Note 208 — Chapter V · LORD DORCHESTER AND THE CANADA ACT OF 1791
Reading edition
Bouchette wrote of York or Toronto in 1815: ‘In the year 1793, the spot on which it stands presented only one solitary Indian wigwam; in the ensuing spring the ground for the future metropolis of Upper Canada was fixed upon, and the buildings commenced under the immediate superintendence of the late General Simcoe, then Lieutenant-Governor.’ A Topographical description of the Province of Lower Canada, with remarks upon Upper Canada, &c., by Joseph Bouchette, Surveyor-General of Lower Canada (1st ed.), London, 1815, pp. 607-8.
According to this account, therefore, the building did not begin till 1794.