Simcoe's Settlement Strategy
by R. Robert Mutrie
by R. Robert Mutrie
Among our leaders in early Upper Canada, I have found our first head of state, Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe, the most fascinating. His first-hand view of the province formed the subject of The Simcoe Papers,[i] five published volumes of his letters to officials on both sides of the ocean. In his correspondence Simcoe included in detail his thoughts and opinions of our province’s earliest days with frequent specific references to the Long Point Settlement, an area which he singled out for purposeful development. The Simcoe Papers are a revealing source of information of the lives and times of the first settlers and form the major source for this article.
Ontario’s birth in 1791 created a province designed for its people, the refugees of the War of the American Revolution. A haven for the war-weary and the peaceful after one of North America’s few universally turbulent times, resulted in a cosmopolitan province from its beginning. The first settlers included Germans, French, English, Swiss, Portuguese, Irish, Scottish, Dutch, Prussians, native Indians (from New York State), and African-Americans to enumerate some of the nationalities. Many of these families lived in the American colonies for generations, products of a “melting pot” of cultures. Others emigrated to this side of the ocean just a few years prior to the Revolution. The first immigrants to Ontario brought with them a rich mixture of customs, languages and religions from their respective origins.
In those formulative years of the late 1700’s there existed a desire to live with the orderly laws enjoyed under the British Crown in pre-Revolutionary times, now promised in Upper Canada. The earliest of these immigrants, those given grants by 1784, were refugees who served in the Loyalist Corps during the Revolution. Having fought their neighbours and even family for the British cause, they afterwards could not return home.
Many of the later, post-1784, arrivals were peaceful farming folk alarmed by the mob scenes that occurred in the larger cities prior to the war, then alienated by the wanton destruction of the property of those who suspected of supporting the British cause during and after the conflict. Anyone who supported neither cause militarily nonetheless stood accused of Loyalist leanings by the new Republicans. Additionally, further turbulence erupted as the new federal government of the United States struggled to establish a unified identity in the face of demands for individual states’ rights. It proved not to be a place congenial to the peaceful man who came from the old country to set down roots in a pastoral countryside devoid of the political and religious divisions that rent apart the Europe of his forebears.
Prior to 1791, all of the area west of the Atlantic colonies of British North America was governed from Quebec City under the old French civil laws and customs guaranteed by England in its Quebec Act of 1774. The post-revolution influx of colonial American settlers to the areas up the St. Lawrence River and along the Niagara River created a unique situation for the British parliament. By 1791, it has been estimated that Upper Canada had a population of 10,000 people where none had been eight years before.[ii] These pioneers had been accustomed to the British institutions that existed in the colonies to the south before the conflict and they were crying out for more familiar government and court systems.
With little debate and the stroke of a pen, the English parliament made a partition along the Ottawa River and created the Province of Upper Canada geared towards its inhabitants with a capital at Newark, now known as Niagara-On-The-Lake.[iii] This occasion two hundred and three years ago in 1791 divided the Colony of Quebec into Upper Canada and Lower Canada, the predecessors of the present day provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The partition along the Ottawa River defined Lower Canada’s western boundary and the Hudsons’ Bay Company Lands formed its northern limits. The colony of New Brunswick marked the eastern boundary. Upper Canada proved not so easily mapped. The eastern boundary with Lower Canada showed clearly enough and the Hudsons’ Bay Company lands in the north were also well delineated, but no one of the day really knew just how far west the province ran. The Mississippi River area claimed by England was in dispute with Spain. British explorers still pressing westward to the Rocky Mountains.
The driving force for the start of the new province emanated from Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe who received his appointment soon after its creation. He stood out as a man needed for his times- an energetic, methodical dynamo with a settlement purpose in mind that merged with those of the military Loyalists and others who came later. The Governor had a vision of a strong and well-defended country within which the new settlers could build their homes and farm their land in peace and security.
The Governor and Mrs. Simcoe with their two youngest children arrived from England at the capital of Quebec on November 11, 1791. Late in the season, they suffered through a cold Atlantic crossing; snow lay under the vice-regal couple’s feet when they landed ashore. The Simcoes wintered at the national capital during which time the Lieutenant Governor, far from idle, spent the months corresponding with officials in Upper Canada and studying reports and maps of the country westward. Simcoe commissioned a map to be prepared by Deputy Surveyor William Chewitt of the known lands around Lakes Ontario and Erie, both Canadian and American.[iv] All parts of the new province came under the Governor’s scrutiny and he early developed an appreciation for the state of affairs in Upper Canada.
