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.

See Our Sources

• Gordon-Landry Family VMFL

• 1830 Map of Penetanguishene Métis Land Grants

• The Migration of Voyageurs from Drummond Island to Penetanguishene in 1828

• Upper Great Lakes Submission to the MNC Expert Panel

• Longlade Family VMFL

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