Beasley, Richard

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: L. Fraser, “BEASLEY, RICHARD,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 7, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003– https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/beasley_richard_7E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Office holder, fur trader, businessman, jp, politician, militia officer, and farmer; b. 21 July 1761 in the colony of New York, son of Henry Beasley and Maria Noble; m. 1791 Henrietta Springer, and they had three sons and five daughters; d. 16 Feb. 1842 in Hamilton, Upper Canada.
    • Richard Beasley may have been captured by rebels on 14 Sept. 1777 during the American revolution. According to a 1795 petition, he arrived in the province of Quebec in 1777 and served two years as “Acting Commissary,” presumably at Fort Niagara (near Youngstown, N.Y.).
    • In 1783 he formed a partnership with Peter Smith in the Indian trade and they built trading houses at Toronto and Pemitescutiang (Port Hope). Five years later they petitioned for land at both places, but the government preferred other sites. Beasley subsequently took up land in Barton Township at the head of Lake Ontario. In 1792, the deputy surveyor general of the new province of Upper Canada, David William Smith, noted that Beasley and James Wilson had a sawmill and grist-mill in Ancaster Township on a creek emptying into Burlington Bay (Hamilton Harbour).
    • Probably more than anyone then resident at the Head of the Lake, Beasley was in a position to reap the advantages of its growth. Aside from his enterprises, he had been appointed a magistrate in 1796, the same year he was elected to the House of Assembly for Durham, York, and 1st Lincoln. An officer of the Lincoln militia, in 1798 he was given command of the Company of the Burlington Circle in the York militia.
  • United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=458
  • Find A Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/65089957/richard-beasley