William Benjamin Robinson
William Benjamin Robinson (born December 22, 1797 in Kingston , Ontario , † July 18, 1873 in Toronto , Ontario) was a Canadian fur trader and politician.
Life
William Benjamin was born in Kingston to the loyalists Christopher Robinson and Esther Sayre. He was the youngest of three brothers. The family moved to York shortly after the birth . A year after Robinson's birth, his father passed away. Robinson's mother remained in poor conditions with him and his two older brothers Peter and John Beverly in York until she married the mine owner and trader Elisha Beman in 1802. Robinson spent most of his youth in Newmarket .
William Benjamin Robinson took over the business from his stepfather and on May 5, 1822 married Elizabeth Ann Jarvis, daughter of the Minister of Upper Canada . In 1833 they moved to Holland Landing . Robinson went into the fur trade and had two trading posts in Muskoka Province , on Yoho Island and on George Bay . Through his trade with the Canadian Indians, the First Nations , he got a good reputation among the Indians over time.
After a failed election in 1828, he was elected to the Simcoe County legislature in 1830, 1834 and 1836 . In 1833 he was entrusted with the commissioners Absolom Shade and John Macaulay to supervise the work on the Welland Canal . For this service he moved to St. Catharines from 1837 to 1843 . In 1841 he lost his seat in the legislature to Elmes Steele , and the two fought a bitter election campaign.
In 1843 he managed to conclude an agreement with Chief William Yellowhead , the first Robinson Treaty to be named after him . 700 acres of Simcoe land was held back from Lake Simcoe for the anishinabe . From 1844 to 1854 he worked again as a politician for Simcoe. In 1844 he became Inspector General of the Government of William Henry Drapers , but resigned a year later in a dispute over the establishment of a "University of Upper Canada", which earned him much praise in the press. After the bill for the "University of Upper Canada" had failed according to Robinson's wishes, he did not take back his old post and instead became "Chief Commissioner of Public Works", an office he held until 1848, during the reign of Reform Minister Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte La Fontaine dressed.
After he withdrew from his post in opposition to the government, he was given the task of negotiating new contracts with the Indians. On September 7, 1850, the Anishinabe from Lake Superior gave the immigrants the land from Batchawana Bay to the Pigeon River . Two days later, on September 9th, the Anishinabe of Lake Huron waived their claims for the Batchawana Bay and Penetanguishene area .
In 1854 he held one of two seats for Simcoe Country, but was defeated in the 1857 election campaign and did not run again. After his wife died in 1865, he lived abroad for two years, but returned to Toronto in 1867 and lived there until his death on July 18, 1873.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g Julia Jarvis: ROBINSON, WILLIAM BENJAMIN. Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online, accessed September 9, 2010 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Robinson, William Benjamin |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Canadian fur trader and politician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 22, 1797 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Kingston , Ontario |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 18, 1873 |
| Place of death | Toronto , Ontario |