630 YONGE STREET AND DUNDAS STREET, 



to ascertain the precise distance of the several routes which I have 

 done myself the honour of detailing to you, and hope to complete the 

 military street or road the ensuing autumn." And in 1794, he 

 reports : " Dundas Street, the road proposed from Burlington Bay 

 to the River Thames, half of which is completed, will connect by an 

 internal communication the Detroit and the settlements at Niagara. 

 It is intended to be extended northerly to York by the troops, and in 

 process of time by the respective settlers to Kingston and Montreal." 

 At the present time, I believe, the practice has become somewhat 

 obsolete of applying the name Dundas Street to the whole of the long 

 highway originally so called, extending from Detroit to the Point au 

 Baudet. A portion of it immediately west of Toronto, may be 

 spoken of as the Dundas road ; and the prevalent impression may be- 

 that the name denotes simply the route which leads to the town of 

 Dundas. But this, of course, would be quite a mistaken idea to 

 adopt. On the old manuscript maps, contemporary with the first 

 organization of the country, long before the town of Dundas existed, 

 the route from the Western to the Eastern limit of Upper Canada 

 was marked Dundas Street throughout its whole length. And thus 

 we have it still laid down in the excellent and interesting map of 

 Canada given in the handsome, large General Atlas published in 

 Edinburgh, by John Thomson, in 1817, constructed from authentic 

 sources, and dedicated to Alexander Keith, of Dunottar and Ravel- 

 ston. And at the end of the first Gazetteer of Upper Canada, pub- 

 lished in London in 1799, we have the following postscript which, 

 while serving to shew that the whole of the highway from the west 

 to the east was denominated Dundas Street, will also help us to 

 realize the stern conditions in. respect of means of inter- communica- 

 tion and locomotion under which our patient fathers first began to 

 shape out and mould for us the pleasant rural scenes, the amenities 

 and comforts of civilized life, everywhere now to be beheld and 

 enjoyed amongst us. This postscript, dated 1799, reads thus: 

 '' Since the foregoing notes have come from the press, the editor is 

 informed that the Dundas Street has been considerably improved 

 between the head of Lake Ontario and York ; and that the Govern- 

 ment has contracted for the opening of it from that city to the head 

 of the Bay of Quinte, a distance of 120 miles, as well as for cause- 

 waying of the swamps and erecting the necessary bridges, so that it 

 is hoped, in a short time, there will be a tolerable road from Quebec 



