Orange Order in Canada - Upper Canada & The Province of Canada

Upper Canada & The Province of Canada

It is a matter of deep regret that political differences should have run high in this place, and led to most discreditable and disgraceful results. It is not long since guns were discharged from a window in this town at the successful candidates in an election, and the coachman of one of them was actually shot in the body, though not dangerously wounded. But one man was killed on the same occasion; and from the very window whence he received his death, the very flag which shielded his murderer (not only in the commission of his crime, but from its consequences), was displayed again on the occasion of the public ceremony performed by the Governor General, to which I have just adverted. Of all the colours in the rainbow, there is but one which could be so employed: I need not say that flag was orange.

—Charles Dickens, American Notes for General Circulation, 1842

The Orange Lodges have existed in Canada at least since the War of 1812. It was more formally organized in 1830 when the Grand Orange Lodge of British North America was established by Ogle Robert Gowan in the Upper Canada town of Elizabethtown, which became Brockville in 1832 (according to the plaque outside the original lodge in Brockville, Ontario). Gowan immigrated from Ireland in 1829, and became the grand master of the Grand Orange Lodge of British North America he established. His father was the grand master of the Irish Orange Order. Most early members were from Ireland, but later many English, Scots, and other Protestant Europeans joined the Order.

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