Pointe Fortune is named in honour of Colonel William Fortune, member of the Prescott County Militia, Loyalist and veteran of the American Revolution, surveyor and first settler in the town of Pointe-Fortune.
William Fortune was born in Ireland in 1748 and emigrated to North America with his parents and siblings, arriving in Charleston South Carolina in August 1767 aboard the ship Britannia. Upon arrival, the Fortune family members were given land grants in Fairfield District/County in north central South Carolina where William Fortune obtained a 100 acre lot. Married around 1770, not much is known of his young adulthood other than he seems to have remained a Loyalist for much of the American Revolution, and as a member of a Loyalist American regiment in South Carolina, fought at the Battle of Camden and the Battle of Eutaws. It appears that he was captured at one point and may have unwillingly fought under American Colonel Thomas Taylor as William Fortune’s name appears on a list of Taylor’s deserters. Upon cessation of the American Revolution, William Fortune sailed for England in 1783 but returned to North America in 1788, landing in Quebec City. Working as a surveyor, he is granted land in lieu of payment in the area of present-day Plantagenet and in 1797, a further 1000 acres near present-day Pointe-Fortune, where he is considered the first settler of the town. By 1803, William Fortune is a Colonel with the Prescott County Militia but returns to England around 1812. He dies in the village of Hurstpierpoint, England in 1822.
