Benjamin Hardison (1761 – July 1823
) was a farmer, miller and political figure in
Upper Canada
The Province of Upper Canada (french: link=no, province du Haut-Canada) was a part of British Canada established in 1791 by the Kingdom of Great Britain, to govern the central third of the lands in British North America, formerly part of th ...
. He represented 4th Lincoln and Norfolk in the
Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada
The Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada was the elected part of the legislature for the province of Upper Canada, functioning as the lower house in the Parliament of Upper Canada. Its legislative power was subject to veto by the appointed Lie ...
from 1797 to 1800.
He was born in
Berwick in the
Thirteen Colonies
The Thirteen Colonies, also known as the Thirteen British Colonies, the Thirteen American Colonies, or later as the United Colonies, were a group of British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America. Founded in the 17th and 18th cent ...
. Hardison served with American forces during the
American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...
, was taken prisoner and sent to Canada, later settling at
Fort Erie
Fort Erie is a town on the Niagara River in the Niagara Region, Ontario, Canada. It is directly across the river from Buffalo, New York, and is the site of Old Fort Erie which played a prominent role in the War of 1812.
Fort Erie is one of Ni ...
in
Bertie Township. He was a captain in the militia and a
justice of the peace for the
Niagara District
The Niagara District was a historic district in Upper Canada. Created in 1798 from the Home District, it existed until 1849.
Historic evolution
The District was formed by an Act of the Parliament of Upper Canada in 1798, and was described as cons ...
. He operated mills and a distillery at Fort Erie. Hardison died there after purchasing a share of a mill with
James Kerby earlier in 1823.
He at one point owned a black woman named
Chloe Cooley
Chloe Cooley was a young black woman held as a slave in Fort Erie and Queenston, Upper Canada in the late 1700s, as the area was being settled by Loyalists from the United States. Her owner forced her into a boat to sell her in 1793 across the Niag ...
as a slave before selling her to Adam Vrooman. Her eventual sale by Vrooman to the United States led to the passage of the
Act Against Slavery
The ''Act Against Slavery'' was an anti-slavery law passed on July 9, 1793, in the second legislative session of Upper Canada, the colonial division of British North America that would eventually become Ontario. It banned the importation of sla ...
.
References
Further reading
*Johnson, J
''Becoming Prominent: Regional Leadership in Upper Canada, 1791-1841'' (1989) p. 197
1761 births
1823 deaths
Members of the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada
People from Berwick, Maine
Canadian slave owners
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