The Rebellion of 1837 in Toronto was a short armed uprising led by the newspaper publisher William Lyon Mackenzie against the colonial government of Upper Canada. Rebels gathered at Montgomery’s Tavern on Yonge Street, north of the city, in the first week of December 1837, and a force of militia and volunteers scattered them on December 7. Two of the rebel leaders, Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews, were hanged at the Toronto jail on April 12, 1838.
The events lasted about a week, but the questions behind them, who should govern the colony and who should answer to whom, shaped the political settlement of the 1840s. This page follows the days in order, shows where sources disagree, and points to the places in the city that keep the memory.
Timeline of December 1837
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Mid-October 1837 | Mackenzie meets radical Reformers at John Doel’s house and proposes seizing the government. |
| December 1 | Mackenzie writes a declaration of independence, to be printed and distributed. |
| December 2 | He presents the plan at Stouffville. The march on Toronto is set for Thursday, December 7. |
| December 4 | Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Moodie is shot at Montgomery’s Tavern while trying to ride through to warn the government. Rebels gather through the night. |
| December 5 | Rebels march south on Yonge Street and exchange fire with loyalist pickets under Sheriff William Botsford Jarvis. Most then scatter. |
| December 6 | Mackenzie seizes the western mail coach. Loyalist commanders hold a council of war and decide to attack. |
| December 7 | Government forces march up Yonge Street and defeat the rebels at Montgomery’s Tavern. The tavern is burned. |
| December 11 | Mackenzie reaches the American shore. |
| April 12, 1838 | Lount and Matthews are hanged in Toronto. |
Why the uprising happened
Mackenzie, a newspaper publisher and politician, opposed the Family Compact, the small elite that ran Upper Canada through patronage, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia. His follower base was among farmers and radical Reformers north of Toronto. For him the aim of the march was at first an armed demonstration, in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography’s account, and not a battle.
The government was badly prepared. Accounts of the rebellion agree that Lieutenant Governor Sir Francis Bond Head sent the regular troops stationed in Toronto to Lower Canada, where the Patriote rising had begun in the autumn. By late November there were no professional soldiers left in the city, and the defense depended on militia and volunteers. Historians differ on the cause of the crisis. Some stress Bond Head’s partisanship and some Mackenzie’s rash behavior, and the sources read for this page do not settle the question.
The plan and the march
According to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Mackenzie settled in late November on December 7 as the date and planned a provincial convention for December 31. He chose Montgomery’s Tavern, on Yonge Street several miles north of the city, as the rendezvous. Samuel Lount, a blacksmith and former member of the assembly for Simcoe County, recruited men from the area south of Lake Simcoe. His men had already started south on December 3.
On the night of December 4, while scouting, Mackenzie’s party met Alderman John Powell, who shot and killed Anthony Anderson and escaped to warn Toronto. The same day Moodie, a former British army officer living at Richmond Hill, set out to warn the lieutenant governor and was shot and fatally wounded at the rebel barricade on Yonge Street. A plaque in his memory gives December 4 as the date, and local histories call him the first casualty. Other sources place his death at the battle on December 7, so the date is treated here as the plaque gives it.
On December 5 Mackenzie spent the day, in the biographical account, acting against Tory families and their property instead of marching. When several hundred rebels finally went south, they were turned back near Yonge and Maitland streets by a picket under Sheriff Jarvis. The Canadian Encyclopedia puts the marchers at about 800, and many deserted afterward.
December 7 at Montgomery’s Tavern
The government side gathered quickly. Allan MacNab reached Toronto on December 5 with about 60 men and was given command, then gave way to James FitzGibbon at the council of war on December 6. On December 7 the force marched north up Yonge Street. The size of the two sides is reported differently, as the table shows.
| Source | Rebels | Government forces |
|---|---|---|
| Canadian Encyclopedia, entry on Montgomery’s Tavern | about 500 remaining on December 7 | roughly 1,000 militia and volunteers |
| Canadian Encyclopedia, plain-language summary | about 1,000 gathered over four days | not stated |
| Wikipedia, Battle of Montgomery’s Tavern | not stated | about 1,200 in the text, 1,000 in the infobox |
Colonel Anthony Van Egmond, an experienced soldier chosen as the rebels’ military leader, arrived a few hours before the fight. He judged the position hopeless and, according to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Mackenzie ordered a defense anyway. Mackenzie also sent Peter Matthews with about 60 men to the bridge over the Don River east of the city as a diversion. Matthews’s party killed one man and set the bridge and some houses on fire before being driven off.
