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city in Ontario, Canada
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Kingston is a city in Ontario, Canada, on the northeastern end of Lake Ontario. It is at the beginning of the St. Lawrence River and at the mouth of the Cataraqui River, the south end of the Rideau Canal. Kingston is located between the Prince Edward County and Thousand Islands tourist regions, and is nicknamed the "Limestone City" because it has many heritage buildings constructed using local limestone.
Growing European exploration in the 17th century and the desire for the Europeans to establish a presence close to local Native occupants to control trade led to the founding of a French trading post and military fort at a site known as "Cataraqui" (generally pronounced ka-tə-ROK-way) in 1673. The outpost, called Fort Cataraqui, and later Fort Frontenac, became a focus for settlement. After the Conquest of New France (1759–1763), the site of Kingston was relinquished to the British. Cataraqui was renamed Kingston after the British took possession of the fort, and Loyalists began settling the region in the 1780s.
Kingston was named the first capital of the United Province of Canada on February 10, 1841. While its time as a capital city was short and ended in 1844, the community has remained an important military installation. The city is a regional centre of education and health care, being home to a major university, a large vocational college, and three major hospitals.
Kingston was the county seat of Frontenac County until 1998. Kingston is now a separate municipality from the County of Frontenac. Kingston is the largest municipality in southeastern Ontario and Ontario's 10th largest metropolitan area. John A. Macdonald, the first prime minister of Canada, lived in Kingston.
Cataraqui, Kingston's original name, is a derivation of an Indigenous language name for the Kingston area. The word may mean "Great Meeting Place", "the place where one hides", "impregnable", "muddy river", "place of retreat", "clay bank rising out of the water", "where the rivers and lake meet", "rocks standing in water", or "place where the limestone (or clay) is".
Cataraqui was referred to as "the King's Town" or "King's Town" by 1787, in honour of King George III. The name was abbreviated to "Kingston" in 1788. Cataraqui today is an area around the intersection of Princess Street and Sydenham Road, where the village of Cataraqui (formerly known as Waterloo) was located. Cataraqui is also the name of a municipal electoral district.
Archaeological evidence suggests people lived in the Kingston region as early as the Archaic period (about 9,000–3,000 years ago). Evidence of Late Woodland Period (about 500–1000 AD) early Iroquoian occupation also exists. The first more permanent encampments by Indigenous people in the Kingston area began about 900 AD. The group that first occupied the area before the arrival of the French was probably the Wendat people (Hurons), who were later displaced by the Haudenosaunee.
At the time the French arrived in the Kingston area, Five Nations Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) had settled along the north shore of Lake Ontario. Although the area around the south end of the Cataraqui River was often visited by Haudenosaunee and other groups, Haudenosaunee settlement at this location only began after the French established their outpost. By 1700, the north shore Haudenosaunee had moved south, and the area once occupied by the Haudenosaunee (which includes Kingston) became occupied by the Mississaugas, a subtribe of the Anishinaabe, who had moved south from the Lake Huron and Lake Simcoe regions.
European commercial and military influence and activities centred on the fur trade developed and increased in North America in the 17th century. Fur trappers and traders were spreading out from their centres of operation in New France. French explorer Samuel de Champlain visited the Kingston area in 1615.
To establish a presence on Lake Ontario for the purpose of controlling the fur trade with local indigenous people, Louis de Buade de Frontenac, Governor of New France, established Fort Cataraqui, later to be called Fort Frontenac, at a location known as Cataraqui in 1673. The fort served as a trading post and military base, and gradually attracted indigenous and European settlement. In 1674, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle was appointed commandant of the fort. From this base, de La Salle explored west and south as far as the Gulf of Mexico. The fort was rebuilt several times and experienced periods of abandonment. The Haudenosaunee siege of 1688 led to many deaths, after which the French destroyed the fort, but would rebuild it. The British destroyed the fort during the Battle of Fort Frontenac (Seven Years' War) in 1758 and its ruins remained abandoned until the British took possession and partially reconstructed it in 1783. The fort was renamed Tête-de-Pont Barracks in 1787. It was turned over to the Canadian military in 1870–71 and is still being used by the military. It was renamed Fort Frontenac in 1939. Partially reconstructed parts of the original fort can be seen today at the western end of the La Salle Causeway.
In 1783, Frederick Haldimand, governor of the Province of Quebec directed Major Samuel Holland, Surveyor-General of Quebec, to lay out a settlement for displaced British colonists, or Loyalists, who were fleeing north because of the American Revolutionary War and "minutely examine the situation and site of the Post formerly occupied by the French, and the land and country adjacent". Haldimand had originally considered the site as a possible location to settle loyal Mohawks. The survey would also determine whether Cataraqui was suitable as a navy base since nearby Carleton Island on which a British navy base was located had been ceded to the Americans after the war. Holland's report about the old French post mentioned "every part surpassed the favorable idea I had formed of it", that it had "advantageous Situations" and that "the harbour is in every respect Good and most conveniently situated to command Lake Ontario". Major John Ross, commanding officer of the King's Royal Regiment of New York at Oswego partly rebuilt Fort Frontenac in 1783. As commander, he played a significant role in establishing the Cataraqui settlement.
