Famous Canadian Masons
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Alexander Keith
Alexander Keith (October 5, 1795 – December 14, 1873) was a Canadian politician and brewmaster. He was mayor of the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, a Conservative member of the provincial legislature, and the founder of the Alexander Keith's brewing company.
Keith was born in Halkirk, Caithness, Highland, Scotland, where he became a brewmaster. He immigrated to Canada in 1817, founded the Alexander Keith's brewing company in 1820. He served as mayor of Halifax, Nova Scotia three times, and as a member of the Legislative Council for 30 years.
Throughout his career Keith was connected with several charitable and fraternal societies. He served as president of the North British Society from 1831 and as chief of the Highland Society from 1868 until his death. In 1838 he was connected with the Halifax Mechanics Library and in the early 1840s with the Nova Scotia Auxiliary Colonial Society. Keith was perhaps best known to the Halifax public as a leader of the Freemasons. He became provincial grand master for the Maritimes under the English authority in 1840 and under the Scottish lodge in 1845. Following a reorganization of the various divisions in 1869, he became grand master of Nova Scotia.
Alexander Keith died in Halifax in 1873 and was buried at Camp Hill Cemetery across from the Halifax Public Gardens. His birthday is often marked by people visiting the grave and placing beer bottles and caps on it (or, less frequently, cards or flowers).
He has often been confused with his nephew, Alexander Keith, Jr. (nicknamed "Sandy") who was a notorious Confederate agent during the American Civil War.
Alexander Roberts Dunn
Alexander Roberts Dunn VC (15 September 1833 – 25 January 1868) was the first Canadian awarded the Victoria Cross.
He was born in York (later Toronto) in 1833, the son of John Henry Dunn, and studied at Upper Canada College and at Harrow School, England.
Dunn was awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions at the Battle of Balaclava on 25 October 1854 when he was 21 years of age and serving in the British Army's 11th Hussars. Dunn rescued a sergeant by cutting down two or three Russian lancers who had attacked from the rear. Later in the battle he killed another Russian who had been attacking a private.
He sold his commission at the end of the Crimean War but rejoined the Army in 1858 as a major in the 100th Regiment of Foot. He exchanged into the 33rd in 1864 in which regiment he remained until his death in the Abyssinian War.
Dunn rose to the rank of colonel and commanded the 33rd Regiment of Foot at the start of the 1868 Expedition to Abyssinia, but was killed in unusual circumstances during in a hunting accident at Senafe before the military part of the campaign started.
His grave (in present day Eritrea) had been neglected for many years but was repaired in 2001 by a group of Canadian Forces engineers from CFB Gagetown.
For over 50 years his medals were on display in the main foyer of his old school, Upper Canada College, in Toronto. In 1977, due to a number of recent thefts and "losses" of Victoria Cross medals the school replaced the VC with a copy and moved the original to their bank safe deposit box.
Arthur Roy Brown - WWI Flying Ace
Arthur Roy Brown:
A brief biography of a Freemason.
Arthur Roy Brown was born 
While attending school he became an Officer Cadet in the Army Cadet Officer Corps, where he became fascinated by the mechanizations of flight. This would become the love that replaced hockey, and would make a mark for
After completing university Arthur went on to attend the Wright Brother’s school of flight in
While on leave in 1915, Arthur would return to his home
In April of 1916 his career was almost cut short as while on a training exercise. His aircraft malfunctioned and Arthur had to perform an emergency “landing” a crash that would cause a minor spinal injury. Luckily, his back healed quickly and he was allowed back into the cockpit; and respectively into the fight. A year later while flying a Sopwith Pup biplane with 11 Squadron he recorded his first air combat victory.
His string of victories would continue and earn him the title of “Flying Ace,” and the Distinguished Service Cross after he recorded his 5th confirmed kill on
“…a very good flight leader and fearless pilot with good ability to command”
By March of the same year, the situation was looking bleak. Allied losses were rising and Arthur was flying 2 missions a day on average and providing extra training to the new pilots. Exhaustion was beginning to take over, reports say he appeared to age pre-maturely, his eye’s were sunken and blood shot, hair grey before his years and he had lost approx 25 pounds. The situation was made even worse for Arthur when he contracted a case of gastritis from easting some bad rabbit, aggravated even further by the constant breathing of the well known laxative castor oil used to lubricate the rotary engines.
By some twist of fate, an old high school friend of Arthur’s was assigned to his squadron. Fresh from flight training Wilfred “Wop” May had no kills or combat experience, which must have been obvious to the enemy. On April 21st, Arthur’s Squadron came under attack and Wilfred found himself on the run from an enemy flying ace.
Seeing his school chum in trouble Arthur engaged Wilfred’s attacker. The plane of the enemy ace was easily identifiable; it was the notorious Manfred Von Richthofen the “Red Baron.” Von Richthofen was notorious not only as the enemies’ ace, but for disregarding his own flight manual. When a target was in his sight he failed to observe around him, but stayed fixed on his target.
Wilfred “Wop” May would go on to fly another day as Arthur riveted the Red Baron with bullets. Manfred Von Richthofen crashed behind Allied lines, shot though the heart. The Australian regiment that found him, gave him a burial with honours, respect for a worthy enemy. Arthur was then awarded his second Distinguished Service Cross.
After the war Arthur retired and took up accounting for his fathers business for a short time. Accounting had never been what he wanted to do, despite his university major. The blue sky’s called him and he answered; starting his own small airline operating around
The years of war had taken their toll on Arthur, he died of a heart attack at age 50,
Charlie Conacher
Charles William "Charlie" Conacher (b. December 20, 1909 in Toronto, Ontario - December 30, 1967) was a Canadian professional ice hockey forward who played for the Toronto Maple Leafs, New York Americans, and Detroit Red Wings in the National Hockey League.
Anchoring the Kid Line with Harvey "Busher" Jackson and Joe Primeau, Charlie was a member of the Maple Leafs teams of the 1930s that won one Stanley Cup in 1932 and finished runner-up six times. An early power forward, Conacher was nicknamed "The Big Bomber," for his size, powerful shot and goal scoring. He led the NHL five times in goals, and twice led in overall scoring.
Charlie was a brother of Hall of Famers Lionel Conacher and Roy Conacher. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1961 and, later, to Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 1975. In 1998, he was ranked number 36 on The Hockey News' list of the 100 Greatest Hockey Players.
Charlie Conacher died in 1967 and was buried in the Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto.
The Charlie Conacher Humanitarian Award, also known as the Charlie Conacher Memorial Trophy, was an award named Conacher. This award was given out to the NHL player who best exhibited outstanding humanitarian and public services contributions, from 1968 - the year of Charlie Conacher's death - to 1984.
John Abbott
Born in St. Andrews, Lower Canada (now Quebec) to Rev. Joseph Abbott and Harriet Bradford, he became Canada's first native-born prime minister. Abbott married Mary Bethune (1823-1898), a relative of Dr. Norman Bethune, in 1849. The couple had four sons and four daughters, many of whom died without descendants. Their eldest surviving son, William Abbott, married the daughter of Colonel John Hamilton Gray, a father of Canadian Confederation and Premier of Prince Edward Island. The direct descendants of Abbott and Hamilton Gray include John Kimble Hamilton ("Kim") Abbott, a political commentator and lobbyist and a WWII Royal Canadian Airforce pilot in the infamous "Demon Squadron". Abbott was also the great-grandfather of Canadian actor Christopher Plummer.
Abbott was a successful Montreal corporate lawyer and businessman and a practicing Freemason. In 1849, he signed the Montreal Annexation Manifesto calling for Canada to join the United States, an action which later in life, he regretted as a youthful error. He eventually joined the Loyal Orange Lodge of British North America, well known as a pro-British organization. He was involved in the promotion of several railroad projects, including the Canadian Pacific Railway (of which he served as President). He worked to incorporate and arrange financing for the first Canadian Pacific Railway syndicate. As legal advisor to its main financier, Sir Hugh Allan, Abbott was the recipient of the infamous telegram from Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald during the 1872 Canadian federal election campaign which read "I must have another ten thousand; will be the last time of calling; do not fail me; answer today." This telegram was stolen from Abbott's office and published, breaking the 1873 Pacific Scandal which brought down Macdonald's government. Abbott was subsequently a key organizer of a second syndicate which eventually completed the construction of Canada's first transcontinental railroad in 1885, serving as its solicitor from 1880 to 1887 and as a director from 1885 to 1891.
He received a Bachelor of Civil Law from McGill University in 1854, and a Doctor of Civil LawConfederate agents who had raided St. Albans, Vermont from Canadian soil during the American Civil War. Abbott successfully argued that the Confederates were belligerents rather than criminals and therefore should not be extradited. The episode brought Canadian-American tensions close to armed conflict. Abbott was widely viewed as the most successful lawyer in Canada for many years, as measured by professional income. He began lecturing in commercial and criminal law at McGill in 1853, and in 1855 he became a professor and dean of its Faculty of Law, where Sir Wilfrid Laurier, future prime minister of Canada, was among his students. He continued in this position until 1880. Upon his retirement, McGill named him emeritus professor, and in 1881 appointed him to its Board of Governors. (DCL) in 1867. Most of his legal practice was in corporate law; however, his most celebrated court case was the defense of, first fourteen, then upon release and recapture, four of those fourteen
Abbott first ran for Canada's Legislative Assembly in 1857 in the Argenteuil district, northwest of Montreal. Defeated, he challenged the election results on the grounds of voting list irregularities and was eventually awarded the seat in 1860. He served as solicitor general for Lower Canada (Quebec) until 1863. He reluctantly supported Canada's confederation, fearing the reduction of the political power of Lower Canada's English-speaking minority. His proposal to protect the electoral borders of 12 English Quebec constituencies was eventually incorporated into the British North America Act of 1867.
