his intention to sell “his negro wench” to some persons in the States. Gresley had seen the young woman, bound and screaming, conveyed across the river. He also said that he had seen a similarly bound black man, and had heard that many other people intended to “do the same by their negros.” The council resolved to stop such “violent breaches of the peace” and a misuse of Canadian territory. They instructed John White, the attorney general, to draft a bill respecting slavery to present to the legislature when it convened in May.

  When the weather turned hot in April, Elizabeth moved with the nurses and children to the hut above Queenston. The Queen’s Rangers’ mess supplied the meals. After dinner an officer escorted everyone back to the hut, and the band played until six o’clock. “Music adds chearfulness to this retired spot & we feel much indebted to the Marquis of Buckingham,” she wrote on 3 April.16 On the 5th she recorded the demise of Trojan, the map chewer. With the thermometer registering 78 degrees in the shade, 112 in the sun, the dog became ill. One of the soldiers mistook his condition for rabies and shot him. Elizabeth was angry. Shortly before he died, Trojan had showed that he was sane by running into the water to cool himself off.

  On 10 April it snowed and they returned to Navy Hall. On the 18th Captain Lieutenant Aeneas Shaw arrived at Newark with his wife and seven children. The family had travelled through the United States by boat to the British fort at Oswego, where Shaw passed the winter with t
hem. A native had helped them build huts and shoot partridges and ducks. On 2 May, Simcoe left in a bateau with seven officers to make a preliminary study of the site of Toronto, and was absent until the 13th. Elizabeth received letters from Mary Anne Burges, telling her how excited the four girls had been over the birth of their baby sister Katherine, for whom they were choosing presents. Aunt Margaret Graves was planning to move out of Wolford Lodge and was having a house built for herself on Lansdown Crescent in Bath. If the Simcoe’s wanted to economise by putting a tenant in Wolford Lodge, the girls and the Hunts were welcome to stay at Tracey until the family returned from Canada.17 When she received Mary Anne’s letter, Elizabeth replied that Colonel Simcoe and she wanted the girls to remain in their own home. As for Mrs. Graves’s move, she had half expected that the old lady would tire of the quietness of Wolford Lodge and crave a more interesting social life.18

  On 13 May 1793, Elizabeth wrote to Mary Anne Burges:

  Coll. Simcoe returned from Toronto & speaks in praise of the harbour & a fine spot near it covered with a large Oak which he intends to fix upon as a site for a Town. I am going to send you some beautiful butterflies.

  The situation at Newark was tense over the prospect of war with the United States. Although that country had proclaimed neutrality on 22 April, many Americans believed that a quick conquest of Canada would bring native resistance in the north-west to a halt. Simcoe felt helpless because of his lack of weapons and troops. He was eager to start work on a fortified naval dockyard at Toronto, but had to wait until the next session of the legislature was over. On the 14th, three Americans arrived at Newark, commissioners to negotiate with the tribal leaders of the interior. Disliking these men, and feeling ill, ELizabeth accepted an offer from Anne, wife of Lieutenant David William Smith, to recuperate at Fort Niagara. The children and their nurses went with her. Thus Simcoe’s family was absent when the members assembled in late May for the 1793 session. Again Simcoe arranged due pomp and prayers.

  On 4 June, the King’s birthday, the governor held a levee at eleven o’clock in the morning. General Benjamin Lincoln, one of the American commissioners and a senior rebel officer during the Revolution, left an account of the ceremony. Lincoln noted the presence of several daughters of Sir William Johnson and Molly, Joseph Brant’s sister. While “from the aborigines of the country [they] appeared as well dressed as the company in general.” Their dignity impressed him.19

  To Elizabeth’s annoyance, the American commissioners were still at Newark, waiting for instructions from President Washington in Philadelphia, then the capital of the United States. The governor also resented having to accommodate the Americans, who could not leave until the various tribes had assembled at Sandusky, in the Ohio country. Meanwhile they held talks with Joseph Brant at Newark. They did not leave until 26 June. Seven of the native nations of Canada set out from Newark to the conference to show solidarity with their brethren in the United States. Lieutenant Talbot went ahead of them to carry papers to Colonel Alexander McKee at Detroit.

  Even while the commissioners waited, Simcoe and the members of his legislature were hard at work. Two important matters concerned them. Simcoe wanted to abolish slavery. The members wanted local government by New England style town meetings. Since they belonged to the principal slave-owning class, they were horrified at the thought of losing their most reliable source of labour. With almost every man eligible for a grant of land, hiring workers was almost impossible. Simcoe was equally appalled at the idea of town meetings that meant sharing some control with ordinary folk. What followed was horse-trading by governor and legislators. Simcoe agreed to a limited form of town meeting, but one that would not meet regularly. The magistrates were empowered to call the meetings, and to issue warrants for the election of township officers, such as clerks, supervisors of highways, pathmasters and fence viewers.20

  The members in turn agreed to a bill that would phase out slavery. No more slaves could be brought into the province. Adult slaves in Upper Canada must remain in servitude, but children born to slaves would be free at age twenty-five, and their children would be free from birth.21 The slavery bill worked on by Attorney General White was modified accordingly. The session ended on 26 June. Simcoe was now free to move his family to Toronto, which would also serve as a temporary capital if American hostilities compelled him to move the government there.