At the tavern the fight was short. The Canadian Encyclopedia says the skirmish lasted about 15 minutes and that two cannonballs passed through the building. Government artillery fired on the rebels posted in the woods and behind fences, and they fled. Ludwig Wideman is named as the only rebel killed at the tavern. The Canadian Encyclopedia’s summary says only three men died in the early stages of the Upper Canada rebellion: two rebels and one loyalist. The same summary states that the loyalist force included about 120 Black soldiers. Bond Head ordered the tavern burned, and the text of a plaque at the site says that lists of Mackenzie’s supporters were seized before the building was burned.
Flight, trials, and executions
Mackenzie fled to the United States, reaching the American shore on December 11, 1837. He backed a scheme to invade Upper Canada from Navy Island in the Niagara River. British troops and Canadian militia bombarded the island and destroyed the supply ship Caroline, and the force withdrew on January 14, 1838. Mackenzie was tried in the United States in June 1839 for violating neutrality laws and received a fine of USD 10 and 18 months in jail. He was pardoned in May 1840, after less than a year.
Lount tried to cross Lake Erie by boat, was blown back, and was arrested. Matthews fled and was captured at a farmhouse in York Township. Both were convicted of treason and petitioned for mercy. Lieutenant Governor Sir George Arthur and the Executive Council refused clemency despite petitions bearing thousands of signatures, and the two men were hanged in the courtyard of the Toronto jail on April 12, 1838. Matthews’s property was seized and returned to his family in 1848.
The tavern keeper John Montgomery had not backed the armed rising and had fallen out with Mackenzie. He was convicted of high treason all the same. His death sentence was commuted, he escaped on the way to Fort Henry and reached Rochester, New York, and he was pardoned in 1843. Many others were tried, and accounts report that 92 were sent to Van Diemen’s Land, now Tasmania. Van Egmond died of an illness caught in prison.
What followed
Lord Durham’s report of 1839 called for the merger of the two colonies, and the Act of Union of 1841 created the Province of Canada. The Canadian Encyclopedia dates responsible government in British North America to 1848. In February 1849 the Baldwin and La Fontaine ministry passed an amnesty act that covered Mackenzie. He toured the country and settled again in Toronto by early May 1850.
Where to see the history
Montgomery’s Tavern stood on Yonge Street near Eglinton Avenue. A plaque placed there on May 15, 1925 is now maintained by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, and the site is a national historic site. No remains of the tavern are known to survive and its exact footprint is lost. Postal Station K stood on the site until the property was sold in 2012. A separate Ontario plaque in Richmond Hill remembers Moodie, whose grave is at Holy Trinity Church in Thornhill.
Frequently asked questions
When was the Rebellion of 1837 in Toronto?
The rebels gathered from December 4, 1837, and the fighting at Montgomery’s Tavern took place on December 7, 1837.
Who led the rebellion?
William Lyon Mackenzie led it, with Samuel Lount, Peter Matthews, and Colonel Anthony Van Egmond as principal figures. Colonel James FitzGibbon led the government force.
What happened to Lount and Matthews?
Both were convicted of treason and hanged in the courtyard of the Toronto jail on April 12, 1838.
Did the rebellion succeed?
Not as a military action. It was put down within days. The political changes that followed, the Act of Union in 1841 and responsible government in 1848, came through other channels.
Related reading
- An overview of Toronto’s history
- William Lyon Mackenzie: the man behind the rising
- Robert Baldwin and responsible government
- Black history in Toronto in the 1830s and after
- Fort York and the defense of the town
Last verified: October 2026
Sources
- Dictionary of Canadian Biography: William Lyon Mackenzie; Samuel Lount; Peter Matthews the Dictionary of Canadian Biography
- The Canadian Encyclopedia: Montgomery’s Tavern; Rebellions of 1837-38 (plain-language summary)
- Historic marker text for Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Moodie, Richmond Hill
- Wikipedia, Battle of Montgomery’s Tavern (for troop movements, used as secondary support only)
Cite this page
APA: History of Toronto. (2026, October 23). The 1837 Rebellion in Toronto: Mackenzie and Montgomery’s Tavern. https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/rebellion-of-1837-toronto
MLA: “The 1837 Rebellion in Toronto: Mackenzie and Montgomery’s Tavern.” History of Toronto, 23 Oct. 2026, https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/rebellion-of-1837-toronto. Accessed .
Chicago: History of Toronto. “The 1837 Rebellion in Toronto: Mackenzie and Montgomery’s Tavern.” Last modified October 23, 2026. https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/rebellion-of-1837-toronto.
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