Abbott was elected to the House of Commons in 1867 as member for Argenteuil. He was removed from his seat by petition in 1874 following his involvement in the Pacific Scandal. He narrowly lost the 1878 election, then won in February 1880, only to have his victory declared void because of bribery allegations. He was, however, subsequently elected in a by-election in August 1881. In 1887, Macdonald appointed him to the Senate. He served as Leader of the Government in the Senate from May 12, 1887 to October 30, 1893Minister without Portfolio in Macdonald's cabinet. He also served two one-year terms as mayor of Montreal from 1887 to 1889. (including his term as Prime Minister) and as
When Prime Minister Macdonald died in office, Abbott supported John Thompson to succeed him, but reluctantly accepted the plea of the divided Conservative party that he should lead the government. He was one of just two Canadian Prime Ministers, the other being Mackenzie Bowell, to have held the office while serving in the Senate rather than the House of Commons.
In his seventeen months in office, Abbott worked on revitalizing the government and the party. Despite the scandals exposed during his term, he dealt with the backlog of government business awaiting him after Macdonald's death. Reform of the civil service, revisions of the criminal code and a reciprocity treaty with the U.S. were just a few of the issues initiated by Abbott. During his term, there were 52 by-elections, 42 of which were won by the Conservatives, increasing their majority by 13 seats—evidence of Abbott's effectiveness as prime minister. One year into his time as prime minister, Abbott attempted to turn the office over to Thompson, but this was rejected due to anti-Catholic sentiment in the Tory caucus. Suffering from the early stages of cancer of the brain, Abbott's health failed in 1892 and he retired to private life, whereupon Thompson finally became Prime Minister. Abbott died less than a year later at the age of 72.
Sir John Abbott is buried in the Mount Royal Cemetery, Montreal, Quebec.
John Abbott College in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec, near Abbott's 300-acre country estate (Boisbriant), is named after him.
His "most memorable" political comment is "I hate politics". The full quote was "I hate politics and what are considered their appropriate measures. I hate notoriety, public meetings, public speeches, caucuses and everything that I know of which is apparently the necessary incident of politics—except doing public work to the best of my ability."
John Bayne Maclean
Lieutenant Colonel John Bayne Maclean (26 September 1862 – 25 September 1950) was a Canadian publisher. He founded Maclean's Magazine, the Financial Post and the Maclean Publishing Company, later known as Maclean-Hunter.
He was born in Crieff, Ontario (near Guelph). Maclean's father, Andrew Maclean, was a Presbyterian minister in Puslinch Township who had immigrated to Canada from Scotland.
Maclean worked as a teacher and financial editor of the Toronto Mail before entering publishing with his brother Hugh Cameron Maclean by founding Canadian Grocer & Storekeeper's Newspaper in 1887. In 1905 he founded The Business Magazine which became The Busy Man's Magazine before changing its name to Maclean's Magazine in 1911. He founded the Financial Post in 1907, the Farmer's Magazine in 1910, Mayfair in 1927 and Chatelaine in 1928 building Canada's largest magazine empire.
His long time collaborator and associate, Horace Talmadge Hunter, succeeded Maclean as company president upon the founder's retirement. In 1945, the company was renamed Maclean-Hunter.
John Diefenbaker
John George Diefenbaker PC CH QC FRSC FRSA (18 September 1895 – 16 August 1979) was the thirteenth Prime Minister of Canada, serving from 21 June 1957 to 22 April 1963. A criminal defence lawyer by profession, he established the Canadian Bill of Rights, the Royal Commission on Health Services, the Agricultural Rehabilitation and Development Act, played a large part in the cancellation of the Avro Arrow, the National Productivity Council (Economic Council of Canada), and extended the franchise to all Aboriginal peoples during his six years as Prime Minister. He led the Progressive Conservative Party for 11 years; five of those years were spent as Leader of the Official Opposition.
Diefenbaker (pronounced /?di?f?n?be?k?r/) was known by several nicknames during his career, notably "J.G.D." and "The Leader" (a moniker that continued to be applied to him even after his leaving the post of prime minister), but was known most affectionately as "Dief the Chief" or simply "the Chief."
Diefenbaker was born on September 18, 1895, in Neustadt, Ontario, to William Thomas Diefenbaker and Mary Florence Bannerman. His paternal great-grandfather was an immigrant from the Baden region of Germany. The name was originally spelled Diefenbacher but was Anglicized following his grandfather's death.
The Diefenbaker family homesteaded in 1903 near Fort Carlton, then in the Northwest Territories but currently located in Saskatchewan. William Diefenbaker was a teacher, and John attended schools in several areas such as Hague and Borden before the family settled in Saskatoon as of 1910.
On July 29, 1910, while in Saskatoon to attend the opening of a new university, the young Diefenbaker, recognizing then Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier, shared his ideas for the country and amused him. He inquired about the young man's business and expressed the hope that he would be a great man someday. The boy ended the conversation by saying,"Well, Mr. Prime Minister, I can't waste any more time on you. I must get back to work."
Diefenbaker received a BA in 1915, an MA in Political Science and Economics in 1916 and an LL.B in 1919 from the University of Saskatchewan. Diefenbaker married Edna Brower (1899-1951) in 1929. In 1953, after Edna's death, he married his second wife, Olive Palmer (1902-1976), who had a daughter from a previous marriage. Diefenbaker had no children of his own. Diefenbaker House in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan is open as a museum to the public in the summer season. It is a home where Diefenbaker lived for ten years with both Edna Brower and Olive Palmer. His birth home in Neustadt has been preserved as a historic site.
John George Diefenbaker served briefly in the First World War in the Canadian Expeditionary Force with the 105th Saskatoon Fusiliers[1] from March 1916 to July 1917, reaching the rank of lieutenant in the 29th Light Horse. He was sent to England for pre-deployment training, but he was never deployed to France, having suffered an injury that had him coughing up blood. Invalided back to Canada, he was discharged there as Medically Unfit for Service owing to heart irregularities.
John Diefenbaker served as Prime Minister from June 21, 1957, until April 22, 1963. A number of factors gravitated against the Liberal Party remaining in power, ranging from controversial decisions involving the Pipeline Debate, the "time for a change" antipathy of the public, matched with Diefenbaker's fiery oratory and his populist message. These propelled the Conservatives to a narrow victory in the 1957 election, with a minority government. Though the Liberals had a slight lead in the popular vote, Louis St. Laurent resigned rather than attempt to form a coalition with the other opposition parties to continue governing.
Soon afterwards, Lester Pearson took over the Liberal leadership, and in his first speech, he asked Diefenbaker to hand power back to the Liberals without an election because of the recent economic decline. In a scathing two-and-a-half-hour response, Diefenbaker revealed a formerly classified Liberal file that predicted the economic malaise. The "arrogant" label that had been on the Liberals in 1957 stayed.
Diefenbaker wanted a majority, so he called a snap election. During the 1958 campaign, he ran on a message of building a "Canada of the North," increasing subsidies and development in the northern parts of the country, and on increasing social programs, which resonated effectively in English Canada. The biggest surprise was in Quebec, where the Union Nationale political machine was put into use for the Tories, enabling them to win the majority of seats in that province for the first time since John A. Macdonald. In the end, Diefenbaker won what was then the largest majority government in Canadian history, a record that stood until the election of Brian Mulroney in 1984. 1958 saw the appointment of the first Aboriginal person to the Senate, James Gladstone.
However, as Peter C. Newman has written: "[He] came to the toughest job in the country without having worked for anyone but himself, without ever having hired or fired anyone, and without ever having administered anything more complicated than a walk-up law office." His first Commonwealth leaders meeting went over well, until he made an offer to the United Kingdom to bring 15% of Canada's trade with the United States to the UK. Since the proposal violated many international agreements, the UK instead proposed a Free Trade Agreement. Diefenbaker's Cabinet strongly recommended against it, and the 15% figure never came up again. Relations considerably cooled between the UK and Canada.
Diefenbaker soon ran into economic problems. With a recession already looming by the time he came in, increased deficits hurt the economic picture more. Diefenbaker blamed the tight money policies of the Liberals. At the same time, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, James Coyne heavily criticized the government's financial record, saying that the country was relying too much on exports to the United States and that a "tightening" was needed. The Government rejected his advice, and tried to get rid of Coyne for playing politics with his position, which in theory is independent of government interference. Diefenbaker stated that he considered Coyne as having the same status as any other Canadian civil servant. While the House of Commons passed a bill declaring Coyne's position vacant, the Liberal-controlled Canadian Senate rejected it. Nevertheless, Coyne resigned the next day. Having the Governor of the Bank of Canada criticizing the Government gave a feeling of chaos to international investors, which prompted many to withdraw capital from Canada. The ensuing crunch heavily limited economic growth.
Diefenbaker made what some believe to have been one of the most controversial policy decisions of the last century in Canada when his government cancelled the development and manufacture of the Avro CF-105 Arrow. The Arrow was a Mach 2 supersonic jet interceptor built by A.V. Roe Canada (Avro Canada), in Malton, Ontario to defend Canada in the event of a Soviet nuclear bomber attack from the north. During its production, the Canadian government purchased American-made Bomarc missiles as a means of bomber defence, leading to the cabinet decision to cancel the Avro Arrow and its Orenda Iroquois engine on 20 February 1959, forever known as "Black Friday" in Canadian industry. After cancelling the technologically advanced interceptor project, he obtained CF-101 Voodoo interceptors in 1961 from the United States.
Diefenbaker's hostility to the administration of U.S. President John F. Kennedy was pronounced. During the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, Diefenbaker was annoyed at Kennedy's failure to consult him ahead of time, which led the Prime Minister to be skeptical of the seriousness of the situation. This caused him to react slowly on an American request to put Canadian forces on Defcon 3 status. The Minister of National Defence, Douglas Harkness, defied Diefenbaker by putting the military on high alert two days before Cabinet's decision to authorize the move.
