Brock and Tecumseh: What’s In a Name?

Allies in arms, Isaac Brock and Tecumseh died in separate battles within a year of each other. Brock, commander of British forces in Upper Canada, fell at Queenston Heights on 13 October 1812, while Tecumseh, the great Shawnee chief, was killed near Moraviantown on the Thames on 5 October 1813. Initiatives to honour both were swift in coming. In January 1813, a frigate, Sir Isaac Brock, was begun at York [now Toronto], only to be burned four months later when partly completed to prevent it from falling into the hands of US invaders. The schooner Tecumseth, launched at Chippewa in 1815, carried an alternate spelling of the chief’s name found occasionally and only in Canada. More recently, in 1941, the Canadian Navy christened its Calgary naval reserve division HMCS Tecumseh.

Today there is no shortage of places, schools, roads, and even people named for the two heroes. Ontario has Brockville and Brock Township as well as towns of Tecumseh and New Tecumseth. Saskatchewan boasts a village of Brock and rural municipalities that recall both warriors. In the United States no fewer than five towns carry Tecumseh’s name, the largest being in Michigan. Two villages, one in Nebraska and the other in Texas, are called Brock but probably have no connection with Sir Isaac.

Brock University in St. Catharines, ON., gives lustre to Sir Isaac’s name, as do dozens of schools and high schools. Tecumseh is similarly commemorated across both Canada and the US. In 1837 Upper Canada’s Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Francis Bond Head, in approving a subdivision of Toronto’s Garrison Common, called four streets created there Brock (now Spadina), Portland, Bathurst, and Tecumseth. Whitby boasts a Brock Road and Windsor a Tecumseh Road, both leading to places with those names.

Tecumseh has been a sometime middle name among Americans since the father of William Tecumseh Sherman, the great Union General in the US Civil War, called his eighth son after the chief whom he much admired. Today it is carried by a Californian winemaker, a professor at St. Andrew’s University in Scotland, and the fictional character Colonel Sherman T. Potter on M*A*S*H, among others. In a subtle salute to history, the winemaker has branded some of his line “Shooting Star,” an English rendering of Tecumseh’s name.

In July 1812, William Wells, a Yankee-born settler in Augusta Township near Brockville, had the fifth of his children baptised Isaac Brock after the still-living leader. Each year since, thousands of Canadian parents have named their offspring ‘Brock,’ currently at a rate of about 200 annually. However, few have attained fame to match that of Isaac Brock of Portland, OR., lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter for the indie rock band, Modest Mouse.