Thomas Talbot

Irish-born Canadian pioneer

• Born: July 19, 1771
• Birthplace: Malahide, Dublin County, Ireland
• Died: February 5, 1853
• Place of death: London, Upper Canada (now in Ontario, Canada)

A retired British army officer, Talbot played a major role in promoting the settlement of what is now Ontario during the early nineteenth century by bringing in new immigrants, overseeing their development of the land and infrastructure, and administering a region that grew to encompass twenty-seven townships on the north shore of Lake Erie.

Early Life

Thomas Talbot (TAL-buht) was born near Dublin into an old family of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. Following the military tradition of his family, he obtained an appointment as an ensign in the Sixty-sixth Regiment of Foot shortly before his twelfth birthday. Before turning twenty, he spent two years in Dublin as an aide to the Marquis of Buckingham, who was then the British viceroy for Ireland. In that role he became intimate with the highest circles of European nobility, and his courtly manners became polished to a high gloss.

After Lord Buckingham’s resignation, Thomas rejoined his regiment and did garrison duty in the newly acquired British colony of Lower Canada, which later became Quebec. Through the good offices of Lord Buckingham, he soon became an aide to John Graves Simcoe, the first lieutenant governor of Upper Canada (now Ontario). He joined Simcoe as soon as the latter arrived from England in November of 1791. In addition to using his excellent manners to entertain the lieutenant governor’s wife, Talbot was employed as a personal messenger to Native Americans and British representatives in the United States on matters too delicate and secret to be written down.

In June of 1794 Talbot was promoted to a captaincy in the Eighty-fifth Regiment of Foot, and he left the Simcoes. Upon his return to Europe, he fought against the French in Holland and Germany, did garrison duty on Gibralter, and attained the rank of colonel. When he returned to Great Britain, his life seemed to be progressing nicely, but something happened to change its course. Perhaps, he was disappointed in love or frustrated by the pace of his career advancement. No one knows for sure, but some disillusionment with the society of the Old World seems to have persuaded him to go in a new direction. On Christmas day of 1800, he sold his army commission for five thousand guineas and set sail again for the uncharted wilderness of Upper Canada.

Life’s Work

In recognition of his military accomplishments, Talbot was entitled to a five-thousand-acre land grant, which he claimed near Long Point, an Upper Canada location about forty miles distant from the nearest settlements. Under arrangements he made with the government of Upper Canada, he was to receive additional land for each new settler that he set up on his original grant. Talbot originally planned to grow hemp in the fertile soil of his land for sale to the British War Department. However, other crops and activities proved more profitable, and that part of his original plan was never realized.

Talbot’s first project, after establishing his own home, was to build several grist- and sawmills to process the grains and lumber that were plentiful in the area into marketable commodities. He also obtained a concession from the government to build a road along the north shore of Lake Erie. He accomplished that task by distributing land to settlers along the route on the condition that they extend the road through their own property during the first two years of their occupancy. If they failed to complete that obligation, or to make other agreed-upon improvements, they were to be removed from the land. Following this scheme, Talbot’s territory gradually opened to further development and his original grant was greatly expanded.

Progress was slow at first, however, as Talbot was able to settle only four families on his grant by the end of 1805. At this time, the total population of the settlement, including Talbot’s own employees, numbered only about one hundred. Some people suspected that Talbot had invented some of his first recorded settlers in order to extend his territory and preserve his monopoly in Dunwich and Aldborough Counties. During the long course of his operation, Talbot often assumed an aristocratic prerogative, took government powers into his own hands, and did things his own way. In the vast majority of instances, the results were positive, so the government adjusted its policy to follow his lead.

One issue that became controversial was the timing of fee collections from settlers. At first, Talbot collected fees as prescribed by the government, when the settlers first arrived on their plots. After they paid, however, they typically felt entitled to stay regardless of progress of work on their property. Talbot found it more effective to wait until the required work was finished and the settlers were applying for their official ownership papers before collecting their fees. Thus, when settlers failed do the required work within the set times, they had no sense of entitlement to the land, and Talbot could more easily evict them, freeing their plots for others to develop. This approach minimized the problem of absentee ownership, which was a major impediment to settling the territory.

