"You can pass from Lake Frontenac, i. e., Ontario," Lahontan says (ii. 23), "into Lake Huron by the River Tan-a-hou-até (the Humber), by a portage of about twenty-four miles to Lake Toronto, which by a river of the same name empties into Lake Huron," i.e. by the River Severn, as we should now speak.
Hunting-parties or war-parties taking to the water here at the Upper Landing, in the pre-historic period, would probably be just about to penetrate the almost insular district, of which we have spoken, westward of Lake Simcoe,—the Toronto region, the place of concourse, the well-peopled region. But some of them might perhaps be making for the Lake Huron country and North-west generally, by the established trail having its terminus at or near Orillia (to use the modern name).
In the days of the white man, the old Indian place of embarkation and debarkation on the Holland river, acquired the name of the Upper Canoe-landing; and hither the smaller craft continued to proceed.
Vessels of deeper draught lay at the Lower Landing, to which we now move on, about a mile and a half further down the stream. Here the river was about twenty-five yards wide, the banks low and bordered by a woody marsh, in which the tamarac or larch was a conspicuous tree.
In a cleared space on the right, at the point where Yonge Street struck the stream, there were some long low buildings of log with strong shutters on the windows, usually closed. These were the Government depositories of naval and military stores, and Indian presents, on their way to Penetanguishene. The cluster of buildings here was once known as Fort Gwillimbury. Thus we have it written in the old Gazetteer of 1799: "It is thirty miles from York to Holland river, at the Pine Fort called Gwillimbury, where the road ends."
Galt, in his Autobiography, speaks of this spot. He travelled from York to Newmarket in one day. This was in 1827. "Then next morning," he says, "we went forward to a place on the Holland river, called Holland's Landing, an open space which the Indians and fur-traders were in the habit of frequenting. It presented to me," he adds, "something of a Scottish aspect in the style of the cottages; but instead of mountains the environs were covered with trees. We embarked at this place." He was on his way to Goderich at the time, via Penetanguishene.
The river Holland, at which we have so long been labouring to arrive, had its name from a former surveyor-general of the Province of Quebec, prior to the setting-off of the Province of Upper Canada—Major S. Holland.
In the Upper Canada Gazette of Feb. 13, 1802, we have an obituary notice of this official personage. His history also, it will be observed, was mixed up with that of General Wolfe. "Died," the obituary says, "on the 28th instant (that is, on the 28th of December, 1801, the article being copied from the Quebec Gazette of the 31st of the preceding December), of a lingering illness, which he bore for many years with Christian patience and resignation, Major S. Holland.
"He had been in his time," the brief memoir proceeds to say, "an intrepid, active, and intelligent officer, never making difficulties, however arduous the duty he was employed in. He was an excellent field-engineer, in which capacity he was employed in the year 1758 at the siege of Louisbourg in the detachment of the army under General Wolfe, who after silencing the batteries that opposed our entrance into the harbour, and from his own setting fire to three ships of the line, and obliging the remainder in a disabled state to haul out of cannon shot, that great officer by a rapid and unexpected movement took post within four hundred yards of the town, from whence Major Holland, under his directions, carried on the approaches, destroyed the defences of the town, and making a practicable breach, obliged the enemy to capitulate. He distinguished himself also at the conquest of Quebec in 1759, and was made honourable mention of in Gen. Wolfe's will as a legatee. He also distinguished himself in the defence of Quebec in 1760, after General Murray's unsuccessful attack on the enemy.—After the peace he was appointed Surveyor-General of this Province, and was usefully employed in surveying the American coasts, from which survey those draughts published some years since by Major Debarres have been principally taken."
Major Holland was succeeded in the Surveyor-generalship of Lower Canada by a nephew—the distinguished Colonel Joseph Bouchette. In 1791 Major Holland constructed a map of the British Province of Quebec, on the scale of six inches to the square mile. It exists in MS. in the Crown Land Office of Ontario. It is a magnificent map. On it, Lake Simcoe is left undefined on one side, not having been explored in 1791.