POWELL, William Dummer: 1755 - 1834
William Powell was born in 1755 in Boston, eldest son of John Powell and Janet Grant. Descended on both sides of his family from seventeenth century English emigrants to Massachusetts, his maternal grandfather, William Dummer, had been a lieutenant governor of the colony and his father was a prosperous Boston merchant.
William was educated in England but by 1772 had returned to Boston. For a time he studied law under the Attorney General of Massachusetts, Jonathan Sewall. His family was politically divided at the time of the Revolutionary War—William’s father a declared Loyalist but his brothers, Rebels. William was one of the organizers of a declaration of loyal citizens in Boston in 1775 and served as a volunteer with the British garrison. With open rebellion approaching, William felt threatened and left that year for England, marrying Anne Murray, the daughter of a Scottish physician, just before departure. In England he studied law at the Middle Temple.
In 1779, William Powell moved to Montreal where he set up a successful private law practice and lived with his family in a fine house on Mount Royal. In 1789, before the separation of Upper and Lower Canada, he was appointed the sole presiding Judge of the Court of Common Pleas and resided in Detroit. He later moved to York (Toronto) and was offered a seat on the Upper Canada Executive Council under Lieutenant Governor Gore in 1808.
Throughout the American occupation of York during the War of 1812, Powell resolutely remained there and helped to pressure the American commander to maintain order and protect property. In 1816, Powell was named Chief Justice of Upper Canada.(1) The Powells acquired considerable property in the town of York which had a population of less than 2000 in those years. The Powells built a small log home at the corner of York and Front streets in the block where the Royal York Hotel is now located. Their country home, a large estate north of College Street, was known as Caer Howell. In 1828, fifty acres of this country property were sold to Bishop Strachan for King’s College (now the University of Toronto).(2)
William Powell and his wife Anne had eight children. A daughter, Mary Bowles Powell, married Samuel Peters Jarvis (Tile # 53). A son, Grant Powell, became a medical doctor, Clerk of the Legislative Council and Judge of the Home District Court and is memorialized on St. Alban’s Tile # 24. A grandson, John Powell, became the fifth mayor of Toronto. The Powells also experienced tragedy in their family life. Chief Justice Powell suffered great anxiety and spent a great deal of money rescuing a son who had been sentenced to death for revolutionary activities in South America. The unfortunate young man drowned a year after his dramatic rescue. One daughter was drowned at sea while purportedly pursuing her love, a married man, to Europe. A granddaughter gained notoriety when she became the first woman divorced under Ontario law for the cause of adultery.
William Powell died in Toronto in 1834. He and his wife, who died in 1849 in her ninety-first year, were buried at Caer Howell but were later reinterred in St. James Cemetery.(3)
1. “Powell, William Dummer,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online, Vol. VI.
2. “Historic Houses” (Toronto Historical Society for the City of Toronto, 2002).
3. The vault at Caer Howell was deconsecrated in 1869 and the dead were moved to St. James Cemetery..