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• Champlain in Ontario, 1615
  In April 1615, Samuel de Champlain (c. 1574-1635) embarked from Honfleur, upon his seventh voyage to New France. Upon arrival in Quebec, Champlain was informed of increasing tensions with the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) the traditional rival of his Anishinabe (Algonquian) and Wendat (Huron) allies. He travelled west to Huronia on a diplomatic and military expedition where he visited several villages including Cahiagué, a large and important Wendat settlement. With a mixed force of 400-500 First Nations...

• Samuel de Champlain
  Born at Brouage about 1570, this world-renowned cartographer and colonizer sailed from Honfleur in March 1603 on the first of more than twenty Atlantic crossings between France and Canada. Five years later, he established Quebec and thereby laid the foundation of the French empire in North America. An intrepid explorer, he journeyed into the interior of the continent (1613-1615), penetrating much of what is now Ontario. His account of these travels provided the first recorded...

• William Berczy 1744-1813
  Johann Albrecht Ulrich de Moll was born in Wallerstein and educated at the Leipzig Academy and the University of Jena. He was trained as an artist and adopted the name William Berczy. In 1790, while in London, he became involved with Sir William Pulteney's scheme to establish a settlement in the United States. As Pulteney's agent, Berczy brought some 200 settlers from northern Germany to New York State in 1792. Two years later, he came...

• Honourable George Brown, The
  Across the Grand River at this point lies "Bow Park". Once the farm of George Brown, a leading architect of Confederation, who built up an estate of some 800 acres beginning in 1866. A Scottish immigrant, Brown founded the Toronto "Globe" in l844, the influential Reform journal which helped him become a powerful political figure. As leader of the "Clear Grit" Liberals and champion of Canada West, Brown entered the "Great Collection" government of 1864...

• Lieutenant-Colonel John By, R.E., 1779-1836
  Born in London, England, about 1779, By graduated from the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, in 1799. He was attached to the Royal Engineers in Canada (1802-1811) and later served in the Peninsular War. By was sent to Canada in 1826 to superintend the construction of an Ottawa River – Lake Ontario waterway from "Bytown" (Ottawa) to Kingston. The 123-mile-long Rideau Canal, built as a military route and incorporating 47 locks, 16 lakes, two rivers and...

• Grey Owl 1888-1938
  As a youth in England, Archibald Belaney was fascinated with wildlife and tales of North American Indians. At seventeen he came to Canada and soon began living among the Ojibwa on Bear Island. He adopted native dress and customs, and worked as a woodsman, fire ranger and trapper in northeastern Ontario. In the 1920s, Belaney became concerned that the lumber industry and sportsmen were plundering the northern wilderness and threatening the survival of native culture...

• Queen's Rangers
  The young province of Upper Canada (Ontario) required troops to defend it and to build public works essential to its development. The Queen's Rangers was the first regiment raised in Britain specifically for service in the colony. It arrived in 1792 and was stationed in York (Toronto) in 1793. Over the next three years, the regiment constructed government buildings and fortifications. It also cut important roads through the forest, including Yonge Street north to the...

• John McCrae 1872-1918
  Born in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, McCrae was educated at the University of Toronto's medical school, graduating as a gold medallist in 1898. He served (1899-1900) in the Boer War with the artillery and during the First World War attained the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Canadian Medical Corps. In the intervening years he taught medicine at McGill University, wrote poetry and earned recognition for his contributions to medical journals and his textbook on pathology. He...

• Dutch Settlement of Holland Marsh, The
  The Holland Marsh consists of 7,000 acres of reclaimed land in a river valley north of Toronto, Ontario. Named after an early provincial official, this fertile area was drained between 1925 and 1930. John Snor, Canadian Representative of the Netherlands Emigration Foundation, visited the sparsely settled Marsh and proposed the relocation there of recent Dutch immigrants in Ontario. Assisted by grants from the Netherlands, Canada and Ontario, fifteen Dutch families, many from Friesland and Groningen...

• Elizabeth Posthuma Simcoe 1766-1850
  The wife of John Graves Simcoe, first Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, Elizabeth Posthuma Gwillim was born at Whitchurch, Herefordshire. Her diaries and sketches, compiled 1791-96 while in Canada, provide a valuable record of pioneer life in that colony. Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe, who claimed direct descendence from Lord William de Brewer, the founder, in the twelfth century, of the Abbey of St. Mary, Dunkswell, died in 1806, and thereafter Mrs. Simcoe devoted herself to charitable work. She...

• Grand Portage, The
  Circumventing 21 miles of falls and rapids, this portage ran some nine miles from this vicinity to a point upstream on the Pigeon River. It was first mentioned in 1722 by a French trader named Jean Pachot. Following its use in 1732 by La Vérendrye, it replaced the Kaministiquia Route as the canoe route to the West. About 1767 the Grand Portage became a rendezvous for Canadian fur traders and, after 1778, the North West...

