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TALBOT, THOMAS, army and militia officer, settlement promoter, office holder, and politician; b. 19 July 1771 in Malahide (Republic of Ireland), son of Richard Talbot and Margaret O’Reilly; d. 5 Feb. 1853 in London, Upper Canada.
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In 1790, the year after Buckingham’s resignation, Talbot joined his regiment on garrison duty at Quebec and the following spring moved with it to Montreal. Partly on Buckingham’s recommendation, the first lieutenant governor of Upper Canada, John Graves Simcoe*, named Talbot as his private secretary in February 1792. The young lieutenant was thus provided with unlimited opportunities to travel throughout the new province and to impress Simcoe with his abilities. The bond forged between the two men over the next four years seems crucial in explaining Talbot’s subsequent actions.
In June and July 1792 he accompanied Simcoe and his wife, Elizabeth Posthuma Gwillim*, to Newark (Niagara-on-the-Lake), Upper Canada’s first capital. Simcoe had planned to locate the capital at the head of navigation on the Thames River, the later site of London, and with Talbot and others undertook an overland expedition to that area and to Detroit in early 1793. Talbot was subsequently sent on several missions to the western end of Lake Erie to parlay on Simcoe’s behalf with the Indians and to meet the Indian agent Alexander McKee*. He travelled as well to Philadelphia as Simcoe’s courier to the British plenipotentiary, George Hammond. Travelling by land and water in considerable freedom undoubtedly gave him the chance to observe and make inquiries about the region north of Lake Erie, where he would eventually live.
In the early summer of 1794 Talbot, then 22, left Simcoe’s staff. The previous fall he had been promoted captain in the 85th Foot and on 6 March 1794 received a further rapid promotion to major. Returning to England in September he subsequently served for two years on active duty: in Holland fighting the French, in Gibraltar on garrison duty, and in England. On 12 Jan. 1796 he purchased a lieutenant-colonelcy in the 5th Foot. He remained in England until September 1799 when war with France again took him to Holland. After the withdrawal of the British later that year he continued to live in England but on Christmas Day 1800 abruptly sold his commission. Almost immediately, at 29, he left to establish himself as a settler in Upper Canada – a sudden change in career that surprised most of his circle. The precise reason for Talbot’s decision is unknown, although several theories have been proposed, including disappointment in love, thwarted political ambitions, failure to advance further in the military, and (as Talbot himself claimed) a desire to assist in the progress and development of Upper Canada.
Talbot began farming in 1801 at “Skitteewaabaa,” believed to be near the mouth of Kettle Creek on the north shore of Lake Erie. He apparently hoped to assume a role that would fit in with Simcoe’s attempt to institute in the 1790s a system by which entire townships were granted to prominent individuals who, as local gentry, would select settlers and allocate land. Disappointed that Simcoe had not reserved land for him, he soon contacted prominent individuals in England such as the Duke of Cumberland (the fifth son of George III) and Simcoe himself. Promoting his intention to bring in British rather than American settlers (and thereby, in the spirit of Simcoe, check “the growing tendency to insubordination and revolt” in Upper Canada), Talbot succeeded in obtaining a field officer’s grant of 5,000 acres in May 1803. He selected his grant in the townships of Dunwich and Aldborough, in Middlesex County, and that same month settled at the mouth of Talbot Creek in Dunwich, the site of Port Talbot, his home for the next 50 years. To stimulate settlement in these townships, he acquired mill machinery in 1804 and two years later constructed a water-powered grist-mill which was of great value to the emerging settlement until its destruction by American troops in 1814.
Initially Talbot’s plan differed little from those of other township developers in Upper Canada’s early years. He was to give 50 of his original 5,000 acres to the head of each family he could attract and in return he would claim 200 acres for himself from reserved land adjoining Dunwich and Aldborough. Talbot could thus eventually accumulate for himself 20,000 acres, which would compare favourably with the holdings of landed magnates in Ireland and Britain. In topographical terms the scheme would create an area of concentrated population surrounded by Talbot’s enlarged holdings. Such a settlement might be expected to prosper as population increased and geographical propinquity alleviated the burden of isolation in what Talbot later recalled as “impenetrable wilderness.”
In 1807, however, he began ignoring the original terms of the scheme when he located settlers outside his 5,000 acres. Apparently, in the fashion of Anglo-Irish nobility, he wanted to create a demesne around his residence to insulate him from ordinary settlers. Although he had expressed to Simcoe in 1802 a desire for “the ultimate establishment of a comfortable and respectable tenantry around me,” it was necessary to Talbot to maintain a suitable distance between Port Talbot and his settlers. In 1842 he was to explain to John Davidson, commissioner of crown lands, that “within my home Belt, . . . . I do not like to have settlers, as I find too near Neighbours a great nuisance.” The provincial government acquiesced in Talbot’s departure and agreed in 1808 to grant him 200 acres as remuneration for each family settled, whether located within his original grant or not. He thus extended his own potential acreage. About this time the government also accepted his practice of claiming and privately allocating land without registering the transfers at the Surveyor General’s Office in York (Toronto) – the sole record being in Talbot’s possession. In these early years of the settlement the rate of growth was extremely slow (between 1803 and 1808 he had placed only 20 families) and settlers did not choose to take up 50-acre lots when they might obtain 200-acre lots elsewhere in the province.
