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.

See Our Sources

• Longlade Family VMFL

• 1830 Map of Penetanguishene Métis Land Grants

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

• Penetanguishene Halfbreed Petition, 27 January 1840

• Upper Great Lakes Submission to the MNC Expert Panel

• Daughter of Red River Native, Toronto Star, May 8, 1942

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