[GeneralLeeTPHLS]

I'll let someone make a schpeel about Toronto's settlements patterns....bt I do know that just in terms of colonial settlements, a plan helped by John Graves Simcoe ushered in a planned townsite along the coast of Lake Ontario in 1794, in what's Old Toronto.

Also, in 1796, John Graves Simcoe decided to create a link between Lake Ontario and Lake Huron in case of the invading Americans. He wanted to create a road that functioned similar to a military road seen in the Roman Empire, which was why the final product, Yonge Street, became known as a street and not a road. He began clearing a route from around what is now Yonge and Eglinton north in that same year with the Queen's York Rangers (or something of that effect)….and led them north, eventually several years later to a few hundred kilometres away. Also, Yonge was cleared to the lakeshore area (south) a few years later. Do note, when I say cleared, I mean a tunnel or dimple muddy trail was created, with stumps and trees hugging the sides in many spots. Yonge Street would take years upon years before looking anything like a respectable road for horse carriages to ride along. (Settlement came along Yonge street as well, starting from the 1790's...slowly as land was given out to families.)

This is nly a small piece of settlement history in Toronto....I'm probably missing information, and of course, I'm not talking about the barely recorded history of indigenous settlements, like the massive Quandat village that existed in today's Eglinton Park, which was slowly pushed and abandoned as settlement began in the end of the eighteenth century.