The Grant Families

Venerable, although potentially incorrect, family traditions have always suggested that the progenitor Grant ancestor for the known descendants, was a native of Scotland. Many members of the extended family have taken great pride in this presumed Scottish heritage. The origin of the surname Grant has been much under dispute, with theories of Norwegian, Anglo-Norman, and Celtic origin. The most popular, and possibly most correct theory, is that the name derives from Sliabh Grianais, a large Strathspey moor, also known as the plain of the sun. The earliest Grant recorded was Thomas Grant, a merchant of the King of Scotland, in 1252. It is also thought that the name was usually pronounced like Graunt or Grownt initially, and whatever the case may be there came to be numerous Grants from Scotland, especially in the areas of Strathspey, Glenurquhart, and Glenmoriston.

The other common presumption has been that the family was directly related to Ulysses S. Grant, the American general and president. It is easy to forget now the heroic reverence given to Grant in the late nineteenth century United States, at least in the northern states. Despite that, he would have died nearly penniless after being swindled by a Ponzi scheme had it not been for his stubborn focus in completing his lengthy autobiography while he was dying from a painful throat cancer, leaving the proceeds of this monumental bestseller to his surviving family.

In my own family a carte de visite photograph of the famous U. S. Grant was arranged prominently among numerous other similar old photographs of long dead and unknown family members in one of the family photo albums treasured by my maternal grandparents, inherited by my grandfather from his parents. In this way, it appeared that the long dead president could have just been any other now deceased member of the family. However it now seems more likely that if the Grant families discussed here are related to the former president, it is almost certainly in the very distant past, as the genealogy of Gen. Grant has been pretty thoroughly researched, showing that his American immigrant ancestor was Matthew Grant, thought to be born in England in 1601, immigrating initially to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, and then after a few years settling in Windsor, Connecticut. More likely the illustrious photograph in the family photo album was one of hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of photos of the American hero that anyone could purchase for a very small amount of money.

The Grants in Early Canada

The Grants we know of hailed from Ontario, north of Toronto, and possibly prior to that may have moved west from Montreal. The history of the North West Company, a fur trading company based out of Montreal beginning in 1779, is filled with numerous men with the surname Grant. The North West Company was the biggest competitor to the Hudson’s Bay Company, but they were eventually forced to merge with their rival by the British government in 1821. Before the company was organized into the North West Company, the original partnership was founded as the N. W. Societe in 1771 by, among others, one William Grant, who was born in Kirkmichael, Scotland in 1743, and after retiring from his business with the North West Company, died in southwestern Quebec in 1810. How our Grant families may connect, if at all, with this William Grant remains unknown, but it should be remarked that many other Grants are mentioned in the history of the North West Company, most of them not apparently at all related to William Grant either. Among these are the following: Charles Grant of Quebec, Charles Grant of Côte Ste. Catherine, William Grant of St. Roch and John Grant of Montreal.

Charles Grant of Quebec was born in Scotland, the son of James Grant, and married Jane Holmes about 1775 and died in Quebec City in 1784. He had a son named Charles, who was born about 1784 in Quebec.

Charles Grant of Côte Ste. Catherine was the son of Charles Grant of Quebec and Jane Holmes. He had a sister, Margaret Grant, who died in 1818. Charles Grant married Amelia Williams about 1828, when he would have been about 44 years old, and it’s uncertain if he had been married before that. He then died on 21 May 1843.

Another William Grant was born in Scotland in 1741. He immigrated to North America in 1763 and purchased land at La Baye, Lake Michigan that same year. Sometime in 1770 he married the Baroness de Longueuil, the widow of Charles Jacques Le Moyne. He was appointed deputy receiver-general of Quebec in 1777, and then appointed as a member of the Legislative Council of Quebec the following year. He lost his position as deputy receiver- general in 1784, apparently due to financial losses in his accounts. Then from 1792 until his death in 1805, he served as the representative from the upper town of Quebec in the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada. During his life, he had bought several properties along the St. Lawrence River, and he owned a large home at St. Roch, but when he died in Quebec City on 5 October 1805 he was deeply in debt and all of these properties were put up for auction.

John Grant of Montreal was born in Scotland and died in Montreal in 1809. He left a will at the Montreal Court House.

Grant Families in the northern Home District (now York County)

Could there be anyone named Grant in the area near King Township in the Home District north of Toronto, as this is where the later Grant children we are certain about (Peter, James, Mary Ann, Charlotte, and John) had grown up and lived? Moreover are there any Grants in this area who also appear to have any ties back to Montreal? The first question is the most important, but answering the second question might provide some clues to the deeper ancestry, especially if any other connections could be determined. Only (potentially) one man found so far meets both these criteria, again possibly: Charles Grant.

This is not the Charles Grant who married Esther McWilliams, but rather may be his father. Charles Grant, husband of Christiana (Mills) Grant, died on 9 October 1847 after having made out a will in King Township on 15 December 1845. The good news is that this Charles Grant names two sons in his will, but the bad news is that they are named Charles Grant and Charles Collins Grant. Trying to untangle these two has proved to be a Gordian knot, only made knottier by attempts to determine if one of them could be the Charles Grant who married Esther McWilliams - and moreover if one of them could be the same as the Charles Grant in Kalamazoo County, Michigan in 1850, then in Jackson County, Michigan by 1860, and died in May 1862 in Iowa while enlisted in the Union Army.

Christiana (Mills) Grant’s husband - I will forego referring to him as Charles here to help avoid confusion - married her in May 1813 in Sandwich, Upper Canada (now Windsor, Ontario). Because in a deposition regarding her 1850 will, a witness states that she had a “drunken stepson,” and that she didn’t want any of her estate to go to him so had left him out of the will. Thus it seems plausible that one or both of the sons mentioned in her husband’s will may have been from an earlier marriage. The first Charles Grant seen anywhere near King Township is a year later when in 1814 Charles Grant, referred to as a merchant trader of Montreal, leased and then immediately purchased 200 acres of land on Lake Simcoe.

Acknowledgements

This work would have been impossible without the assistance of several other people. Most importantly, it never would have occurred were it not for the many family stories told to me by my dearly departed grandparents, Robert Grant and Mary Ann (Smith) Grant, when I was a child. They were the first and most important inspiration. I am further indebted to my late granduncle, Muryl Grant, for the descendancy chart he prepared several years ago on Charles Grant. While, at least in some respects, I have not been able to definitively take his work any further back with regards to the Grant line, I have certainly been able to expand upon his original work.

Finally I must also thank the hard work of other researchers I have encountered along the way, particularly the late Elaine Bourke, Lorraine Scott, Susanne Germone, Sandra Rhone, Judy Altug, and Maria Reynolds. My hope is that the compilation of this work will connect all of us with others that share a connection to us.