Ohio History Journal

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GENERAL JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE--

GENERAL JOHN GRAVES SIMCOE--

The Canadian Governor Who Attempted to Make Ohio

a Part of Canada*

Annual Paper by

JAMES A. GREEN

Historian of the Club

 

American visitors to Canada are always struck with

the beauty and charm of Lake Simcoe which is situated

fifty miles north of Toronto in the midst of one of the

most fertile regions of Ontario. It is a lovely lake, blue

as Como. Joined to it by a short and narrow strait is

Lake Couchicing, equally lovely. In the city park of

Orillia which is built upon this strait stands a splendid

and heroic statue of Champlain. The great explorer was

overtaken at that place by winter and on the very spot

where his statue stands he made a camp and spent sev-

eral months. They must, even to such a bold and intrepid

spirit as that which possessed Champlain, have been

dreary and trying months. He lived on the wild meat

and the fish which the Indians provided. How he would

be amazed were he able to return to see these lakes as

they are now, with here and there upon their shores a

prosperous town, handsome cottages of the summer vis-

itors by the hundreds and all the country which he knew

as an unbroken forest occupied by farms, rich with corn

and oats and orchards and with the pastures filled with

cattle. Even the meanest of the houses of today would

 

* Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club.

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