John Munro (loyalist) - Upper Canada

Upper Canada

In 1784, at the conclusion of the American War of Independence, Munro was placed on half-pay and settled that year with his company in Eastern District, Upper Canada. From 1784 to 1787 he was in England, supporting himself and his family in Canada on borrowed money while trying to get adequate compensation for the loss of his New York property, whose worth he estimated at more than £10,000. He eventually received less than £300 and returned to Canada disillusioned and nearly penniless. However, his character and influential friends made sure he was rewarded in other ways.

In 1788, he was made Sheriff and a member of the land board for the Luneburg District. He built and operated grist and sawmills on the Saint Lawrence River as early as 1791. Munro was one of a number of Loyalist leaders who were granted townships for settlement in 1792 and 1793. Although these grants were later rescinded, Munro and his family were given large amounts of land in Matilda Township, Ontario and elsewhere in the Eastern District. He was appointed an original member of the Legislative Council of Upper Canada on 12 July 1792, and in December of that year he became a Justice of the District Court of Common Pleas. Munro also held a number of minor or temporary posts. He was a magistrate of the Eastern District; in 1794 he served as one of the Commissioners who conferred with representatives from Lower Canada on the division of customs duties in an attempt to secure for Upper Canada a share of the revenue from goods destined for that province. In 1797, he served on the Heir and Devisee Commission, which was established to hear claims to Loyalist grants which had passed out of the hands of the original grantees.

Munro was a conscientious legislator and judge, but his public career was notable mainly for unswerving loyalty to the British Crown. Munro had acquired a further 10,000 acres of land and senior offices in Upper Canada, but he never regained the affluence he had enjoyed before the American Revolution and he died in relatively modest circumstances at his home at Dickinson's Landing. There is a memorial at Morrisburg, Ontario to Munro and his wife.

Three of their sons served under him during the American Revolutionary War, and afterwards became involved with the North West Company. One son married the widowed sister of the fur-trader Laurent Leroux. The Munro's eldest daughter, Christiana Munro, married Dr Phillip Mount of Montreal. The next daughter, Cornelia, married Allen Paterson, one of the original members of the North West Company. The youngest daughter, Mary Charlotte Munro, married Michel-Eustache-Gaspard-Alain Chartier de Lotbinière.