John Graves Simcoe, 1752-1806 Page 18
On 25 September, Simcoe left for Lac aux Claies with a party of Rangers, Deputy Surveyor Alexander Aitken, Captain Henry Darling of the 5th Regiment, Alexander Macdonnell, Sheriff of the Home District, Lieutenant James Givins of the Queen’s Rangers, and Jack Sharp, the Newfoundland dog. They reached the lake on the 29th, and renamed it Lake Simcoe — after the governor’s late father. On the same date, Francis Simcoe’s name was written on a grant of 200 acres on the Don River, where his parents would build Castle Frank as a summer home. Young Francis’ was one of many grants the governor was awarding in the neighbourhood, and accepting grants commensurate with his rank. John Scadding received 253 acres on the east side of the Don River, and had begun building a cabin for himself.4 Other officers of the Queen’s Rangers had received grants (the list reads like a “Who’s Who” of pioneer Toronto.) Some civil servants and representatives were reluctant to move from Newark where they had suffered enough before procuring decent housing. Hannah Jarvis, wife of the provincial secretary, who had an acid tongue, commented, with the governor at York, the chief justice, attorney general, receiver general and secretary at Newark, and “acting surveyor general” at Fort Niagara, that “thus our government is to spend the Winter at respectable distances.”5 The acting surveyor general was Lieutenant David William Smith. Simcoe made the appointment and hoped it would be approved.
On 25 October the governor and party had returned from Lake Simcoe, after dividing into groups and becoming lost. They visited the village of the Ojibway Canise, but learned that he and his eldest son had died. Young Canise, their heir, gave the governor a blanket of beaver pelts. Simcoe enjoyed meeting another Ojibway named Great Sail. Because of losing their way, Simcoe’s men had run short of provisions. They had decided to eat Jack Sharp, but his life was spared when they sighted Lake Ontario and knew they were nearly home. The dog, Simcoe admitted, was ungainly in a tippy canoe.6
A freight canoe arrived at York, the gift of the North West (fur trading) Company of Montreal. “It required 12 men to paddle, “ Elizabeth noted. She had her first ride on 9 November:
A Beaver Blanket & a carpet were put in to sit upon. We carried a small table to be used in embarking & disembarking for the Canoe cannot be brought very near the Shore lest the gravel or pebbles injure her, so the table was set in the water & a long Plank laid from it to the Shore to enable me to get in or out the Men carrying the Canoe empty into water & out of it upon their shoulders.
They had less than a “board between us & eternity” for the birch bark punctured easily. The natives always carried “Gum or pitch” to mend breaks in the bark.7
They made several trips to admire the land Simcoe had chosen for Francis. The boundary began at the top edge of the ravine through which the Don River flowed. From this bluff they had a fine view of the harbour, and the lake beyond the peninsula. Work began before the end of November on Castle Frank, a grand name for what would be a rustic log structure. The Grecian columns Elizabeth mentioned were trunks of white pine trees.
In November, Simcoe received a discouraging letter from Lord Dorchester. In response to Simcoe’s report on plans to build defences at York, the governor in chief curtly told him that no new fortifications were to be erected at York, nor any other post. Simcoe did not have enough troops to staff any new posts, and none was available from Lower Canada. In fact, in the event of war, many of the soldiers on garrison duty would be withdrawn from Upper Canada to defend the more vital fortress of Quebec, the key to holding the country. Simcoe should strengthen his militia to defend Upper Canada. He countered, on 2 December, that Detroit and Niagara were indefensible, and he should choose safer locations — the Thames valley, Long Point on Lake Erie and York. If His Lordship would only to come to York, he could see the situation for himself. The Rangers were in comfortable log huts, and he had plans for a storehouse on Gibraltar Point, on the peninsula at the entrance to the harbour. He had paid close attention to his militia, but without weapons they were of no use:
In the case of the King’s troops being totally withdrawn and hostilities commencing by the Indians or the United States against this province, it does not appear to me possible that it can exist as a member of the British Empire.8
Simcoe relayed the content of Dorchester’s letter to Henry Dundas. Loyalists and others had come to Upper Canada with the promise of land and a safe haven. Withdrawing troops would be morally wrong, leaving Loyalists, especially, vulnerable. Also, if the Queen’s Rangers were ordered out of the country, Simcoe would have no authority left. Going over Dorchester’s head turned out to be an error. Now that he was back in Quebec, all correspondence must pass through his hands.
