Discover Toronto's history as told through its plaques

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Fort Rouillé

Photos by Alan L Brown - Posted March, 2004

Photo Source - Unknown

This monument stands in the west end of Exhibition Place, just to the west of the bandshell. The area around it marks where the walls of the old French fort stood. This Ontario Heritage Trust plaque, attached to the monument, has this to say:

Coordinates: 43.630659 -79.423532

The last French post built in present-day Southern Ontario, Fort Rouillé, more commonly known as Fort Toronto, was erected on this site in 1750-51. It was established by order of the Marquis de la Jonquière, Governor of New France, to help strengthen French control of the Great Lakes and was located here near an important portage to capture the trade of Indians travelling southeast toward the British fur-trading centre at Oswego. A small frontier post, Fort Rouillé was a palisaded fortification with four bastions and five main buildings. It apparently prospered until hostilities between the French and British increased in the mid-1750s. Following the capitulation of other French posts on Lake Ontario, Fort Rouillé was destroyed by its garrison in July 1759.

Another plaque at this location
Fort Rouillé

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Here are the visitors' comments for this page.

> Posted February 8, 2012
The first U.S. landing site of April 27, 1813, was "near the intersection of Dowling Avenue and Lake Shore Boulevard [West]", where the "fiercest fighting of the day happened...and continued toward the clearing around Fort Rouille" (Fort Toronto). Source: Robert Malcomson, "Capital in Flames: The American Attack on York, 1813", 2008, p. 200. This location is consistent with a scaled map in the same book (p. 191) when the distance is measured using Google Earth. The site is that of the initial U.S. landing at 7:00 a.m. Subsequent landings at 7:20 and 7:40 a.m. were between one half and one kilometre to the east of this point, but still to the west of Fort Toronto's ruins. The planned landing at the clearing around the old fort would have meant greater safety from enemy fire, but, unable to land there, they suffered a barrage of fire from the forested bank.
-Wayne

> Posted January 31, 2012
Reply to note of Jan. 29, 2012--This is indeed that "old French fort", Fort Toronto, selected as an ideal landing site by the U.S. in 1813. The forest had been cleared around the fort, making it easier to organize troops. However, easterly winds that morning made landing difficult, and ships were pushed to the west (two sources say a half mile west of the fort), to a narrow beach along east Humber Bay, below a steep, forested bank. I don't have a modern street name reference, and believe the site is unmarked today. Fort Toronto was the third of three forts built by France in the Toronto area. The first was a small trading post on the Humber River built in 1720, which lasted until 1730. It was located near the former Seneca village of Teiaiagon at Baby Point. The second fort--the first "Fort Toronto"--was built in 1750 near the mouth of the Humber, replaced within the year by the second Fort Toronto, whose site is at today's Exhibition Place.
-Wayne

> Posted January 29, 2012
Hi, I was reading about the American invasion of York on April 27th 1813,and is this the Old French Fort that the Americans landed just west of. If so would anyone know the area in Parkdale where they landed. A Street name would be great. Also, are the various street names in Parkdale named after the British and Canadian Militia troops who confronted the American invaders, and perhaps lost there lives defending our nation. I am just a proud Canadian trying to learn as much as possible about our nations history.
Sincerely Michael Fleming

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