 Portrait of John Graves Simcoe, 1791
Jean Laurent Mosnier (1743/4 - 1808).
Oil.
Toronto Public Library, TRL, 927-1.
John Graves Simcoe was appointed first Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada in 1791. When he arrived in Upper Canada in 1792, Newark (Niagara-on-the-Lake) was being used as the centre of government, but it was considered too close to the American border for safety. Simcoe chose a site for a capital that was well inland, and named in London, on a river that he named the Thames. However, since there were no major roads in Upper Canada, London was not a feasible site at that time.
Simcoe chose Toronto as an alternative, the site of the French Fort Rouillé (destroyed in 1759), and the beginning of the Indian route from Lake Ontario to Lake Huron. The land had been purchased from the Mississaugas in 1787 (the Toronto Purchase), and surveyed in 1788, but plans for a town had not materialized. Simcoe recognized the site's strategic importance as a military base, and designated it the temporary capital.
Although Governor of Upper Canada for only four years (1791-1796), Simcoe made a lasting mark on the province. Not the least of his accomplishments was the founding of the first permanent settlement at Toronto.
The Mosnier portrait shows Simcoe in the uniform of the Queen's Rangers, a regiment he led during the American Revolution, and which he re-established in Upper Canada in 1792.
The artist, Jean Laurent Mosnier, was a portrait painter in the court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. He moved to England during the French Revolution; by 1795 he had settled in St. Petersburg, living and working in Russia until his death.
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