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Shipbuilding timbers left unburnt at the dockyard were hauled to the new garrison site for the construction of Blockhouses Number One and Two. The debris of the Government House complex was scoured away and dumped over the embankment; any materials that could be reused (primarily building stone) were salvaged. The burnt-out shells of the Parliament buildings in town were converted into barracks, and by the end of November 1813, Blockhouses One and Two had been raised and were ready to be roofed in, but the work was delayed into the New Year owing to poor weather and the chronic want of artificers. The year 1814 was a busy one. By March, the two blockhouses we know today had been finished, as also was the new Western Battery, which had been mounted with guns. More ordnance was arriving daily to replace that taken by the enemy. The batteries in the garrison, however, website: www.fortyork.ca The Fife and Drum 9
remained unarmed. An Ordnance Store was building at the garrison, a blockhouse was under construction in the ravine at Lot (later Queen) Street, and another to replace the two lost on Gibraltar Point. Elmsley House had been converted to a hospital, and the stable into barracks. By the end of May, the blockhouse on Gibraltar Point had been completed, with a glacis. By July, the blockhouse in the ravine had also been completed with a glacis, and the garrison entirely enclosed with pickets. In August, the estimate for the range of splinterproof barracks (along the south wall) was submitted, and in September, Architects sometimes sign their buildings. those for the construction of Matthew Gossett was Commanding caused his initials and the year to the Garrison Hospital in the interior of the Stone Magazine. Photo ravine (north of the Fort) and the woodframe Officers’ (‘Blue’) Barracks were approved. By December, construction had begun on the Brick Magazine. Materials for such ‘Engineer Services’ were delivered by ship, landed on the beach, and hauled up by contractors’ teams of oxen into the garrison.
By 6 January 1815, twenty-year-old 1st Lieutenant William Matthew Gossett, RE had arrived from Kingston to take charge of the department at York. He was a veteran of the attack on Oswego, New York (5-6 May 1814), and would be responsible for the construction of the majority of the
‘permanent’ buildings in the new garrison, all but two of which survive to this day. A search of the Commissariat Account Book shows that over the course of five days in March 1815, his estimates for the South and North Soldiers’ Barracks, Stone Magazine, Fort Adjutant’s Office and Quarters (1815-1838), Officers’ Brick Barracks and Mess Room, and the Commandant’s Quarters (burned in 1869) were approved. Gossett superintended the principal construction of these buildings (see “The Thomsons: Early Builders at Fort York,” Fife and Drum July 2010). Unfortunately, Lieutenant William he was removed to Kingston Engineer at York when he be carved into a brick arch in the in September and, so, likely by Chris Laverton never saw them to completion. Intriguingly, however, in July 1815, he’d literally left his mark on one of these buildings—the Stone Magazine—the work of which he was apparently the most proud. Gossett was succeeded by 1st Lieutenant Henry Hill Willson, RE who remained in command of the department at York until the arrival of 1st Lieutenant George Phillpotts and his young family in June 1816, when all the buildings surviving today had been reconstructed Now on the staff of Toronto Culture, Chris Laverton worked as an interpreter at Fort York from 1983 to 1986.
Now on the staff of Toronto Culture, Chris Laverton worked as an interpreter at Fort York from 1983 to 1986.
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