Canada Company

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The Canada Company was a large private chartered British land development company, incorporated by an act of British parliament on July 27, 1825, to aid the colonization of Upper Canada. Canada Company assisted emigrants by providing good ships, low fares, implements and tools, and inexpensive land. Scottish novelist, John Galt, was the company's first Canadian superintendent. The government of Upper Canada sold the company 10,000 km² of land for 341 000 pounds. Slightly less than half of the land that was purchased comprised what would become the Huron Tract, located on the eastern shore of Lake Huron, the remainder, located in other areas of Upper Canada, became Clergy reserves under the control of the Clergy Corporation. Galt selected Guelph, Ontario as the company's headquarters. The company surveyed and subdivided this massive area, built roads, mills, and schools and advertised it to buyers in Europe. The company then assisted in the migration of new settlers, bringing them to the area by means of a boat, which the company also owned, on Lake Ontario.

The company's mismanagement and corruption, and its close alliance with the Tory elites, known as the Family Compact was an important contributing factor to the Upper Canada Rebellion in 1837.

The company was dissolved on December 18, 1953.