If anything, Simcoe proved himself a visionary. While the men and women of Upper Canada concerned themselves with daily survival, cutting trees and planting the first seeds among the stumps, the Governor took a larger view of the ever hostile presence of the United States to the south and strategically mapped out their logical points of attack across the St. Lawrence and Niagara Rivers and Lakes Ontario and Erie. Just two weeks after his arrival in Quebec, Simcoe wrote to Executive Councillor Alexander Grant requesting information about “the depth of water in Toronto Harbour, the depth at the mouth of the “Tobicoak” River, how far navigable by batteaux- and the depth of water in the harbour to Long Point.”[v] The vulnerability of the provincial capital at Newark and the fledgling settlements along the north bank of the St. Lawrence all opposite American strongholds weighed heavily upon him.
One of the great advantages for original planned development, to Simcoe’s way of thinking, came from no grants of settlement being issued in the areas of the proposed capital and the barrier forts, so that carefully thought out communities could be developed from the ground up. Simcoe hadn’t even seen the district when developing his plan, but reports flowing in, convinced him of his course of action. On December 7, 1791, he wrote in a letter to Henry Dundas, Secretary of State for Home Affairs in England:
“Toronto, the best harbour on Lake Ontario, & the Long Point, the only good road on Lake Erie, are places admirably adapted for Settlements & together with the Country between the Grand River & the La Tranche [the Thames River] form a body of most excellent Land of which no grants have hitherto been made....”[vi]
On April 28, 1792, Simcoe wrote to Dundas:
“Sir, I wish to observe in addition to the Civil Circumstances of no lands having been granted in their Vicinity by which means the proper reserves may be secured as directed by the Government...”[vii]
The top of the agenda of this soldier strategist, who commanded the loyalist Queen’s Rangers Regiment during the American Revolution, emphasized the establishment of a strong military presence in this province; the second goal populated south-western Ontario with loyal and hardy settlers who would carve out homesteads from the wilderness and then defend them. Thirdly, Simcoe sought to develop a firmly unified province in the English style, with towns, townships, counties, and connecting roads and water routes to bring them all together.
He formulated plans for the capital of Upper Canada to be situated well inland at present day London, which he named for the capital of the mother country, this located at the “Confluence of the main Branches of the Thames.” In the plan, a trio of barrier forts formed a defensive triangle against American invasion of the heartland- the first at Toronto Harbour with its sheltering islands on Lake Ontario. This had its original Indian name until the Governor gave it the English appellation of York. The second bastion was planned for the heights of Turkey Point forming a northern closure and protective overlook to the promontory of Long Point on Lake Erie. To this he gave the English name of “The North Foreland” which never took hold. The third fortification he proposed for Matchedash Bay on Lake Huron, and this received the name of Gloucester (present Collingwood area).[viii] The Lieutenant Governor reasoned in his letter to Dundas on April 28, 1792:
“Toronto appears to be the natural arsenal of Lake Ontario and to afford an easy access over land to Lake Huron; the River La Tranche, near the navigable head of which I propose to establish the Capital, by which I can gather from the few people who have visited it, will afford a safe, a more certain, and I am inclined to think, by taking due advantage of the Seasons, a less expensive route to Detroit than that of Niagara; and at the same time by the Grand River and other streams which flow parallel to it, you will have communications with Lake Erie.- The first fork of the River la Tranche [the Thames River] as marked by the surveyor in the plan which I did myself the honor to send to you, it is probable will be a proper situation for another Town, not impossibly a naval Arsenal, as the banks of the upper part of that river are said to abound with Timber suited for such purposes; this place is about twenty two miles from the streights that part lake St. Clair from lake Huron, and equidistant from Pine point on lake Erie which has been pointed out from the circumstance of its excellent Lands, and harbour for small craft, as a proper situation for a new settlement.”[ix]
Simcoe left Quebec City for Upper Canada in June 1792 with a firm grasp of the new province’s geography. After a sojourn at Kingston, he crossed Lake Ontario for the provincial capital at Newark, landing on July 26. From the moment of his arrival, the Governor gained an education in the chaotic settlement process going on for a decade. A profusion of promises and ad hoc grants made to settlers by the commanders of Forts Niagara, Erie and Detroit, as well as grants by the Quebec Land Board came before him for official recognition. Although some pioneers lived on their farms for all that time, none had patents for their land, all placing their trust in surveyors’ “location tickets” given during the original surveys. These first rough surveys resulted in conflicting claims to properties. Simcoe’s early months in the province became complicated with hearing and adjudicating land disputes.
