1864 in Canada

Events from the year 1864 in Canada.

Incumbents

Crown

• Monarch – Victoria<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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Federal government

• Parliament — 8th

Governors

• Governor General of the Province of Canada — Charles Monck, 4th Viscount Monck
• Colonial Governor of Newfoundland — Anthony Musgrave
• Governor of New Brunswick — Arthur Charles Hamilton-Gordon
• Governor of Nova Scotia — Charles Hastings Doyle then Richard Graves MacDonnell then Sir William Fenwick Williams
• Governor of Prince Edward Island — George Dundas

Premiers

• Joint Premiers of the Province of Canada –
  • John Alexander Macdonald, Canada West Premier
  • Étienne-Paschal Taché, Canada East Premier
• Premier of Newfoundland — Hugh Hoyles
• Premiers of New Brunswick — Samuel Leonard Tilley
• Premiers of Nova Scotia – Charles Tupper
• Premier of Prince Edward Island – John Hamilton Gray

Events

• June 29 – St-Hilaire train disaster : A train of newly arrived immigrants fails to stop at the open swing span near Beloeil, Canada East. The Grand Trunk Railway train runs into the Richelieu River, killing 99.
• June 30 – Macdonald-Cartier "Great Coalition" government formed.
• July 18 – US Civil War: North-South negotiations begin at Niagara Falls, New York
• September 1 – September 9: Charlottetown Conference, noted as the first step towards Confederation<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• September 19 – Confederate agents use Canada as base for attempt to free Confederate prisoners of war on Johnson's Island in Lake Erie.
• October 10 – October 27: Quebec Conference,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• October 19 – St. Albans Raid<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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Births

File:William Hearst.jpg

William Howard Hearst

• January 11 – Henry Marshall Tory,<ref>Henry Marshall Tory</ref> Canadian university founder (died 1947)
• February 15<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• March 31 – J. J. Kelso,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• July 27 – Ernest Howard Armstrong, journalist, politician and Premier of Nova Scotia (died 1946)
• October 3 – William Robson, politician (died 1941)
• October 8 – Ozias Leduc,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> painter (died 1955)

• November 9 – James Alexander Murray, politician and Premier of New Brunswick (died 1960)
• November 24<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• December 14 – Henry Edgarton Allen, politician

Deaths

• February 20 – Rose Fortune,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> entrepreneur (born 1774)

• February 26 – Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine, politician (born 1807)
• April 29 – Abraham Pineo Gesner, physician and surgeon, geologist, and inventor (born 1797)

Historical documents

Report from a Confederate agent in Canada (including failed breakout at Johnson's Island POW camp)<ref>A Leaf from History; Report of J. Thompson, Secret Agent of the Late Confederate Government, Stationed in Canada(...) (Union Republican Congressional Committee). Accessed 8 September 2018</ref>

Brief account of Confederate agents' raid on St. Albans, Vermont<ref>"Andrew Craig Fletcher to Andrew and Ruth Fletcher, 1864 October 20" Fletcher Family, Digital Collections, The University of Vermont Libraries. Accessed 20 September 2018</ref>

Consequences in the U.S.A. follow the freeing of the St. Albans raiders by a Canadian court<ref>United States Department of State, "Raids from the British Province" Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the First Session Thirty-Ninth Congress (1865), pgs. 51-2. Accessed 8 September 2018</ref>

Canadian in the Union Army describes desperate Confederate assaults at Battle of Franklin, Tennessee <ref>"Letter, Alonzo Wolverton to his sister Roseltha Wolverton Goble, December 4, 1864" Examples of Wolverton Family Letters from Darroch Donation, Archives of Ontario. Accessed 8 September 2018</ref>

Illustration: Battle of Franklin<ref>Kurz & Allison, "Battle of Franklin. November 30, 1864-Union (Gen. Schofield) ... Conf. (Gen. Hood) ..." (1891). Accessed 23 September 2021</ref>

Intelligence reports that Greek fire is being manufactured at Windsor, Ontario for burning Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit and other U.S. cities<ref>Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the First Session Thirty-ninth Congress; Part I (1866), pgs. 36-7. Accessed 29 January 2020</ref>

Halifax, Nova Scotia sends a message of support to President Lincoln<ref>United States Department of State, "To his Excellency Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America" Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the Second Session Thirty-Eighth Congress (1864), pgs. 126-7. Accessed 8 September 2018</ref>

Speaker in Montreal argues the U.S.A. is not hostile toward Canada <ref>Rev. John Cordner, Canada and the United States: An Address on the American Conflict(...) (1865). Accessed 8 September 2018</ref>

Excerpts from George Brown's letter describing the Charlottetown Conference<ref>"George Brown describes the Charlottetown Conference, 1864" Canadian Confederation, Library and Archives Canada. Accessed 6 September 2021</ref>

Good prospects for the port of Collingwood, Canada West<ref>"Opening of Navigation" Enterprise, Collingwood, C.W. Accessed 8 September 2018</ref>