The Origins of the Mohawk Orange Order
The Orange Lodges have existed in Canada at least since the War of 1812.
The first Lodge was established in Montreal by William Burton, Arthur Hopper, John Dyer, Francis Abbott and several others. The Order was more formally organized in 1830 when Ogle Robert Gowan established the Grand Orange Lodge of British North America in the Upper Canada town of Elizabethtown.
The Orange Lodges have existed in Canada at least since the War of 1812. William Burton travelled to Ireland to obtain the warrant to open the Lodge from the Grand Lodge of Ireland and became the first Grand Master of the Montreal Lodge. In the following years Arthur Hopper was elected the next Grand Master and given the power of granting warrants to subordinate Lodges under the Great Seal of the Grand Lodge of Ireland. The first such Lodge was granted to Robert Birch of Richmond. The Order was more formally organized in 1830 when Ogle Robert Gowan established the Grand Orange Lodge of British North America in the Upper Canada town of Elizabethtown, which became Brockville in 1832 (according to the plaque outside the original lodge in Brockville, Ontario). Gowan immigrated from Ireland in 1829, and became the Grand Master of the Grand Orange Lodge of British North America. His father was the grand master of the Irish Orange Order. Most early members were from Ireland, but later many Scots, English and other Protestant Europeans joined the Order, Jews in addition to Amerindians, such as those in the Mohawk Orange Lodge which survives into the present day.
Oronhyatekha was a Mohawk physician, scholar, and a unique figure in the history of British colonialism.
Oronhyatekha (10 August 1841 – 3 March 1907), (“Burning Sky” or “Burning Cloud” in the Mohawk language, also carried the baptismal name Peter Martin), was a Mohawk physician, scholar, and a unique figure in the history of British colonialism. He was the first known aboriginal scholar at Oxford University; a successful CEO of a multinational financial institution; a native statesman; an athlete of international standing; and an outspoken champion of the rights of women, children, and minorities. He was once thought to be the first Native M.D. in Canada, having gotten his degree in 1866 from Toronto School of Medicine, but Peter Edmund Jones (Ojibwa), from New Credit, has been documented as having graduated a few months before Oronhyatekha. The fact that Oronhyatekha achieved these results during the Victorian era, when racism and pressure for First Nations peoples to assimilate were commonplace, has made him a figure approaching legend in some aboriginal circles.
