rfmcdonald | [URBAN NOTE] "The Toronto Settler Who Failed to Build a Hemp Empire" (Reply)

In Torontoist's regular Historicist feature, Ross Fair describes early Upper Canadian settler William Bond, a man whose bid to build a fortune based on hemp failed.

William Bond was a Queen’s Ranger, one of the early residents of the Town of York, and among the first settlers granted lands along Yonge Street. Bond Lake in today’s Richmond Hill was on that property. Bond also owned York’s first tree nursery, located at Ontario and Duchess (now Richmond) Streets, and, among other minor roles, he served as York’s Town Clerk in 1803. Three years later, he would travel to England on behalf of a newly established organization at York, win accolades from the top echelons of England’s scientific community, and meet with influential gentlemen and powerful imperial officials that few residents of York—or colonials anywhere across the British Empire—would ever dream of meeting. After having spent more time and money in England than he had planned, Bond returned to York in 1809, only to find any rewards from his work in London become lost in a cloud of scandal, not of his making, leaving him ultimately disillusioned and utterly disappointed.

What took Bond to England in 1806 was the matter of hemp cultivation and the promise of a lucrative position administering Upper Canadian plans to grow this crop. By that time, the provincial government, centred at York, was five years into a program supported by imperial officials in London that aimed to encourage farmers to grow as much of the crop as possible.

At the turn of the nineteenth century, Britain entered its seventh year of war with France, meaning a continued need for hemp for the Royal Navy to make cordage to rig its fleets. For centuries, Britain had depended on supplies of hemp and timber imported from Russia via ports on the Baltic Sea, and, by the mid-1700s, experts in England warned of the security threat posed by this dependence. In 1800, such fears were realized. Russia, an ally of France, persuaded Sweden to block British trade at Baltic ports, effective December 16, 1800. Although this lasted only a few months, Britain was caught fighting a war without access to the material required to construct and repair its navy. As a response to this crisis, it turned to its North American colonies and issued emergency instructions that administrators there should encourage farmers to grow hemp, with the aim of producing a secure source of this naval supply critical for defence of empire. In their haste to enlist Upper Canada’s help, British officials gave little thought to how the young frontier province could produce large quantities of quality hemp at a price competitive to Russian supplies in a short period of time. Nevertheless, hemp presented the promise of a significant financial windfall to farmers, merchants, and colonial administrators in a struggling colony like Upper Canada.