The Journal · The Brantford Club
The Premier at the Door: Arthur Sturgis Hardy of Brantford
Arthur Sturgis Hardy, born December 14, 1837, holds what F. D. Reville’s 1920 county history calls “the unique honor of having been the only native son of Brant County to attain Premier honors.” As Premier of Ontario he headed the guest list on The Brantford Club’s opening night, December 31, 1898.
Every founding needs one guest who makes the evening a fact of record, and the Club’s was its own county’s Premier. This entry gives A. S. Hardy the Journal’s treatment: the pioneer stock Reville traces, the office he reached, and the cold New Year’s Eve he spent at 98 George Street while the fires were lit for the first time.
Who was Arthur Sturgis Hardy?
Arthur Sturgis Hardy was Brant County’s own Premier of Ontario, and Reville roots him deep in the county’s soil. The family line he traces runs from Covenanter stock through the north of Ireland to Captain John Hardy near Philadelphia before the Revolution, then to Canada with the Loyalists; grandfather Alexander settled in South Dumfries near Canning and built a mill, and Hardy’s father Russell married Juletta Sturgis, daughter of one of the first settlers of Mount Pleasant. Reville’s point is the one this Journal borrows: “on both sides A. S. Hardy was descended from pioneer Brant County stock.” The Premier at the Club’s first table was not a dignitary imported for the evening; he was the county made good.
- December 14, 1837
- Born in Brant County, of pioneer stock on both sides, per Reville
- The office
- Premier of Ontario, the only native son of Brant County to reach it, in Reville’s accounting
- December 31, 1898
- Heads the list of members present at The Brantford Club’s opening night, per the centennial history’s endnote
- The family thread
- Judge Hardy later chaired the committee whose stenographic report preserved the Bell Memorial proceedings
Opening night, with a Premier at the table
The centennial history’s endnote for December 31, 1898 lists the members present that first night, “headed by the Honourable A. S. Hardy, then Premier of Ontario,” with Harry Cockshutt and Lloyd Harris among the company, on the “bitter cold winter evening” the book still quotes. A sitting Premier spending New Year’s Eve at a brand-new club in his home county told Brantford everything it needed to know about the house’s standing, and the Club has never needed to say it any louder than the endnote does. The whole year that led to that evening is set out in Brantford in 1898.
The name that kept returning
The Hardy name stayed woven into the city’s record after the Premier’s era. When the Bell Memorial proceedings were taken down for the Brant Historical Society, the committee responsible was chaired by Judge Hardy, and the stenographic report he oversaw is part of why the unveiling of October 24, 1917 can be told so exactly today. Families like that are why a city’s records hold: someone keeps minding the ledger.
The county sent its son to run the province; the son came home for New Year’s Eve.
Questions the record answers
Was the Premier of Ontario from Brantford?
Arthur Sturgis Hardy was Brant County’s own, born December 14, 1837, and Reville’s 1920 history counts him the only native son of the county to reach the Premier’s chair in its first century.
Did A. S. Hardy attend The Brantford Club’s opening?
Yes. The Club’s centennial history lists the members present on December 31, 1898 as headed by the Honourable A. S. Hardy, then Premier of Ontario.
Where did the Hardy family come from?
Reville traces Covenanter stock through the north of Ireland and pre-Revolution Philadelphia to Loyalist Canada, then to South Dumfries in Brant County, with the Premier’s mother’s family among the first settlers of Mount Pleasant.
Sources: F. D. Reville, History of the County of Brant (1920), for the family sketch, the birth date, and the native-son distinction; the Club’s centennial history for the opening-night guest list.
The night itself, fires and all, is told in the founding of The Brantford Club.