Nevertheless, always in his heart and mind stood the master plan for the military establishments on the three lower Great Lakes and the capital on the Thames. A sprinkling of requests for lands in these areas began trickling in whetting the Governor’s appetite for getting on with the business of developing Upper Canada. Simcoe was most precise in his singling out of Long Point as a key defensive post for Upper Canada and his new capital and he noted the growing pressure for settlement there:
“Applications have already been made for lands near to Long Point on Lake Erie, where I have always projected to establish a Military Colony as being situated opposite to Presque Isle, the most practicable route from the United States.”[x]
In the following spring, while American General Anthony Wayne planned his new forts in Ohio, one of them directly across Lake Erie from Long Point at Presqu’Isle, Simcoe set out on foot to look at the site of his proposed capital at the forks of the Thames. On May 31, 1793, Simcoe wrote to Alured Clarke, Lieutenant Governor of Lower Canada:
“It is with satisfaction that I am enabled at this critical period to submit to your Excellency those Opinions upon the actual Situation of the Country & its principal Fortresses which I have now formed from personal Observation. During the course of the winter I walked from the Grand River by the route of La Tranche to Detroit; and I fully substantiated the great Consequence of this internal communication between the countries which border on the Lakes Ontario & St. Clair. And for every purpose of Civilization, command of the Indians, & general Defence, I am decidedly of the Opinion, that on the Confluence of the main Branches of the Thames the Capital of Upper Canada, as soon as possible, ought to be Situated.”[xi]
The tidewater year for settlement at Long Point came in 1793. From as early as 1790, a few sought and gained permission from various authorities to establish themselves on the mainland opposite the Point. A few simply squatted hoping that permission would follow. Year after year passed without official surveys and patents. Impatient with further delay, more prospective settlers began beating a path to Newark seeking the Governor’s favour for a grant of land on Long Point Bay.
On September 20, 1793, Simcoe wrote to Dundas, extolling the advantages of this area. “Long Point is the favorite object of all descriptions of people; Its vicinity is represented as the most desirable for Settlements, and whether the restraint which it has hitherto thought prudent to place upon its Colonization seems to enhance its value, or it really possesses great Advantages, there appears to be but little doubt but that it will become a flourishing part of Upper Canada.”[xii]
There was also another consideration. The native nations from Michigan westward were engaged in a century old conflict. Simcoe expressed concern for to the safety of the inhabitants of the Long Point district in the possible event of the Six Nations Indians at the Grand River also taking up the warpath across the area. A fort at Long Point would act as a buffer in this eventuality. In the same communication, Simcoe sent as a part of a lengthy report to British Home Secretary Henry Dundas the following convincing argument:
“The circumstances of the Indian War have hitherto influenced the Council not to encourage the peopling of a Country which Should the Six Nations be engaged, might become the War Path, to the manifest inconvenience and loss of property, tho’ probably not to the personal injury of the Inhabitants. Should the King’s Troops occupy a Post there [at Long Point], which I am most determined of .... A strong settlement in this Vicinity would effectually separate the Mohawks on the Grand River from the other Indian Nations, and prevent what Captain [Chief Joseph] Brant once intimated to me in a letter “The Six Nations becoming a Barrier between the British and Western Indians.”[xiii]
Simcoe had his mind made up as to the type of settlers he desired at Long Point, stating they, “should be composed of Loyalists of the most determined Principles- and such as may reasonably be expected to arrive by the route of Presqu’Isle from those persons of Pennsylvania and Maryland, who at the end of the War were associated to support the cause of the King.”[xiv]
Even ten years after the conclusion of the Revolution, Simcoe received agents from the American states, representing those who returned to their homes after serving in the Loyalist corps during the war. Their reception in their former home communities up to this time had been luke-warm at best and their neighbours’ suspicions still simmered. Often the American community regarded the Loyalists with outright hostility. Some British sympathisers in the United States became alarmed with the prospect of further war with Britain espoused by the "hawks" faction in Congress. Simcoe made it clear in his letter of July 31, 1795 to the Duke of Portland, Dundas’ successor as Home Secretary, his readiness to embrace these displaced loyalists with open arms:
“In adverting therefore to the settlement of Long Point (Its Vicinity) I have the great pleasure in observing to your Grace, that in the late rumour of the War between Great Britain and the United States, several half pay Officers resident in that Country immediately made every preparation to leave it, and to rejoin the Standard of their Sovereign: These Gentlemen of whom I have long personal knowledge with many of their followers will form a proper Basis for the Settlement at Long Point; and should the Commander In Chief permit me to make the requisite detachment, I at present propose to establish Major Shaw (of His Majesty’s Council) in the Command of the Troops and in the general Superintendance of that important part of the King’s dominions.”[xv]
As vital as the water routes proved to be to early communication between the settlements, Simcoe sought to develop the strategic alternative of inland roadways. He detailed the men of his Queen’s Rangers Regiment as the first road builders in Upper Canada. They were the engineers and the bruit force that pushed Yonge Street through forests and across swamps from York (Toronto) on Lake Ontario to Lake Simcoe in the north. Another road, known as Dundas Street and locally as “The Governor’s Road” ran south from York to present Hamilton then continued westward across country to the headwaters of the Thames River. Following along its banks through the proposed capital at London the road wandered down to the settlements on Lake St. Clair in the west. A third thoroughfare in the planned network was to be a vital link “from London the Capital, whenever it shall be occupied, to Long Point...” Yonge Street and the first leg of Dundas Street became a reality during Simcoe's time in Upper Canada. Construction of the road from London to Long Point started later.
