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He was called Thayendanegea. In Mohawk it meant “two sticks tied together for strength.” His English name was Chief Joseph Brant. A man of the Kamenhekaka nation, in 1798 he was granted 3,450 acres of land in Burlington by King George III, for his service to the Crown during the Seven Year War and the American Revolutionary War. This parcel of land included the area where the hospital and the museum, which both bear his name, are located.

Joseph Brant was born in 1742 on the banks of the Ohio River during a hunting trip. He was raised in a place called Canajoharie, in the valley of the Mohawk River, in what is now New York State.

His Majesty’s representative for Indian Affairs in the colony of New York was William Johnson. It is said that Johnson, while participating in a regimental muster, was approached by a 16-year-old girl, who asked if she could ride behind him on his horse. Thinking she was joking, he agreed. Suddenly, she leapt onto the saddle behind him and the two raced across the field. The girl was Molly Brant, Joseph’s sister. William Johnson later married her and became his third wife.

During the Seven Years’ War between France and England (1756– 1763), Major General William Johnson appealed to his Native friends for assistance in fighting the French. Joseph Brant, aged 13, joined with other Mohawks to defeat the French. Johnson was later knighted Sir William Johnson.

At the age of 19, Joseph Brant was sent by Johnson to Moore’s Charity School in Lebanon, Connecticut. The main mission of this college was to teach Natives to abandon their Native environment, mix with non-native students, learn English, and become missionaries among their own people. Joseph excelled in the two years he attended. Some historians believe that this was where he was converted to Christianity.

Upon his return he married Christine, the daughter of an Oneida chief, and together they resided in a frame house. Although they had two children, Christine died young of consumption in 1771; Brant married Susannah, who also died of consumption two years later; he was married a third and final time, to a woman named Catherine.

In 1776 war broke out between Britain and the American colonies. A year later at Oswego, a Council of the Six Nations was held with officers of the British Indian Department. A Treaty of Alliance was agreed upon and the Natives joined in the service of the King. For the next several years, Joseph Brant fought the American colonists from the Hudson River to the Ohio River in the Mohawk Valley. In 1779 Major General Sullivan, in command of the American troops, attacked the Native villages of the Mohawk Valley. He and his troops destroyed 41 Iroquois towns and left thousands of homeless Natives.

During a raid near Detroit, Brant developed a fever, which he treated in a traditional way. He went to a hill known to have rattlesnakes. There he waited for one to crawl out to sun itself. He caught the snake and took it to his camp, where he boiled it in water to make a broth. After drinking the soup he recovered quickly.

A peace treaty was signed in 1782 between England and the new United States. Without a territory to call their own, the Six Nations of the Iroquois looked to American and British governments for some assistance. Chief Brant chose to come to Canada with the British. The British assisted the Mohawks and other Iroquoian nations by giving them a tract of land on the Bay of Quinte and a further purchase of land on the Grand River, 10 kilometres (six miles) on each side of the river from its mouth to its source. The Natives then had property but no longer had possessions. Consequently, Brant went to England in 1786 to adjust the claims of his nation for their service during the war.

Land ownership became an issue of confusion and misunderstanding. The major problem concerned the right of Natives to dispose of their land as they wished. The government contended that the land had been given to the Natives in trust, for their own use only, and that no property could be disposed of without official approval. Joseph Brant believed that the Natives were a distinct nation able to enter into agreement on its own with individuals or sovereign states. He had no problem with selling or leasing land to non-natives to create an income. Some Natives, themselves, had concerns over the dispensation of the money. In the long run, land ownership came to an end in 1841. Samuel Jarvis, Indian superintendent, decided that the only way to prevent white settlers from intruding was to surrender the land to the Crown to be administered for the sole benefit of the Natives.

Joseph Brant, with his 3,450 acres of land, built a two-storey house out of timber brought by water from Kingston in 1800. He chose a site at Head-of-the-Lake overlooking both the bay and the lake. Joseph and Catherine were the first citizens of the present City of Burlington. On November 24, 1807, Joseph Brant died in his home at the age of 60. His body was removed to Six Nations land near Brantford. The location of his gravesite is not public knowledge.

One great tragedy from which Joseph Brant never fully recovered was the death of his eldest son Isaac. He was a young man with a fierce temper and was often under the influence of alcohol. During one of his drinking bouts he had an argument with his father. They came to blows. Tragically, during the fight Isaac suffered a head wound which later became infected and caused his death. Brant turned himself in to the authorities and asked to be tried in a court of law. He was found not guilty of the crime.

The earliest recorded settler on the site of the present-day city of Burlington was August Bates, who arrived in 1800. Joseph Brant at that time was selling land to his Loyalist friends, such as Nicholas Kern, who purchased 200 acres; Robert Wilson, who bought 211 acres; and Thomas Ghent, who acquired farmland from Brant in 1805. A community began to develop around the Brant homestead.

Shortly after Brant’s death in 1807, James Gage purchased 338 acres of land, where he erected a mill and other commercial establishments. By 1817, 16 dwellings stood in the hamlet, which they called Wellington Square in honour of the Duke of Wellington. In 1826, a post office was opened.

The construction of wharves, warehouses, and a large flour mill helped to create a busy centre of commerce. By 1845, 400 inhabitants called Wellington Square home. Wheat became a major export commodity of the area. Dozens of schooners anchored in the busy harbour, and on some days long lines of carts drawn by horse or oxen would be waiting on the shore to unload the grain. Shipbuilding also became a major industry in the settlement. At one time 17 sawmills operated in the area, and by mid-century Wellington Square boasted a tannery, a pottery, two wagon makers, a foundry, and several general stores.

Meanwhile, Port Nelson on the lakeshore, located at the bottom of what is now the Guelph Line, had also become an important and busy shipping point. In 1873 the hamlets of Wellington Square and Port Nelson amalgamated, becoming the village of Burlington. The name came about as a distortion or variation of the name Bridlington, a town in Yorkshire, England.

By 1913 Burlington had its own coat-of-arms, designed by Miss Arial Shapland. The village had, by then, annexed some of the adjoining territories and became a town in December, 1914.

In 1937 construction of the Joseph Brant Museum was underway on the original site of Brant’s home near the shoreline of Lake Ontario. It was and still is a replica of Brant’s abode. Today, inside the museum, visitors can experience four galleries that exhibit artifacts relating to the life of Joseph Brant, the history of Burlington, traditional Iroquoian life, and Canadian costume. The museum also has an impressive reference library on the same subjects.

In 1958 the amalgamation of Burlington, Nelson Township, and a part of East Flamborough Township helped to create a new and much larger town of Burlington. At one time it was known as the largest town in Ontario. It was allowed to retain town status because of its relative lack of industry. The Burlington Skyway was officially opened in 1958, and at that time it was the largest bridge ever to have been constructed by the Ontario Department of Highways. The centre span of the bridge is 36 metres (120 feet) above the harbour entrance and the bridge is 7 kilometres (4.37 miles) long.

Burlington achieved city status on January 1, 1974. Since that time, it has seen a steady flow of progress and development.

Across the road from the Joseph Brant Museum stood the Brant House, a famous hotel and dance hall on the shores of Lake Ontario.

Archives of Ontario

It does seem ironic that although this was Joseph Brant’s first home, and although he was generous to subsequent settlers, and despite the fact that many Ontario towns reflect their native roots through their names, there is no connection made to Joseph Brant in the name of Burlington.