  On 20 July, 100 Queen’s Rangers commanded by Captain Lieutenant Shaw, set out to begin work at Toronto. On the 28th, Captain Joseph Bouchette, of the Mississauga, reached Newark to take the Simcoes across the lake. (Bouchette had been a captain in the Provincial Marine during the Revolution.) They sailed on the 29th. The following morning Jean Baptiste Rousseau, a fur trader, came aboard to pilot the ship into harbour, which was formed by a long, curving sandpit, open at only the west end. Shifting sand made the entrance tricky, requiring a person with local knowledge to negotiate it safely. As the ship moved into the bay they could see the tents of the Queen’s Rangers in a small clearing. (The sandpit is now Toronto Islands. A severe storm in 1858 broke through the eastern end, creating a gap and turning the spit and its lagoons into a little archipelago.)

  The site for a naval base was the dry bed of a post-glacial lake, flat and somewhat swampy, punctuated by low knolls. It was bounded by two substantial streams. Simcoe named the easterly one the Don River, and the westerly one the Humber. Both flowed through steep-sided, flat-floored ravines between the lake bed and the upper surface of the shoreline. To the east of the Queen’s Rangers’ encampment, Garrison Creek emptied into the harbour. Beyond lay rising ground where the Simcoes decided to place the canvas houses, where they could catch the breezes. While the Rangers were clearing the site and erecting the houses, the Simcoes slept aboard ship.

  By 4 August, the Onondaga had brought their horses from Newark, and Simcoe had dispatched it to fetch some guns from the fort on Carleton Island. The governor and Mrs. Simcoe rode on the peninsula, and to local landmarks. One was the ruins of Fort Rouille, built by the French as a trading post, and evacuated in 1760. They spent the night in the canvas house, and next day they brought the children ashore. On horseback the Simcoes discovered the cliffs east of the Don River, which they named Scarborough Bluffs, in honour of the long-popular Yorkshire spa. In the meantime, Alexander Aitken, a deputy surveyor, was laying out a townsite to the east of the garrison, ten blocks on a grid plan.

  On 24 August, Simcoe received an official report that the Duke of York had distinguished himself at Famars, where his army had driven the French out of Holland. Simcoe ordered a Royal salute, and named “this station” York. The salute was fired by his few 12- and 18-pounder guns, joined by the guns of the Onondaga and the Mississauga and the Queen’s Rangers’ muskets. Among the natives was an Ojibway named Canise who picked up Francis, thinking he would be frightened by the noise. Francis seemed “delighted” by the sound.22 The two-year-old, whose father had intended him for a military career, had made a promising start.

  The naming of York was perhaps a trifle premature. In a counter attack some weeks later the, French repaired the damage by throwing back the Duke’s forces.

  FIFTEEN

  SIMCOE VERSUS DORCHESTER

  Once the Ojibway people from the north and the shore of Lake Huron heard that the governor was residing at York, they began coming to satisfy their curiosity. Elizabeth thought them “extremely handsome & have a superior air to any I have seen, they have been little among Europeans therefore less accustomed to drink Rum.”1 She was right; transactions with the natives, conducted by John Butler, and earlier Sir John Johnson. They followed the long-established Indian Department practice of the liberal distribution of rum. Those from the north had not yet been wheedled into giving up tribal lands while inebriated.

  On 28 August, four days after the naming of York, a gunboat arrived from Newark with a report from Detroit. The American commissioners had returned to the United States from Sandusky without making peace with the tribal leaders. The
natives wanted the Ohio River as the boundary, and all white settlements beyond it removed. The Americans refused. Simcoe was bitterly disappointed. He had been hoping for a neutral aboriginal nation south of Lake Erie, as a buffer zone between Upper Canada and the Americans. He was more worried than ever that the war with France might spill over into North America. President Washington had declared the United States neutral, but he was allowing French privateers into American ports. The new French ambassador, Citizen Edmond Charles Genet, had sent agents into Lower Canada to stir up the French Canadians. Such activities alarmed Washington, who did not want war with Britain while his army was heavily committed against the tribes.

  Early in September a letter arrived from James Bland Burges, warning Simcoe that a far greater threat than France was Catherine of Russia, who had territorial ambitions. Simcoe replied, “I … from my Cradle have looked with dread on the aspiring Politicks of Russia; France may threaten the invasion but Russia can perform it.” He referred to the 1793 partition of Poland by Prussia and Russia, adding, “I equally deprecate the darkness of Despotism, as the Lunacy of Liberty.”2

  By that time Simcoe knew that Lord Dorchester had returned to Quebec after his leave of absence. Simcoe was no longer his own man. Soon after the governor in chief’s return, Bishop Jacob Mountain reached Quebec as the first prelate of the Canadas; earlier, the provinces had been a dependency of the see of Nova Scotia. Both Simcoes were pleased; the appointment should strengthen the Church of England in Upper Canada.

  Captain Samuel Smith had left York with 100 Rangers, to open the road from the head of Lake Ontario to the Thames. “I hear they kill Rattlesnakes every day yet not a man has been bit tho they have been among them for 6 weeks,” Elizabeth wrote. Smith sent two snakes in a barrel for her to examine. She found them “dark & ugly & made a whirring sound in shaking their Rattles when I touched them with a stick.” The road would be called Dundas Street, in honour of Home Secretary Henry Dundas.3