American Historical Ephemera & Photography

Blank marriage certificate signed ("Saml. Smith") by Samuel Smith, Esquire, as Administrator of the Government of the Province of Upper Canada. N.p., [1817-1820]. 1p, 7 7/8 x 12 1/2 in. (light toning, slight chipping). Countersigned "D. Cameron" by "By His Governor's Command."

Samuel Smith was a Loyalist British Army officer and politician who served as Administrator of Upper Canada from 1817-1818 and again in 1820. During the Revolutionary War, Smith joined the Queen's Rangers as an ensign in 1777, rose to captain in 1780, and was among those officers who surrendered at Yorktown in 1781. Smith returned to England after the war and was commissioned a captain in the second Queen's Rangers on 20 Dec. 1791 rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. He retired in Etobicoke Township, now part of Toronto, Canada, where other disbanded Rangers joined him.

Duncan Cameron (1764-1848) was a Scottish immigrant whose father served as a Loyalist during the revolutionary War. The family relocated to Upper Canada after the war, where Cameron became a prominent fur trader and businessman often engaging in fierce competition with the Hudson's Bay Company over the settlement of the Red River region of western Canada.  He later engaged in politics serving as a representative for Glengarry in the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada.

[With:] "Province of Upper-Canada." Parchment land grant of 200 acres unto "John Benninger late of the Township of Richmond in the County of Lenox and Addington in the Midland District." 16 January 1804. 1p, 26 1/4 x 14 1/2 in. (light soil, tears particularly at bottom left and near bottom center, creasing). Signed by General Peter Hunter, Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada and Auditor Peter Russell.  During the American Revolution, John Benninger was a "United Empire Loyalist" who departed the United States for Canada following the conflict.