Or should that be demisemiseptcentennial? There is a difference of opinion as to what a 175th anniversary should be called. Whatever! It is that many years since the colonial settlement of York, Upper Canada, was incorporated as the City of Toronto in 1834. Like it or not, the present metropolis is our political, commercial, cultural and social magnet.

Sir Guy Carleton, co-founder of York with Lieutenant Colonel (never Lord) John Graves Simcoe, was created Baron Dorchester in 1786 and made Governor of British North America. His base was Quebec City. The first intention was that what is now southern Ontario would form the western counties of the Province of Quebec. Because of an influx of Englishspeaking people from the separatist "states of America" it was decided to create two provinces, Lower and Upper Canada. The terms meant 'lower down' or 'higher up' the St. Lawrence waterway.

Where should the administrative centre of Upper Canada and the seat of Col. Simcoe, the lieutenant governor, be established? Kingston was one choice and Newark (later Niagara on-the- Lake) a United Empire Loyalist town, another. Simcoe liked the idea of placing the capital at the garrison village of London which in Canada, as 'back home', was on a River Thames. But more important considerations intervened.

In 1787 the Toronto Purchase had been concluded with the Mississauga Amerindians who lived in the region. It was roughly halfway by land between Kingston and Niagara. There was a landlocked harbour between two rivers. A narrow, curved isthmus created a natural breakwater for ship building and commerce.

There was another advantage. A fortified French trading post had stood just below the present Dufferin Gate to the C.N.E. North of it lay the Portage de Toronto (the aboriginal name meaning a 'meeting place') over which lay the route to Lac Toronto (now Lake Simcoe) and the Upper Lakes. After the rebellion of the old colonies to the south, goods and military material could move that way at a distance from the narrow waters lying dangerously close to the continuing republican menace.

Governor Simcoe had convened the first legislature of Upper Canada at Newark in July, 1792. In August of the following year a 21-gun salute reverberated over Lake Ontario to initiate the new capital. The Duke of York's recent victory over Napoleon in Holland suggested the renaming of the place form the "outlandish" Toronto to the more civilised York, popular with British Americans. The Holland River which led from the old portage to open water echoes the same event.

The site of the new town between rivers that also received Yorkshire names was drained, below a northerly rise of land, by several creeks. Above the lakeshore marshes was a dense forest of trees that were from 500 to 1,000 years old. On the 'forest hill' a few miles north of York they stood so tall and closely together that in leaf they allowed little sun to reach the ground below. They provided ample material for the construction of housing and other buildings such as the Parliament house and the town church (St James) on the streets that still bear those names. At right angles to Church Street was Court Street, site of the jail. The market square was across from the church and the Esplanade was a promenade along the old shoreline.

King and Queen Streets were the principal thoroughfares The latter had for a time been known as Lot Street because, being the town's northern boundary, the posh residences built along its north side stood on multi-acre lots backing onto the wooded tract beyond.

Two highways were cut through the bush, one south-north and the other to carry the Kingston road westward. They would facilitate military movement and settlement. One was named for Sir George Yonge, the Colonial Secretary. The other followed an old Indian trail and commemorates Henry Dundas, the Viscount Melville, British Secretary of State for War.

The first chapter in Old York's history ended with the War of 1812-14. The town's scattered houses, shops, taverns and government buildings were for a time held by a hostile naval force of 1600 men led by General Henry Dearborn which landed in April.1813. The attack on Fort York west of the town coincided with an explosion of the powder magazine which killed General Zebulon Pike and 200 other invaders. In retaliation Dearborn ordered the burning of the town's public buildings.

John Strachan, a young Aberdonian, rector of the church and later a bishop, confronted Dearborn, demanded whether he were a Yankee terrorist or a gentleman soldier and thus spared the church and private property. Nevertheless, in the ongoing insanity of war, a British commando force later landed in Washington and burned President Madison's executive mansion in reparation for the burning of York The restored building is the core of the White House into which Mr Obama moved this week. One may hope that the U.S.A. has now substituted interdependence for its vaunted independence from the rest of the free world. Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are it partners, not its minions, in the world of the future.

175 years ago York, with a population approaching 10,000 had outgrown the mud, the swamp fever and the aversion to its aboriginal name. The City of Toronto was incorporated Another Scot, William Lyon Mackenzie, was its first mayor. The Revd Henry Scadding published Toronto of Old in 1873 and with G. Mercer Adam wrote Toronto Past and Present (1884). Adam's own 1891 Toronto Old and New was reprinted by Coles in 1972.

Another book of interest, Toronto in 1810, by Eric W. Hounson, was published in 1970. In 1977 F.R.Benchem's The Yonge Street Story, 1793-1860 appeared. The first three chapters of the classic Mono Township novel, The Yellow Briar, are a fictional recreation of life in Muddy York. Austin Seaton Thompson wrote Spadina: A Story of Old Toronto (1976) and Jarvis Street (1980).

Many residents of the Headwaters Region, which is to Toronto what Connecticut is to New York or Sussex to London, are natives of, or have continuing interests in, 'the City'. Its history, therefore, is part of our own.