History

Echoes of the Bay: This week in 1793, the Mohawks receive their war prize

TL;DR: This week in 1793 a a document that shaped the future of the Bay of Quinte was signed. The Simcoe Deed is the “Paper Anchor” that secured 92,700 acres for the Mohawk people at the Bay of Quinte. Today, it remains a testament to a strategic alliance that shaped the Canadian identity.

Published

58 seconds ago

January 13, 2026

A.D. Greiner

Echoes of the Bay: This week in 1793, the Mohawks receive their war prize

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The Price of Loyalty

The aftermath of the American Revolution was a chaotic period of shifting borders and broken promises. The Mohawk people, specifically the Kanien’kehá:ka led by the formidable Captain John Deserontyon, paid a steep price for their loyalty to the British Crown. After losing their ancestral lands in the New York Mohawk Valley, they sought a new start. They arrived at the Bay of Quinte in 1784 seeking security.

The landing at Deseronto was more than a survival story. It was the beginning of a high-stakes legal battle for recognition. While the settlement began in 1784, the real legal weight arrived nearly a decade later. The Simcoe Deed of January 14, 1793, served as the ultimate legal “thank you” from the Crown. It attempted to turn a verbal promise into a permanent legal reality for the Mohawk people in exchange for their wartime sacrifices.

Simcoe and Deserontyon

Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe had a specific vision for Upper Canada. He wanted to build a “Little England” in the wilderness. His relationship with Indigenous land rights was layered and strategic. On the other side was Captain John Deserontyon. He was a leader who understood that in the British system, a man’s word was only as good as the parchment it was written on.

Deserontyon was an entrepreneur of sovereignty. He pushed the British to codify their promises into a binding written “Patent” as white settlement began to surge. Both men realized that without clear borders, the future of the Bay of Quinte would be a mess of overlapping claims and endless disputes. This wasn’t just about land. It was about securing an asset in a volatile new world.

A Document Unlike Any Other

The “Mohawk Tract” or Treaty 3½ covered approximately 92,700 acres. This area essentially defined what we now know as Tyendinaga Township and Deseronto. The wording of the deed is what makes it a landmark in Canadian law. The “Habendum” clause granted the land to the “Chiefs, Warriors, Women, and People of the Six Nations” and their posterity forever.

This inclusion of “Women” is a massive detail. It is the only land grant in Canada that explicitly names women in the ownership. This acknowledges the matrilineal structure of Mohawk society and gives the document a modern edge that was centuries ahead of its time. However, the deed also included a restrictive clause. The land could not be sold to anyone but the Crown. This was designed to protect the territory from predatory settlers, yet it also functioned as a form of government overreach that limited full Mohawk economic sovereignty.

Winter Logistics and Cultural Divides

Imagine the logistics of January 1793. Moving official documents and high-ranking officials through the frozen Bay of Quinte was no small feat. When the deed was finally presented, it represented a clash of worldviews. The British saw it as a generous gift of land from a benevolent King. The Mohawks viewed it as a confirmation of rights they already held through their alliance and sacrifice. It was a “Paper Anchor” intended to hold the community in place as the tides of history shifted around them.

Conflict and Modern Resilience

The history of the Mohawk Tract in the 19th century is a story of whittling. Encroaching settlement and questionable surrenders reduced the original 92,700 acres significantly. This historical friction is not just a footnote. It is the foundation of the Culbertson Tract land claim in Deseronto today.

The 1793 Deed remains an active document in Canadian courts. It serves as a reminder that the borders defined in a cold January over two centuries ago still dictate the geography and politics of the region. The Simcoe Deed is a living piece of history. It is the reason the Mohawk flag continues to fly proudly over the Bay of Quinte.

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History

Echoes of the Bay: Remember the Belleville Riots

TL;DR: On January 4, 1877, the Belleville Riots officially ended after the Queen’s Own Rifles were called in to stop a violent railway strike that paralyzed the region and defined Canada’s labor history.

Published

1 week ago

January 5, 2026

A.D. Greiner

Echoes of the Bay: Remember the Belleville Riots

This week we are looking back at a time when the peaceful shores of the Bay of Quinte were transformed into a scene of industrial warfare. On January 4, 1877, the tension finally broke in Belleville. This marked the official end of the infamous Grand Trunk Railway strike.

The Grand Trunk Railway strike was a a moment when our local community became the center of a national crisis. It was a week that tested the resolve of Belleville citizens. It also forced the entire country to look toward the Quinte region as we grappled with the costs of progress and the necessity of law and order.

Bedlam at the Belleville Station

The conflict ignited on New Year’s Eve. Engineers for the Grand Trunk Railway walked off the job to protest wage cuts. Within hours, the Belleville railyards were swamped by a massive, agitated crowd that local law enforcement simply could not contain.

