Background:
Brockville, formerly Elizabethtown, is a city in Eastern Ontario, Canada in the Thousand Islands region.
This area of Ontario was first settled by English speakers in 1784, when thousands of American refugees arrived from the American colonies after the American Revolutionary War. They were later called United Empire Loyalists because of their continued allegiance to King George III. The struggle between Britain and the 13 American colonies occurred in the years 1776 to 1783, and seriously divided loyalties among people in some colonies such as New York and Vermont. In many areas traders and merchants, especially in the coastal cities or the northern border regions, had stronger business ties and allegiance to the Crown than did the frontiersmen of the interior. During the 6-year war, which ended with the capitulation of the British in 1782, many colonists who remained loyal to the crown were frequently subject to harsh reprisals and unfair dispossession of their property by their countrymen. Many Loyalists chose to flee north to the British colony of Quebec. Great Britain opened the western region of Canada (first known as Upper Canada and now Ontario), purchasing land from First Nations to allocate to the mostly English-speaking Loyalists in compensation for their losses, and helping them with some supplies as they founded new settlements. The first years were very harsh as they struggled on the frontier. Some exiles returned to the United States.
The St. Lawrence River was named by French explorers in the 18th century to honour the martyred Roman Christian, Saint Laurentis. In 1785, the first U.E. Loyalist to take up land, where Brockville is now located, was William Buell Sr. (1751–1832), an ensign disbanded from the King\'s Rangers, from the state of New York. Residents commonly called the first settlement Buell\'s Bay. Around 1810, government officials of Upper Canada assigned the name Elizabethtown for the developing village. However, as this was the name of the surrounding township, the villagers were not satisfied.
During the Summer of 1812, the Hon. Charles Jones, and other leading residents of the village, then known by the misleading name, Elizabethtown, started to refer to the village as Brockville in their correspondence. The commanding British General in Upper Canada and temporary administrator of the province was Major-General Isaac Brock. He was celebrated as the Hero and Saviour of Upper Canada because of his recent success in securing the surrender by Americans of Fort Detroit during the first months of the War of 1812-14.
After the surrender of Fort Detroit, General Brock was next involved in other battles on the Niagara Peninsula. On October 13, 1812, he was fatally wounded while leading troops up the heights near the village of Queenston, then temporarily held by American militia.
A raid on Elizabethtown occurred on the early morning of February 7, 1813, when Benjamin Forsyth and 200 of his American forces crossed the frozen St. Lawrence River occupied the settlement, seized military and public stores, freed American prisoners, and captured local militia soldiers and leading citizens.
General Brock had learned of the honour being offered by the residents of Elizabethtown, but had no chance to give it his official blessing before his death. It took quite a few years for Provincial officials to officially accept the new name, but it became the new name of the village, as far a residents were concerned.
By 1830, the population of Brockville had exceeded the 1000 mark. This entitled it to be represented by its own elected member in the House of Assembly. Henry Jones, the village postmaster, was elected in October 1830 to the 11th Parliament of the Province.
Brockville became Ontario\'s first incorporated self-governing town on January 28, 1832, two years before the town of Toronto. By means of the Brockville Police Act passed by the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada, Brockville was granted the right to govern its own affairs, pass laws, and raise taxes. The first elections for the new Board of Police were held on April 2, 1832, when four male citizens were elected to the Police Board. These four, in turn, chose a fifth member, Daniel Jones, who became the first Police Board President (or Mayor) of Brockville. In March 1836, he became the first native Upper Canadian to receive a knighthood for services to the Crown; from which point he was known as Sir Daniel Jones.
By 1846, the population was 2,111, and there were many buildings made of stone and brick. There was a County Court House and Jail, six churches or chapels, and a steamboat pier for travel to and from Montreal and Kingston. Two newspapers were published, there were two bank agencies and the post office received mail daily. Several court and government departments had offices here. The first industries consisted of one grist mill, four tanneries, two asheries and four wagon makers, in addition to tradesmen of various types.
Later in the 19th century, the town developed as a local centre of industry, including shipbuilding, saddleries, tanneries, tinsmiths, a foundry, a brewery, and several hotels. By 1854, a patent medicine industry had sprung up in Brockville and in Morristown, New York, across the St. Lawrence River, featuring such products as Dr Morses Indian Root Pills, \'Dr. McKenzies Worm Tablets, and later, Dr. Williams Pink Pills for Pale People.
In 1855, Brockville was chosen as a divisional point of the new Grand Trunk Railway between Montreal and Toronto. This contributed to its growth, as it could offer jobs in railway maintenance and related fields. At the same time, the north–south line of the Brockville and Ottawa Railway was built to join the timber trade of the Ottawa Valley with the St. Lawrence River ship route. A well-engineered tunnel for this railway was dug and blasted underneath the middle of Brockville. The Brockville Tunnel was the first railway tunnel built in Canada.
Brockville and many other towns in Canada West were targets of the threatened Fenian invasion after the American Civil War ended in 1865. In June 1866, the Irish-American \'Brotherhood of Fenians\' invaded Canada. They launched raids across the Niagara River into Canada West (Ontario) and from Vermont into Canada East (Quebec). Canadian Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald called upon the volunteer militia companies in every town to protect Canada. The \'Brockville Infantry Company\' and the \'Brockville Rifle Company\' (now The Brockville Rifles) were mobilized. The unsuccessful Fenian Raids were a catalyst that contributed to the creation of the new confederated Dominion of Canada in 1867.
By 1869, Brockville had a population of 5000 and a passenger station on the Grand Trunk Railway. It was the County Town of the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville and a Port of Entry. Steamboats stopped in Brockville daily while plying among Montreal, Kingston, Toronto and Hamilton. The \'Brockville and Ottawa Railway\' connected Brockville with Smith\'s Falls, Perth, Almonte, Carleton Place and Sandy Point. During the summer, a steam ferry plied every half-hour between Brockville and Morristown, New York.

Picturesque Canada 1882 - 1884
The most ambitious Canadian publishing venture involving wood-engraving was Picturesque Canada: The Country As It Was and Is. With text by George Monro Grant, it appeared in serial form in 1882-84 under the imprint of the Art Publishing Co, and in 2-volume book form in 1884. The publishers, H.R. and R.B. Belden, were American expatriates who had started out in Canada as producers of illustrated county atlases.
The art director, L.R. O Brien, began to choose his subjects and commission artists and engravers as early as 1880. He encountered controversy almost immediately; however, his contention that the paucity of skilled Canadians meant that outsiders had to be given the task of depicting his country roused the fury of his chief rival, John A. Fraser, and precipitated Frasers decamping for the US in 1882.
The Canadian contributors were O\\\'Brien himself, Henry Sandham, Fraser, O.R. Jacobi, the marquess of Lorne, William Raphael, F.M. Bell-Smith and Robert Harris; the American contingent, headed by Frederick B. Schell and J. Hogan, vastly outnumbered its Canadian counterpart.
With over 500 illustrations the focus was on regions of Canada not covered in the past. These included illustrations for the following areas: Quebec, French Canada, Montreal, Upper & Lower Ottawa, lumbering, the Upper Lakes, the North-West, Manitoba, Red River, Mennonites, Winnipeg to the Rockies, Niagara and the Welland Canal, Toronto & vicinity, Southern Ontario, Georgian Bay to Muskoka, Central & Eastern Ontario, Lower St. Lawrence, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, PEI, & British Columbia.