Places: the Joseph Brant House, Burlington, Ontario

One can tell a lot about a person by the company they keep and the influences they choose to emulate.  Such is the case is with Joseph Brant's later home in Burlington, Ontario

Some have tried to make Joseph's story out to be a rags-to-riches tale of a young boy with little hope of status in his tribe rising to a life of wealth through the patronage of an English Indian Agent.  But that narrative doesn't do Joseph any justice.  He was not born in poverty and his mother was of sufficient status in their tribe to become the wife of a sachem.  Joseph's stepfather, whose last name he took, lived on a farm with a large farmhouse not indistinguishable from that of their White neighbors.  Members of John Sullivan's 1779 expedition commented on the prosperity of Iroquois farms.  The Brant home was respectable enough that Sir William Johnson, Superintendent of the British Indian Department, felt comfortable staying there.

In 1763 Sir William built Johnson Hall, in present-day Johnstown, New York.  Once he and Molly, Joseph's sister, began their relationship Joseph was a frequent guest at Johnson Hall.  He learned more than just how wealthy Whites lived.  He learned how a man of stature behaved, how he entertained his guests, and how he expected to be perceived in the world.  Joseph would one day try to recreate that world for himself.  After the Revolution, he built a home for himself near what is now Brantford, Ontario, but over time, as his power within his society waned, he decided on a home further away.  He settled in what is now Burlington, Ontario, and began work on a home that was a deliberate half-scale model of Johnson Hall.  His power as a leader may have been on the decline, but he wasn't about to let the world know it.  In that time, keeping up appearances was just as important in Native society as it was in the White world.  Unfortunately, Joseph would only have a few years to enjoy his new home.  He died in 1807 and the house is now a museum.