Diefenbaker was also instrumental in bringing in the Canadian Bill of Rights in 1960. This was the first attempt to articulate the basic rights of Canadian citizens in law. Because the Bill of Rights was an ordinary federal statute and not a part of the Canadian Constitution, it did not codify such rights in an enforceable way, since it could not be used by courts to nullify federal or provincial laws that contradicted it. An official commented: "It's great, unless you live in one of the provinces". Thus, its effect on the decisions of the courts, unlike the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that would be created in 1982, was limited.
1961 saw the introduction of the Agricultural Rehabilitation and Development Act, one of the many improved social programs to help Canadians. He also appointed Ellen Fairclough the first woman Federal Cabinet Minister.
Support for the Tories declined in Quebec. Though Diefenbaker selected Georges Vanier as the first francophone Governor General, he did not appoint any Quebeckers to important cabinet posts. The Tories also did not have any long-lasting political machinery there, and the Union Nationale had been swept from power in 1960. As a result of the declining economic situation, apathy in Quebec, and negative fallout from cancelling the Avro Arrow program, the Progressive Conservatives lost their majority in the 1962 election.
Immediately afterward, Diefenbaker's minority government began a program to reduce government spending, and raise tariffs and bank interest rates. He then reorganized his Cabinet, moving Finance Minister Donald Fleming into the Minister of Justice portfolio, replacing him with George C. Nowlan.
In September 1962, Diefenbaker attended the Conference of Commonwealth Prime Ministers in London, where he attacked Britain's prospective entry into the European Economic Community, stating it would be at the expense of Canada's increased economic dependence on the United States. Also at that meeting, he criticized South Africa's policy of apartheid, and successfully opposed its readmission into the Commonwealth after it declared itself a republic.
Diefenbaker's final term of office saw the escalation of a nuclear arms question brought on by the imported Bomarc missiles and the Voodoo aircraft that had replaced the Avro Arrow. Diefenbaker rejected American nuclear warheads being put in missiles, warplanes and ground-based tactical rockets. He used Congressional testimony about the Bomarc missiles to accuse Liberal leader Lester B. Pearson of making Canada a target for a nuclear war, and accused American media outlets and the US government of interfering with the election.
While Diefenbaker and his allies opposed the nuclear warheads, many other Tories and the opposition parties supported them, saying that the Bomarc missiles would be useless without the warheads. The already strained relationship within the Conservative party deteriorated faster, and a Cabinet split further undermined the government. Minister of National Defence Douglas Harkness resigned from Cabinet on 4 February 1963 because of Diefenbaker's opposition to accepting the missiles. The next day, the government lost two non-confidence motions on the issue, as the Social Credit Party and the New Democratic Party (the renamed CCF) withdrew their support of the government.
Diefenbaker lost the 1963 federal election to Lester Pearson and the Liberals. Nevertheless, he continued as PC Party leader, serving as Leader of the Opposition. In the 1964 Great Flag Debate, he led the unsuccessful opposition to the Maple Leaf flag (which he derided as the "Pearson Pennant"), arguing for the retention of the Canadian Red Ensign.
There were early calls for Diefenbaker's retirement, especially from the Bay Street wing of the party. At the February 1964 PC Convention, a secret ballot on his leadership was held. Diefenbaker held on by a very narrow margin. Diefenbaker was introduced to the convention by Joe Clark, president of the Student Federation, whose delegates were seen as the vote that tipped the balance. Clark described when he first saw Diefenbaker in High River, Alberta, and Diefenbaker's bravery at standing for the vote. Diefenbaker emotionally accepted the result, and said, "If there were no other rewards in public life than to have done what was stated by the brilliant Joe Clark, I would have been rewarded more than I could hope for."
To the surprise of many, he ran an aggressive, nationalistic campaign in the 1965 election, which Pearson had called in the expectation that the Liberals would win a majority; the Liberals fell four seats short of this. Growing dissatisfaction with his leadership, however, led to open dissension within the party, headed by Party president Dalton Camp. There was a fear within the party that even though ditching Diefenbaker would probably improve Eastern results, they might lose the Western seats Diefenbaker brought to the party.
Anti-Diefenbaker efforts by Camp and others resulted in a leadership review, a measure for which there was no provision in the party's constitution. The Progressive Conservatives called a leadership convention in 1967. Although Diefenbaker entered at the last minute to stand as a candidate for the leadership, against the proposed Deux Nations policy, he was defeated by Nova Scotia Premier Robert Stanfield. His exit was considered the most emotional moment of the convention.
Diefenbaker retained his parliamentary seat for the next twelve years until his death, while also serving as the chancellor at the University of Saskatchewan beginning in 1969.
After he left the Tory leadership, Diefenbaker persisted in fighting old battles in parliamentary circles, and was a thorn in the side of Stanfield.
The opening night of the 1976 Tory leadership convention in Ottawa was a tribute in his honour, and he made a passionate speech which met with sustained applause. He was a favourite of the Press Gallery, and frequently made snide remarks about other Conservatives. This reached a head in 1979, when he joked that Canada had celebrated the International Year of the Child by electing Joe Clark, who as a student had defended Diefenbaker.
Joseph Brant
Thayendanegea or Joseph Brant (c. 1743 – 24 November 1807) was a Mohawk leader and British military officer during the American Revolution. Brant was perhaps the most well-known North American Indian of his generation. He met many of the most significant people of the age, including George Washington and King George III. The American folk image emphasized the atrocities his forces committed against settlers on the western frontier; in Canada, he is remembered for his effort to regain land for his people.
In March, 1743, Brant was born at Cuyahoga Ohio Country on the banks of the Cuyahoga River, near present-day Akron, Ohio. This was during the hunting season when Mohawks traveled to the area. He was named Thayendanegea, which can mean two wagers (sticks) bound together for strength, or possibly "he who places two bets." He was a Mohawk of the Wolf Clan (his mother's clan). Fort Hunter church records indicate that his parents were Christians and their names were Peter and Margaret Tehonwaghkwangearahkwa. Peter died before 1753. Other sources cite the father's name as Nickus Kanagaradankwa.
His mother Margaret, or Owandah, the niece of Tiaogeara[citation needed], a Caughnawaga sachem, took Joseph and his older sister Mary (known as Molly) to Canajoharie, on the Mohawk River in east-central New York, where they had lived before her family moved to the Ohio River. His mother remarried on 9 September 1753 in Fort Hunter (Church of England) a widower named Brant Canagaraduncka, who was a Mohawk sachem. Her new husband's grandfather was Sagayendwarahton, or "Old Smoke," who visited England in 1710.
The marriage bettered Margaret's fortunes and the family lived in the best house in Canajoharie, but it conferred little status on her children. Mohawk titles and leadership positions descended through the female line. Brant's stepfather was also a friend of William Johnson, who became General Sir William Johnson, Superintendent for Northern Indian Affairs. During Johnson's frequent visits to the Mohawks, he always stayed at the Brant's house. While visiting the Mohawk ancestral homeland in western New York, Brant's half sister married Sir William Johnson. Johnson was an agent for the British and a highly successful trader. The wealth of Johnson’s home impressed young Brant so much that twelve-year-old Brant decided to stay with his half sister and Johnson.
Starting at about age 15, Brant took part in a number of French and Indian War expeditions, including James Abercrombie’s 1758 invasion of Canada via Lake George, William Johnson's 1759 Battle of Fort Niagara, and Jeffery Amherst's 1760 siege of Montreal via the St. Lawrence River. He was one of 182 Indians who received a silver medal.
In 1761, Johnson arranged for three Mohawks, including Joseph, to be educated at Eleazar Wheelock's Moor's Indian Charity School in Connecticut. This was the forerunner of Dartmouth College. Brant studied under the guidance of the Reverend Eleazar Wheelock. Wheelock wrote that Brant was "of a sprightly genius, a manly and gentle deportment, and of a modest, courteous and benevolent temper". Brant learned to speak, read, and write English. Brant met Samuel Kirkland at the school. In 1763, Johnson prepared to place Brant at King's College in New York City, but the outbreak of Pontiac's Rebellion upset these plans and Brant returned home. After Pontiac's rebellion, Johnson thought it was not safe for Brant to return to the school.
In March 1764, Brant participated in one of the Iroquois war parties that attacked Delaware Indian villages in the Susquehanna and Chemung valleys. They destroyed three good-sized towns, burning 130 houses and killing the settlers' cattle. No enemy warriors were even seen.
On July 22, 1765, Brant married Peggie (also known as Margaret) in Canajoharie. Peggie was a white captive sent back from western Indians and said to be the daughter of a Virginia gentleman. They moved into Brant's parents' house. When his stepfather died in the mid-1760s, the house became Brant's. He owned a large and fertile farm of 80 acres near the village of Canajoharie on the south shore of the Mohawk River. He raised corn, and kept cattle, sheep, horses, and hogs. He also kept a small store. Brant dressed in "the English mode" wearing "a suit of blue broad cloth". With Johnson's encouragement, the Mohawks made Brant a war chief and their primary spokesman. In March 1771, his wife died from consumption.
In the spring of 1772, Brant moved to Fort Hunter to live with the Reverend John Stuart. He became Stuart's interpreter and teacher of Mohawk, collaborating with him to translate the Anglican catechism and the Gospel of Mark into the Mohawk language. Brant became a lifelong Anglican.
In 1773, Brant moved back to Canajoharie and married Peggie's half-sister Susanna.
Brant spoke at least three and possibly all of the Six Nations languages. He was a translator for the department of Indian affairs since at least 1766. In 1775, he was appointed departmental secretary with the rank of Captain for the new British Superintendent Indian warriors from Canajoharie. They went to Canada, arriving in Montreal on July 17. His wife and children went to Onoquaga. On November 11, 1775, Guy Johnson took Brant along with him when he traveled to London. Brant hoped to persuade the Crown to address past Mohawk land grievances. The British government promised the Iroquois people land in Canada if Brant and the Iroquois nations would fight on the British side in what was shaping up as open rebellion by the American colonists. In London, Brant became a celebrity and was interviewed for publication by James Boswell. While in public he carefully dressed in the Indian style. He also became a Mason, and received his apron personally from King George III.
