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Wednesday, July 30, 2014

The Credit River


View of Credit River (Showing Mississauga [Indians] Fishing in Canoes, 1796
Elizabeth P. Simcoe(1766-1850)
Grey wash and Watercolour
National Archives of Canada C-13917 (NAC 2320)
Published in Frank A. Dieterman, Ed. Mississauga, The First 100,000 Years
Toronto: Mississauga Heritage Foundation and eastend books, 2002, P. 20

About Elizabeth Simcoe:

Elizabeth Simcoe (September 22, 1762 – January 17, 1850) was an artist and diarist in colonial Canada. She was the wife of John Graves Simcoe, the first Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada.

She was born Elizabeth Posthuma Gwillim in the village of Whitchurch, Herefordshire, England, daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Gwillim and Elizabeth Spinckes. Her father died before her birth, and her mother died shortly afterwards. After her baptism, which was on the same day as her mother's burial, she was taken into the care of her mother's younger sister, Margaret. In commemoration of her mother, Elizabeth was given the middle name Posthuma. Margaret married Admiral Samuel Graves on June 14, 1769 and she grew up at Graves's estate, Hembury Fort near Honiton in Devon.

On December 30, 1782, Elizabeth married John Graves Simcoe, Admiral Graves' godson. They had four daughters and one son, Francis Simcoe, for whom they named Castle Frank. Katherine Simcoe, their only daughter to be born in Upper Canada, died in childhood of pneumonia; she is buried at Fort York Garrison.

[...]

Elizabeth Simcoe left a diary that provides a valuable impression of life in colonial Ontario. First published in 1934, there was a subsequent transcription published in 1965 and a paperback version issued at the turn of the 21st century, more than 200 years after she wrote it. Lady Elizabeth Simcoe's legacy also includes a series of 595 water-colour paintings that depict the town of York. She was responsible for the naming of Scarborough, an eastern Toronto district, after Scarborough, England. The townships of North, East and West Gwillimbury, just south of Lake Simcoe in central Ontario, are also named for the family.


Elizabeth Simcoe (1790)
Mary Anne Burges (British, 1763-1813)
Watercolour12 x 15.1 cm
Library and Archives Canada


More on Elizabeth Simcoe at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography.


Niagara Falls, Ontario, July 30, 1792
Elizabeth Simcoe
Archives of Ontario

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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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