Brockville

Brockville
City (single-tier)
City of Brockville
Statue of General Isaac Brock outside the courthouse in Downtown Brockville.
Nickname(s): City of 1000 Islands / "Birthplace of The Canadian Flag" (This claim has been widely refuted.)
Motto: Industria, Intelligentia, Prosperitas (Latin: "Diligence, Understanding, Prosperity")
Brockville
Coordinates: 44°35′N 75°41′W / 44.583°N 75.683°W / 44.583; -75.683Coordinates: 44°35′N 75°41′W / 44.583°N 75.683°W / 44.583; -75.683
Country	Canada
Province	Ontario
County	Leeds and Grenville (independent)
Settled	1785
Incorporated	1832
Government
• Type	City
• Mayor	David L. Henderson
• Federal riding	Leeds—Grenville
• Prov. riding	Leeds—Grenville
Area
• Land	20.90 km2 (8.07 sq mi)
• Metro	893.44 km2 (344.96 sq mi)
Population (2011)
• City (single-tier)	21,870
• Density	1,046.2/km2 (2,710/sq mi)
• Metro	39,024
• Metro density	43.7/km2 (113/sq mi)
Time zone	EST (UTC−5)
• Summer (DST)	EDT (UTC−4)
Postal code FSA	K6V
Area code(s)	613
Website	www.brockville.com

Brockville, formerly Elizabethtown, is a city in Eastern Ontario, Canada in the Thousand Islands region. Although it is the seat of the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville, it is politically independent of the county. It is included with Leeds and Grenville for census purposes only.

Known as the "City of the 1000 Islands", Brockville is located on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River opposite Morristown, New York, about halfway between Ontario's Cornwall to the east and Kingston to the west. It is located 115 kilometres (71 miles) south of the national capital of Ottawa. It is one of Ontario's oldest European-Canadian communities and is named after the British general Sir Isaac Brock.

Indigenous peoples lived along both sides of the St. Lawrence River for thousands of years. The first people known to have encountered the Europeans in the area were the St. Lawrence Iroquoians, a group distinct from and preceding the Iroquois nations of the Haudenosaunee, based further to the south. While the explorer Cartier recorded about 200 words in their Laurentian language and the names of two villages, the people had disappeared from the area by the late 16th century. Anthropologists believe they may have been driven out or defeated by the powerful Mohawk people of the Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee), who by then reserved the St. Lawrence Valley as a hunting ground.

This area of Ontario was first settled by English speakers in 1785, when thousands of American refugees arrived from the American colonies after the American Revolutionary War. They were later called United Empire Loyalists because of their continued allegiance to King George III. The struggle between Britain and the 13 American colonies occurred in the years 1776 to 1783, and seriously divided loyalties among people in some colonies such as New York and Vermont. In many areas traders and merchants, especially in the coastal cities or the northern border regions, had stronger business ties and allegiance to the Crown than did the frontiersmen of the interior. During the 6-year war, which ended with the capitulation of the British in 1782, many colonists who remained loyal to the crown were frequently subject to harsh reprisals and unfair dispossession of their property by their countrymen. Many Loyalists chose to flee north to the British colony of Quebec. Great Britain opened the western region of Canada (known as Upper Canada and now Ontario), purchasing land from First Nations to allocate to the mostly English-speaking Loyalists in compensation for their losses, and helping them with some supplies as they founded new settlements. The first years were very harsh as they struggled on the frontier. Some exiles returned to the United States.