John Graves Simcoe (February 25, 1752 – October 26, 1806) was a British army officer and the first Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada from 1791–1796. Then frontier, this was modern-day southern Ontario and the watersheds of Georgian Bay and Lake Superior. He founded York (now Toronto) and was instrumental in introducing institutions such as the courts, trial by jury, English common law, freehold land tenure, and in abolishing slavery. He ended slavery in Upper Canada long before it was abolished in the British Empire as a whole – by 1810 there were no slaves in Upper Canada, but the Crown did not abolish slavery throughout the Empire until 1834.
Read more about John Graves Simcoe: Early Life, Marriage and Family, Military Career, Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, Later Career, Legacy
Famous quotes containing the words john and/or graves:
“Oh for some honest lover’s ghost,
Some kind unbodied post
Sent from the shades below!
I strangely long to know
Whether the nobler chaplets wear
Those that their mistress’ scorn did bear,
Or those that were used kindly.”
—Sir John Suckling (1609–1642)
“The guileless old scapegoat;
For forty nights and days
Followed in Jesus’ ways,
Sure guard behind Him kept,
Tears like a lover wept.”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)