Talbot held many important positions in his settlement and wielded almost complete authority. He was a justice of the peace, a commissioner of oaths, a commissioner for hemp purchasing, the head of the local militia, a trustee for local schools, a roads commissioner, and a magistrate. After a lull in immigration during the War of 1812, settlers began pouring into Talbot’s settlement, which was estimated to have 1,315 families by the end of 1817. However, his personal fortunes had suffered during the war, and he found himself in financial difficulties that lasted well into the 1820’s. In 1824, he finally received some compensation for his losses during the war, and he was also awarded an annual pension of four hundred pounds for his long service to the colony. By 1829, the population of his settlement was estimated at some thirty thousand people. However, by the mid-1830’s, Talbot was running out of land to distribute.

An eccentric bachelor, Talbot became increasingly cantankerous as he grew older. He kept only sketchy and idiosyncratic records of his complicated operations. When he started his settlement, he got into the habit of recording everything in pencil so that settlers who failed to improve their land could be easily erased from his books. After an altercation with a demanding Scottish highlander, he started dealing with settlers through a small, sliding window, which opened onto his porch. People learned not to bother him after supper because he devoted the hours before bedtime to meditations over brandy.

In February, 1838, the lieutenant governor of Upper Canada relieved Talbot of his unique agency. Long after his official dismissal, Talbot continued to be involved in the affairs of his settlement, and government authorities did not get possession of the township maps on which he had recorded the locations of his settlers’ plots until after his death in 1853.

Significance

Thomas Talbot was an unusual combination of elitist aristocrat and rugged individualist. His firm conviction of his own innate superiority did not translate into the expectation that other people should take care of him. Quite the opposite, he felt a superior obligation to serve others. He left the attractions of high society in Europe to live simply and without ostentation in the Canadian wilderness and took delight in doing the most menial domestic tasks for himself and others.

On the other hand, Talbot’s political ideology was extremely conservative and he fought hard against the reformers and republicans of his day. He was, for example, deeply depressed by the passage of the Reform Bill in England in 1832. He referred to Methodist reform groups that challenged exclusive government support for the Church of England and promoted temperance as “Damned Cold Water Drinking Societies, where they meet at night to communicate their poisonous and seditious schemes.…”

Aside from personal issues, Talbot’s main motivation for his settlement activity was to perform service to the British Empire. He made many trips home and used his old family connections to promote the needs of his settlement over the heads of local colonial officials. Local officials agreed with most of Talbot’s practices but not always his tactics. Great Britain’s top priority in Canada after the American Revolution was to fill its remaining North American colonies with loyal British subjects. This approach was seen as the best way to contain the crude democracy of the United States, which threatened to spill over from the south.

Bibliography

Craig, Gerald M. Upper Canada: The Formative Years. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1963. Describes the settlement of what is now the province of Ontario from 1784 to 1841 under the colonial oligarchy known as the Family Compact.

Ermatinger, Edward. The Life of Colonel Talbot and the Talbot Settlement. Belleville, Ontario: Mika Silk Screening, 1972. An account by a Talbot contemporary that was first published in 1859.

Gray, Charlotte. Sisters in the Wilderness: The Lives of Susanna Moodie and Catherine Parr Traill. Toronto: Penguin, 1999. A descriptive account of the day-to-day challenges of life in Upper Canada in the early nineteenth century.

Hamil, Frederick Coyne. Lake Erie Baron: The Story of Colonel Thomas Talbot. Toronto: Macmillan, 1955. Despite its age, still the most complete biography of Talbot that is available.

McNairn, Jeffrey L. The Capacity to Judge: Public Opinion and Deliberative Democracy in Upper Canada, 1791-1854. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000. Traces the debate over “responsible government” that framed the settlement issue and most others during this era.