Simcoe took advantage of every opportunity to put forward his plan for the military base at Long Point. On October 23, 1794, he wrote to the Duke of Portland:
“My General Ideas, in administering the Government of Upper Canada are to form the condensation of a numerous agricultural people between the three Lakes, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, to facilitate this purpose I wished to occupy an internal capital in the spot designated "London," by military roads communicating with the important military Post of York on Lake Ontario, Turkey point near Long Point on Lake Erie, & by the River with Chatham on the River Thames.-These places if they should become military and naval Arsenals, must be Towns of considerable Consequence.”[xvi]
Simcoe also began plans for a fleet of gunboats on Lakes Erie and Ontario for the defence of his province.
“...I have requested of the Commander in Chief Four & Twenty Guns for Boats which in pursuance of a late Act are to be manned by the Militia of the Province, these boats are to be swift of the lightest construction & draught of Water, six I have directed to be built at Chatham, together with a storehouse in the manner of a Blockhouse, I purpose to add six more for the Defence of Lake Erie, the other twelve for Lake Ontario.”[xvii]
Simcoe’s plan ran into heavy weather from Lord Dorchester, the overall Governor of the two Canadas (Upper and Lower) who retained the position of commander in chief of the military in both. Dorchester stood unimpressed with Simcoe’s military plans. In the face of this lack of support from his military superior, the determination of Simcoe to precede settlement with a military establishment in the key areas of the province, led in turn to a holding up of land grants to the prospective settlers. Simcoe made it clear to all and sundry that early settlement in the area of his projected military bases would not be welcomed:
“The ideas which I have always offered to His Majesty’s of the necessity of Military Establishments accompanying, or preceding that of Settlements, in order to give countenance and support to the Civil Government, by daily experience is most strongly enforced upon my mind, and among other reasons I have principally withheld any settlements taking place in the Country bordering on the center of Lake Erie from a conviction of the propriety of this Opinion.”
“It [the Land Board of the Executive Council has therefore made no new Grants below Fort Erie. It being desirable to Garrison Long Point the Harbour and Arsenal of that Lake before the settlements shall be extended thither.”[xviii]
In 1794, Simcoe placed an outright ban on settlement at Long Point until the fort could be established and issued an eviction order (included in the last issue of The Long Point Settlers Journal) to all who already lived at Long Point Bay. In obedience to the ban, some left their few cleared acres. One pioneer, John Parsin, the father-in-law of Lucas Dedrick of present Port Rowan, stepped out of his land to obey the order and another opportunistic individual moved in usurping Parsin’s hard won improvements. Several others, determined to wait out the turn of events, presented their authorizations for settlement and stayed on. Among them were recently widowed Levinah Mabee, her sons-in-law Peter Teeple, John Stone, and David Secord, and the latter’s brother, Silas Secord. “Doctor” John Troyer also remained unmoved.
