Credit: This image very kindly made available for reproduction by Simon Pulsifer (SimonP) under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license found here, with the original Wikipedia image post found here. This image may only be reproduced under the terms of the original license.
Click here for the full-size image.

Taber Hill (sometimes spelled Tabor Hill) is located at Bellamy Road and Lawrence Avenue in Scarborough.

A plaque at the top of the hill has the following:

TABER HILL

SITE OF AN ANCIENT INDIAN OSSUARY

OF THE IROQUOIS NATION. BURIALS

WERE MADE ABOUT 1250 A.D.  THIS

OSSUARY WAS UNCOVERED WHEN FARM

LANDS WERE DEVELOPED INTO

RESIDENTIAL PROPERTIES IN 1956. THIS

COMMON GRAVE CONTAINS THE REMAINS

OF APPROXIMATELY 472 PERSONS.

The ossuary was found to be 50 feet long, 7 feet wide, and 1 foot deep.

The May 1960 issue of INDIAN RECORD discussed the plan to set up a memorial at Taber Hill. Scarborough Councillors A.W. Bailley and L.W. Stewart would be approaching the Canadian Government in relation to placing a 10 to 20-ton memorial stone at the site. Joseph Logan, chief of the Six Nations Confederacy, had indicated to council that chiefs of the confederacy had chosen an 18-line verse by Indian poet White Cloud to be carved on the stone.

The Commissioner of Parks and Recreation, Scarborough submitted a report regarding Taber Hill dated May 13, 1998 to the Scarborough Community Council, that included the following information:

Credit: Exclusive permission to reproduce this image was very kindly provided to the Toronto Project by the Map and Data Library, University of Toronto. This image may not be reproduced. Original link found here.
Click here for the full-size image.

In a 1680 map by Abbé Claude Bernou, “LAC DE TARONTO” was the name of current-day Lake Simcoe. The villages of Teyoyagon, also known as Teiaiagon, and Ganatchakiagon, also known as Ganatsekwyagon, were marked on the map.

Credit: Exclusive permission to reproduce this image was very kindly provided to the Toronto Project by the Map and Data Library, University of Toronto. This image may not be reproduced. Original link found here.
Click here for the full-size image.

In 1688, Jesuit Father Pierre Raffeix published a map titled, “LE LAC ONTARIO avec les lieux circonvoisins & particulierement les cinq nations Iroquoises.” The map consisted of Lake Ontario, also known as the Lake of Saint Louis, with the surrounding area marked as including territory belonging to the five Iroquois nations.

Current-day Lake Simcoe was marked as “Lac Taronthe.” The villages, theyagon (Teiaiagon) and “Ganestikiagon” (Ganatsekwyagon), were also marked.

Credit: This image very kindly made available for reproduction by Geographicus Rare Antique Maps (geographicus.com) as part of a cooperation project with the Wikimedia Foundation.
Click here for the full-size image.

Vincenzo Coronelli’s 1694 map of the Great Lakes drew from the reports of Jesuit Missionaries, marked with forts, Indian villages, and missionary stations. Lake Ontario is referred to as Lake “Frontenac” and Lake Simcoe is marked as “L Toronto.”  The villages of “Toioiagon” (Teiaiagon) and “Canathe-Kiagon” (Ganatsekwyagon) are also marked.

Credit: Photo reproduced with the kind permission of Alan L. Brown at www.ontarioplaques.com.

Click here for the full-size image.

Fort Rouillé, also known as Fort Toronto, was a French trading post established in or about 1750.  The fort was named after Antoine-Louis Rouillé (1689-1761), the Count of Jouy, appointed in 1749 by Louis XV to oversee France’s colonies. 

The Governor of New France, the Marquis de la Jonquière, had hoped that the fort would capture some of the trade between the Aboriginal population, many of whom were using the Humber River as a transport route, and the English fur-trading post located at the opposite side of Lake Ontario, at present-day Oswego, New York.

The fort was located in the area that is occupied today by the C.N.E., next to the Windshare turbine, where a monument, as well as the outline of the original fort, can be found.

Established in or about 1750, Fort Rouillé, also known as Fort Toronto, prospered.

