[Illustration: Captain Sowers's drawings of Fort Niagara, 1769.
From the original in the British Museum.]
It was not till 1821 that the town recovered from these disasters, and then the population only amounted to 1559. In 1830 it was 2860; but in 1834, a strong tide of emigration into Canada having set in, the population increased to 9254. In that year the town was incorporated as a city, and Mr. William Lyon Mackenzie was elected the first mayor of Toronto, April 3, 1834. In 1838 the inhabitants numbered 12,571; in 1848, 15,336; in 1861, they had increased to 44,821; in 1871, to 56,039; in 1881, 86,415; in 1891, 181,220; and finally, in 1903, to 266,989.
In 1821, E. A. Talbot, the author of some works of travel[39] visited the town. He states that the public edifices at that time were a Protestant Episcopal Church ("a wooden building with a wooden belfry"), a Roman Catholic Chapel (a brick building "not then completed, but intended to be very magnificent"--the present St. Paul's Church in Power Street), a Presbyterian Meeting House (a brick building, occupying the site of what is now Knox's Church), a Methodist Meeting House, situated in a field, nearly on the present site of the _Globe_ office, the Hospital (the brick building on King Street now known as the Old Hospital, and occupied as Government offices), which Talbot describes as the most important building of the province, "bearing a very fine exterior," the Parliament House (a brick building erected in 1820 on the former site, and destroyed by fire in 1824), and the residence of the Lieutenant-Governor, a wooden building, "inferior to several private houses of the town, particularly that of Rev. Dr. Strachan," says Talbot. The streets, he adds, are regularly laid out, but "only one of them is in a finished state, and in wet weather those of them which are unfinished, are if possible more muddy than the streets of Kingston."
How different to-day, when Toronto has been called the "City of Churches," because of the large number of fine churches that have been erected in it! The distinctive feature of church architecture in Toronto consists in the fact that all denominations have built a considerable number of fine churches instead of concentrating their efforts on the erection of a few of greater magnificence. The large churches are not confined to the central portion but are found widely distributed throughout. Toronto to-day is the see of both Anglican and Roman Catholic archbishops. The city has suffered from destructive conflagrations, notably in 1890, and in April, 1904, when more than one hundred buildings in the wholesale business section were burned down, some five thousand persons were thrown out of work, and about eleven millions' worth of property was destroyed.