Molson: The Birth of a Business Empire

Gratien Allaire is a professor of history at Laurentian University in
Sudbury, Ontario.

Douglas Hunter narrates the story of John Molson, who was born, in 1763,
into an English gentry family, and died in 1836, leaving a
Montreal-based business empire that comprised a brewery—the main
source of the family’s wealth and power—transportation assets,
agricultural land, urban lots, banking interests, and other ventures.
Molson was not involved in the fur trade. His enterprises were more in
tune with a changing world, and business opportunities arising from the
industrial revolution (e.g., steamships on the St. Lawrence).

Hunter devotes considerable space to introducing various members of the
Molson family (including the privateer uncle) and explaining the
background to events and enterprises. These long explanations often
distract from the main story. Some could have been expressed more
concisely. Others could have been ignored completely. What is the
relevance, for example, of the eruption of Iceland’s Laki volcano in
1783? French Canadians are almost totally absent; from this the reader
can conclude that (i) they were not present in Molson’s business
world, or (ii) Hunter was too much influenced by Donald Creighton’s
Commercial Empire of the St. Lawrence, which has been questioned by
numerous historians.