Muddy York : A History of Toronto Until 1834 chronicles the early history of Toronto that never seems to make it into most other works. Readers will discover how the land was first settled, thousands of years ago, how the aboriginal communities of today came to be, what the Toronto area was like under the French Crown, and how it came to be an early British outpost.

Of course, a large part of the book is also dedicated to the Town of York itself, which was founded in 1793 by John Graves Simcoe, and incorporated into the city of Toronto four decades later in 1834.