LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN CANADA. 57 
division embraced the townships below Kingston on the St. Lawrence, and the other the 
townships westward to the head of the Bay of Quinté. One of the first settlers of Upper 
Canada has given us the following description of the mode in which the townships were 
granted by the government :— 
“At length the time came in July, for the townships to be given out. The governor 
came and having assembled the companies before him, called for Mr. Grass, and said, 
Now you were the first person to mention this fine country, and have been here formerly 
as a prisoner of war. You must have the first choice. The townships are numbered, 
first, second, third, fourth and fifth; which do you choose?’ ‘The first township’ (Kings- 
ton). Then the governor says to Nir John Johnson, ‘ Which do you choose?’ He replies, 
‘The second township’ (Ernestown). To Colonel Rogers, ‘Which do you choose?’ He 
says ‘The third’ (Fredericksburg). To Major Vanalstine, ‘Which do you choose?’ ‘The 
fourth’ (Adolphustown). Then Colonel McDonell got the fifth township, (Marysburg). 
So, after this manner, the first settlement of Loyalists in Upper Canada was made.” : 
The districts which were constituted in 1788 were intended mainly for judicial 
purposes, and were named after great houses in Germany, allied to the royal family of 
England. The same was the case with the first townships that were laid out. The first 
township was called Kingstown, after His Majesty George IIL; Ernestown after Ernest 
Augustus, eighth child of the King; Adolphustown, after another son.” Provision was 
made for future towns during the first surveys. A plot was generally reserved in some 
locality which seemed especially adapted for a town. This was the case in Adolphus- 
town, where a lot was granted to each of the settlers. But towns were of very slow 
growth, until some years after the establishment of a separate government in Upper 
Canada, when settlers’ began to flow steadily into a country whose fertility and produc- 
tiveness commenced at last to be understood. Not a few of the towns owe their establish 
ment to private enterprise and prescience in the first Instance.’ 
In 1791 Upper Canada was separated from French Canada, and became a province 
with a legislature composed of a lieutenant-governor, a legislative council appointed by 
the Crown, and a legislative assembly elected by the people When heutenant-governor 
Simcoe undertook the administration of the affairs of the new province, he issued a 
proclamation dividing it into nineteen counties, as follows: Glengary, Stormont, Dundas, 
Grenville, Leeds, Frontenac, Ontario, Addington, Lenox, Prince Edward, Hastings, 
Northumberland, Durham, York, Lincoln, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, and Kent” Some of 

! Ryerson, ii. 209. 
*“King George III. who died in 1820, aged $2, having reigned 60 years, had a family of 15 children, whose 
names were George, Frederick, William Henry, Charlotte Augusta, Matilda, Edward, Sophia Augusta, Elizabeth, 
Ernest Augustus, Augustus Frederick, Adolphus Frederick, Mary Sophia, Octavius, Alfred, and Amelia. These 
royal names were appropriated to the townships, towns, and districts.” Canniff, p. 439. 
#4 Windsor (now Whitby) was so named about 1819 by its projector, Mr. John Scadding, the original grantee 
of a thousand acres in this locality. On a natural harbour of Lake Ontario, popularly known as Big Bay, Mr. 
Seadding laid out the town, built the first house, and named the streets, three of them after his three sons—John, 
Charles and Henry.” Ryerson, ii. 260. One of these sons, here mentioned, is the well known antiquarian of 
Toronto, Rev. Dr. Scadding. 
431 Geo. ITI, c. 31. 
° See Proclamation in Statutes of Upper Canada, i. 23. 
Sec. IL., 1886. 8. 
