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James Mink

American activist

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 27, 2026
Entity authorityQ6139832
Source-derived summary

James Mink was a black man who became a respected businessman in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in the 1850s. He owned a hotel and livery on Adelaide Street near Toronto's St. Lawrence market, where many farmers would stay while in town selling their produce.

In Toronto, he operated the city’s largest livery stable and several coach lines. He operated a hotel called the Mansion House. James Mink, the son of Johan Herkimer's slave named Mink, became a millionaire, as did his brother, George. The Herkimers settled at the east end of Lake Ontario. He had a hotel, livery and coach service in Toronto, while his brother was located in Kingston, Ontario in the 1840s to 1860's. Both brothers started the first public transit system in their respective cities, James from the Town of Yorkville to the St. Lawrence market in downtown Toronto.

Editorial summary

“James Mink” enters the record as american activist. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what James, Mink and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1860—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around James, Mink and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“James Mink” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, James, Mink and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6139832. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1860.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “James Mink”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow James Mink primary sources, James Mink archive and James research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “James Mink”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from James Mink” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.