Frederick Widder was a Canada Company

Canada Company

The Canada Company was a large private chartered British land development company, incorporated by an act of British parliament on July 27, 1825, to aid the colonization of Upper Canada. Canada Company assisted emigrants by providing good ships, low fares, implements and tools,and inexpensive land....

 Commissioner, son of a Canada Company London director, with family connections to royalty and the right Anglican connections. His moderate approach and financial innovations for the Canada Company would give him good standing with the pioneers of the Huron Tract

Huron Tract

The Huron Tract Purchase also known as the Huron Block, registered as Crown Treaty Number 29, is a large area of land in southwestern Ontario bordering on Lake Huron to the west and Lake Erie to the east...

 and the reformers of Upper Canada. Widder's administrative talents and dedication to hard work allowed him to overshadow Thomas Mercer Jones

Thomas Mercer Jones

Thomas Mercer Jones was an English-born administrator who arrived in Upper Canada in the 1820s and was employed as a commissioner of the Canada Company based in Goderich. A series of internal conflicts led to his dismissal in 1852. He died in Toronto.- External links :*...

and take the lead in the Canada Company.

Widder's home, Lyndhurst, became a social hub of Toronto. Widder's wife, Elizabeth, entertained in style providing residence of York with some of the social activities missing from Upper Canada society.