First Anchor Down in Toronto Harbor: Schooner Days DCXLI (641)

by C. H. J. Snider

THE TORONTO YACHT, whose canonized bones were enshrined in the wardroom of the Toronto Frigate last Saturday, was the first H.M.C.S. Toronto, but not the first patron of this great port, whose name carries from the yacht of 1799 to the frigate of 1944.

What was the first schooner to anchor in Toronto Harbor?

Perhaps, but very doubtfully. La Salle's 10-ton shallop called the Frontenac, which carried the materials from which the Griffon was to be built. We have no evidence that she was ever in Toronto Bay. We know, from Father Hennepin, that she sheltered in the mouth of the Humber on her way to Niagara, from Nov. 26th, 1678, till Dec. 5th, and she was soon after wrecked, about the end of year, on the south shore of the lake. But there was no inducement for her to enter Toronto harbor in her brief lifetime.

A more promising guess at the first schooner or vessel to anchor in the bay would be either the Caldwell, Buffalo, Mississaga, or Onondago, with Governor Simcoe in May, 1793, or the Queen's Rangers, who followed him to "Toronto, now York," in July. 1793. just after the governor had changed the name of the place.

The Caldwell was a sloop or cutter and had only one mast; the Onondago and Mississaga were "topsailed schooners of 80 tons" (Mrs. Simcoe) and therefore had yards crossing the foremast and probably the mainmast, after the fashion of that time. These details eliminate them from first-entry honors, because there is documentary evidence of a small vessel of different rig being in the harbor in 1792, the year before the Rangers came.

"The present establishment of vessels on this lake," wrote Mrs. Simcoe in July, 1792, "consists of the Onondago and Mississaga, named after the Indian tribes, topsailed schooners of about 80 tons, and the Caldwell, named after Col. Caldwell, which is a sloop. There are two gunboats, lately built on a very bad construction. Coll. Simcoe calls them the Bear and the Buffalo as they are so unscientifically built, and intends that they shall aid in carrying prisoners to Niagara." She wrote this in Kingston, where the establishment was based.

Lieut. Joseph Bouchette, of the Provincial Marine, cocky, enterprising and active, made a survey of Toronto Bay, the harbor-to-be, when he was turned 18, signed his name and the date, "November, 1792," and drew, under his signature, a lively picture of his little survey schooner riding at anchor in the harbor he had sounded. If she was not the first to enter, she is the first recorded, and that very definitely, by the same quill pen that made the first harbor chart.

The French had apparently anchored outside in Humber Bay when visiting old Fort Toronto. The green light buoy opposite the foot of Dufferin street marks the site of that probable anchorage. Even after Bouchette's survey so small a vessel as the sloop Caldwell would not enter the harbor by night but had to lay to and anchor outside till St. John Rousseau piloted her in, in daylight. And it was probably in attempting to enter by night, or by dragging her anchor while waiting for the day, that H.M.S. Onondaga, got aground and was almost lost, thirteen months after Bouchette signed his name to the first harbor chart.

When Bouchette made his chart and the picture of his survey schooner, the only buildings on the wilderness site of this city were Indian wigwams or teepees which he called "huts." One of these is shown as a triangle above the schooner. Bouchette drew his, vessel riding to anchor in two fathoms on a muddy bottom opposite the foot of Parliament street, future location of the Parliament Houses burned in 1813. The "hut" is on this site, and a line of dots may repressnt a stockade, a clearing, or a path which later became Front street east.

The map shows five anchorages used by the surveyors, and ninety-two soundings made in the harbor itself, ranging from two feet at the present Hanlan's Point to 5 1/2 fathoms, or 33 feet in a "deep" north of the present Eastern Gap. The bottom is characterized as "stony" and "rocky" at the only entrance, opposite the site of Fort York and the Queen's Wharf, to "muddy" and "sandy" at the east end of the bay, where a rocky bottom was also reported. In 1944 there are some forty-foot holes in the harbor, due to sand pumping, and fourteen feet or better all over its navigable portion.

This same wilderness haunt of wild birds and wild Indians and one wandering schooner in 1792 had 2,131 steamer arrivals in 1943, with 3,612,215 tons of freight.

Noteworthy features of Lieut. Bouchette's schooner, and typical of her 18th century period, are the enormous commission pendant and ensign, both of which show the crosses of the Union Jack, then limited to two in number; the loose-footed mainsail triced up from the boom; the foresail brailed to the foremast, with the head hauled out on a standing gaff; a squaresail for running (like a yacht's spinnaker), laced to a yard, which crosses the foremast and is lowered when not in use; a jib which stowed on the bowsprit. The mainsail hoisted with a "tie" or single peak halliard, with a bridle on the gaff, and the main-sheet worked on another span or bridle on the boom. The rudder head shows above the bulwarks and her trim appears to have been in three colors, possibly yellow, black and white. Her boat is shown on its painter astern and rowed three oars a side. Bouchette's detail is so good that he shows the six tholepins of the rowlocks. The six-oared boat would be 14 feet long, and with this yardstick we may assume the parent schooner to have measured about 50 feet on deck. She was probably 16 or 17 feet beam and not more than 5 feet deep in the hold. That is why her stern is cocked up, to give headroom for the officers in the cabin.

Next week let us try to arrive at her name.

Lieut. Bouchette's survey schooner—BEAR?—BUFFALO?—LIVELY?—as he himself drew her on his chart of this port 152 years ago.