Brant returned to Staten Island, New York, in July 1776. He participated with Howe's forces as they prepared to retake New York. Although the details of his service that summer and fall were not officially recorded, Brant was said to have distinguished himself for bravery. He was thought to be with Clinton, Cornwallis, and Percy in the flanking movement at Jamaica Pass in the Battle of Long Island in August 1776. This helped create a lifelong friendship with Lord Percy, later Duke of Northumberland, the only lasting friendship Brant shared with a white man.
In November, Brant left New York City and traveled northwest through American-held territory. Disguised, traveling at night and sleeping during the day, he reached Onoquaga where he met up with his family. At the end of December he was at Fort Niagara. He traveled from village to village in the confederacy urging the Iroquois to abandon neutrality and to enter the war on the side of the British. The Iroquois balked at Brant's plans.
The full council of the Six Nations had previously decided on a policy of neutrality and had signed a treaty of neutrality at Albany in 1775. They considered Brant a minor war chief and the Mohawks a relatively weak people. Frustrated, Brant freelanced by heading in the spring to Onoquaga to conduct war his way. Few Onoquaga villagers joined him, but in May he was successful in recruiting Loyalists who wished to strike back against the colonists. This group became known as Brant's Volunteers. In June, he led them to Unadilla to obtain supplies. There he was confronted by 380 men of the Tryon County militia led by Nicholas Herkimer. Herkimer requested that the Iroquois remain neutral while Brant said the Indians owed their loyalty to the King.
In July, 1777 the Six Nations council decided to abandon neutrality and enter the war on the British side. Brant was not present at this council. Sayenqueraghta and Cornplanter were named to be the war chiefs of the confederacy. Brant had previously been made a war chief of the Mohawks; the other major Mohawk war chief was John Deseronto.
In July, Brant led his Volunteers north to link up with St. Leger at Fort Oswego. In August 1777, Brant played a major role at the Battle of Oriskany in support of a major offensive led by General John Burgoyne. After St. Leger's retreat, Brant traveled to Burgoyne's main army and told him the news of St. Leger's retreat from Fort Stanwix. Burgoyne's restrictions on native warfare caused Brant to depart for Fort Niagara, where he spent the winter planning the next year's campaign. His wife Susanna likely died at Fort Niagara that winter.
In April 1778, Brant returned to Onoquaga, becoming the most active partisan commander. He engaged in raids chiefly with his Volunteers on the colonists in the Mohawk Valley, stealing their cattle, burning their houses, and killing many. On May 30, he led an attack on Cobleskill (Battle of Cobleskill) and in September, along with Captain William Caldwell, he led a mixed force of Indians and Loyalists in a raid on German Flatts.
In October, 1778, Continental soldiers and local militia attacked Brant's base of Onoquaga while Brant's Volunteers were away on a raid. The American commander described Onoquaga as "the finest Indian town I ever saw; on both sides [of] the river there was about 40 good houses, square logs, shingles & stone chimneys, good floors, glass windows". The soldiers burned the houses, killed the cattle, chopped down the apple trees, spoiled the growing corn crop, and killed some native children they found in the corn fields. On November 11, 1778 Brant was a leader in the attack in the Cherry Valley massacre.
In February, 1779, Brant traveled to Montreal to meet with Frederick Haldimand, who had replaced Carleton as Commander and Governor in Canada. Haldimand gave Brant a commission of Captain of the Northern Confederated Indians. He also promised provisions, but no pay, for his Volunteers. Haldimand pledged that after the war had ended, the Mohawks would be restored, at the expense of the government, to the state they were before the conflict started.
In May, Brant returned to Fort Niagara where, with his new salary and plunder from his raids, he acquired a farm on the Niagara River, six miles (10 km) from the fort. To work the farm and to serve the household, he used slaves he had captured on his raids. Brant bought a black slave, a seven-year-old African-American girl named Sophia Burthen Pooley; she travelled with him and his family for many years before he sold her to an Englishman for $100. He built a small chapel for the Indians who started living nearby. He started living with Catherine Adonwentishon Croghan, whom he married in the winter of 1780. She was the daughter of the prominent American colonist and Indian agent, George Croghan and a Mohawk mother, Catharine Tekarihoga. Through her mother, Catharine Adonwentishon was head of the Turtle clan, the first in rank in the Mohawk Nation. Her birthright was to name the Tekarihoga, the principal sachem of the Mohawk nation.
Brant's honors and gifts caused jealousy from rival chiefs, in particular Sayenqueraghta. A British general said that Brant "would be much happier and would have more weight with the Indians, which he in some measure forfeits by their knowing that he receives pay". In late 1779, Haldimand decided when a commission for Brant as a colonel arrived from Lord Germain, to pocket it and not tell Brant.
In early July, 1779, the British learned of plans for a major American expedition into Seneca country. In an attempt to disrupt the Americans' plans, John Butler sent Brant and his Volunteers on a quest for provisions and to gather intelligence on the Delaware in the vicinity of Minisink. After stopping at Onaquaga, Brant attacked and defeated the Americans at the Battle of Minisink on July 22, 1779. Brant's raid failed to disrupt the American expedition, however.
In the Sullivan Campaign, the Americans sent a large force deep into Iroquois territory to defeat the Iroquois and to destroy their villages. The Iroquois were defeated on August 29, 1779 at the Battle of Newtown. The American colonists swept away all Indian resistance in New York, burned their villages, and forced the Iroquois to fall back to Fort Niagara. Brant was wintering at Fort Niagara in 1779-80.
Brant resumed small-scale attacks on the Mohawk Valley. In February, 1780, he and his party set out and in April attacked Harpersfield. In mid-July, 1780 Brant led an attack on the Oneida village of Kanonwalohale. Some of the Oneida surrendered, but most took refuge at Fort Stanwix. Brant's raiders destroyed the Oneida houses, horses, and crops. They then went to the lower Mohawk where they attacked Canajoharie and Fort Plank. On their return they divided into small parties to attack Schoharie, Cherry Valley, and German Flatts. They then took part in a third major raid on the Mohawk Valley with Butler's Rangers and King's Royal Regiment of New York. Brant was wounded in the heel at the Battle of Klock's Field. He burned his former hometown of Canajoharie because it had become inhabited by American settlers.
In April, 1781 Brant was sent west to Fort Detroit to help defend against an expedition into the Ohio Country to be led by the Virginian George Rogers Clark. In August 1781, Brant completely defeated a detachment of Clark's army, ending the threat to Detroit. He was wounded in the leg and spent the winter 1781-1782 at Fort Detroit. From 1781 to 1782, Brant tried to keep the disaffected western tribes loyal to the Crown before and after the British surrender at Yorktown.
In June, 1782 Brant and his Indians went to Fort Oswego, where they helped rebuild the fort. In July, 1782 he and 460 Iroquois left for a raid on Fort Herkimer and Fort Dayton, but they did not accomplish much. Sometime during this raid, a letter from Frederick Haldimand arrived recalling the party and asking for a cessation of hostilities. Brant denounced the defensive policy as a betrayal of the Iroquois and urged the Indians to continue the war, but they were unable to do so without British supplies.
In the Treaty of Paris (1783) that ended the war, Britain and the United States ignored the sovereignty of the Indians. They determined that the sovereign Six Nations lands would become part of the territory of the United States. Promises of protection of their domain had been an important factor in inducing the Iroquois to fight on the side of the British. The Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1784) served as a peace treaty between the Americans and the Iroquois.
Brant became infamous for the Wyoming Valley massacre of 1778, which it was widely believed he led, although he was not present at the battle. During the war, he was known as the Monster Brant. Stories of his massacres and atrocities added to an American hatred of Indians that soured relations for 50 years. In later years, historians have argued that he had been a force for restraint in the violence that accompanied the campaign in the Mohawk Valley. They have discovered times when he displayed his compassion and humanity, especially towards women, children, and non-combatants. Colonel Ichabod Alden said that he "should much rather fall into the hands of Brant than either of them [Loyalists and Tories]". As an example, Lt. Col. William Stacy of the Continental Army was the highest ranking officer captured during the Cherry Valley massacre. Several accounts indicate that during the fighting, or shortly thereafter, Col. Stacy was stripped naked, tied to a stake, and was about to be tortured and killed, but was spared by Brant. Stacy, like Brant, was a Freemason. It is reported that Stacy made an appeal as one Freemason to another, and Brant intervened.
In 1797, when Brant traveled through New York, the governor provided him with a bodyguard because Brant's life had been threatened.
In 1783, he was sent to Montreal for discussion with Haldimand in order to get him away from Fort Niagara. At Brant's urging, British General Sir Frederick Haldimand made a grant of land for a Mohawk reserve on the Grand River in Ontario in October, 1784. (Haldimand Proclamation, see also Six Nations of the Grand River). In the fall of 1784, at a meeting at Buffalo Creek, the clan matrons decided that the Six Nations should divide with half going to the Haldimand grant and the other half staying in New York. Brant built his own house at Brant's Town which was described as "a handsome two story house, built after the manner of the white people. Compared with the other houses, it may be called a palace." He had about twenty white and black servants and slaves. Joseph thought the government made a ridiculous fuss over the keeping of slaves. He had a good farm and did extensive farming, and kept cattle, sheep, and hogs.
In the summer of 1783, Brant initiated the formation of the Western Confederacy consisting of the Iroquois and twenty-nine other Indian nations to defend the Fort Stanwix Treaty line of 1768 by denying any nation the ability to cede any land without the common consent. In November, 1785 he traveled to London to ask for assistance in defending the Indian confederacy from attack by the Americans. Brant was granted a generous pension and an agreement to fully compensate the Mohawk for their loses (this in contrast to the Loyalists, who only received a fraction of their losses) but no promises of support for the Western Confederacy. He also took a trip to Paris, returning to Canada in June, 1786.