While Simcoe was drafting his letter, Great Sail arrived with his wife and ten children. Francis handed around apples. “He shakes hands with the Indians in a very friendly manner, tho he is very shy & ungracious to all his own Countrymen.” Elizabeth made a sketch of Great Sail, resolving to improve it later. She was impressed at the way their guests spoke, which to her resembled the great orators of Greece and Rome.9
On the 12th, Lieutenant Grey left York. He was going to join his father, 1st Lord Grey, in the West Indies. Simcoe and Talbot accompanied him as far as Niagara. They were back on the 22nd and Talbot was skating on the bay. Elizabeth wrote nothing about Christmas celebrations, but 27 December was so cold that water in the pail next to the stove froze. On 11 January 1794, the Queen’s birthday, Simcoe ordered a twenty-one gun salute fired.
The cannon was loaded with pebbles, probably to conserve ammunition. At a dance held in the evening the ladies were “much dressed.” On the 19th, they rode seven miles north to the log houses of some German settlers. On the 26th Captain Shaw’s children set fire to some grass of a marsh close to the bay, which Elizabeth found picturesque. The next night she set her own fire to amuse herself. The last day of the month was mildly disastrous. A horse drawing hay across the bay fell through the ice and drowned, and John Scadding’s cabin burned down. Nevertheless she was in high spirits. In March she would be going with the governor to Detroit, taking the children with them. The governor wanted to stay awhile and become acquainted with the French-speaking residents, to ascertain whether they were loyal or a possible source of help to the Americans.
March brought news of the execution of Queen Marie Antoinette of France, and Simcoe ordered a dance postponed. The weather was so bitterly cold that Elizabeth could hardly hold her cards though she wore three fur tippets. They divided the canvas house they used as a dining room by hanging a carpet, which helped somewhat, but the canvas ceiling had not been boarded over and most of the cold air came through it. Deer were scarce that winter, and when starving natives came often to York the Simcoes spared what they could, “inconvenient” when they were cut off from supplies until spring breakup. On the 14th, riding across the bay, Elizabeth felt her horse sink and threw herself off. The horse apparently wanted to roll in the snow, and she thought she prevented it crushing her because she struck it with her whip.
The next day Simcoe received an order from Lord Dorchester to proceed to the Maumee River as soon as navigation opened, to rebuild derelict Fort Miamis, sixty miles below Detroit and undeniably in United States territory. Dorchester had made a provocative speech, widely reported in the American press, that had inflamed the Congress. John Jay, the chief justice, was sent to England to open negotiations about the future of the British-held posts that were on American soil. Simcoe disapproved strongly of Dorchester’s statement, and of this order. General Anthony Wayne, an old adversary, was leading an army reported to be 2,000 strong towards Detroit. Building a new fort across his path, Simcoe realised, was a hostile act, and unwise considering the weakness of his province. He had no choice but to obey.10
He proposed leading a small force, the 60th Regiment, then the Kingston garrison, the 5th Regiment from Niagara, and the Queen’s Rangers and marching towards Pittsburgh and Fort Washington (Cincinnati) to cut off Wayne’s army from its source of supply, and either attack
or starve it into surrender — a bold plan worthy of Simcoe’s earlier campaigns.11
He resolved on a quick reconnaissance of the site of Fort Miamis (which British troops had evacuated after the Revolution). Again Elizabeth was disappointed. Taking his family into a potential combat zone would be foolhardy; if he should be killed Elizabeth must survive for the sake of the children. After Simcoe inspected the site, he returned by way of Lake Erie to Newark. He ordered Lieutenant Robert Pilkington of the Royal Engineers to take artificers, civilian or military, whatever he needed, and with a detachment of Queen’s Rangers proceed to the Maumee River to begin construction. Pilkington shared with Elizabeth a talent and love of sketching.
In all this activity, Simcoe was still organising road building. By February 1794, the Queen’s Rangers under Captain Shank had reached the halfway point along Dundas Street. Deputy Surveyor Augustus Jones assisted by four Rangers had been laying a line for a road to link York to Lake Simcoe, to be called Yonge Street, in honour of his Devon political friend, Sir George Yonge. They had begun the survey at the north end, Holland Landing (named for the surveyor general), and by 19 March they were back in York.12 By then, Simcoe had left Newark with Pilkington and his work party again was bound for the Maumee River.
