668 CANADIAN LOCAL HISTORY. 



Elizabethtown and Augusta, and is washed by tlie River Rideau. 

 [From the name of the family seat of Lieut. -General Simcoe, near 

 Honiton, in Devonshire.] 



Woodhouse Township, in the County of Norfolk, lies west of Wal- 

 pole, and fronts Lake Erie. [Several families of distinction bear this 

 name in the English Norfolk. Sir John Wodehouse was raised to the 

 peerage in 1797, as Baron Wodehouse, of Kimberley, in the County 

 of Norfolk.] 



Woods, Lake of the. See Lac du Bois. 



Wye, Biver, nans from a small lake near the north- west end of Lake 

 Simcoe, into Gloucester Bay, Lake Huron. 



Y 



Yarmouth Township, in the County of Norfolk, lies to the west of 

 Houghton, and fix>nts Lake Erie. [Probably a compliment to Fran- 

 cis Seymour, Lord Conway, who in 1 793 was made Earl of Yarmouth."] 



Yonge Street, is the direct communication from York to Lake Sim- 

 coe, opened during the administration of His Excellency Major-Gen- 

 eral Lieut. -Governor Simcoe, who, having visited Lake Hiiron by 

 Lake aux Claies, (formerly also called Ouentaronk, or Sinion, and 

 now named Lake Simcoe,) discovered the harbour of Penetanguishene 

 (now Gloucester) to be fit for shipping, and resolved on improving the 

 communication from Lake Ontario to Lake Huron by this short 

 route, thereby avoiding the circuitous passage of Lake Erie. This 

 street has been opened in a direct line, and the road made by the 

 troops of His Excellency's corps. It is thirty miles from York to 

 Holland's River, at the pine fort called GwUlimbury, where the road 

 ends : from thence you descend into Lake Simcoe, and having passed 

 it there are two passages into Lake Huron— the one by the River 

 Severn, which conveys the waters of Lake Simcoe into Gloucester 

 Bay ; the other by a small portage, a continuation of Yonge Street, to 

 a small lake,' which also runs into Gloucester Bay : this communica- 

 tion affords many advantages ; merchandise from Montreal to Michi- 

 limackinac may be sent this way at ten or fifteen pounds less expense 

 per ton, than by the route of the Grand or Ottawa River; and the 

 merchandise from New York, to be sent up the North and Mohawk 

 rivers for the north-west trade, finding its way into Lake Ontaiio at 

 Oswego (Fort Ontario), the advantage will certainly be felt of trans^ 

 portiag goods from Oswego to York, and from thence across li^ onge 