In 1790, after the Western Confederacy had been attacked in the Northwest Indian War, they asked Brant and the Six Nations to enter the war on their side. Brant refused, he instead asked Lord Dorchester for British assistance for the Western Confederacy. Dorchester also refused, but later, in 1794, did provide the Indians with arms and provisions. In 1792, Brant was invited to Philadelphia where he met the President and his cabinet. The Americans offered him a large pension, and a reservation in the United States for the Mohawks to lure them to the United States. Brant refused, but Pickering said the Brant did take some cash payments. George Washington told Knox in 1794, "to buy Captain Brant off at almost any price". Brant attempted a compromise peace settlement between the Western Confederacy and the Americans, but he failed. The war continued, and the Indians were defeated in 1794 at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. The unity of the Western Confederacy was broken with the peace Treaty of Greenville in 1795.
In early 1797, he traveled to Philadelphia where he met the British Minister, Robert Liston and United States government officials. He assured the Americans that he "would never again take up the tomahawk against the United States". At this time the British were at war with France and Spain, and while Brant was meeting with the French minister, Pierre August Adet, Brant stated: "he would offer his services to the French Minister Adet, and march his Mohawks to assist in effecting a revolution & overturning the British government in the province". When he returned home, there were fears of a French attack. Russell wrote: "the present alarming aspect of affairs - when we are threatened with an invasion by the French and Spaniards from the Mississippi, and the information we have received of emissaries being dispersed among the Indian tribes to incite them to take up the hatchet against the King's subjects". He also wrote Brant "only seeks a feasible excuse for joining the French, should they invade this province." London ordered Russell to not allow the Indians to alienate their land, but with the prospects of war to appease Brant, Russell confirmed Brant's land sales. Brant then declared: "they would now all fight for the King to the last drop of their blood".
In late 1800 and early 1801 Brant wrote to Governor George Clinton to secure a large tract of land near Sandusky which could serve as a refuge should the Grand River Indians rebel, but suffer defeat. In September, 1801 Brant is reported as saying: "He says he will go away, yet the Grand River Lands will [still] be in his hands, that no man shall meddle with it amongst us. He says the British Government shall not get it, but the Americans shall and will have it, the Grand River Lands, because the war is very close to break out."
In January, 1802, the Executive Council of Upper Canada learned of this plot which was lead by Aaron Burr and George Clinton to overthrow British rule in cooperation with some inhabitants and to create a republican state to join the United States. September, 1802, the planned date of invasion, passed uneventfully and the plot evaporated.
Brant bought about 3,500 acres (14 km2) from the Mississauga Indians at the head of Burlington Bay. Simcoe would not allow such a sale between Indians, so he bought this track of land from the Mississauga and then gave the land to Brant. Around 1802, Brant moved there and built a mansion that was intended to be a half-scale version of Johnson Hall. He had a prosperous farm in the colonial style with 100 acres (0.40 km2) of crops.
Joseph Brant died in his house at the head of Lake Ontario (site of what would become the city of Burlington, Ontario) on November 24, 1807. His last words, spoken to his adopted nephew John Norton, reflect his life-long commitment to his people: "Have pity on the poor Indians. If you have any influence with the great, endeavor to use it for their good." In 1850, his remains were carried 34 miles (55 km) in relays on the shoulders of young men of Grand River to a tomb at Her Majesty's Chapel of the Mohawks in Brantford.
Brant acted as a tireless negotiator for the Six Nations to control their land without crown oversight or control. He used British fears of his dealings with the Americans and the French to extract concessions. His conflicts with British administrators in Canada regarding tribal land claims were exacerbated by his relations with the American leaders.
Brant was a war chief, and not a hereditary Mohawk sachem. His decisions could and were sometimes overruled by the sachems and clan matrons. However, his natural ability, his early education, and the connections he was able to form made him one of the great leaders of his people and of his time. The situation of the Six Nations on the Grand River was better than that of the Iroquois who remained in New York. His lifelong mission was to help the Indian to survive the transition from one culture to another, transcending the political, social and economic challenges of one the most volatile, dynamic periods of American history. He put his loyalty to the Six Nations before loyalty to the British. His life cannot be summed up in terms of success or failure, although he had known both. More than anything, Brant's life was marked by frustration and struggle.
His attempt to create pan-tribal unity proved unsuccessful, though his efforts would be taken up a generation later by the Shawnee leader Tecumseh.
Lord John Graves Simcoe
Lieutenant-General John Graves Simcoe (February 25, 1752 – October 26, 1806) was the first lieutenant governor of Upper Canada (modern-day southern Ontario and the watersheds of Georgian Bay and Lake Superior) from 1791-1796. He founded York (now Toronto) and was instrumental in introducing institutions such as the courts, trial by jury, English common law, freehold land tenure, and for abolishing slavery in Upper Canada long before it was abolished in the British Empire as a whole (it had disappeared from Upper Canada by 1810, but was not abolished throughout the Empire until 1834).
John Graves Simcoe was the only son of John (1710-1759) and Katherine Simcoe . His father, a captain in the Royal Navy, commanded the 60-gun HMS Pembroke (James Cook was his sailing master) during the 1758 siege of Louisbourg. His father died of pneumonia a few months prior to the siege of Quebec. His paternal grandparents were William and Mary (née Hutchinson) Simcoe.
Simcoe was educated at Eton and Merton College, Oxford.
He was initiated into Freemasonry in Union Lodge, Exeter on the November 2, 1773.
His godfather was British admiral Samuel Graves. Simcoe would marry Graves' ward, Elizabeth Posthuma Gwillim, in 1782.
The Simcoes' had five daughters prior to their posting in Canada. Son Francis was born in 1791. Their Canadian born daughter, Katherine, died in infancy in York, Upper Canada. She is buried in the Victoria Square Memorial Park on Portland Avenue.
In 1770, Simcoe entered the British Army as an ensign in the 35th Regiment of Foot. His unit was dispatched to America, where he saw action in the Siege of Boston. During the siege, he purchased a captaincy in the grenadier company of the 40th Regiment of Foot.
With the 40th, he saw action in the New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia campaigns. Simcoe commanded the 40th at the Battle of Brandywine, where he was also wounded.
In 1777, Simcoe sought to form a Loyalist regiment of free blacks from Boston, but instead was offered to command the Queen's Rangers, a well-trained light infantry unit comprising of 11 companies of 30 men, 1 grenadier and 1 hussar, and the rest light infantry. The Queen's Rangers saw extensive action during the Philadelphia campaign, including a successful surprise attack (planned and executed by Simcoe), at the Battle of Crooked Billet.
In 1778, Simcoe commanded the attack on Judge William Hancock's house, killing 20 Americans in their sleep and wounding 12 others. William Hancock was also killed even though he was not with the Americans. The massacre took place at night and with bayonets. On June 28 of that year, Simcoe and his Queen's Rangers took part in the Battle of Monmouth Courthouse, in and near Freehold, New Jersey.
During the winter of 1779, Simcoe attempted to capture George Washington, but decided that his men would not shoot the future president. During that year, Armand Tuffin de La Rouërie captured Simcoe. Simcoe was released in 1781, just in time to see action at the Siege of Yorktown He was invalided back to England in December of that year as a Lieutenant-Colonel.
Simcoe wrote a book on his experiences with the Rangers, titled A Journal of the Operations of the Queen's Rangers from the end of the year 1777 to the conclusion of the late American War, which was published in 1787.
The Province of Upper Canada was created under the Constitutional Act of 1791. Simcoe was appointed lieutenant governor and made plans to move to Upper Canada with his wife Elizabeth and daughter Sophia, leaving three other daughters behind with their aunt. They left England in September and arrived on November 11. This was too late in the year to make the trip to Upper Canada and the Simcoes spent the winter in Quebec City. The next spring they moved to Kingston and then Newark (now Niagara-on-the-Lake).
Constitutional Act stipulated that the provincial government would consist of the Lieutenant-Governor, an appointed Executive Council and Legislative Council and an elected Legislative Assembly. The first meeting of the nine-member Legislative Council and sixteen-member Legislative Assembly took place at Newark on September 17, 1792.
Simcoe's first priority was dealing with the effects of the Northwest Indian War. War broke out between Britain and France in 1791, and although the United States pledged neutrality its sympathies were with France. Simcoe's instructions were not to cause the United States any reason to mistrust Britain, but at the same time to keep the Indians on both sides of the border friendly to Britain. Simcoe denied the existence of the boundary defined in the Treaty of Paris (1783) on the grounds that the Americans had nullified the treaty. The British wished for the Indians to form a buffer state between the two countries. The Indians in the Ohio area were in an ongoing war with the United States called the Northwest Indian War. The Indians asked for military support from the British in this war, which Britain initially refused but they did supply the Indians with weapons in 1794. In February 1794, the Governor in Chief Lord Dorchester, anticipating that the Americans would honour their treaty with France, said that war was likely to break out between the countries before the year was out. His statement encouraged the Indians in their war. Dorchester ordered Simcoe to rally the Indians and arm the vessels on the Great Lakes. He also build Fort Miamis (in present day Indiana) to supply the Indians in the upcoming war. Americans were expelled from a settlement on southern Lake Erie which had threatened British control of the lake. George Washington denounced the "irregular and high-handed proceeding of Mr. Simcoe" While Dorchester planned for a defensive war, Simcoe urged London to declare war "Upper Canada is not to be defended by remaining within the boundary line" Lord Dorchester was given an official reprimand for his strong speech against the Americans in 1794.
Simcoe realized that Newark made an unsuitable capital because it was right on the United States border and subject to attack. He proposed moving the capital to a more defensible position in the middle of Upper Canada's southwestern peninsula between Lake Erie and Lake Huron. He named the new location London and renamed the river as the Thames in anticipation of the change. Lord Dorchester, rejected this proposal but accepted Simcoe's second choice of Toronto. Simcoe moved the capital to Toronto in 1793 and renamed the location York after Frederick, Duke of York, George III's second son.
