Canadian Transport Sourcebook

PREFACE

In the autumn of 1931 a series of articles on "The Canada Company and Anthony Van Egmond" was contributed to the Huron Expositor of Seaforth by Wilfred Brenton Kerr. A file of these articles is preserved in the Ontario Public Archives. When I read them there recently, my first thought was, what a pity that such an excellent piece of research in the early history of Upper Canada should not be available for a wider circle of readers. With this thought in mind I decided to suggest to the author that he expand his account and publish it in book form,—but only to learn that he was no longer living. A native of Huron county and member of a family who made a notable contribution to the early settlement of that district, Mr. Kerr, after study in Oxford and a year on the staff of the University of Toronto, was for some years before his death professor of history in the University of Buffalo. Colonel Van Egmond having been revealed to me as such an outstanding figure in our early history—and, as I have found, so strangely unknown to Canadians of today—I determined to try myself to fill the gap by writing a concise sketch of his life. And here I wish to acknowledge my great indebtedness to the late Professor Kerr, without whom this little book would not have been written. I have pared down statistical details, amplified the historical background, and printed in full, as an appendix, Van Egmond's long letter to John Galt's successor, Thomas Mercer Jones, which is the one extensive written document from Van Egmond himself and which was found on his person when he was taken prisoner after the final clash between the loyalist force and Mackenzie's followers at Montgomery's Tavern on Yonge Street on December 7th, 1837. This document is of cardinal importance not only for an understanding of Van Egmond's mental condition in the closing stage, but as a firsthand comment, by a leading participant, on the political conditions of the time.

G.H.N.