Information about Fort William, Ontario

Fort William was a city in Northern Ontario, located on the Kaministiquia River, at its entrance to Lake Superior. It amalgamated with Port Arthur and the townships of Neebing and McIntyre to form the City of Thunder Bay in January 1970. At that time it was the largest city in Northwestern Ontario.

History

In 1679 Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut, established a trading post near the mouth of the Kaministiquia River. French authorities closed this post in 1696 because of a glut on the fur market. In 1717 a new post, Fort Kaministiquia, was established at the river mouth managed by Zacharie Robutel, sieur de la Noue. This post appears on 18th century French maps by Royal hydrographer Jacques-Nicolas Bellin as Fort Caministogoyan. After the British conquest of New France, the French trading post was abandoned in favour of Grand Portage, Minnesota on the Pigeon River. By 1784 Montreal merchants and their "wintering partners" had formed the Northwest Company.

Following the signing of the Jay Treaty of 1794, the North West Company required a new midway transhipment point between their inland posts and Montreal where the partners could meet and exchange furs and supplies. In 1803 the Nor'Westers abandoned Grand Portage and established a new fur trading post, near Fort Kaministiquia on the Kaministiquia River on land acquired from the Ojibwe by written agreement 30 July 1798. In addition Canadian fur traders had been forced to abandon Grand Portage as their centre of operations when that area was ceded to the United States after the American Revolution, and to avoid American taxes the trading post was moved to what became Fort William on the Canadian side of the border.^[1]. The post was named Fort William in 1807 after William McGillivray, chief director of the North West Company from 1804-1821. After the union of the North West Company with the Hudson's Bay Company in 1821, the fort lost its raison d'être and became a minor HBC fur trading post. Although its original site disappeared under CPR railway tracks and coal piles in the 1880s, a replica of Fort William was built further upstream on the Kaministiquia River at Point de Meuron, a former military staging location, and is now known as the Fort William Historical Park.

Two townships (Neebing and Paipoonge) and the Fort William Town Plot were surveyed in 1859-60 by the Province of Canada's Department of Crown Lands and opened to settlement. A large section of land adjacent to the Hudson's Bay Company post remained in dispute until 1875 when it was surveyed as Neebing Additional Township. Most land was acquired by absentee landowners, particularly after Confederation when the new Dominion of Canada decided that a railway to the Pacific should begin somewhere along the north shore of Lake Superior. Once the Fort William Town Plot (later known as West Fort) was selected as the eastern terminus for the Canadian Pacific Railway, and construction of the railway began in June 1875, Fort William began to grow, but very slowly. It would take the federal Department of Public Works, and later the Department of Railways and Canals, seven years 1875-1882 to build the Thunder Bay Branch from Fort William to Winnipeg.

The Ontario Legislature incorporated the Municipality of Shuniah in March 1873, an early form of regional government, comprising a vast area from Sibley Peninsula to the American border. For eight years the residents of Neebing and Neebing Additional townships battled Port Arthur residents for the Thunder Bay terminus. In March 1881 the inhabitants of Neebing and Neebing Additional petitioned the Ontario Legislature successfully to separate the southern townships from Shuniah and to create the Municipality of Neebing. By 1883-84 it was clear to all but the residents of Port Arthur that the Montreal-based Canadian Pacific Railway syndicate, in collaboration with the Hudson's Bay Company, preferred the low lying lands along the lower Kaministiquia River to the rocky shores of Port Arthur, and the Company subsequently consolidated all its operations there, erecting rail yards, coal handling facilities, grain elevators and a machine shop.

In April 1892 Neebing Additional Township and parts of Neebing Township were incorporated as the Town of Fort William. Fort William was incorporated as a city in April 1907. The City of Fort William ceased to exist at the end of December 1969.

The city's Latin motto was A posse ad essere.

References

1. ^ "A Golden Gateway of the Great Northwest - History of Thunder Bay" Joseph M. Mauro,Lehto Printers Ltd. Thunder Bay, Ontario - 1981 pgs 21-23

Morrison, Jean F. Superior rendez-vous place : Fort William in the Canadian fur trade. Toronto : Natural Heritage Books, 2007. 1st ed. appeared in 2001.
Morrison, Jean F., ed. Lake Superior to Rainy River : three centuries of fur trade history : a collection of writings. Thunder Bay, Ont. : Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society, 2003.
Thunder Bay from rivalry to unity / edited by Thorold J. Tronrud and A. Ernest Epp. Thunder Bay : Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society, 1995.

External links

Coordinates:

Northern Ontario is the part of the province of Ontario which lies north of Lake Huron (including Georgian Bay), the French River and Lake Nipissing.

