Toronto — From York to the Distillery District
First Parliament Site
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Transcript
Near here stood Upper Canada's first purpose-built parliament buildings, constructed in the 1790s. They were burned by American forces during the occupation of York in 1813.
The destruction was later remembered within a cycle of wartime retaliation. British forces burned public buildings in Washington in 1814, including the Capitol and President's House.
That does not mean one fire mechanically caused the other, but contemporaries connected the events.
The original buildings are gone. That absence is instructive. Toronto has often preserved history as an archaeological problem rather than a streetscape.
National capitals make politics monumental. Toronto's early political landscape is more elusive. You often have to know where to stand before the vanished city appears.