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1830 Penetanguishene Land Grants Across the Bay

In the aftermath of the War of 1812, the British surrendered Drummond Island—a strategic outpost and home to a thriving Métis community—to the United States. Having fought alongside the British and Anishinaabe as allies during the war, Métis families on Drummond Island were forced to relocate upon the island’s American takeover.

In recognition of their allyship and as compensation for their losses during the relocation, the British offered several Métis veterans land grants after the war across the bay from the small British naval outpost established at Penetanguishene. These land grants mirrored similar compensation arrangements with other Indigenous wartime allies of the British. 

Unlike other grants given to settler populations to the south, that were designed to encourage European settlement, the Métis understood their land grants as free, unconditional, and in recognition for their losses stemming from their allyship with the British during the war. 

Upon the Métis community’s arrival in 1829, “Penetanguishene was then mostly a cedar swamp” with few permanent structures or residents. Several Métis families landed at Gordon’s Point—named after the forebear of a Métis family—to take up their land grants across the bay from the naval establishment. 

Many of Penetanguishene’s founding Métis families and their land grants are documented in a June 8, 1830 survey of Penetanguishene Harbour by General William Chewett.

Together, at Penetanguishene, Drummond Island’s Métis reestablished their vibrant community and greatly contributed to the town’s development over the coming decades—welcoming in other Métis from across the Homeland in the process and leaving an indelible mark on the local landscape for generations to come.

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Penetanguishene’s Gordon Family

The Gordon family was among Penetanguishene’s founding Métis families who relocated from Drummond Island alongside other members of their Métis community after the Island was formally handed over to the United States. They took up a land grant across the bay from the small British naval outpost in Penetanguishene harbour.

The family’s Métis matriarch, Agnes Landry (Sr.), was born on Drummond Island and spent most of her life within the vibrant Métis community in the Upper Great Lakes. There, Agnes raised her Métis family, including her daughter Agnes Landry (Jr.).

Agnes (Jr.) eventually married George Gordon, a successful Scot trader and clerk to the Hudson’s Bay Company who had moved to Drummond Island after working at Fort William in northern Lake Superior. In 1820, Agnes and George welcomed their first son William on Drummond Island, followed by the birth of their first daughter, Betsy, in 1824.

In 1825, however, following British surrender of Drummond Island to the United States, the Gordon-Landry family, including matriarch Agnes Landry (Sr.), relocated to Penetanguishene in anticipation of their broader community’s relocation, to begin establishing the “first permanent settlement at Penetanguishene”—later known as Gordon’s Post or Gordon’s Point—building the first house that would eventually form “the nucleus of the small town.”

Like many of Drummond Island’s Métis families, the Gordons eventually took up a small land grant across the bay from Penetanguishene’s small naval outpost, in recognition of the community’s allyship with the British during the War of 1812 and as compensation for their losses during the community’s relocation. The Gordons’ land grant is depicted alongside those of other Métis families in an 1830 map of Penetanguishene Harbour.

In Penetanguishene, Agnes (Jr.) and George had several more Métis children, who would spend their lives living and marrying within the Georgian Bay Métis Community. One example is their daughter Elizabeth, who married James Solomon, son of Métis War of 1812 veteran Henry Solomon, at Penetanguishene, in 1848. 

Following Agnes’ (Jr.) passing, sometime after the birth of their last known child in 1839, George Gordon again married into the reestablished Métis community in Penetanguishene—this time to Marguerite Longlade (Langlade), daughter of fellow Drummond Islander and “across the bay” land grantee, Charles Longlade Sr. Marguerite would thereafter step into supporting George in raising Agnes’ children. 

The Gordon family exemplifies the successive generations of continuous endogamy within the Georgian Bay Métis Community that helped to ensure the Métis in Penetanguishene remained a distinct, cohesive, and resilient Métis community. While not Métis himself, George’s second marriage to Marguerite Longlade—and her stepping into support the children of another Métis woman from Drummond Island—exemplifies the importance of kinship and relationship within the Métis community, which pre-dated their relocation to Penetanguishene. 

Many of the Gordon family’s descendants continue to live, work, and contribute to their vibrant Georgian Bay Métis Community to this day.

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Penetanguishene’s Longlade Family

The Longlade (Langlade) family was among Penetanguishene’s founding Métis families who relocated from Drummond Island alongside other members of their Métis community after the War of 1812.  

Like other members of their Métis community, both Charles Longlade Sr. and his son, Charles Longlade Jr., took up land grants “across the bay” from the small British naval outpost in Penetanguishene harbour, that were provided to them in recognition of the community’s allyship with the British during the War of 1812 and as compensation for their losses during the community’s relocation. 

Charles Longlade Sr. and Charles Longlade Jr.’s land grants are both depicted alongside those of other Métis families in an 1830 map of Penetanguishene Harbour. 

Over the next generations, the Longlades continued to marry extensively within the Métis community, contributing to a deep endogamy within the Georgian Bay Métis Community that helped to ensure the Métis in Penetanguishene remained a distinct, cohesive, and resilient Métis community. 

Charles Jr.’s sister, Marguerite, for example, became the second Métis wife of successful Scot trader and fellow Penetanguishene “across the bay” land grantee George Gordon, and helped to raise George’s numerous Métis children following the passing of his first wife, Agnes Landry, sometime after 1839.

