Military and waterfront heritage site.
Details of Site Location: Located on the west bank of the Don near the mouth, and near to the first Parliament Buildings.
Boundary History: The site was bounded by the Don River on the east side and by the original shoreline of the harbour on the south side, with no known boundaries for either the west or north sides. The site is estimated to have occupied approximately an acre, not including palisades.
Current Use of Property: The property is now occupied by the Gooderham & Worts complex.
Historical Description: The Mississauga uprising in 1798 was triggered by earlier events. The most important of these was the fact that the aboriginal inhabitants of the Toronto region were being forced off their lands without treaties in place to compensate them. The immediate cause of the uprising was the brutal murder of Mississauga Chief Wabukanine by Charles McCuen, a soldier in the Queen’s Rangers, in 1796. In an effort to calm matters, McCuen was brought to trial and acquitted, and the restlessness among the Indians increased to the point where residents of the tiny Town of York feared an invasion. The administrator of Upper Canada, Peter Russell, ordered the construction of a blockhouse near the Parliament Buildings. Typical of those built in this period, the new Blockhouse was made of logs and was two storeys high, with the upper storey offset on top of the ground-floor level. Each storey was 98′ square. On the roof, a signal light was mounted to guide ships on the lake to York’s harbour. A painting of 1803 shows a flag on the roof.
Relative Importance: The Don Blockhouse is important as an installation of very early date made for the defence of the Town of York. Its site is completely lost, and its function was later superseded by other installations and earthworks, but it served its purpose at the time. It was destroyed by the Americans in 1813 during the invasion of York.
Planning Implications: It would be appropriate to examine the entire area of the first Parliament Buildings and Don Blockhouse and to mount a plaque to these early structures, since they relate to each other. No archaeology is possible now, and partial archaeological investigation has already been made of the site of the Parliament Buildings. The area has been greatly disturbed but is critical to the history of Toronto and of Upper Canada as an emerging province.
Reference Sources: Elizabeth Francis Hale painting 1803, Part of York, the Capital of Upper Canada on the Bay of Toronto in Lake Ontario, University of Chicago; William Gooderham, untitled plan of the Don Blockhouse, 1799, Public Archives of Canada.
Acknowledgements: The Rousseau Project; Toronto Military Heritage Association.