Simcoe began construction of two main routes through Ontario which were intended to aid in the defence of Upper Canada but would also help encourage settlement and trade throughout the province. Yonge Street, named after the Minister of War Sir George Yonge, was built north-south along the fur trade route between Lake Ontario and Lake Simcoe. Soldiers of the Queen's Rangers began cutting the road in August 1793, reaching Holland Landing in 1796. Another road, Dundas Street named for the Colonial Secretary Henry Dundas, was built east-west between Hamilton and York.
The Indians were defeated at the Battle of Fallen Timbers which resulted in the peace Treaty of Greenville. The British while still at war with France could not afford to antagonise the Americans and in the Jay Treaty they agreed to abandon the frontier forts and to relocate on their side of the border agreed to in the Treaty of Paris. The plan for an Indian buffer state failed and after the surrender of Fort Niagara in November, 1796 the two countries directly faced each other over the Niagara river.
In July 1796 poor health forced Simcoe to return to Britain. He was unable to return to Upper Canada and resigned his office in 1798. He became Colonel of the 81st Foot in 1798, but exchanged it for the 22nd Foot less than six months later. He later served briefly as the commander of British forces in St. Domingo (Haiti) and commander of the Western District in Britain. In 1806, he was appointed commander-in-chief of India but died in Exeter before assuming that post. He was buried in Wolford Chapel on the Simcoe family estate near Honiton, Devon. The Ontario Heritage Foundation acquired title to the chapel in 1982.
Mackenzie Bowell
Sir Mackenzie Bowell, PC , KCMG (December 27, 1823 – December 10, 1917) was the fifth Prime Minister of Canada from December 21, 1894 to April 27, 1896.
Bowell was born in Rickinghall, Suffolk, England to John Bowell and Elizabeth Marshall. In 1832 his family emigrated thence to Belleville, Ontario, where he apprenticed with the printer at the town newspaper, The Intelligencer. He became a successful printer and editor with that newspaper, and later its owner. He was a Freemason but also an outstanding Orangeman, becoming Grandmaster of the Orange Order of British North America, 1870 – 1878. In 1847 he married Harriet Moore (1829 – 1884), with whom he had four sons and five daughters.
Bowell was first elected to the House of Commons in 1867, as a Conservative, for the 
riding of North Hastings, Ontario. He held his seat for the Conservatives when they lost the election of January 1874, in the wake of the Pacific Scandal. Later that year he was instrumental in having Louis Riel expelled from the House. In 1878, with the Conservatives again governing, he joined the cabinet as Minister of Customs. In 1892 he became Minister of Militia and Defence. A competent, hardworking administrator, Bowell remained in Cabinet as Minister of Trade and Commerce, a newly made portfolio, after he became a senator that same year. His visit to Australia in 1893 led to the first conference of British colonies and territories, held in Ottawa in 1894. He became Leader of the Government in the Senate on October 31, 1893.
In December 1894, Prime Minister Sir John Thompson died suddenly and Bowell, as the most senior Cabinet minister, was appointed in Thompson's stead by the Governor General. Bowell thus became the second of just two Canadian Prime Ministers to hold that office while serving in the Senate rather than the House of Commons. (The first was John Abbott.)
As Prime Minister, Bowell faced the troublesome Manitoba Schools Question. In 1890 Manitoba had abolished public funding of its Catholic schools, contrary to the provisions made for Catholics in the Manitoba Act of 1870. Bowell and his predecessors had struggled to solve this problem. The issue had divided the country, the government, and even Bowell's own Cabinet. He was further hampered in his handling of the issue by his own indecisiveness on it, and by his inability, as a Senator, to take part in debates in the House of Commons. Bowell backed legislation, already drafted, that would have forced Manitoba to restore its Catholic schools, but then postsponed it due to opposition within his Cabinet. With the ordinary business of government at a standstill, Bowell's Cabinet decided he was incompetent to lead and so, to force him to step down, seven ministers resigned, then foiled the appointment of successors. Though Bowell denounced them as "a nest of traitors," he had to agree to resign. After ten days, through an intervention on Bowell's behalf by the Governor General, the government crisis was resolved and matters seemingly returned normal when six of the ministers were reinstated, but leadership was thenceforth effectively held by Charles Tupper, who had joined Cabinet at the same time, filling the seventh place. Tupper, who had been Canadian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, had been recalled by the plotters to replace Bowell. Bowell formally resigned in favour of Tupper at the end of the parliamentary session.
Bowell stayed on in the Senate, serving as his party's leader there till 1906, and afterward as a plain Senator until his death. He died of pneumonia in Bellville, only days short of turning 94, and was buried in the Belleville Cemetery. His funeral was attended by a full complement of the Orange Order, but not by any currently or formerly elected member of the government.
Bowell's descendants live in Hertfordshire, England.
R.B. Bennett
Richard Bedford Bennett, 1st Viscount Bennett PC KC (July 3, 1870 – June 26, 1947) was a Canadian lawyer, businessman, politician, and philanthropist. He served as the eleventh Prime Minister of Canada from August 7, 1930 to October 23, 1935, during the worst of the Great Depression years. Following his defeat as prime minister, Bennett moved to England, and was elevated to the British House of Lords.
By defeating William Lyon Mackenzie King in the 1930 federal election, he had the misfortune of taking office during the worst depression of the century for the country and the rest of the world. Bennett tried to combat the depression by increasing trade within the British Empire and imposing tariffs for imports from outside the Empire, promising that his measures would blast Canadian exports into world markets. His success was limited however, and his own wealth and impersonal style alienated many struggling Canadians.
When his Imperial Preference policy failed to generate the desired result, Bennett's 
government had no real contingency plan. The party's pro-business and pro-banking inclinations provided little relief to the millions of increasingly desperate and agitated unemployed. Despite the economic crisis, Laissez-faire persisted as the guiding economic principle of Conservative Party ideology. Government relief to the unemployed was considered a disincentive to individual initiative and was therefore only granted in the most minimal amounts and attached to work programs. An additional concern of the federal government was that large numbers of disaffected unemployed men concentrating in urban centres created a volatile situation. As an "alternative to bloodshed on the streets," the stop-gap solution for unemployment chosen by the Bennett government was to establish military-run and -styled relief camps in remote areas throughout the country, where single unemployed men toiled for twenty cents a day. Any relief beyond this was left to provincial and municipal governments, many of which were either insolvent or on the brink of bankruptcy, and which railed against the inaction of other levels of government. Partisan differences began to sharpen on the question of government intervention in the economy, since lower levels of government were largely in Liberal hands, and protest movements were beginning to send their own parties into the political mainstream, notably the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation and William Aberhart's Social Credit Party in Alberta.
Bennett hosted the 1932 Imperial Conference in Ottawa. It was attended by the leaders of the independent dominions of the British Empire (which later became the Commonwealth of Nations). This was the first occasion the conference was held outside the British Isles. Bennett dominated the meetings, which were ultimately unproductive, due to the inability of leaders to agree on policies, mainly to combat the economic woes dominating the world at the time.
A nickname that would stick with Bennett for the remainder of his political career, "Iron Heel Bennett," came from a 1932 speech he gave in Toronto that ironically, if unintentionally, alluded to Jack London's socialist novel:
What do they offer you in exchange for the present order? Socialism, Communism, dictatorship. They are sowing the seeds of unrest everywhere. Right in this city such propaganda is being carried on and in the little out of the way places as well. And we know that throughout Canada this propaganda is being put forward by organizations from foreign lands that seek to destroy our institutions. And we ask that every man and woman put the iron heel of ruthlessness against a thing of that kind.
Reacting to fears of Communist subversion, Bennett invoked the controversial Section 98 of the Criminal Code of Canada. Enacted in the aftermath of the Winnipeg General Strike, Section 98 dispensed with the presumption of innocence in outlawing potential threats to the state, specifically, anyone belonging to an organisation that officially advocated the violent overthrow of the government. Even if the accused had never committed an act of violence or personally supported such an action, they could be incarcerated merely for attending meetings of such an organization, publicly speaking in its defense, or distributing its literature. Despite the broad power authorized under Section 98, its targeted specifically the Communist Party of Canada. Eight of the top party leaders, including Tim Buck, were arrested and convicted under Section 98 in 1931. This plan to stamp out communism however, backfired and proved to be a damaging embarrassment for the government, especially after Buck was the target of an apparent assassination attempt. While confined to his cell during a prison riot, despite not participating in the riot, shots were fired into his cell. When an agit-prop play depicting these events, Eight Men Speak, was suppressed by the Toronto police, a protest meeting was held where activist A.E. Smith repeated the play's allegations and was consequently arrested for sedition. This created a storm of public protest compounded with Buck being called as a witness to the trial and repeating the allegations in open court. Although the remarks were striken from the record, they still discredited the prosecution's case and Smith was acquitted. As a result, the government's case against Buck lost any credibility and Buck and his comrades were released early and fêted as heroic champions of civil liberties.
Having survived Section 98, and benefiting from the public sympathy wrought by persecution, Communist Party members set out to organize workers in the relief camps. Camp workers laboured on a variety of infrastructure projects, including such things as municipal airports, roads, and park facilities, along with a number of make-work schemes. Conditions in the camps were abhorrent, not only because of the low pay, but the lack of recreational facilities, isolation from family and friends, poor quality food, and the use of military discipline, which made the camps feel like penal colonies. Communists thus had ample grounds on which to organize camp inmates. The Relief Camp Workers' Union was formed and affiliated with the Workers' Unity League, the trade union umbrella of the Communist Party. Camp workers in BC struck on 4 April 1935 and, after two months of protesting in Vancouver, began the On-to-Ottawa Trek to bring their grievances to Bennett's doorstep. The Prime Minister and his Minister of Justice, Hugh Guthrie, treated the trek as an attempted insurrection, and ordered it to be stopped. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) halted the Trek in Regina on 1 July 1935 by attacking a crowd of 3,000 strikers and their supporters, resulting in two deaths and dozens of injured. All told, Bennett's communist policy would not bode well for his political career.