In her entry for 18 April, Elizabeth recorded that the sloop Caldwell had brought a cargo of pork from the Bay of Quinte. Her next entry was dated 2 May, when Simcoe had returned. On 19 April, Elizabeth had suffered a grievous blow. She wrote to Mrs. Hunt in May:
It is with pain I take up my pen to inform you of the loss we have sustained & the melancholy event of our losing poor little Katherine, one of the strongest healthiest children you ever saw … She had been feverish one or two days cutting teeth, which not being an unusual case with children I was not much alarmed. On good Friday she was playing in my room in the morning, in the afternoon was seized with fits. I sat up the whole night the greatest part of which she continued to have spasms & before seven in the morning she was no more … She was the sweetest tempered pretty child imaginable, just beginning to talk & walk & the suddenness of the event you may be sure shocked me inexpressibly.13
Katherine was buried in the military cemetery near the huts of the Queen’s Rangers, which Simcoe had named Fort York, on Easter Monday, 21 April 1794. A few days later Francis seemed unwell, and Elizabeth was panic-stricken. When Katherine died, Surgeon Macaulay was at Newark. Appalled that she might lose Francis, too, she sent for him. By the time Macaulay arrived in York, Francis was better. Of Katherine, Elizabeth wrote, “The loss of so promising a Child must long be a painful thing.”
The governor learned of his daughter’s passing when the ship bringing him from Detroit reached Fort Erie, at the eastern end of Lake Erie. The report claimed that Elizabeth was very ill, and he galloped the eighteen miles to Newark in scarcely two hours, over a road that was a quagmire from spring rains. He learned that Elizabeth was well, but “from the melancholy event in the family, which affected him in a less degree than it would otherwise have done if he had not been so frightened on my account.”
When Elizabeth’s letter reached Wolford Lodge, Mrs. Hunt had the unwelcome task of informing the four children, who had so long looked forward to becoming acquainted with Katherine. The following year a grave marker arrived from England, ordered by Mrs. Hunt, and inscribed “Katherine Simcoe, January 16, 1793 — April 19, 1794. Happy in the Lord.” Preserved are two letters that illuminate the sorrow felt by family and friends. On 12 August, Mary Anne Burges wrote to her brother of her “great concern” at the sudden death of Katherine. Eliza received a letter from her great aunt, Elizabeth Gwillim, undated and written from Whitchurch. She reminded her great niece that all who die in infancy go to heaven. After this she continued, “Your brother wears Indian dress that is more becoming than English on the young.”14
Still sorrowing from the loss of Katherine, Elizabeth was not happy about moving to Newark for the third session of the legislature. Francis had been healthier at York and she longed to remain in the wilderness community which, Lord Dorchester had decided was the capital. The expense of moving to York was justified, but a second move was out of the question. Neither the home secretary, Henry Dundas, nor his successor in 1794, William Bentinck 3rd Duke of Portland, was enthusiastic about the site on the Thames. Simcoe’s frustrations, with Dorchester and the home government, were not helping his wife recover her equilibrium. To relieve her depression he suggested returning to Niagara along the shoreline in open boats. The thought of travelling helped more than anything else to restore Mrs. Simcoe’s spirits.
They set out on 9 May, with the children and their nurses and other servants. The trip proved a disappointment because the weather was poor. Picnics under umbrellas were uncomfortable. They had brought a tent for the children and nurses, but the governor and Elizabeth slept in a boat. Near Forty Mile Creek (Grimsby) they bought good bread, milk and butter from a family from Pennsylvania for whom the governor had helped select land the summer before. Elizabeth described the shoreline accurately. The valleys of the streams that descend the face of the Niagara Escarpment were steep sided, and they often had ponds in them on the flat surface of the former lake bed. They reached Newark at noon on the 11th; the heat was oppressive.15
Lieutenant Pilkington, then supervising the work at Fort Miamis, sent Elizabeth sketches of Lake Erie, which she copied. The people at Newark were in a near-panic over war scares. If Newark were menaced, she wrote Mary Anne Burges, she would take the children to Quebec. Hostage-taking was a popular technique of frontier warfare. On 29 May, the Mississauga, Caldwell and two gunboats brought the members of the legislature to Newark. The speaker, John Macdonnell, member for the second Glengarry riding and the owner of Glengarry House, dined with the Simcoes. When Simcoe told him of their plan to send Elizabeth and the children to Quebec, Macdonnell thought that Quebec was more likely to be besieged than Niagara because of its importance. Simcoe disagreed. The Americans would try to seize Upper Canada, rather than attack such a well-fortified stronghold as Quebec.
