1796 – Dundas Street is Surveyed and Constructed

1796 - Dundas Street is Surveyed and Constructed

Dundas Street, also known as “The Governor’s Road” was proposed by Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe as a military link to connect Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, Lake St. Clair and Lake Huron. Simcoe picked as his surveyor Augustus Jones, the father of Peter Jones, Methodist missionary and Chief of the Mississauga Indians. By 1794 Dundas Street was cut through from Dundas (formerly Coote’s Paradise) near Burlington Bay, to London, and was built along parts of an old native trail. Construction of the road through the Mississauga Tract was carried out by soldiers of the Queen’s Rangers and completed in 1796. The road was named in honour of Henry Dundas, the British Home Secretary.