HISTORIC MAPS

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SETTLERS: Prior to 1784 Settlement in Ontario was mainly concentrated around the two main forts; Niagara and Detroit. Loyalists made their way to the Canadian border by any means they could. Some in boats others in wagons or carriages or carts but many on foot. In 1793 John Graves Simcoe pursued an aggressive policy in laying out roads in Upper Canada. He was responsible for the building of a road from the head of Lake Ontario to the Thames River known as Dundas Street or “The Governor’s Road”.

SURVEYORS: Augustus Jones (Deputy Provincial Surveyor) was instructed by the Governor to survey this road and a line was blazed as far as the Thames at what is now Woodstock. Simcoe had employed troops from the Queen’s Rangers to chop out and construct Dundas Street during the year 1793, however it was only completed as far as a few miles west of Princeton. From that point west it was yet a blazed line through a swamp. Because of the War of 1812-14, construction stopped on the Dundas Street and travellers and the military were forced to go by way of the old Detroit Trail. In 1810 the military improved sections of on the Detroit trail and also straightened sections to speed up the travel time

vJohn Stegmann Map of Burford Township, 1798

vUnton & Jones Map of the Village of Burford, 1882

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