From the carrying place to Canada's largest city

How Toronto began

The north shore of Lake Ontario was Indigenous land long before the town existed. A canoe and portage route known as the Toronto Carrying-Place connected Lake Ontario with Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay, and the Humber River formed part of it. Colonial records describe the area as the territory of the Mississaugas. In 1787 the British Crown negotiated what is now called the Toronto Purchase with Mississauga leaders. The deed that surfaced afterward was largely blank apart from the signatures, and in June 2010 the Government of Canada agreed to pay 145 million CAD to the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation to settle their specific claim.

John Graves Simcoe, the first lieutenant governor of Upper Canada, began to lay out the new town in August 1793, according to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography. The town was named York, after Prince Frederick, Duke of York, a son of King George III. When York was incorporated as a city on March 6, 1834, it took the name Toronto, while the county around it kept the name York.

Many readers arrive with a single question, such as a family surname, a street name or a date. The surname search covers 899 biographical sketches from an 1885 book on Toronto and the County of York. The street names page explains where some of the city's street names come from, and the map of historic places shows landmarks by location. Larger buildings are described in the guides to Casa Loma, Union Station and the CN Tower.