The day Americans invaded Toronto
During War of 1812, U.S. officials figured Fort York was easier to take than Kingston
Early in the afternoon of April 27,1813, the earth moved for the residents of the town of York, destined to become the city of Toronto.
An explosion at Fort York, a few kilometres west of the town, spewed a mushrooming cloud of smoke and debris into the air. This was the end of the Battle of York, but not the end of the War of 1812. That conflict between Britain and the United States would continue until a peace treaty was signed in December 1814.
“I . . . felt a tremendous motion in the earth resembling the shock of an earthquake,” wrote explosion witness and York resident P. Finan. “I saw an immense cloud ascend in the air,” he related in an account, quoted in author and historian Carl Benn’s book, Historic Fort York, 1793-1993.
Retreating British forces, realizing they couldn’t win the battle and wanting to keep munitions out of the hands of the 2,700 invading Americans, ignited the Fort York gunpowder magazine — a building that housed an estimated 300 barrels, each containing 100 pounds of gunpowder. About 250 U.S. soldiers were injured or killed by the explosion. Among the mortally wounded was American Brig.-Gen. Zebulon Pike, who had already achieved fame as a western explorer (Colorado’s Pikes Peak is named after him).
The Battle of York was one of several skirmishes in the War of 1812, many occurring in the vicinity of the Great Lakes. The Americans went to war with Britain over its trade policies and its support of First Nations, who were resisting American expansion.
As for the town of York, capturing it “would generate good propaganda for the overall U.S. war effort because it was the capitol of Upper Canada,” Benn wrote in Fort York, A Short History and Guide.
The Americans chose York because they believed they could outnumber the soldiers defending the lakeside fort, located on the site of the original 1793 wooden fort constructed by Upper Canada’s Lt.Gov. John Graves Simcoe. They assumed it would be easier to take than Kingston, where the British Royal Navy was based. They were right. Early on April 27, 1813, 2,550 American forces arrived on 14 ships and boats and landed at what is now Parkdale. They were met by 750 British forces made up of professional British soldiers, and a small contingent of local militia, and Mississauga and Ojibwa warriors.
The British were overpowered and forced back through the area now known as the Exhibition grounds to Fort York. It was then the battle ended with the magazine explosion. The battle claimed 157 lives on the British side and 320 Americans.
British Maj.-Gen. Roger Sheaffe and his surviving soldiers torched a British warship the Americans had hoped to capture before retreating to Kingston.
Local militia members and civic leaders handled the formal surrender of the town.
During the six days the Americans occupied York, the soldiers went unchecked, looting homes and businesses, destroying private property and harassing citizens, Benn wrote.
American soldiers torched Government House (the governor’s residence inside Fort York), the Parliament buildings (at the corner of what is now Front and Berkeley Sts.), and stole the Speaker’s mace and a carved lion, that sat in front of the Speaker’s chair. A year later, in retaliation, the British burned the White House in Washington.
When the Americans left, sailing toward Niagara to attack Fort George, residents of York inspected the fort and the battlefield and reburied their fallen soldiers, who had been interred just “a few inches below the earth,” Benn wrote.
Benn suggests the Americans did not try to hold the town because it “had little military value” and they didn’t have the resources needed. But they returned for two days, on July 31, 1813, seizing supplies and burning the barracks at Fort York. Another attack, in August 1813, was repelled by the British.
Reconstruction of the fort began in 1813 and finished in 1815. Most of the current fort’s walls and surviving buildings date to this period.
On Dec. 24, 1814, the Treaty of Ghent was signed by the U.S. and Britain in Ghent, Belgium, ending the war and reverting all captured territory to pre-war status.
The next 20-odd years were a peaceful time of growth and prosperity for York. In 1834, the town of York was incorporated as the city of Toronto.
But three years later, rebellion was in the air. Toronto politician and journalist William Lyon Mackenzie sought to sever Upper Canada’s link to Britain and led a rebellion in December 1837, which involved various skirmishes in the city and just north of its boundaries, at Yonge St. and Eglinton Ave.
The rebels were defeated within a few days and Mackenzie fled the country. But the uprising roused the government and led to a strengthening of Fort York’s defences.
The earthworks around the fort (a bank of soil that protects against artillery fire) were repaired, the circular battery (the area where the cannon are positioned) was enlarged, a fort storehouse was converted into a prison and new barracks to sleep 330 men were constructed.
The threat of rebellion faded. But in 1840, the barrack accommodation was deemed substandard and new stone barracks, called New Fort, were built about one kilometre west of the “Old Fort.” The New Fort was surrounded by its own high wooden palisade (a fence of pointed wooden stakes). All of the New Fort’s buildings, aside from the Officers’ Quarters, which remains on CNE grounds, were torn down in 1953.
Most soldiers lived at New Fort and were sometimes called into the city to help police with situations such as riot control, for instance after the 1841municipal election when tempers flared between rival factions.
Fort York was still valued for harbour defence and its buildings continued to be used for munitions and supplies storage and other military purposes.
When the American Civil War broke out in 1861, Britain, concerned about “the modest state of Toronto’s fortifications” and fearful that the war could embroil the Canadian colonies, shored up the fort, Benn details in Fort York.
Defensive walls, rebuilt around seven eight-inch shell guns that could penetrate the hulls of an enemy ship and ex- plode, were installed on the south face, facing the lake.
They built a new protected, fortified platform, the Western Battery, and armed it with a pair of 32-pound cannons to fire on ships approaching from the west.
It was the last heavy arming of Fort York. The American Civil War ended in 1865 without a breaching of the border.
The British withdrew its soldiers from Canadian garrisons in 1870-1871 and the federal government immediately assumed ownership of Fort York. Starting in 1871 and continuing into the 1930s, a small Canadian army contingent lived and worked at New Fort, also called Stanley Barracks. Fort York provided the quarters for married soldiers, training and storage space.
Fort York was given to the city of Toronto in 1903, which agreed to preserve it. However, within two weeks of acquiring the site, a slaughterhouse was built at the east end, and a guardhouse was torn down. In 1905, the city considered building a streetcar line to the CNE through the middle of the site, but public outcry made it back down.
But in 1916, a streetcar line did run along the north side of the Fort to the Exhibition. However, at the end of the First World War, the historical value of preserving the fort lands became clear to the city and the slaughterhouse was torn down. Fort York was declared a national historic site in 1923.
During the Great Depression, the city used federal job-creation money to hire unemployed men and restore the fort leading up to its centenary. Fort York’s new life as a museum with period exhibits began on Victoria Day 1934, with an official ceremony by the Governor-General, the Earl of Bessborough.
The Star reported that thousands attended the opening of the “rejuvenated fort.” And perhaps to show there were no hard feelings, American officials returned the Speaker’s Mace. The looted carved lion, however, remains at the Naval Academy Museum in Maryland.
“I . . . felt a tremendous motion in the earth resembling the shock of an earthquake. I saw an immense cloud ascend in the air.” P. FINAN EXPLOSION WITNESS AND YORK RESIDENT