John Creighton (Ontario politician)
Canadian politician (1817-1885)

John Creighton (August 19, 1817 – January 31, 1885) was an Irish-born publisher, politician and prison official in Ontario, Canada. He served as mayor of Kingston from 1863 to 1865. Creighton was warden of Kingston Penitentiary from 1871 to 1885.
Biography
The son of Hugh Creighton and Mary Young, he was born near Clandeboye, County Down and came to Kingston with his family in 1823. Creighton was educated at the Midland District Grammar School. He worked as an apprentice printer in Montreal, then returned to Kingston to work for the Kingston Chronicle & Gazette. He became president of the Kingston Typographical Society in 1844. In 1846, he moved to the Kingston Argus; he also contributed articles to the paper.
On October 8th of 1850, Creighton married Frances Coverdale, the sister of architect William Coverdale, who designed Kingston Penitentiary and Kingston City Hall.
He became a clerk in a book and stationery store in 1851, later buying the store.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “John Creighton (Ontario politician)” as canadian politician (1817-1885). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q18149655. VIAF identifies the subject as 29453657. The Library of Congress control number is nr99018812. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1817, 1885, 1863 and 1865.
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This entry incorporates text from “John Creighton (Ontario politician)” 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.