19 Facts About Joseph Frobisher

Joseph Frobisher was elected to the 1st Parliament of Lower Canada and was a seigneur with estates totalling 57,000 acres.

Joseph Frobisher was a founding member of the North West Company and the Beaver Club, of which he was chairman.

Joseph Frobisher was the third of five sons born to Joseph Frobisher and Rachel Hargreaves.

Joseph Frobisher had a more varied experience, dividing his time between Grand Portage, other posts, and Montreal.

When Benjamin died unexpectedly in 1787, as Joseph Frobisher knew very little at that stage of the management side of the business, the two brothers went into partnership with Simon McTavish; both firms being part of the North West Company.

Joseph Frobisher was named a justice of the peace in 1788.

Joseph Frobisher was elected to the 1st Parliament of Lower Canada for Montreal East in 1792.

Joseph Frobisher was secretary for the Beaver Club at Montreal.

Joseph Frobisher was part-owner of the Batiscan Iron Works and, with his partners, purchased the seigneury of Champlain, located on the north shore of St Lawrence River, near present-day Trois-Rivieres.

Joseph Frobisher served in the local militia, becoming major by 1806.

Joseph Frobisher had a large townhouse in Montreal on St Gabriel Street and extensive landholdings throughout Quebec.

The wife of Lieutenant Governor Sir John Graves Simcoe observed in her diary that Mrs Joseph Frobisher, "lived in great style and comfort, and had an excellent garden".

Since retiring from the fur trade in 1798, the sociable Mr Joseph Frobisher had enjoyed the good life and developed a passion for sumptuous dining to the extent that he kept a diary specifically for recording his dinner parties.

Joseph Frobisher's dining room comfortably sat forty guests, and even though he was not in the best of health from 1806, he continued to dine out or entertain in his home every night of the week.

Joseph Frobisher was secretary and chairman of the Beaver Club from 1807 until his death, and they frequently met at Frobisher's home.

Joseph Frobisher died at Beaver Hall in 1810, and his home succumbed to fire in 1847.

In 1779, at the Anglican service in Montreal, Joseph Frobisher married a girl twenty years his junior.

Joseph Frobisher was Charlotte Jobert, daughter of surgeon Jean-Baptiste Jobert and Charlotte Larcheveque.

The Joseph Frobisher brothers gave their name to the Baffin Island community called Joseph Frobisher Bay, which in 1987 was renamed Iqaluit, and is the capital city of Nunavut territory.