Simcoe continued to press his case for forts before settlement to anyone who would listen. Writing on September 1, 1794 to the British Committee of the Privy Council for Trade and Plantations, he extolled the virtues of his colony, “Near Long Point is the best adapted Naval Arsenal of Lake Erie. The Speedy means of uniting the Troops and Naval Artificers stationed at Gloucester (or Matchadosh Bay, York or Long Pt... must appear to Your Lordships to be very important for purposes of offence or defence.”[xix]
On Oct 25, 1794, Simcoe wrote to Lord Dorchester, “I am still of the Opinion York should be made a strong Military Arsenal, and that there is no time to be lost in fortifying that place and the Harbour at Long Point.”[xx]
Lieutenant Governor Simcoe made his long postponed visit to Long Point in September 1795 and became even more impressed by what he saw at first hand. He afterwards wrote:
“The country is thickly timbered, the chief trees being oak, beach, pine and walnut. Making our way through the forest, we reached the lake at a place which from the abundance of wild fowl is named Turkey Point. A ridge of cliffs of considerable height skirts the shore for some distance. Between this and Lake Erie is a wide and gently sloping beach. The long ridge of harbour sand [Long Point proper] encloses a safe and commodious harbour. The view from the high bank is magnificent. Altogether, the place presents a combination of natural beauty but seldom found. Here we have laid out a site of six hundred acres for a town, with reservations for government buildings and called it Charlotte Villa, in honour of Queen Charlotte.”[xxi]
Upon his return to Niagara, Simcoe decided at last to open the land for grants and instructed the Acting Surveyor General, David W. Smith, to prepare a list of applicants for locations in the Long Point Settlement. Simcoe also wrote in October that he was, “encouraging the Erection of Saw and Grist Mills in the vicinity of Long Point.”
Word of the advantages of Long Point for settlement had now been out in the Niagara district for some time and even reached as far away as New Brunswick where settlers fought unsuccessfully to develop farms on poor land grants. A floodgate opened up. Finally in January 1796, Simcoe received the long awaited go ahead for the military establishment from Portland:
“... inform you of my approbation of your occupying Long Point, in the manner you propose, and I have only to add, that from the near approach of the time for the delivery up of our Posts [Forts Oswego, Niagara, and Michilimackinac to the United States] it is material that the occupation of that Post, and any other, which that event may, in your Opinion, render necessary, should take place with as little delay as possible.”[xxii]
The Lieutenant Governor immediately ordered a full report of allocations to settlers, and those who wished to become settlers, parcelling out the land in the first three concessions of Walsingham, Charlotteville and Woodhouse Townships. Large grants in the back concessions also went to veteran officers of the loyalist militia who sought to make up their extra entitlements for service in the Revolution. The first report on the lakefront lots prepared by Acting Surveyor General David W. Smith on May 12, 1796 was followed by a second on all three front concessions dated June 20, 1796 and both received the approval of the Executive Council and Simcoe.[xxiii]
Governor Dorchester continued to thwart Simcoe’s military plans before the fort at Long Point could be started.
“Your Grace will have been informed by prior communications that my wishes to carry into execution such part of the system I think the King’s interest requires, respecting an Establishment at Charlotteville (Long Point) have been frustrated.”[xxiv]
Simcoe’s grand plan for Long Point as a military base became shelved but the land now surveyed and opened up for settlement. The Governor’s untimely return to England in failing health in the summer of 1796, placed the impetus for further development on the settlers themselves.
[i] Cruikshank, Brig. Gen. E. A. The Correspondence of Lieut. Governor John Graves Simcoe. The Ontario Hitorical Society (Toronto, ON: 1926)
[ii] McNaught, Kenneth W. & Ramsay Cook, Canada and the United States. Clark, Irwin & Co. (Toronto, ON: 1963), P. 278
[iii] Minutes of the Executive Council of Upper Canada, Land Book A, 16 Dec 1791, National Archives of Canada RG 1, L 1
[iv] The Simcoe Papers, Vol. 1, P. 90
[v] Ibid. Vol 1, P. 86
[vi] Ibid. Vol. 1, P. 90-91
[vii] Ibid. Vol. 1, P. 144
[viii] Ibid. Vol. 1, P. 338-344, Vol. 2, P. 161
[ix] Ibid. Vol. 1, P. 144
[x] Ibid. Vol. 1, P. 144
[xi] Ibid. Vol. 1, P. 338
[xii] Ibid. Vol. 2, P. 62
[xiii] Ibid. Vol. 2, P. 62
[xiv] Ibid. Vol. 4, P. 54
[xv] Ibid. Vol. 3, P. 142
[xvi] Ibid. Vol. 3, P. 142
[xvii] Ibid. Vol. 3, P. 142
[xviii] Ibid. Vol. 2, P. 161
[xix] Ibid. Vol. 3, P. 59
[xx] Ibid. Vol. 3, P. 151
[xxi] Tasker, L.H., "The United Empire Loyalist Settlement at Long Point, Lake Erie", in Ontario Historical Society, Papers and Records. Vol. II, P. 45
[xxii] Op.Cit. Vol. 4, P. 169
[xxiii] Report of Acting Surveyor General David W. Smith, 20 Jun 1796. David W. Smith Papers; Archives of Ontario MU 2825-27, Box 3, Env. B-9, p. 14-2
[xxiv] Op.Cit. Vol. 4, P. 301