On 4 June, the King’s birthday, a ball was held in the council chamber. Thomas Talbot made the arrangements. Talbot, now a captain, would soon be returning to Britain, his tour of duty at an end. Francis’ third birthday was on the 6th, but they delayed the party a day because Simcoe had to go to Chippawa. Mr. Speaker Macdonnell gave Francis a tiny cannon. The shots were barely two inches long, but they “made a good Report & pleased him much.” The boy wore a rifle shirt and a sash which, with his dark hair and skin browned by the sun “gave him somewhat the air of an Indian.” Some friend had relayed this part of the diary to Aunt Elizabeth Gwillim. A party of Senecas who came to Newark danced and sang. After they departed, Francis imitated them very well.16
At the session of the legislature, the members passed a bill to license retailers of wine and spirits, unpopular with most of the populace, but Simcoe was looking for sources of revenue. They also passed a new Militia Bill. Dorchester had had one passed in 1788, which appointed the first officers and made service compulsory for all men between the ages of sixteen and fifty. Simcoe’s new bill extended the service to able-bodied men up to sixty, and permitted the militia to be used outside Upper Canada. He continued appointing county lieutenants, for as yet Dorchester had not forbidden them. The problem of arms for the citizen soldiers remained unsolved.
On 22 June they bid farewell to Captain Talbot, who sailed for Kingston on a merchant vessel, the Gov. Simcoe. (Talbot would resign from the army in 1800 and return in 1801 to promote land settlement.) The legislature sat until 7 July. Everyone worried about reports of General Wayne’s progress. On the 13th another dear friend would depart. Chief Justice Sir William Smith died, and William Osgoode was ordered to Quebec City to replace him. To Simcoe’s dismay, no new chief justice had been appointed for Upper Canada.17 On the 17th, Simcoe returned to Navy Hall with a wounded finger. After sending for Surgeon Macaulay, Elizabeth asked how it happened.
“I was walk
ing near the guard’s tent at Queenston with a gentleman,” he explained, “when a soldier aimed at an Indian’s dog that had stolen some pork. The musket was loaded with pellets, and the gentleman, the dog, another Indian, and myself were all wounded. I gave the gun to the wounded Indian to appease him and I reprimanded the soldier.” Dr. Macaulay probed the wound and wanted to remove the pellet but Simcoe, who had suffered enough, decided to let nature take its course.18
Meanwhile, the Queen’s Rangers employed on Yonge Street were needed for military duty. Simcoe made an arrangement for the work to continue. A gentleman named William Berczy, a native of Wallerstein, Germany, arrived at Newark. He had brought a group of German-speaking people to New York State in search of land, but had had trouble over the high price demanded by “land jobbers” (speculators). He introduced himself to Simcoe and asked for land to the west of the Iroquois tract along the Grand River, admitting that the group he represented had already purchased some land there.
Simcoe persuaded him instead to accept a tract north of York in the newly opening Township of Markham.19 The condition that Berczy accepted was that within a year from 15 September 1794, his settlers would complete Yonge Street, and open it from Lot 29, the point reached by the Queen’s Rangers, to “the pine fort at Holland River.” Having no authority to offer the workers wages, Simcoe allowed them more generous grants of land.20
On 8 August, Bishop Jacob Mountain and his brother, Jehosophat, a clergyman at Trois Rivieres, arrived for a visit. On the 11th the Simcoes decided that Elizabeth should soon take the children to Quebec. She wrote to Ann Caldwell at St. Foy asking her to find a house for her to rent. On the 19th, Simcoe agreed to let Dr. Macaulay operate on his wounded finger. The surgeon found the shot after some agonising probing. On 25 August, by order of Dorchester, Captain Shank arrived from York with a detachment of Queen’s Ranger, bound for the Maumee as reinforcements. On the 29th they received word of the battle at Fallen Timbers, where Mad Anthony Wayne defeated the native warriors. Wayne ordered the British garrison at Fort Miamis to surrender, but the commander, Major William Campbell of the 24th Regiment, refused.21 Wayne withdrew when he found the fort stronger than he expected.