Business and Politics
William Botsford Jarvis had ‘a gregarious and outgoing personality’. He founded Yorkville, Toronto with the entrepreneur Joseph Bloor, and he was involved in the incorporation of a number of companies in the Toronto area including the Victoria Mining Company in 1856.
In 1827 he was the choice of the Family Compact to be Sheriff of the Home District, and was duly elected. In 1837, as sheriff, he stopped William Lyon Mackenzie and his rebels during Upper Canada Rebellion from entering York, Upper Canada, forcing them back to engage at the Battle of Montgomery's Tavern. After the rebellion was repressed he presided over the executions of Peter Matthews and Samuel Lount, even though it was Lount who had stopped the rebels burning Jarvis's home. Mackenzie and Jarvis were bitter enemies and he was intent on burning Rosedale to the ground, but Jarvis' wife and two of her sick children were in the house, and it was Lount who declared to the rebels that he was not there to fight women and sick children. Jarvis served as sheriff until 1856.
In 1830, he was elected to the 11th Parliament of Upper Canada for the town of York, Upper Canada; he was defeated in 1834. He was elected to the town council for Toronto in 1841, but resigned the following year. Jarvis died at his home, Rosedale, in 1864.
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