Episodes
Dated historical events that sit within the Order's Canadian story: riots, parades, electoral incidents, and public controversies documented from contemporary press and primary records.
- 1883-12-26
On Saint Stephen's Day 1883, a parade of between four and five hundred Newfoundland Orangemen at Harbour Grace met a blocking crowd of Catholic Riverhead residents. In the confrontation that followed, four men were killed and seventeen injured. Nineteen men were tried in February 1884; all were acquitted. The fallout helped unseat Premier Sir William Whiteway's government in 1885.
- 1885-08-01
Between Louis Riel's conviction at Regina on 1 August 1885 and his execution on 16 November, Orange lodges across Ontario passed resolutions and held public meetings pressing Sir John A. Macdonald's government to refuse clemency. The campaign was driven by the memory of Thomas Scott, shot at Upper Fort Garry in 1870. This page sets out what the record supports, what it does not, and where the surviving evidence is held.