Events from the year 1862 in Canada.

Incumbents

  • Monarch — Victoria

Federal government

  • Parliament — 7th

Governors

  • Governor General of the Province of Canada — Viscount Monck
  • Colonial Governor of Newfoundland — Alexander Bannerman
  • Governor of New Brunswick — Arthur Charles Hamilton-Gordon
  • Governor of Nova Scotia — George Phipps, 2nd Marquess of Normanby
  • Governor of Prince Edward Island — George Dundas

Premiers

  • Joint Premiers of the Province of Canada –
  • John A. Macdonald, Canada West Premier (until May 24)
  • George-Étienne Cartier, Canada East Premier (until May 24)
  • John Sandfield MacDonald, Canada West Premier
  • Louis-Victor Sicotte, Canada East Premier
  • Premier of Newfoundland — Hugh Hoyles
  • Premier of New Brunswick — Samuel Leonard Tilley
  • Premier of Nova Scotia – Joseph Howe
  • Premier of Prince Edward Island – Edward Palmer

Events

  • April 7 – United Kingdom-United States treaty for suppression of African slave trade is signed.
  • May 20 – Macdonald-Cartier government falls. Free interprovincial trade granted by the Crown.
  • August 2 – Victoria, British Columbia, is incorporated as a city

Full date unknown

  • The first female student is accepted into Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick
  • The 1862 Pacific Northwest smallpox epidemic sweeps through Fort Victoria area and up the length of the northwest coast, killing an estimated 20,000 First Nations people
  • William Duncan, an Anglican missionary on the northwest coast, establishes the village of Metlakatla with 50 Tsimshian followers, who adopt the Christian faith and a European lifestyle. By 1880, more than 1,000 converts live there.
  • Construction begins on the Cariboo Wagon Road to link coastal shipping to Barkerville and the Cariboo goldfields.

Births

  • January 9 – Joseph-Octave Samson, businessperson, politician and 28th Mayor of Quebec City (died 1945
  • June 29 – William Johnston Tupper, politician, 12th Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba (died 1947)
  • July 8 – Josephine White Bates, Canadian-born American author (died 1934)

Deaths

  • August 8 – Allan MacNab, businessman, soldier, lawyer and politician (born 1798)
  • August 18 – Simon Fraser, fur-trader and explorer (born 1776)

References