Following the lead of President Roosevelt's New Deal in the United States, Bennett eventually followed suit as even mainstream economic thinking was changing in order to better cope with the global depression. The Bennett government introduced a Canadian version of the "New Deal," involving unprecedented public spending and federal intervention in the economy. Progressive income taxation, a minimum wage, a maximum number of working hours per week, unemployment insurance, health insurance, an expanded pension programme, and grants to farmers were all included in the plan. Bennett's conversion, however, was seen as too little too late, and he faced criticism that his reforms either did not go far enough, or that they encroached on provincial jurisdictions laid out in Section 92 of the British North America Act. The courts, including the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, agreed and eventually struck down virtually all of Bennett's reforms. However some of Bennett's initiatives last to this day, including the Bank of Canada (which is responsible for the money supply and monetary policy), and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Sir John A. MacDonald
Sir John Alexander Macdonald GCB, KCMG, PC, PC (Can), (January 11, 1815 – June 6, 1891) was the first Prime Minister of Canada and the dominant figure of Canadian Confederation. Macdonald's tenure in office spanned 19 years, making him the second longest serving Prime Minister of Canada. He is the only Canadian Prime Minister to win six majority governments. He was the major proponent of a national railway, completed in 1885, linking Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. He won praise for having helped forge a nation of sprawling geographic size, with two diverse European colonial origins, numerous Aboriginal nations, and a multiplicity of cultural backgrounds and political views.
John Alexander Macdonald was born in Glasgow, Scotland on January 11, 1815. His parents were Hugh Macdonald and Helen Shaw, who had married on October 21, 1811. Together, they had six children. The first-born, William, died in infancy. The next was Margaret, who was followed a year and a half later by John Alexander; then brother James; brother Alexander Ross, who suffered from Mowat-Wilson syndrome; and a baby sister named Louisa. After the failure of Hugh Mcdonald's business ventures, the family immigrated to Kingston, Upper Canada in 1820 along with thousands of others seeking affordable land and promises of new prosperity.
Bad luck followed the family to their new country. When he was only seven, Macdonald watched as his younger brother James was struck and killed by a drunken servant who was supposed to be looking after them. Hugh Macdonald's business ventures in the Kingston area were scarcely more successful than they had been in Scotland. The family managed to scrape up the money to send Macdonald to Kingston's Midland Grammar School where, according to biographer Donald Creighton, he studied subjects such as Latin, French and mathematics. "Already he was a voracious reader," Creighton writes, "and he would sit for hours deep in a book, almost oblivious to what was going on." At 14, Macdonald switched to a school for "general and classical education" founded by a newly arrived Presbyterian minister from Scotland. It was one of the few schools in Upper Canada that taught both boys and girls. Macdonald's formal schooling ended at 15, which was common when only the most prosperous were able to attend university. Nevertheless, Macdonald later regretted leaving school when he did, remarking to his private secretary Joseph Pope that if he had attended university, he might have embarked on a literary career. "He did not add, as he might have done," Pope wrote in his biography of Macdonald, "that the successful government of millions of men, the strengthening of an empire, the creation of a great dominion, call for the possession and exercise of rarer qualities than are necessary to the achievement of literary fame. He had a bad life."
Macdonald was a Freemason, initiated in 1844 at St. John’s Lodge No. 5 in Kingston. In 1868, he was named by the United Grand Lodge of England as its Grand Representative near the Grand Lodge of Canada (in Ontario) and the rank of Past Grand Senior Warden conferred upon him. He continued to represent the Grand Lodge of England until his death in 1891. His commission, together with his apron and earmuffs, are in the Masonic Temple at Kingston, along with his regalia as Past Grand Senior Warden. Among the books in his library was a very rare copy of the first Masonic book published in Canada, A History of Freemasonry in Nova Scotia (1786).
Sir Robert Borden
Robert Laird Borden was born and educated in Grand Pre, Nova Scotia, a farming community at the eastern end of the Annapolis Valley, where his great-grandfather Perry Borden, Sr. of Tiverton, Rhode Island had taken up Acadian land in 1760. Perry had accompanied his father, Samuel Borden, the chief surveyor chosen by the government of Massachusetts to survey the former Acadian land and draw up new lots for the Planters in Nova Scotia. Robert Borden was the last Canadian Prime Minister born before Confederation. Borden's father Andrew Borden was judged by his son to be "a man of good ability and excellent judgement", of a "calm, contemplative and philosophical" turn of mind, but "He lacked energy and had no great aptitude for affairs". His mother Eunice Jane Laird was more driven, possessing "very strong character, remarkable energy, high ambition and unusual ability". Her ambition was transmitted to her first-born child who applied himself to his studies while assisting his parents with the farm work he found so disagreeable.
From 1868 to 1874, he worked as a teacher in Grand Pré and Matawan, New Jersey. Seeing no future in teaching, he returned to Nova Scotia in 1874 to article for four years at a Halifax law firm (without a formal university education) and was called to the Nova Scotia Bar in August 1878, placing first in the bar examinations. Borden went to Kentville, Nova Scotia as the junior partner of the Conservative lawyer John P. Chipman. In 1880 he was inducted into the Freemasons - (St Andrew's lodge #1) and in 1882 he was asked by Wallace Graham to move to Halifax and join the Conservative law firm headed by Graham and Charles Hibbert Tupper. Borden became the senior partner in fall 1889 when he was only 35 following the departure of Graham and Tupper for the bench and politics. His financial future guaranteed, on September 25, 1889, he married Laura Bond (1863-1940), the daughter of a Halifax hardware merchant. They would have no children (Borden does have descendants, namely Jean Borden and her son Robert Borden). In 1894 he bought a large property and home on the south side of Quinpool Road which the couple called "Pinehurst". In 1893 Borden successfully argued the first of two cases which he took to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. He represented many of the important Halifax businesses and sat on the boards of Nova Scotian companies including the Bank of Nova Scotia and the Crown Life Insurance Company. President of the Nova Scotia Barristers' Society in 1896, he took the initiative in organizing the founding meetings of the Canadian Bar Association in 1896 in Montreal. By the time he was prevailed upon to enter politics, Borden had what some judged to be the largest legal practice in the Maritime Provinces, and had become a wealthy man.
As Prime Minister of Canada during the First World War, Borden transformed his government to a wartime administration, passing the War Measures Act in 1914. Borden committed Canada to provide half a million soldiers for the war effort. However, volunteers had quickly dried up when Canadians realized there would be no quick end to the war. Borden's determination to meet that huge commitment led to the Military Service Act and the Conscription Crisis of 1917, which split the country on linguistic lines. The unpopular conscription issue would likely have meant defeat in the election of 1917, but Borden recruited members of the Liberals (with the notable exception of Wilfrid Laurier) to create a Unionist government. The 1917 election saw the "Government" candidates (including a number of Liberal-Unionists) crush the Opposition "Laurier Liberals" in English Canada resulting in a large parliamentary majority for Borden.
The war effort also enabled Canada to assert itself as an independent power. Borden wanted to create a single Canadian army, rather than have Canadian soldiers split up and assigned to British divisions as had happened during the Boer War. Sam Hughes, the Minister of Militia, generally ensured that Canadians were well-trained and prepared to fight in their own divisions, although with mixed results such as the Ross Rifle. Arthur Currie provided sensible leadership for the Canadian divisions in Europe, although they were still under overall British command. Nevertheless Canadian troops proved themselves to be among the best in the world, fighting at the Somme, Ypres, Passchendaele, and especially at the Battle of Vimy Ridge.
During Borden's first term as prime minister, the National Research Council of Canada was established in 1916.
In world affairs, Borden played a crucial role in transforming the British Empire into a partnership of equal states, the Commonwealth of Nations, a term that was first discussed at an Imperial Conference in London during the war. Borden also introduced the first Canadian income tax, which at the time was meant to be temporary, but was never repealed.
Convinced that Canada had become a nation on the battlefields of Europe, Borden demanded that it have a separate seat at the Paris Peace Conference. This was initially opposed not only by Britain but also by the United States, who perceived such a delegation as an extra British vote. Borden responded by pointing out that since Canada had lost more men than the U.S. in the war, she at least had the right to the representation of a "minor" power. British Prime Minister David Lloyd George eventually relented, and convinced the reluctant Americans to accept the presence of separate Canadian, Indian, Australian, Newfoundland, New Zealand and South African delegations. Despite this, Borden boycotted the opening ceremony, protesting at the precedence given to the prime minister of the much smaller Newfoundland over him.
Not only did Borden's persistence allow him to represent Canada in Paris as a nation, it also ensured that each of the dominions could sign the Treaty of Versailles in its own right, and receive a separate membership in the League of Nations. During the conference Borden tried to act as an intermediary between the United States and other members of the British Empire delegation, particularly Australia and New Zealand over the issue of Mandates. Borden also discussed with Lloyd George, the possibility of Canada taking over the administration of Belize and the West Indies, but no agreement was reached.
At Borden's insistence, the treaty was ratified by the Canadian Parliament. Borden was the last prime minister to be knighted after the House of Commons indicated its desire for the discontinuation of the granting of any future titles to Canadians in 1919 with the adoption of the Nickle Resolution.
That same year, Borden approved the use of troops to put down the Winnipeg General Strike, which was feared to be the result of Bolshevik agitation from the Soviet Union.
Sir Sandford Fleming
Sir Sandford Fleming (January 7, 1827 – July 22, 1915) was a Scottish-born Canadian engineer and inventor, known for proposing worldwide standard time zones, Canada's postage stamp, a huge body of surveying and map making, engineering much of the Intercolonial Railway and the Canadian Pacific Railway, and a founding member of the Royal Society of Canada and founder of the Royal Canadian Institute, a science organization in Toronto.
Fleming was born in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland to Andrew and Elizabeth Fleming. In 1845, at the age of 18, he emigrated with his older brother David to Ontario (then the western half of the British province of United Canada). Their route took them through many cities of the Canadian colonies, Quebec City, Montreal, and Kingston, Ontario, before settling in Peterborough, Ontario with their cousins in 1847.
