The Canada Company was a private British land development company that was established to aid in the colonization of a large part of

Upper Canada The Province of Upper Canada (french: link=no, province du Haut-Canada) was a part of British Canada established in 1791 by the Kingdom of Great Britain, to govern the central third of the lands in British North America, formerly part of th ...

. It was incorporated by

royal charter A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, but s ...

on August 19, 1826, under an act of the

British parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprem ...

,, later amended by 1916 c. xiv which was given

royal assent Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in oth ...

on June 27, 1825. It was originally formed to acquire and develop Upper Canada's undeveloped

clergy reserve Clergy reserves were tracts of land in Upper Canada and Lower Canada reserved for the support of "Protestant clergy" by the Constitutional Act of 1791. One-seventh of all surveyed Crown lands were set aside, totaling and respectively for each Pro ...

s and Crown reserves, which the company bought in 1827 for £341,000 ($693,000) from the Province of Upper Canada. Founded by

John Galt John Galt () is a character in Ayn Rand's novel ''Atlas Shrugged'' (1957). Although he is not identified by name until the last third of the novel, he is the object of its often-repeated question "Who is John Galt?" and of the quest to discover ...

, who became its first Superintendent, the company was successful in populating an area called the

Huron Tract The Huron Tract Purchase also known as the Huron Block, registered as Crown Treaty Number 29, is a large area of land in southwestern Ontario bordering on Lake Huron to the west and Lake Erie to the east. The area spans the counties of Huron, Pert ...

– an achievement later called "the most important single attempt at settlement in Canadian history". It is unrelated to the modern-day Canadian charity of the same name, founded in 2006, which assists former Canadian military members and their spouses regain civilian employment after service in the Canadian Armed Forces.

Acquisition of lands

Mission

Plan of the town of Goderich Upper Canada founded by the Canada Company 1829

The Canada Company assisted emigrants by providing good ships, low fares, implements and tools, and inexpensive land. Scottish novelist

was the company's first Canadian superintendent. He first settled in York (

Toronto, Ontario Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

) but selected

Guelph Guelph ( ; 2021 Canadian Census population 143,740) is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. Known as "The Royal City", Guelph is roughly east of Kitchener and west of Downtown Toronto, at the intersection of Highway 6, Highway 7 and Wel ...

as the company's headquarters, and his home. The area was previously part of the Halton Block, 42,000 acres of former Crown land. Galt would later be considered as the founder of Guelph. The company surveyed and subdivided the massive Huron Tract, built roads, mills, and schools and advertised lots for sale to buyers in Europe. the town of Goderich was laid out on the shores of Lake Huron to be the centre of the settlement of the Huron Tract. The company then assisted in the migration of new settlers, bringing them to the area by means of a steamboat, which the company also owned, on

Lake Ontario Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north, west, and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south and east by the U.S. state of New York. The Canada–United States border ...

. John Galt was dismissed and recalled to Great Britain in 1829, for mismanagement, particularly incompetent bookkeeping. General mismanagement and corruption within the company, and its close alliance with the

Tory A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. The ...

elites, known as the

Family Compact The Family Compact was a small closed group of men who exercised most of the political, economic and judicial power in Upper Canada (today’s Ontario) from the 1810s to the 1840s. It was the Upper Canadian equivalent of the Château Clique in ...

, were important contributing factors to the Upper Canada Rebellion in 1837. In 1833, his colleague William "Tiger" Dunlop took over as Superintendent of the Company and continued Galt's work for a short time before resigning.

Company structure

Appointed Secretary of the Canada Company in 1824 John Galt helped to obtain a charter for the company on 19 Aug. 1826. On that date, the formal structure of the Canada Company was put into place by the company's Court of Directors. John Galt, as secretary, had the first order of business. Tabling an abstract of the charter, Galt declared the name to be "The Canada Company" with directors and secretary as served on the Provisional Committee and listed in the charter. At the first meeting of the board, it was declared that four directors would rotate off the Company beginning in 1829.

Dissolution

When the Company sold its land to different purchasers, it reserved the

mineral rights Mineral rights are property rights to exploit an area for the minerals it harbors. Mineral rights can be separate from property ownership (see Split estate). Mineral rights can refer to sedentary minerals that do not move below the Earth's surfac ...

to itself. In 1919, the Company issued

quit claim Generally, a quitclaim is a formal renunciation of a legal claim against some other person, or of a right to land. A person who quitclaims renounces or relinquishes a claim to some legal right, or transfers a legal interest in land. Originally a c ...

s on such claims, vesting the mineral rights to the Crown. As a consequence, the Legislative Assembly of Ontario passed legislation in 1922 and 1923 authorizing the grant of such rights to landholders at a set price. In 1928, a plaque was erected in Huron county, ''Pioneers of the Huron Tract 1828-1928'', commemorating the work of the men who developed the Huron Tract and the families who lived there, starting in 1828. By 1938, the Canada Company held just over of unsold land, while the company shares were valued at 10 shillings. It had become a land company in the process of liquidation. By 1950, only remained in its possession, distributed amongst

Lambton County Lambton County is a county in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. It is bordered on the north by Lake Huron, which is drained by the St. Clair River, the county's western border and part of the Canada-United States border. To the south is Lake Saint Cl ...

, the

United Counties of Leeds and Grenville The United Counties of Leeds and Grenville, commonly known as Leeds and Grenville, is a county in Ontario, Canada, in the Eastern Ontario subregion of Southern Ontario. It fronts on the Saint Lawrence River and the international boundary between ...

and

Lanark County Lanark County is a county located in the Canadian province of Ontario. Its county seat is Perth, which was first settled in 1816.Brown, Howard Morton, 1984. Lanark Legacy, Nineteenth Century Glimpses of on Ontario County. Corporation of the Cou ...

. In 1951, the remaining land was disposed of, and land that was unsold became Pinery Provincial Park. The company voted to wind up its affairs on August 12, 1953, and was dissolved on December 18, 1953.

Sources

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Acquisition of lands

Mission

Company structure

Dissolution

See also

Sources

References

Further reading