Everything about Wolfred Nelson totally explained
Wolfred Nelson, (
July 10,
1791 –
June 17,
1863) was from 1854 – 1856 the
mayor of
Montreal,
Quebec. Nelson was born in
Montreal the son of William Nelson, an immigrant to
Colonial America from
Newsham, North Yorkshire,
England. His mother, Jane Dies, was a teacher and daughter of an important land owner in the
New York area.
Along with his younger brother
Robert Nelson, he was known as a member of the
Patriotes and his leading role in the
Lower Canada Rebellion.
Nelson studied at the school of his father in William Henry (today
Sorel, Quebec). He became doctor in January 1811, and subsequently served in that capacity with the British troops in the
War of 1812.
He moved to
Saint-Denis-sur-Richelieu where he opened a
distillery. He entered politics when elected in William Henry in 1827. He supported the
Parti Patriote.
In 1827, he was elected as a member of the
Legislative Assembly, but gave up active politics in 1830, without disavowing his reformist allegiance. He became a Patriote leader in the region of the
Richelieu River valley, and supported the use of arms at the
Assemblée des Six-Comtés in
1837.
In a prelude to the
Lower Canada Rebellion of 1837, Nelson led 5,000
Patriotes in the two-day
Assembly of the Six Counties in
Saint-Charles,
Lower Canada (present-day Quebec), on
October 23 and
October 24,
1837, to protest the government's
Russell Resolutions, taking place despite the
June 15 Proclamation forbidding public assemblies. The conference delegates approved the
Thirteen Resolutions, based on the
republican document
Rights of Man written by
British and later
American Revolutionary Thomas Paine, which was also adopted by proponents of both the
American Revolution and the
French Revolution. A
Column of Liberty was also erected in
Saint-Charles' Square.
On 16 November 1837, he and 25 others were charged with high treason. The following month, on 4 December 1837,
Louis-Joseph Papineau and
Edmund Bailey O’Callaghan joined Nelson at
Saint-Denis where they decided to resist arrest, procure arms and ammunition for the people and declare the independence of Lower Canada.
On February 28, 1838, after having crossed the border from
Vermont, Nelson, along with 300 to 400
Patriotes from a secret group called
Frères Chasseurs, distributed copies of a declaration of independence written by Nelson’s brother,
Robert Nelson. Drawn from the American
Declaration of Independence, the document listed the crimes that
Great Britain had committed against
Lower Canada, as well as the right to overthrow the government.
Later, he led a group of armed citizens who resisted arrest by the British army at
St-Denis. He was arrested soon after. (See
Lower Canada Rebellion.)
Exiled to
Bermuda in 1838, Nelson was granted amnesty by the British colonial government and came back to Montreal in 1842. In 1844, he was elected to the new
Parliament of the Province of Canada. In 1854, he became mayor of Montreal, and he died in June 1863. He is interred in the
Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery in Montreal.
Works
- Report of Dr. Wolfred Nelson, one of the inspectors of the provincial penitentiary, on the present state, discipline, management and expenditure of the district and other prisons in Canada East, 1852 (exit also in French)
- Rapport des Drs. Nelson et Macdonnell, et Zéphirin Perrault, ecr., avocat, sur l'Hôpital de marine et des émigrés de Québec, et correspondance relative aux services du Dr. Robitaille dans le dit hôpital, 1853
- Practical views on cholera, and on the sanitaty, preventive and curative measures to be adopted in the event of a visitation of the epidemic
, 1854 (exit also in French)
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