Map - Brockville

Brockville, formerly Elizabethtown, is a city in Eastern Ontario, Canada, in the Thousand Islands region. Although it is the seat of the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville, it is politically independent of the county. It is included with Leeds and Grenville for census purposes only.

Known as the "City of the 1000 Islands", Brockville is located on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River, about halfway between Kingston to the west and Cornwall to the east. It is 115 km south of the national capital Ottawa. Brockville faces the village of Morristown, New York, on the south side of the river.

Brockville is situated on land that was inhabited by the St. Lawrence Iroquoians and later by the Oswegatchie people. Brockville is one of Ontario's oldest communities established by Loyalist settlers and is named after the British general Sir Isaac Brock.

Tourist attractions in Brockville include the Brockville Tunnel, Fulford Place, and the Aquatarium.

Human inhabitation of the upper St. Lawrence River dates at least to the late Middle Woodland period by the Point Peninsula people. Iron oxide pictographs on rock faces have been documented on the Fulford property in Brockville and at Hillcrest west of Brockville. From around 1450 until sometime in the 1500s, the St. Lawrence Iroquoians established a cluster of palisaded agricultural villages in the vicinity of Brockville and Prescott, the Roebuck site being the best known. By 1751, the Oswegatchie people had occupied the north shore of the St. Lawrence between Toniato Creek (now known as Jones Creek, in Thousand Islands National Park) and the Long Sault. After negotiations with the British, they withdrew from the frontage on the north shore of the St. Lawrence in 1784, resettling at what is now Lisbon, New York.

This area of Ontario was first settled by English speakers in 1784, when thousands of American refugees arrived from the American colonies after the American Revolutionary War. They were later called United Empire Loyalists because of their continued allegiance to King George III. The struggle between Britain and the 13 American colonies occurred in the years 1776 to 1783, and seriously divided loyalties among people in some colonies such as New York and Vermont. In many areas traders and merchants, especially in the coastal cities or the northern border regions, had stronger business ties and allegiance to the Crown than did the frontiersmen of the interior. During the six-year war, which ended with the capitulation of the British in 1782, many colonists who remained loyal to the crown were frequently subject to harsh reprisals and unfair dispossession of their property by their countrymen. Many Loyalists chose to flee north to the British colony of Quebec. Great Britain opened the western region of Canada (first known as Upper Canada and now Ontario), purchasing land from First Nations to allocate to the mostly English-speaking Loyalists in compensation for their losses, and helping them with some supplies as they founded new settlements. The first years were very harsh as they struggled on the frontier. Some exiles returned to the United States.

The Saint Lawrence River was named by French explorers in the 18th century to honour the martyred Roman Christian, Saint Lawrence. In 1785, the first Loyalist to take up land, where Brockville is now located, was William Buell Sr. (1751–1832), an ensign disbanded from the King's Rangers, from the state of New York. Residents commonly called the first settlement Buell's Bay. Around 1810, government officials of Upper Canada assigned the name Elizabethtown for the developing village. However, as this was the name of the surrounding township, the villagers were not satisfied.

During the Summer of 1812, the Hon. Charles Jones, and other leading residents of the village, then known by the misleading name, Elizabethtown, started to refer to the village as Brockville in their correspondence. The commanding British General in Upper Canada and temporary administrator of the province was Major-General Isaac Brock. He was celebrated as the "Hero and Saviour" of Upper Canada because of his recent success in securing the surrender by Americans of Fort Detroit during the first months of the War of 1812–14.

After the surrender of Fort Detroit, General Brock was next involved in other battles on the Niagara Peninsula. On October 13, 1812, he was fatally wounded while leading troops up the heights near the village of Queenston, then temporarily held by American militia.

A raid on Elizabethtown occurred on the early morning of February 7, 1813, when Benjamin Forsyth and 200 of his American forces crossed the frozen Saint Lawrence River, occupied the settlement, seized military and public stores, freed American prisoners, and captured local militia soldiers and leading citizens.