Benjamin Joseph Frobisher was born in Montreal in 1782 and died in Quebec City in 1821. He was the second child of Joseph Frobisher and Charlotte Jobert. In 1804, Frobisher married Isabella Grant, daughter of James Grant and Susannah Coffin, stepdaughter to John Craigie. They had one son. In 1805, Frobisher became the director of the Quebec Assembly, a social club, and from 1806 to 1812, he was a member of the Fire Society in Quebec. He received a commission as justice of the peace for the district of Trois-Rivières in 1805 and served in the district of Trois-Rivières militia as captain in 1810, then as major (1812) and lieutenant-colonel (1815) of the Sainte-Anne battalion.
Brother of Joseph Frobisher, the fur trader, Benjamin Frobisher was born in Halifax, England. He emigrated to Canada where he was involved in the fur-trade as early as 1765, in partnership with John Welles. Later he and his brothers, Joseph and Thomas, were associated with James McGill. It appears that he looked after the Montréal end of the business of Frobisher and Co., in partnership with his brothers and never went west of Grand Portage. He died in Montréal.
Charlotte Frobisher (born Charlotte Jobert) was born in 1761 and died in 1816. She was the daughter of surgeon Jean-Baptiste Jobert and Charlotte Larcheveque and was the sister-in-law of Charles-Jean-Baptiste Chaboillez. Frobisher married Joseph Frobisher (1748-1810, fur trader) in 1779 and had twelve children. They lived in Montreal.
Joseph Frobisher was born on April 15, 1740, in Halifax, England, and died on September 12, 1810, in Montreal. His parents were Joseph Frobisher and Rachel Hargrave, and he was the eldest of seven children. Along with his two brothers, Benjamin and Thomas, Frobisher moved to Quebec in the 1760s to form a family-owned fur-trading enterprise with Benjamin as the manager. After Benjamin’s death in 1779, Frobisher founded the North West Company along with Simon McTavish (1750-1804, a fur trader and politician). That same year, he married Charlotte Jobert (1761-1816, daughter of Jean-Baptiste Jobert and Charlotte Larcheveque) and had twelve children. Frobisher then purchased a one-fifth share in the Batiscan Iron Works Company and was one of the five original shareholders in the Company of Proprietors of the Montreal Water Works. He was a founding member and served as the secretary and chair for the Beaver Club, a dining club in Montreal that sought to bring together the English-speaking men that controlled Montreal’s fur trade. Frobisher was the landowner of one-fifth of the Chester, Halifax, Ireland, and Inverness townships, and a seigneury of Champlain, near Trois-Rivières, Quebec. In 1788, Frobisher was named Justice of the Peace and was elected to the 1st Parliament of Lower Canada for Montreal East in 1792, serving until 1796, and was a Major in the British Militia until 1806.