Contemporary accounts from 1877 describe a scene of total cinematic mayhem right in our own backyard. Strikers and their local sympathizers sabotaged the infrastructure. They greased the rails on the steep inclines leading out of the station. This made it impossible for the massive iron engines to gain traction. When the company tried to bring in replacement workers to move the trains, the Belleville mob turned even more aggressive.

Witnesses at the time recalled hundreds of men surrounding the locomotives. They shouted down the replacement workers and hurled stones and ice-packed snowballs through the winter air. Local police were completely overwhelmed and essentially retreated as the crowd disabled engines and took control of the yards. For a few days, the rule of law in Belleville was replaced by the rule of the mob.

The Iron Fist of Order

The situation became so dire that the government took the drastic step of calling in the Queen’s Own Rifles from Toronto. It was a heavy-handed move. It signaled that the state would not allow the Belleville hub to remain paralyzed while the national economy suffered. According to historical records of the event, the arrival of these outside soldiers was the only thing that broke the stalemate.

The soldiers successfully restored a fragile peace. This allowed the trains to move through the Bay of Quinte once more. The Queen’s Own Rifles officially departed Belleville at 7.00 p.m. on January 3 and arrived back in Toronto in the early hours of January 4. The riots were over, but the impact on our local identity was permanent.

The Quinte Perspective

From a modern entrepreneurial perspective, these riots represent the grit and fierce independence that has always defined the Bay of Quinte. We have always been a region that stands up for its own. However, it also serves as a reminder of how vital our corner of Ontario is to the national economy.

When Belleville rears up, Canada feels it. This week in 1877 proved that our local workers held the keys to the kingdom. While we respect the drive of the workers, we also recognize that national stability and protected infrastructure are the lifeblood of our prosperity. Our history is built on this kind of raw determination to protect our livelihoods and our town.

Do you think the government was right to send Toronto soldiers into Belleville to protect the railway. How does knowing our city was the site of such a massive riot change the way you look at the old railway tracks today?

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History

Echoes of the Bay: The Wild True Story of Belleville’s Own Mackenzie Bowell

TL;DR: Today marks the death anniversary of Sir Mackenzie Bowell, Canada’s fifth Prime Minister and Belleville’s most famous son. He rose from a “printer’s devil” sweeping floors to owning The Intelligencer and leading the country. His tenure was cut short by a dramatic “nest of traitors” in his own cabinet, but his story remains the ultimate example of Quinte grit and self-made success.

Published

1 month ago

December 10, 2025

A.D. Greiner

Echoes of the Bay The Wild True Story of Belleville's Own Mackenzie Bowell

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Today marks a solemn anniversary for the Quinte region. On this day in 1917, Sir Mackenzie Bowell passed away in his beloved Belleville. While most history books glaze over Canada’s fifth Prime Minister as a mere footnote, he was actually a central figure in one of the most explosive political dramas our nation has ever seen.

Bowell is the ultimate local success story. He didn’t come from money or a fancy law degree. He arrived in Belleville as an immigrant kid and started working as a “printer’s devil”—sweeping floors and mixing ink at The Intelligencer. Through sheer grit and that distinct Quinte hustle, he worked his way up from the bottom to eventually own the entire newspaper. He was an entrepreneur before it was cool to be one. He used that platform to launch a political career that took him all the way to the highest office in the land.

The “Nest of Traitors”

His time at the top was anything but smooth. After the sudden death of Prime Minister John Thompson in 1894, Bowell was the senior man left standing. He took the reins during a massive national crisis known as the Manitoba Schools Question. It was a heated battle over language and religious rights that threatened to tear the young dominion apart. Bowell tried to find a middle ground to keep the country united, putting the nation’s stability over partisan bickering.

That is when the sharks started circling. In a move that makes modern political scandals look like child’s play, seven of his own cabinet ministers plotted against him. They didn’t just disagree with him. They orchestrated a full-blown coup. Bowell famously labelled them a “nest of traitors,” and the phrase has stuck in the Canadian political lexicon ever since. It was a brutal reminder that in Ottawa, loyalty is often the first casualty of ambition.

Bowell eventually stepped aside, but he didn’t disappear. He remained a Senator and a powerful voice for our region until the very end. He never forgot where he came from, and he returned to Belleville to live out his final days.

A Legacy of Grit

So when you drive past his plaque or see his name around town today, remember that he wasn’t just some old guy with a beard. He was a self-made media mogul and a statesman who stood his ground when his own team turned the knives on him. In an era where political flip-flopping is the norm, Bowell’s stubborn adherence to his principles feels almost revolutionary.

Do you think a leader today would survive a “nest of traitors,” or is modern politics even more cutthroat than Bowell’s day?

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