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
Leaving now the site of our ancient Court House, the spot at which we
arrive in our tour is one of very peculiar interest. It is the
intersection at right angles of the two great military ways carved out
through the primitive forest of Western Canada by order of its first
Governor. Dundas Street and Yonge Street were laid down in the first MS.
maps of the country as highways destined to traverse the land in all
future time, as nearly as practicable in right lines, the one from east
to west, the other from south to north. They were denominated "streets,"
because their idea was taken from the famous ancient ways, still in
several instances called "streets," which the Romans, when masters of
primitive Britain, constructed for military purposes. To this day it is
no unpleasant occupation for the visitor who has leisure, to track out
the lines of these ancient roads across England. We ourselves once made
a pilgrimage expressly for the purpose of viewing the intersection of
Iknield Street and Watling Street, in the centre of Dunstable, and from
our actual knowledge of what Canada was when its Yonge Street and Dundas
Street were first hewn out, we realized all the more vividly the
condition of central England when the Roman road-makers first began
their work there.
Dundas Street has its name from the Right Hon. Henry Dundas, Secretary
of State for the Colonies in 1794. In that year Governor Simcoe wrote as
follows to Mr. Dundas:--"Dundas Street, the road proposed from
Burlington Bay to the River Thames, half of which is completed, will
connect by an internal communication the Detroit and settlements at
Niagara. It is intended," he says, "to be extended northerly to York by
the troops, and in process of time by the respective settlers to
Kingston and Montreal." In another despatch to the same statesman he
says:--"I have directed the surveyor, early in the next spring to
ascertain the precise distance of the several routes which I have done
myself the honour of detailing to you, and hope to complete the Military
Street or Road the ensuing autumn." In a MS. map of about the same date
Dundas Street is laid down from Detroit to the Pointe au Bodêt, the
terminus on the St. Lawrence of the old boundary line between Upper and
Lower Canada. From the Rouge River it is sketched as running somewhat
further back than the line of the present Kingston Road; and after
leaving Kingston it is drawn as though it was expected to follow the
water-shed between the Ottawa and the St. Lawrence. A road is sketched,
running from the Pointe au Bodêt to the Ottawa, and this Road is struck
at an acute angle by Dundas Street.
A manuscript note appears on the map, "The Dundas Street is laid out
from Oxford to the Bay of Quinté; it is nearly finished from Oxford to
Burlington Bay."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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