In 1849 he established the Royal Canadian Institute, which was formally incorporated on November 4, 1851. In 1851 he designed the Threepenny Beaver, the first Canadian postage stamp. Throughout this time he was fully employed as a surveyor, mostly for the Grand Trunk Railway. His work for them eventually gained him the position as Chief Engineer of the Northern Railway of Canada in 1855, where he tirelessly advocated the construction of iron bridges instead of wood for safety reasons.
In 1858 he first proposed a coast to coast railway line spanning all of British North America. The timing was not quite right, but a few years later he was appointed as the sole engineer to supervise the survey of the proposed Intercolonial Railway, linking the Maritime provinces with Quebec. He moved for a time to Halifax, Nova Scotia during construction, where he built a house at the seaward end of town. In 1872, the newly formed Canadian government decided to build a rail link to the Pacific Ocean, and naturally the job of surveying the route fell to Fleming. That same year he organized an expedition to the Pacific that included surveyors as well as the naturalist John Macoun, and his Church of Scotland clergyman from the St. Matthew's Presbyterian "kirk" from Halifax, George Monro Grant. Over the next few years he supervised both the Intercolonial and the Canadian Pacific Railway, a job he completed in 1876 before turning over the chief engineer position to his long term collaborator, Collingwood Schreiber. Fleming was present when Donald Smith drove in the "Last Spike" in Craigellachie, British Columbia in 1885, now as a board member of the Canadian Pacific company. He published The Intercolonial: A Historical Sketch (1876).
As soon as he arrived in Peterborough in 1845, Fleming became friendly with the family of his future wife, the Halls, and was attracted to Jeanie Hall. However, it was not until a sleigh accident almost ten years later that the young people’s love for each other was revealed. A year after this incident, in January 1855, Sandford married Ann Jane (Jean) Hall. They were to have nine children of whom two died young. The oldest son, Frank Andrew, accompanied Fleming in his great Western expedition of 1872. A family man, deeply attached to his wife and children, he also welcomed his father Andrew Greig Fleming, Andrew's wife and six of their other children who came to join him in Canada two years after his arrival. The Fleming and Hall families saw each other often.
After missing a train in 1876 in Ireland because its printed schedule listed p.m. instead of a.m., he proposed a single 24-hour clock for the entire world, located at the centre of the Earth and not linked to any surface meridian. At a meeting of the Royal Canadian Institute on February 8, 1879 he linked it to the anti-meridian of Greenwich (now 180°). He suggested that standard time zones could be used locally, but they were subordinate to his single world time. He continued to promote his system at major international conferences, including the International Meridian Conference of 1884. That conference accepted a different version of Universal Time, but refused to accept his zones, stating that they were a local issue outside its purview. Nevertheless, by 1929 all of the major countries of the world had accepted time zones.
In 1880 he retired from the world of surveying, and took the position of Chancellor of Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, a position he held for his last 35 years, where his former Minister George Monro Grant was principal from 1877 until Grant's death in 1902. Not content to leave well enough alone, he tirelessly advocated the construction of a submarine telegraph cable connecting all of the British Empire, the All Red Line, which was completed in 1902. He was a freemason. In his later years he retired to his house in Halifax, later deeding the house and the 95 acres (38 hectares) to the city, now known as Sir Sandford Fleming Park (Dingle Park). He also kept a residence in Ottawa, and was buried there, in the Beechwood Cemetery.
His accomplishments were well known world wide, and in 1897 he was knighted by Queen Victoria. Fleming Hall was built in his honour at Queen's in 1901, and rebuilt after a fire in 1932. It was the home of the university's Electrical Engineering department.
In Peterborough, Ontario, Fleming College, a Community College of Applied Arts and Technology bearing his name, was opened in 1967, with additional campuses in Lindsay/Kawartha Lakes, Haliburton, and Cobourg. Also, a building in the University of Toronto is named after Fleming (Sandford Fleming building). It belongs to the University of Toronto Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering.
Tim Horton
Miles Gilbert "Tim" Horton (January 12, 1930 – February 21, 1974) was a Canadian professional hockey defenceman from Cochrane, Ontario. He played 22 seasons in the National Hockey League for the Toronto Maple Leafs, New York Rangers, Pittsburgh Penguins and Buffalo Sabres. He was also a businessman and the co-founder of Tim Hortons, Canada's largest coffee and doughnut store chain. He died in a car accident in St. Catharines, Ontario. He was 44 years old.
Miles Gilbert Horton was born in Cochrane, Ontario at Lady Minto Hospital. His parents were Aaron Oakley Horton (an CNR mechanic) and Ethel Horton. He had one brother, Gerry Horton.
His father was English and his mother Irish. The Hortons moved to Duparquet, Quebec in 1935, but returned to Cochrane, Ontario, in 1938. In 1945, Horton moved to Sudbury, Ontario.
Tim Horton grew up playing in Cochrane, Ontario, and later in the mining country near Sudbury, Ontario. The Toronto Maple Leaf organization signed him, and in 1948 he moved to Toronto to play junior hockey and attended St. Michael's College School.
Two years later, he turned pro with the Leafs' farm team, the Pittsburgh Hornets of the American Hockey League, and most of his first three seasons were spent with Pittsburgh. He played in his first NHL game on March 26, 1950. He started to play regularly for the Toronto Maple Leafs in the fall of 1952. He remained a Leaf until 1970, winning four Stanley Cups. Horton later played for the New York Rangers, Pittsburgh Penguins and Buffalo Sabres. Horton was known for his tremendous strength and calmness under pressure, and had relatively few penalty minutes for an enforcer-type defenceman. Horton was a hard-working and durable defenceman who was also an effective puck carrier–in 1964-65 he played right wing for the Leafs. He was named an NHL First Team All-Star three times (1964, 1968, and 1969). He was selected to the NHL Second Team three more times (1954, 1963, 1967). He appeared in seven National Hockey League All-Star Games.
Between February 11, 1961 and February 4, 1968, Horton appeared in 486 consecutive regular-season games; this remains the Leafs club record for consecutive games and was the NHL record for consecutive games by a defencemen until broken by K?rlis Skrasti?š on February 8, 2007. On March 12, 1955, he had suffered a broken leg and jaw after being checked by Bill Gadsby of the New York Rangers. The injuries were so severe that he missed much of the following season, and there had been some doubt as to whether he would ever be able to return to the game.
Horton had a reputation for enveloping players who were fighting him in a crushing bear hug. Boston Bruins winger Derek Sanderson once bit Horton during a fight; years later, Horton's widow, Lori, still wondered why. "Well," Sanderson replied, "I felt one rib go, and I felt another rib go, so I just had—to, well, get out of there!"
Injuries and age were little more than minor inconveniences to Horton, who was generally acknowledged as the strongest man in the game while he was playing. Declared Chicago Blackhawks winger Bobby Hull, perhaps the only NHL player more muscular than Horton, "There were defensemen you had to fear because they were vicious and would slam you into the boards from behind, for one, Eddie Shore. But you respected Tim Horton because he didn't need that type of intimidation. He used his tremendous strength and talent to keep you in check."
In 1962, he scored 3 goals and 13 assists in 12 playoff games, setting a Leafs team record for playoff points by a defenceman that was tied in 1978 by Ian Turnbull and was not broken until 1994, when David Ellett registered 18 points.
Horton wore the number 7 while playing for the Leafs, the same number worn by King Clancy from 1931-32 to 1936-37. The team declared both Horton and Clancy honoured players at a ceremony on November 21, 1995, but did not retire the number 7 from team use; instead, it became an Honoured Jersey Number, abiding by Leafs honours policy.
Clancy once lamented, "If he'd only get angry, no one would top him in this league."But Horton believed that he had taken too many penalties early in his career because of his "hot temper".
In 1964, Horton opened his first Tim Horton Doughnut Shop in Hamilton, Ontario. He even added a few of his culinary creations to the initial menu. By 1967, Horton had partnered with investor Ron Joyce, who quickly took over operations and expanded the chain into a multi-million dollar franchise system.
In addition to over 2700 locations in Canada, Buffalo, New York has over 80 Tim Hortons Doughnut Shops, and they can be found in Detroit, Michigan; Columbus, Ohio; and other American cities, mainly in the Northeast and the Great Lakes region.
Joyce's son has married Horton's daughter, returning the Horton family to the company.
Early on the morning of February 21, 1974 Horton was driving on the Queen Elizabeth Way from Toronto to his home in Buffalo, after his Sabres had played an away game in Toronto the night before, in his white De Tomaso Pantera sports car (a gift from Sabres' GM George "Punch" Imlach). He was negotiating a curve on the QEW where it crosses over Twelve Mile Creek in St. Catharines when he lost control and hit a cement culvert. The impact flipped the vehicle and Horton was thrown. He was not wearing a seat belt. Horton was reported dead on arrival at the local hospital. A police officer pursuing Horton's vehicle said that he had been travelling at over 160 km/h (100 mph).
There were reports Horton had consumed a considerable amount of vodka, and was rumoured to have been taking pain killers due to a jaw injury suffered in practice the day before. An autopsy report released in 2005 showed Horton had a blood alcohol level of twice the legal limit. The blood test also showed signs of amobarbital, which was possibly a residue from the Dexamyl pills that were found on Horton's body. The autopsy showed no indication Horton was taking painkillers as previously thought.
Not long after Horton's death, Joyce offered Lori Horton (Tim's widow) $1 million for her shares in the chain, which included forty stores by that time. Once she accepted his offer, Joyce became the sole owner. Years later, Mrs. Horton decided that the deal between her and Joyce was not fair and took the matter to court. Mrs. Horton lost the lawsuit in 1993, and was declined for appeal in 1995. Lori died in 2000. Tim and Lori left four daughters, Jeri-Lyn (Horton-Joyce), Traci (Simone) Kim and Kelly. Jeri-Lyn married Ron Joyce's son Ron Joyce Jr. and owns a store in Ontario.
Tim Horton is buried in York Cemetery Toronto..