Northern Ontario has a land area of 802,000 km² (310,000 mi²) and constitutes 87% of the land area of Ontario,
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The Kaministiquia River is a Canadian river which empties into western Lake Superior at the city of Thunder Bay. Kaministiquia (Gaa-ministigweyaa) is an Ojibwe word meaning "(river) with islands" due to two large islands (McKellar and Mission) at the mouth of the
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Coordinates Coordinates:
Lake type Rift lake
Primary sources Nipigon River,
St.
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Port Arthur, Ontario, was a city in Northern Ontario which amalgamated with Fort William, Ontario and the townships of Neebing and McIntyre to form the City of Thunder Bay in January 1970. Port Arthur was the district seat of Thunder Bay District.
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Thunder Bay, Ontario
Downtown Port Arthur in Thunder Bay

Flag
Logo
Nickname: Lakehead; The Lakehead; Head of the Lakes
Motto: Superior by nature
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Northwestern Ontario is the region within the Canadian province of Ontario which lies north and west of Lake Superior, and west of Hudson Bay and James Bay. It includes most of subarctic Ontario.
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Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut (c. 1639 – 25 February 1710) was a French soldier and explorer who is the first European known to have visited the area where the city of Duluth, Minnesota is now located and the headwaters of the Mississippi River near Grand Rapids.
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Fort Kaministiquia was founded by French merchants to be the first in a series of forts reaching westward to expand trade. It would also begin an organized search for a water route which they hoped would lead them to the western sea.
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Jacques-Nicolas Bellin (1703 – 21 March 1772) was a French hydrographer and cartographer.

Bellin was born in Paris. In 1721 Bellin was appointed hydrographer (chief cartographer) to the French Navy upon the creation of France's hydrographic office, the
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Grand Portage is an unorganized territory in Cook County, Minnesota, on Lake Superior, at the northeast corner of the state near the border with northwestern Ontario. The population was 557 at the 2000 census.
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State of Minnesota

Flag of Minnesota Seal
Nickname(s): North Star State,
The Land of 10,000 Lakes, The Gopher State
Motto(s): L'Étoile du Nord (French: The Star of the North)

Capital Saint Paul

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The Pigeon River forms part of the US-Canada border between the State of Minnesota and the Province of Ontario west of Lake Superior. In pre-industrial times the river was a waterway of great importance for transportation and trade.
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For the grocery chain, see The North West Company

The North West Company a fur trading business headquartered in the city of Montreal in British North America from 1779 to 1821.
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The Jay's Treaty, also known as the Treaty of London, between the United States and Great Britain averted war, solved many issues left over from the American Revolution, and opened ten years of largely peaceful trade in the midst of the French Revolutionary Wars.
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Transshipment is the shipment of goods to an intermediate destination, and then from there to yet another destination.

One possible reason is to change the means of transport during the journey (for example from ship transport to road transport), known as intermodal freight
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Ojibwa, Anishinaabe, or Chippewa (also Ojibwe, Ojibway, Chippeway, Aanishanabe, or Anishinabek) is the largest group of Native Americans-First Nations north of Mexico, including Métis.
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July 30 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

Events

1419 - First Defenestration of Prague.

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8th century - 9th century - 10th century
850s 860s 870s - 880s - 890s 900s 910s
885 886 887 - 888 - 889 890 891

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Subjects: Archaeology - Architecture -
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Fort William may refer to places

In Canada:

Fort William, Ontario, a Canadian city which, together with Port Arthur, became part of Thunder Bay in 1970

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Hudson's Bay Company
Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson

Private
Founded London, England May 2, 1670
Headquarters Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Revenue $7.0 billion CAD ($59.
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Fort William Historical Park (formerly known as Old Fort William) is a Canadian historical site located in Thunder Bay, Ontario, that contains a reconstruction of the Fort William fur trade post as it existed in 1815. It officially opened on July 3, 1973.
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Province of Canada or the United Province of Canada was a in North America from 1841 to 1867. Its formation reflected recommendations made by John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham after the Rebellions of 1837, the united province was designed to prevent future unrest.
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A confederation is a group of empowered states or communities, usually created by treaty but often later adopting a common constitution. Confederations tend to be established for dealing with critical issues, such as defense, foreign affairs, foreign trade, and a common currency,
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Canadian Pacific Railway

Canadian Pacific system map as of 2004 (does not include DM&E and IC&E trackage).
Reporting marks CP, CPAA, CPI
Locale Canada with branches to US cities Chicago, Minneapolis and New York City
Dates of operation 1881 – present
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geographic coordinate system enables every location on the earth to be specified by the three coordinates of a spherical coordinate system aligned with the spin axis of the Earth.
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