Talbot seemed keenly aware that his isolated holdings required road links to other settlements. Earlier efforts to deal with that sort of problem, such as Simcoe’s Yonge Street, were well known to him. In 1804 he secured his appointment as a London District road commissioner and was instrumental in planning a southerly and topographically superior alternative to both Dundas Street and the Commissioners Road, which linked the district’s middle townships to the head of Lake Ontario. On 15 Feb. 1809 Talbot and Robert Nichol* received provincial commissions from Lieutenant Governor Francis Gore to determine the exact route of the proposed road, which would join Port Talbot and the Niagara District. The Talbot Road east, as it became known, was approved that month by the Surveyor General’s Office and was surveyed by Mahlon Burwell*. As a provincial commissioner Talbot was also responsible for supervising the allocation of lots adjacent to the road. He succeeded in having all provincially reserved lots moved back from the road, as had been done with Yonge Street, and by late 1810 there were numerous settlers with lots along the route. Talbot had to report on the settlers’ progress in fulfilling provincial settlement duties, which comprised the erection of a dwelling and the clearance of land within two years of allocation. By these activities he extended his geographical area of influence far beyond Dunwich and Aldborough townships.
Talbot was assisted in extending his superintendence of land settlement by his close friendship with Gore. In 1811, instead of proceeding formally through a recorded order-in-council, Gore verbally authorized the construction of two other roads: the Talbot Road north, linking Port Talbot to the Westminster Township settlement in the upper Thames River valley, and the Talbot Road west, leading to Amherstburg on the Detroit River. At the same time Talbot gained his permission to superintend the allocation and settlement of vacant crown land in concessions remote from the Talbot Road east in Yarmouth, Malahide, and Bayham townships. Gore’s authorization stimulated Talbot to immediate action and, informing Surveyor General Thomas Ridout* of his scheme, he quickly proceeded to have the new roads surveyed by Mahlon Burwell and to locate settlers on lots alongside the roads and in concessions farther back. The consequences of these actions were both profound and long lasting. A storm of protest, which embarrassed Gore and infuriated Talbot, came from provincial officials who had not been told of Gore’s commitments and who had already allocated lands in Malahide and Bayham. The matter was not readily settled, partly because of the outbreak of the War of 1812. During the war Talbot carried out routine duties as commander of the 1st Middlesex Militia and supervisor of all the militia regiments in the London District.
The government continued to show close interest in the progress of settlement on the lands under Talbot’s supervision. In 1815 and 1817, at the request of Gore, Talbot submitted to Ridout returns of the settlers he had located, revealing for the first time the size and rate of growth of his settlement. The 1815 return named 350 families and two years later the total was 804. A large proportion had not been issued fiats for land and thus were unknown to the provincial authorities. Furthermore, the payment of grant, survey, and patent fees to the government by numerous settlers, amounting to over £4,000 by 1818, was being arbitrarily blocked by Talbot, who wished to retain full control over the settlers until they had completed their settlement duties.
After 1817 the provincial government became increasingly concerned about the collection of internal revenue and doubled its efforts to retrieve fees from settlers. New regulations emphasized fee payment rather than actual residence and were therefore anathema to Talbot. Faced with considerable opposition at York, he travelled to England early in 1818, partly on the advice of the Reverend John Strachan*, who thought he should “go home at once and get the matter settled, if he considered himself aggrieved.” He obtained the support of Lord Bathurst, the colonial secretary, who recognized the value of his work, endorsed his system of personally selecting settlers and withholding their fees, and even permitted him to claim the vast area (over 65,000 acres) of Dunwich and Aldborough that had been reserved in 1803. Thus the extraordinary procedures which he had been using for more than a decade were given official sanction, much to the chagrin of hapless provincial officials. Eventually his authority was extended to include the placing of settlers on land grants and the sale of crown and school reserves.
The consequences of Bathurst’s decision were manifold. For the government it meant a reduction in revenues because of the withholding of fees. As for the process of settlement, Talbot’s set of large-scale township plans, on which he pencilled the name of each settler fortunate enough to be selected for a particular lot, remained the only record of land transactions under his supervision. Not only the allocation but also the forfeiture of land, without provincial involvement and by an easy rubbing out of the name, was thus theoretically possible but the number of settlers ousted by Talbot is not certain. His plans were not examined by the Surveyor General’s Office until at least the mid 1830s and they remained in his possession until his demise. The system thus allowed the non-registration of property titles for many individuals and the absence of any provincial record of alienation for large areas of crown land. Yet most settlers appear to have been content with Talbot’s method of land transfer. They performed the settlement duties, established farms, and did not press for formal evidence of land title, partly perhaps because of the trust they placed in Talbot. Examples exist where two or three decades passed between the initial settlement of lots and the issue of land patents.
By 1828 Talbot’s personal land acquisitions had been terminated despite his vigorous appeals to imperial authorities. His settlement extended over 130 miles from east to west and involved portions of 29 townships in southwestern Upper Canada. He never controlled land allocation and settlement in an entire township, but some – Dunwich, Aldborough, Bayham, Malahide, and London – had large portions under his supervision. Official assessments of the extent of Talbot’s work were provided in 1831 and 1836. The author of a report prepared for the British government in 1831 on land settlement in the British North American provinces commented favourably on the progress of the Talbot settlement but noted fee arrears in excess of £35,000, the payment of which Talbot had been blocking, and suggested that an account of his “landed concerns” be provided. Such a tabulation, made for the provincial assembly in 1836, revealed a total of 519,805 settled acres (excluding Talbot’s personal holdings in Dunwich) on 3,008 lots in the 28 remaining townships. The statement did not describe the reserve land sold by Talbot. More important, it indicated that 63 per cent of the 3,008 lots had not been reported to the surveyor general as settled and that only a quarter of them were patented in spite of lengthy occupation in many instances.
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