When the Orange Order rode into Upper Canada in 1822 with a parade through the streets of York, it was very much an establishment occasion, but eight months later a petition was moved in the House of Assembly to have the outfit outlawed. The fraternal organization that commemorated the victory of William of Orange […]
Tag: Upper Canada
Runaway U.S. slaves unwelcome
Canada was the North Star, the haven, the sanctuary for American black slaves who ran north to freedom on the celebrated underground railroad. But not everyone in Upper Canada held out the welcome mat, as shown in this item from the Colonial Advocate, York, February 18,1832. The inhabitants of Colchester and Gosfield, in the Western […]
1857 Great Financial Panic unheeded lesson for 2008 Great Recession
The Great Recession of 2008 began with the collapse of the Lehman Brothers investment bank and the bursting of an eight trillion dollar real estate bubble. The Great Financial Panic of 1857. might have been a lesson. It began with the collapse of a bank in Ohio, railway failures and the burst of an […]
Militia officers may be laughed at
Service in the militia of Upper Canada in September 1853 was compulsory, but the law had become a mockery, according to this account, reprinted from the Guelph Advertiser. Galt has long been a place of notoriety in the petty annals of the neighborhood, and when nothing else has been available, even a court martial to […]
More papers than people in 1836
Almost 430,000 copies of newspapers were circulated in Upper Canada in 1836 among a population of 370,000, of whom it was claimed perhaps one in 50 could read, according to Anna Brownell Jameson in her celebrated travel book, Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada. Despite their shortcomings, Jameson found the Upper Canada newspapers […]
Sodom and Gomorrah
Canadian Freeman, York (Toronto), Upper Canada rails against the town’s countless whore houses, one in a house controlled by a police magistrate, in this item published May 26, 1831. “And the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Lord out of heaven. And he destroyed these cities, and all the country about, […]
Mississauga Indians ask protection from drunk, wicked white men
In 1826, a group of Christian Mississauga First Nation people settled on a Methodist Church mission on the banks of the Credit River, in what is now Canada’s sixth largest city. Their Credit Indian Village thrived for a dozen years, with as many as 50 homes, a school, hospital, church, board sidewalks, “two public […]
God’s profaners suffer fatal accidents
There would have been fewer fatal accidents in Upper Canada (Ontario) in 1825 if more people devoted Sunday to worship and rest, as commanded by the “highest authority,” according to the York (now Toronto) Upper Canada Gazette, the voice of colonial authority and the notorious Family Company. The Gazette claimed that two-thirds of the colony’s […]
Death penalty abolished in 30-year reform campaign
Law and order 1822-1967 From my book, About Canada, Toronto, Civil Sector Press, 2012. For some two centuries, the death penalty hung over the parts of North America that eventually became Canada, before it was abolished—for all but military crimes. Under British law, there were some 230 crimes that carried the death penalty, early in […]
You could be hanged for stealing turnips
Law and order 1822-1967 In early nineteenth century Canada, you could be hanged for stealing turnips. If you fell into debt, you could be imprisoned for life—in possibly the world’s worst prisons, perhaps together with your wife and children. Women were not sentenced to debtors’ prison, but if they lived on poverty street without means […]