William Benjamin Robinson
William Benjamin Robinson ( born December 22, 1797 in Kingston, Ontario, † July 18, 1873 in Toronto, Ontario) was a Canadian fur trader and politician.
Life
William Benjamin was born in Kingston, the son of Christopher Robinson loyalists and Esther Sayre. He was the youngest of three brothers. Shortly after birth, the family moved to York. One year after Robinson's birth his father died. Robinson's mother was left with him and his two older brothers Peter and John Beverly in York in poor states until 1802 married the mine owners and dealers Elisha Beman. The majority of his youth spent Robinson in Newmarket.
William Benjamin Robinson took over the business from his stepfather and married on May 5, 1822 Elizabeth Ann Jarvis, the Minister of Upper Canada, the daughter. In 1833 they moved to Holland Landing. Robinson went into the fur trade and entertained two trading posts in the province of Muskoka, on the island of Yoho and the Georgian Bay. Through its trade with the Canadian Indians, First Nations, he got to the time a good reputation among the Indians.
After a failed election in 1828 he was in 1830, 1834 and 1836 elected to the legislature of Simcoe County. In 1833 he was entrusted with the Commissioners Absolom Shade and John Macaulay order to monitor the work on the Welland Canal. For this service, he moved from 1837 to 1843 to St. Catharines. In 1841 he lost his seat in the legislature to Elmes Steele, the two fought a bitter election campaign.
In 1843 he succeeded in concluding an agreement, the first named after him Robinson Treaty with Häuprling William Yellowhead. 700 acres of land of Simcoe were retained for the Anishinabe from Lake Simcoe. From 1844 to 1854 he worked as a politician for Simcoe again. In 1844 he was Inspector General of Government William Henry Draper, but resigned a year later back in contention for the establishment of a "University of Upper Canada", which earned him much praise in the press. After the bill to "University of Upper Canada" had failed all the way to Robinson's wishes, he did not take back his old post and was instead " Chief Commissioner of Public Works ", a post which he held, during the reign of the reform minister Robert Baldwin and until 1848 Louis -Hippolyte La Fontaine held.
After he had retired from opposition to the government of his post, he was commissioned to negotiate new treaties with the Indians. On September 7, 1850, the Anishinabe handed over from Lake Superior to the immigrants the country of Batchawana Bay to Pigeon River. Two days later, on September 9, renounced the Anishinabe Lake Huron on their claims to the territory of Batchawana Bay and Penetanguishene.
In 1854 he held one of two seats for Simcoe Country, but was defeated in the 1857 election campaign and no longer walked to. After his wife died in 1865, he spent two years living abroad, but returned back to Toronto in 1867 and lived there until his death on 18 July 1873.