Charles Longlade Jr.’s nephew, Charles William Longlade, also married within the Métis community. His Métis wife, Elizabeth Dusome, was “Born at Highland Point, across the bay from town” a generation after the Drummond Island relocation and after her own family’s move from the Red River, first to Sault Ste. Marie, and then to Penetanguishene where they were fully welcomed into the community’s Métis kinship network.

In addition to enriching the Georgian Bay Métis Community’s extensive kinship networks, the Longlade family also fought for their distinct identity and rights, with Charles Longlade Sr. and Charles Longlade Jr. placing their signatures side-by-side on the 1840 Penetanguishene “Half-Breed” Petition.

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Penetanguishene’s Vasseur Family

The Vasseurs were among Penetanguishene’s founding Métis families who relocated from Drummond Island after the War of 1812, taking up a land grant “across the bay” from the small British naval outpost in Penetanguishene harbour alongside other members of their Métis community.

Born in Quebec, Charles Vasseur went west with the Hudson’s Bay Company, serving in the British military, including in the capture of Mackinaw in 1812. While at Mackinaw, Charles “married a young half-breed woman, named Marguerite Langlade, a near relative of the famous Captain (Charles) Langlade.”

Charles and Marguerite soon moved to Drummond Island, a strategic outpost and home to many of Marguerite’s Métis relatives. There, the Vasseurs welcomed the first of their more than ten children into the community’s already-rich Métis kinship network. 

Soon after, however, the Vasseurs relocated to Penetanguishene alongside other members of their community when Drummond Island was formally ceded by the British to the United States. 

There, near Pinery Point—across the bay from the small naval outpost—the Vasseur family took up a 20-acre land grant offered in recognition of the community’s allyship with the British during the War of 1812 and as compensation for their losses during the relocation. The Vasseurs’ land grant, listed in Charles’ name, is depicted alongside those of other Métis families in an 1830 map of Penetanguishene Harbour.

Many of Charles and Marguerite Vasseur’s Métis children and their descendants would continue marrying and raising their Métis families within their close-knit Métis community at Pinery Point and its surrounding area over the coming generations. 

Nearly a century later, for example, Charles and Marguerite’s then 92-year-old son, Paul Vasseur—playfully referred to as the “he-man” and former “terror of Penetanguishene”—was highlighted in a 1921 Toronto Star article describing the visibly distinct Métis community that endured at Pinery Point, near Penetanguishene, with a still-recognizable identity and Métis way of life. 

Despite his “terror of Penetanguishene” nickname, Paul and his family were deeply embedded within the Georgian Bay Métis Community’s extensive kinship network. In the early 1860s, for instance, Paul married Marie Legris Prisque, the Métis daughter of Julie Cadieux. Like Paul’s older brother, Charles Jr., Julie was born on Drummond Island before their Métis community relocated to Penetanguishene in the fall of 1828. Marie’s brother, Jean Baptiste, married Philomene Dusome, sister of Elizabeth Longlade (nee Dusome). 

Like many of their Métis relatives living “across the bay”, the Vasseurs have continued contributing to their Métis community over the span of generations, including to Penetanguishene’s eventual development and to preserving the Georgian Bay Métis Community’s extensive kinship structures that have enabled it to retain its cohesiveness, resiliency, and distinct Métis identity to this day.

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Penetanguishene’s Laramee Family

The Laramees were among Penetanguishene’s founding Métis families who relocated from Drummond Island alongside other members of their Métis community after the Island was formally handed over to the United States following the War of 1812. They took up a land grant across the bay from the small British naval outpost in Penetanguishene harbour.

The family’s Métis matriarch, Rosette (Josette) Cloutier, grew up in the vibrant Métis community at Mackinaw Island in the Upper Great Lakes. There, she met her future husband, Jacques Adam dit. Laramee, a North West Company employee and War of 1812 Veteran. The couple married à la façon du pays on Mackinaw before moving with the British forces and other members of Rosette’s community to Drummond Island. 

There, Rosette and Jacques Adams dit. Laramee welcomed their four Métis children into the Upper Great Lakes Métis community’s rich kinship networks and raised their family within the Métis community’s traditional way of life, including participating in the annual spring sugar camps common among Métis families throughout the Upper Great Lakes.

In 1828, however, the young Laramee family made the treacherous voyage to Penetanguishene alongside other members of their Métis community, after being displaced from Drummond Island following the British ceding the island to the Americans after the War of 1812. The Laramee’s daughter, Rosette Boucher (nee Laramee), later shared memories of her family’s relocation with journalist A.C. Osborne:

“We came in a large bateau with two other families and a span of horses. Our family consisted of father, mother, four children—Julien, Zoa, James, and myself. James was only two years old. I was about thirteen.“

Like other members of their community, the Laramees took up a small land grant near Pinery Point, “across the bay” from Penetanguishene’s small naval outpost, that were provided in recognition of the community’s allyship during the War of 1812 and in recognition of their losses during the relocation. The family’s land grant, listed in Jacques Adams’ name, is depicted alongside those of other Métis families in an 1830 map of Penetanguishene harbour. 

There, the Laramees continued to contribute and marry extensively within the Métis community for generations to come. 

Rosette Boucher’s (nee Laramee) siblings Zoe and James Jacques Adam dit. Laramaee, for example, each married members of the Métis Gendron family. Their children, in turn, married extensively into other Métis families—including the Brissette, Giroux, Longlade, and Vasseur families–contributing to the deep and sustained endogamy that has enabled the Georgian Bay Métis Community to remain a cohesive and resilient Métis collective, with a proud and distinct identity to this day.

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