Toronto of Old: Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of OntarioScadding, Henry
History
Toronto of Old: Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of Ontario
Scadding, Henry
Toronto (Ont.) -- Description and travel; Toronto (Ont.) -- History
They complained that instead of building
a church, they had constructed only a canteen for them. The Abbé
Picquet, we are told, did not allow them to finish; and answered them
that they had been treated according to their fancy; that they had never
evinced the least zeal for religion; that their conduct was much opposed
to it; that the Iroquois on the contrary had manifested their love for
Christianity. But as he had no order, it is subjoined, to attract them,
viz., the Mississagués, to his mission at _La Presentation_--he avoided
a more lengthened explanation.
The poor fellows were somewhat unfairly lectured by the Abbé, for,
according to his own showing, they expressed a desire for a church
amongst them.
A note on the Mississagués in the Documentary History (i. 22) mentions
the neighbourhood of Toronto as one of the quarters frequented by that
tribe: at the same time it sets down their numbers as incredibly few.
"The Mississagués," the note says, "are dispersed along this lake
(Ontario), some at Kenté, others at the river Toronto (the Humber), and
finally at the head of the Lake, to the number of 150 in all; and at
Matchedash. The principal tribe is that of the Crane."
The Abbé Picquet visited Niagara and the Portage above (Queenston or
Lewiston); and in connection with his observations on those points he
refers again expressly to Toronto. He is opposed to the maintenance of
store-houses for trade at Toronto, because it tended to diminish the
trade at Niagara and Fort Frontenac, "those two ancient posts," as he
styles them. "It was necessary," he says, "to supply Niagara, especially
the Portage, rather than Toronto. The difference," he says, "between the
two first of these posts and the last is, that three or four hundred
canoes could come loaded with furs to the Portage (Queenston or
Lewiston); and that no canoes could go to Toronto except those which
cannot pass before Niagara and to Fort Frontenac--(the translation
appears to be obscure)--such as the Ottawas of the Head of the Lake and
the Mississagués: so that Toronto could not but diminish the trade of
these two ancient posts, which would have been sufficient to stop all
the savages had the stores been furnished with goods to their liking."
In 1752, a French military expedition from Quebec to the Ohio region,
rested at Fort Toronto. Stephen Coffen, in his narrative of that
expedition, which he accompanied as a volunteer, names the place, but he
spells the word in accordance with his own pronunciation, Taranto. "They
on their way stopped," he says "a couple of days at Cadaraghqui Fort,
also at Taranto on the north side of Lake Ontario; then at Niagara
fifteen days."
[Sidenote: 1756.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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