Jos Montferrand National Historic Person (1802–1864)
© Canada Post Corporation / Library and Archives Canada
Jos Montferrand was designated as a national historic person in 2023.
Historical importance: folk hero of the 19th century with values based on strength, endurance, courage, and resilience, worked mainly as a foreman and master raftsman in the lumber industry in the Ottawa Valley.
Commemorative plaque: no plaque installedFootnote 1
Jos Montferrand (Joseph Montferrand dit Favre) (1802–1864)
Jos Montferrand was a 19th-century folk hero. His exploits were embellished during his lifetime and well known wherever French was spoken in North America. He worked as a foreman and master raftsman in the lumber industry of the Ottawa Valley. Part of the national narrative of French Canadians, the legend of Montferrand hails his physical strength, courage, altruism, and his role as protector of French Canadians. Over the years, all manner of media, including plays, novels, and songs, elevated him to legendary status. Montferrand lives on in the popular imagination of Canadians. He was also known as ‘Big Joe Mufferaw,’ and ‘Joe Mufraw’ in the United States, where the legend of Montferrand was popularized as French Canadian loggers travelled across North America. He also exemplifies the masculine culture that prevailed in the working-class world of the 19th century, the characteristics of which can be directly linked to working conditions. Montferrand’s journey reflects a culture grounded in the values of physical strength, endurance, courage, and resilience.
© BAnQ / Public domain / 0002745862
Born in Montréal on 25 October 1802, Montferrand grew to a height of nearly two metres, which was exceptional for the time. In 1818, he worked as a carter at the Port of Montréal. That same year, he became Canadian boxing champion by winning an English boxing bout, “where feet came to aid fists,” held at the Champs-de-Mars in Montréal. He often defended his title and remained undefeated. After a brief period of employment with the Hudson’s Bay Company, Montferrand worked in lumber camps in the Laurentians and then in the Ottawa Valley in 1827. Two years later, he became the right-hand man of lumberman Baxter Bowman. From 1829 to 1840, he worked as a foreman during the winters. In the spring he drove massive rafts (logs lashed together) from the Outaouais to Québec. After 1840, he worked mainly as a master raftsman. He married in 1852 and retired around 1857. After his wife’s death in 1863, he remarried the following year. On 4 October 1864, he died at his home in the Saint-Louis neighbourhood of Montréal.
Champion of French Canadians, Montferrand constantly defended his crown in single combat, whether in the boxing ring or at the colony’s “hot spots:” the construction sites, ports, and taverns where disputes were often settled with fists and boots. His life was studded with exploits often recounted in ways that praised his skill, agility, and strength. By 1829, competition between Irish-born men (known as Shiners) and French Canadians for jobs in the lumber industry was intensifying in the Outaouais. Montferrand was seen as a protector of French Canadians in this conflict. His most notable feat came in 1829, when he routed a group of Shiners, estimated to have been as many as 150 in number, who had ambushed him on the bridge from Hull (now Gatineau) to Bytown (now Ottawa). Whether fact or fiction, this episode became legendary.
This press backgrounder was prepared at the time of the Ministerial announcement in 2024.
The National Program of Historical Commemoration relies on the participation of Canadians in the identification of places, events and persons of national historic significance. Any member of the public can nominate a topic for consideration by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada.
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