Philip VanKoughnet
Canadian politician (1790-1873)
Colonel The Hon. Philip VanKoughnet (April 2, 1790 – May 7, 1873) M.P., was a landowner, businessman and political figure in Upper Canada.
Career
Born in New Johnstown (Cornwall), 2 April 1790, he was the son of Michael VanKoughnet (1751–1832), a landowner and United Empire Loyalist. He was educated at the elitist school run by John Strachan which automatically placed him among the Family Compact. He fought at the Battle of Crysler's Farm during the War of 1812. In 1816, he was elected to the 7th Parliament of Upper Canada representing Stormont & Russell. In 1833, he was part of a commission to establish a canal at Cornwall to improve transportation along the Saint Lawrence River, that brought him a personal profit of £10,000. VanKoughnet Island, off the canal, was named for him.
In 1832, Philip VanKoughnet inherited his father's extensive lands in Upper Canada (which he bought in 1783 after the Americans had put a price on his head for his loyalty to the Crown) adding to them over time until at his death he owned the entirety of the district. His father had named the original settlement 'New Johnstown', after Johnstown (New York) where the Colonel's grandfather, John, or Johann Eberhardt von Gochnat (1712–1770), had lived on arriving from Alsace in 1751.
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This entry incorporates text from “Philip VanKoughnet” 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.