• Lieutenant-General John Graves Simcoe 1752-1806
  Born in Cotterstock, Northamptonshire, Simcoe entered the army in 1770, and during the American Revolution commanded the 1st American Regiment (Queen's Rangers). In 1791 he was appointed the first Lieutenant-Governor of the newly formed Province of Upper Canada. During his energetic administration, he improved communications, encouraged immigration and founded York (Toronto). In 1796 he returned to Wolford, his estate in Devonshire, England, but during 1797 served as Governor and military commander in British-occupied St. Domingo...

• Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac et de Palluau 1622-1698
  One of the most influential and controversial figures in Canadian history, Frontenac was born at St-Germain-en-Laye, France. As a member of the noblesse d'épée he was able in 1672 to secure the appointment as Governor-General of New France. Devoted largely because of self-interest to promoting the colony's territorial expansion, Frontenac established a series of fortified fur-trading posts extending into the interior of North America, the first of which, Fort Frontenac, was constructed near here in...

• Major-General Sir Isaac Brock, K.B. 1769-1812
  One of Canada's outstanding military heroes, Isaac Brock was born on this island. He entered the British Army in 1785, became a lieutenant-colonel of the 49th Regiment of Foot in 1797, and served in Europe 1799-1801. The following year he was posted to Canada with his regiment. In 1811, just prior to the outbreak of war between Britain and the United States, Brock became President of the Executive Council and Administrator of Upper Canada (now...

• Sir Edward Peacock, G.C.V.O. 1871-1962
  A native of St. Elmo, Ontario, Edward Peacock joined the Dominion Securities Corporation, a prominent Canadian investment firm, in 1902, and in 1907 came to London to establish their European office. He played a leading part in British and Canadian financial affairs, becoming a director of the Bank of England (1921-24 and 1929-46), Baring Brothers and Co., Limited (1924-54) and the Canadian Pacific Railway Company (1926-61), among other institutions. In recognition of his services to...

• Sir John A. Macdonald 1815-1891
  Canada's first prime minister, born in Ramshorn Parish, emigrated with his family to Kingston, Upper Canada, in 1820. A successful lawyer, he was elected to the provincial legislature in 1844 and became leader of the Conservative party. He played a leading role in the effort to achieve a federal union of Britain's North American colonies which resulted in the formation of the Dominion of Canada on July 1, 1867. Macdonald served as prime minister, 1867-73...

• Stephen Butler Leacock 1869-1944
  This internationally-known Canadian author and humorist was born here December 30, 1869, and, at the age of six, emigrated with his family to Ontario. Graduating from the University of Toronto in 1891, he taught at Upper Canada College and, in 1901, began lecturing in political science at McGill University, heading that department, 1908-1936. Though Leacock wrote extensively on political science, economics, and history, he achieved his greatest distinction as a humorist. Some of his best...

• William Lyon Mackenzie 1795-1861
  Born and educated in Dundee, this famous radical reformer, writer and publisher went to Canada in 1820 and at Queenston founded the influential newspaper, the Colonial Advocate, in 1824. Later that year he moved the paper to York (Toronto). In 1826 friends of the provincial oligarchy, which he had often attacked, retaliated by destroying his press. Mackenzie, Upper Canada's leading radical, was elected to the provincial parliament in 1828, became Toronto's first mayor in 1834...

• William Thomas 1799-1860
  One of Canada's most prominent architects, Thomas was born in Suffolk and apprenticed as a carpenter before establishing an extensive architectural practice here in Royal Leamington Spa. During the 1830s he designed a series of attractive residences including this grand neo-classical crescent, Lansdowne Circus, Comyn Lodge, Aberdeen House, and the Masonic Rooms. In 1843, frustrated by a depression in the building industry, Thomas emigrated to Toronto, Canada. He soon gained widespread recognition as the architect...

• William Warren Baldwin 1775-1844
  The grandson of a former mayor of Cork, William Baldwin, one of the most influential politicians in Upper Canada (Ontario), was born some five miles from here on his family's estate. In 1797, he received a medical degree from the University of Edinburgh and two years later he emigrated to Upper Canada settling in York (Toronto). An accomplished man of boundless energy and diverse interests, Baldwin practised both law and medicine and was twice elected...

• Wolford Chapel
  This family chapel on the former estate of Upper Canada's first Lieutenant-Governor, John Graves Simcoe, was given to the people of Ontario by Sir Geoffrey Harmsworth. At a ceremony held on September 27, 1966, the Honourable John P. Robarts, Prime Minister of Ontario, accepted the deed to the chapel and grounds from Sir Geoffrey and title to an essential right-of-way from Mr. A.G. LeMarchant.