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John Graves Simcoe’s First Fort York In collaboration
(Fig. 4) Elizabeth Simcoe, The Garrison at York. Mrs Simcoe made this sketch while she was in Canada then copied it on birchbark as part of a series of Canadian views her husband presented in October 1796 to King George III. Credit: British Library, cat. no. K.Top.119.15.x
Early the following spring, Simcoe and seven of his officers reconnoitered the site and harbour of Toronto. Returning to Niagara eleven days later the governor was determined to begin settlement at the new seat of government immediately. By 1 July 1793 Capt. Samuel Smith’s company was at Toronto clearing land for the garrison and town, and building roads in the vicinity. Housed in tents on the site of today’s Fort York, they were joined by Capt. David Shank’s company a few weeks later. The Rangers’ Monthly Returns show that regimental ‘Head Quarters’ and the whole corps had moved to York by 1 August. On 30 July Mrs. Simcoe, newly arrived from Niagara with her husband aboard H.M.S. Mississauga, sketched the soldiers’ ‘camp.’ (Fig. 2) The vice-regal couple and their children were soon settled into two canvas houses erected on the east side of Garrison Creek, opposite the camp. The story of these unconventional dwellings has been well told elsewhere. http:// www.fortyork.ca/images/newsletters/fife-and-drum-2014/ fife-and-drum-dec-2014.pdf Through August and September Simcoe’s letters to his superiors proposed which permanent buildings might be erected for the garrison at York, as Toronto was renamed on August 24. As well, he listed the materials needed to ‘hut’ the Rangers in the coming winter. Thirty log barracks, each 24 feet by 20 in the clear, were proposed, though thirty-one were built eventually. Majors David Shank and Samuel Smith were assigned more than one unit for their quarters. Major Edward B. Littlehales, Simcoe’s secretary, and Lieut. Arthur Brooking had half a hut each. Some barracks were given over to special uses: ‘musick,’ ‘taylors,’ a bake house, and a hospital where severe or contagious cases might be isolated. By midNovember construction on the first huts was well along. While no site plan of the first Fort York survives, it is safe to say it was arranged around a square; a contemporary account says the quarters of Major Aeneas Shaw were ‘outside the square.’ Although Mrs. Simcoe sketched the fort on several occasions between July 1793 and her return to England in mid-1796, these views add little more detail to what we know. (Figs. 3, 4) Curiously, the most informative image of the fort may be one drawn by Joseph Bouchette in 1799, when it was half demolished. (Fig. 5) It was expected the green logs used to build the huts would last for about seven years, but this proved optimistic. In February 1798 Major Smith and two fellow officers formed a Board of Survey that recommended, with advice from Capt. William Graham, superintendent of public buildings at York, that twenty-one of the original huts be torn down, leaving only four standing. In 1802 these too were demolished. A comment on the huts’ fitness as quarters for the troops may lie in the monthly return for 1 December 1794. It shows 51 men sick ‘in quarters’ with another 18 ‘in hospitals,’ a total of almost a quarter of the 276 men in garrison at that time. Was 2 The Fife and Drum
there a connection between the healthiness of the huts and the level of illness in the regiment? At this distance in time we cannot know. The last of the huts overlapped only briefly the next building on the site of Simcoe’s garrison. This was the lieutenantgovernor’s residence erected in 1800 for which Lieut. Robert Pilkington provided a plan while materials for its construction were shipped from Fort George at Niagara. The residence stood until Fort York was attacked and destroyed by the Americans in 1813.
governor’s residence erected in 1800 for which Lieut. Robert Pilkington provided a plan while materials for its construction were shipped from Fort George at Niagara. The residence stood until Fort York was attacked and destroyed by the Americans in 1813.
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