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

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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.

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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.

In 1759, Sir William Johnson had described in his diary the initial discussions of peace and trade in the region between the British and Six Nations.

Two years later, on July 25th, 1761, at Fort Niagara, Johnson wrote the following in his diary:

…Captain Butler from Toronto arrived here, and gave a very good account of the behavior of the Mississagays, Chippawas, Michilimakinacs, &c., during their residence there, and by their speeches, and everything else, seemed to be very hearty in our interest. He is to set off from here on the morrow.

Then, on August 3rd, he wrote:

Captain Fonda arrived here from Toronto, where he said the trade was over for this season; and that they had a great deal of goods yet on hand, which he offered to sell at prime cost, but could not dispose of them. He says the Indians all behaved extremely well who came there to trade; that they sell gunpowder at a bear skin for a pound.

And on August 5th:

Captain Fonda came to acquaint me he was going to Toronto, as he could not dispose of his cargo here…

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.
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In 1788, Captain Gother Mann of the Royal Engineers, instructed by Lord Dorchester (Sir Guy Carleton, First Baron Dorchester) to conduct military surveys of the Great Lakes, prepared a survey and plan for “Torento Harbour.” The plan, dated at Quebec the 6th of December, 1788, covered a large area extending roughly from High Park to the Don Valley, and north of Eglinton Avenue. Mann’s layout for the area included a common area in the centre, residential lots around this area, and reserved government land along much of the shoreline. The ruins of Fort Rouillé can be seen on the survey.

Accompanying the plan was the report of Deputy Surveyor General John Collins, in which he advised that the shoreline was too shallow for wharves or quays to be practical, and that a prevalent west wind would make it difficult for ships to leave the harbour.

According to Henry Scadding in Toronto of Old, on Thursday, May 9th, 1793, the Niagara-based Upper Canada Gazette reported the following:

On Thursday last his Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor, accompanied by several military gentlemen, set out in boats for Toronto, round the Head of the Lake Ontario, by Burlington Bay; and in the evening his Majesty’s vessels the Caldwell, and Buffalo, sailed for the same place.

The Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, John Graves Simcoe, had left for Toronto on May 2nd, and would return to Niagara on the 13th, as reported in the May 16th Gazette.

An earlier letter, dated April 5th, 1793, from Simcoe to the Lieutenant-Governor of Lower Quebec, Major-General Clarke, suggests that Simcoe’s May visit to Toronto was his first.

In her diary, on Monday, July 29th, 1793, Elizabeth Simcoe described leaving Niagara and arriving at Toronto for the first time.  There is no town in July of 1793.  Toronto is a bay covered in forest.  Her husband has had a soldiers’ camp set up at the site of present-day Fort York. 

“Mon. 29th – We were prepared to sail for Toronto this morning, but the wind changed suddenly.  We dined with the Chief Justice, and were recalled from a walk at nine o’clock this evening, as the wind had become fair.  We embarked on board the “Mississaga,” the band playing in the ship.  It was dark, so I went to bed and slept until eight o’clock the next morning, when I found myself in the harbour of Toronto.  We had gone under an easy sail all night, for as no person on board had ever been at Toronto, Mr. Bouchette was afraid to enter the harbour till daylight, when St. John Rousseau, an Indian trader who lives near, came in a boat to pilot us.”