John Molson (original) (raw)

December 28, 1763 - January 1836Born in Spalding, England and orphaned as a young child, John Molson immigrated to Canada in 1782. In 1786, he used the money his parents left him to buy a small brewery in Montreal. His first steam ship, the Accommodation, was the first successful steamboat built entirely in North America. In 1821, he built the colony’s first distillery and financed the Champlain and Saint Lawrence Railroad, the first railway in Canada. This railway opened in 1836 and ran twenty-three kilometers between the St. Lawrence and Richelieu rivers. President of the Bank of Montreal from 1826, he was also a member of the House of Assembly of Lower Canada from 1816 to 1820 and was appointed a member of the Legislative Council of Lower Canada in 1832. Master: 1791 _St. Paul’s Lodge, Montreal_Provincial Grand Master: 13 June, 1826 Lower Canada Source: Shirley E. Wards Jr., The Molson Saga 1763-1983. 1983. pp. 26, 69, 85, 96.