To facilitate settlement, the British Crown entered into an agreement with the Mississaugas in October 1783 to purchase land east of the Bay of Quinte. Known as the Crawford Purchase, this agreement enabled settlement for much of the eastern section of the north shore of Lake Ontario. With the completion of the Mississauga agreement, settlement could proceed, although the planning of the layout of the townsite had not waited for the completion of the negotiations. The area was surveyed, and the survey report mentioned the area was deemed to have productive lands, abundant resources, a good harbour and an existing townsite. These requirements were considered ideal to settle the Loyalists. Three kinds of refugee Loyalists would settle at Cataraqui: 'associated' or 'incorporated' Loyalists who were organized into companies under militia officers, provincial colonial regiments and their dependants, and unincorporated Loyalists who came to Canada independently.
Many Loyalist refugees had at first settled on Carleton Island, and operated businesses there. When the Island was ceded to the United States after the Revolutionary War, these Loyalists, along with their businesses, relocated to Cataraqui.
Notable Loyalists who settled in the Cataraqui area include Molly Brant (the sister of Six Nations leader Joseph Brant); businessman and political figure Richard Cartwright; John Stuart, a clergyman, missionary and educator who arrived in 1785; and militia captain Johan Jost Herkimer. The first name given to the settlement by the Loyalists was King's Town, which eventually developed into the current appellation. The first child born in King's Town was John Godfrey Lloyd, son of a discharged Hessian soldier from Herkimer County, New York, Johan Gottlieb Lloyd, and his wife Mary Klein. Klein was one of six daughters of John Cline, who was killed during the British-supported Seneca raids in the Mohawk Valley, New York, in May 1780. Klein was brought to Carleton Island with Molly Brant, and arrived in Cataraqui in 1783, before the influx of Loyalist settlers in 1784.
A group of Loyalists from New York State, led by Captain Michael Grass who arrived in 1784 after sailing from New York City and up the St. Lawrence River, established a camp south of Fort Frontenac at Mississauga Point.
The first high school (grammar school) in what later became the province of Ontario was established in Kingston in 1792 by Loyalist priest John Stuart, which evolved into Kingston Collegiate and Vocational Institute.
During the War of 1812, Kingston (with a population of 2,250) was a major military centre. It was the base for the Lake Ontario division of the British naval fleet on the Great Lakes, which engaged in a vigorous arms race with the American fleet based at Sackets Harbor, New York for control of Lake Ontario. The Provincial Marine quickly placed ships into service and troops were brought in. A Royal Naval detachment built warships in order to control Lake Ontario. Fortifications and other defensive structures were built. The first Fort Henry was built during this time to protect the dockyards in Navy Bay. This fort was replaced by a more extensive fort on Point Henry in 1813. The present limestone citadel, constructed between 1832 and 1836, was intended to defend the recently completed Rideau Canal (opened in 1832) at the Lake Ontario end as well as the harbour and the naval dockyard. In 1843, the advanced battery overlooking the lake to the south was completed when the casemated commissariat stores and magazines were built. Fort Henry was garrisoned by British until 1871. It was restored starting in 1936 and is a popular tourist attraction, now part of a World Heritage Site.
Kingston's location at the Rideau Canal entrance to Lake Ontario made it the primary military and economic centre of Upper Canada after canal construction was completed in 1832. It was incorporated as a town in 1838; the first mayor of Kingston was Thomas Kirkpatrick. Kingston had the largest population of any centre in Upper Canada until the 1840s. Kingston was incorporated as a city in 1846.
Kingston became an important port as businesses relating to transshipment, or forwarding, grew. Since Kingston was at the junction of the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario, commodities shipped along the lake from the west such as wheat, flour, meat, and potash were unloaded and stored at Kingston to await transfer to vessels that could navigate the risky St. Lawrence. With the completion of the Rideau Canal, cargoes could be transported in a safer fashion since the St. Lawrence River route could be bypassed. The canal was a popular route for transporting lumber.
Regiopolis College (for training priests) was incorporated in March 1837, and in 1866 the college was given full degree-granting powers, although these were rarely used and the college closed in 1869. The building became the Hotel Dieu Hospital in 1892. The college reopened at another location in 1896. Queen's University, originally Queen's College, one of the first liberal arts universities, first held classes in March 1842; established by the Presbyterian Church, it later became a national institution. The Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) was founded in 1876.
Kingston Penitentiary, Canada's first large federal penitentiary, was established in 1835 and operated until 2013. Several more prisons would be established in later years in the greater Kingston area, including the federal Prison for Women (1930, closed in the 1990s), Millhaven Institution, Collins Bay Institution, Frontenac (which amalgamated with Collins Bay in 2013), and Joyceville Institution.
During the Upper Canada Rebellion, 1837–38, much of the local militia was posted in Kingston, under Lieutenant-colonel Richard Henry Bonnycastle who completed construction of the new Fort Henry.
Lord Sydenham, the Governor General of Canada chose Kingston as the first capital of the united Canadas, and it served in that role from 1841 to 1844. The first meeting of the Parliament of the Province of Canada on June 13, 1841, was held on the site of what is now Kingston General Hospital. The city was considered too small and lacking in amenities, however, and its location near the border made it vulnerable to American attack. Consequently, the capital was moved to Montreal in 1844, and it alternated between Quebec City and Toronto from 1849 until Ottawa, then a small lumber village known as Bytown, was selected as the permanent capital by Queen Victoria. Subsequently, Kingston's growth slowed considerably and its national importance declined.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Kingston, Ontario”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.