In 1754, the inhabitants of the French Fort Rouillé included:
– one officer;
– two sergeants;
– four soldiers; and
– one storekeeper.

The fort consisted of a guardhouse, storeroom, barracks, store, blacksmith, officers’ quarters, and outbuildings.

Credit: This image very kindly made available for reproduction by Geographicus Rare Antique Maps (geographicus.com) as part of a cooperation project with the Wikimedia Foundation.
Click here for the full-size image.

This Jacques-Nicolas Bellin map of the Great Lakes appeared in the 1755 issue of the Homann Heirs Atlas Major. Bellin made use of the most advanced French cartographic intelligence available at the time, which he had access to as chief engineer of the cartographic section of the Ministére de la Marine, the depository for journals and maps from New France.

Credit: Photo reproduced with the kind permission of Alan L. Brown at www.ontarioplaques.com.
 

By 1759, British forces were putting increased pressure on French positions in the area. Fort Niagara had fallen in July after a nineteen day siege. Québec City would be placed under siege for three months before falling in September.

Feeling that Fort Rouillé could not be defended, the decision was made in July 1759 by the fifteen troops stationed there to set fire to the fort and retreat to Montréal.

When it was destroyed, the fort was approximately 180 x 180 feet, and was made up of five buildings:  the senior officers’ quarters, the soldiers’ quarters, a smithy, a magazine house and a kitchen.

In his private diary entries of 1759, Sir William Johnson provided information about the fall of Fort Rouillé, also known as Fort Toronto.

In 1759, British forces had laid siege to Fort Niagara. Initially second-in-command, Johnson was in charge after the death of Brigadier-General John Prideaux, and on July 25th, the French garrison at Fort Niagara surrendered.

On July 28th, Johnson would write the following:

The evening of the 27th, I sent 3 whale boats with a party of above 30 men to reconnoitre Fort Toronto, and on their return, propose to send to destroy it.

And on the 30th:

At night Lieutenant Francis returned from Toronto, and reported that the enemy had burned and abandoned that post, and destroyed many things which they could not take along, viz. working utensils, arms, &c.

On August 22nd, Johnson described a meeting with “the Chippaway sachem, Tequakareigh,” and other members of the Six Nations. At that meeting, trade and peaceful relations between the English and Six Nations were proposed, as long as relations with the French were broken off. Tequakareigh…

… also desired I would send some person to the Mississagay town, near where Toronto stood, to hear what he should say to that nation…

In his Journals, Major Robert Rogers, who was on his way from Montreal to Detroit to oversee the surrender of the French fort to the English, wrote the following:

… I embarked at Montreal the 13th Sept. 1760 (with Captain Brewer, Captain Waite, Lieutenant Brheme, Assistant Engineer, Lieut. Davis of the royal train of artillery, and two hundred Rangers) about noon in fifteen whaleboats…

…The wind being fair the 30th, we embarked at the first dawn of day, and with the assistance of sails and oars made great way on a south-west course, and in the evening reached the river Toronto, having run seventy miles. Many points extending far into the lake occasioned a frequent alteration of our course. We passed a bank of twenty miles in length, but the land behind it seemed to be level, well timbered with large oaks, hickories, maples, and some poplars. No mountains appeared in sight. There was a track of about 300 acres of cleared ground round the place where formerly the French had a fort that was called Fort Toronto. The soil here is principally clay. The deer are extremely plentiful in this country. Some Indians were hunting at the mouth of the river, who run into the woods at our approach, very much frightened. They came in however in the morning, and testified their joy at the news of our success against the French. The told us “that we could easily accomplish our journey from thence to Detroit in eight days: that when the French traded at that place, the Indians used to come with their poultry from Michilimackinac down the river Toronto: that the portage was but twenty miles from that to a river falling into Lake Huron, which has some falls but none very considerable.” They added that there was a carrying place of fifteen miles from some westerly part of Lake Erie, to a river running without any falls thro’ several Indian towns into Lake St. Clair.

I think Toronto a most convenient place for a factory, and that from thence we may very easily settle the north side of Lake Erie.

We left Toronto the 1st of October steering south right across the west end of Lake Ontario. At dark we arrived at the south shore, five miles west of Fort Niagara, some of our boats being now become exceedingly leaky and dangerous.