Brass, William

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: William Teatero, “BRASS, WILLIAM,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 7, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/brass_william_7E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Fur trader, merchant, and convicted rapist; baptized 8 May 1796 in Kingston, Upper Canada, son of David Brass and Mary Magdalen Mattice; m. Elizabeth –; they had no children; d. 1 Dec. 1837 in Kingston.
    • Born about 1792, William Brass was the son of a respectable and wealthy loyalist settler at Kingston. In 1821 William received a grant of land north of the town, in Loughborough Township, where he earned on business as a merchant and fur trader. Little is known about his life except that he spent considerable time trading among the Indians. After one such expedition, in 1834, he was reported to have been devoured by wolves – part of a skull and some bones were found 12 miles from Kingston and identified as his. The rumour proved false, but is illustrative of his nomadic, rather wild existence.
    • He began to drink heavily, and his wife left him. In June 1835 he hired lawyer Henry Smith to straighten out his financial problems. Instead, Smith obtained the patent for Brass’s property in his own name by taking advantage of his client’s excessive drinking. During one of these terrible bouts, in June 1837, he was arrested on a charge of raping eight-year-old Mary Ann Dempsey of Loughborough, who had been left in his care.
    • To defend him against the charge of rape he employed lawyers Henry Cassady and John A. Macdonald. The trial, which took place on 7 October before judge Jonas Jones, was a major sensation. The “very able defence” was led by the 22-year old Macdonald, who impressed the British Whig as a rapidly rising young lawyer. 
    • After a little more than an hour’s deliberation the jury found Brass guilty. Jones sentenced him to be hanged on 1 December. Many people felt Brass did not deserve to hang. By stressing his father’s military service to the crown in Butler’s Rangers the petition made clear the tension that existed in Loughborough between loyalist families and more recently arrived groups of immigrants.
    • On that day Brass and his executioner, both clad in white gowns, appeared upon the temporary gallows built out of a window in the court-house. In a resolute, calm voice he declared his innocence and repeatedly accused Smith, Acroid, and Caswell of conspiring against him. He asked if these men were present, for he hoped to look down upon them for the last time. When he finished speaking; part of the platform gave way and he dangled, suspended by it for a moment. He was then kicked from the platform and fell, not into eternity, but all the way to his coffin, waiting below. The crowd began to shout murder and a rescue was attempted, but soldiers prevented a riot. The bumbling sheriff, Richard Bullock, cut the noose from Brass’s neck and dragged him up the court-house stairs. Brass shouted triumphantly to the crowd: “You see I am innocent; this gallows was not built for me – ‘tis for Young Henry Smith.” He was thrown from the window a second time, with a shorter rope around his neck, and he plunged to his death with Smith’s name on his lips. Brass was buried the following day, not in the family plot in Kingston but on his farm in Loughborough.
  • Proven United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: Pending as sent reqest to Doug on July 10,2025
  • Find A Grave: Cannot locate. buried on farm.