(?-?), U E Loyalist and surveyor. Probably a native of Ireland. William Fortune, who fought on the loyal side in the revolutionary war, arrived in Canada as a Loyalist from South Carolina. He was appointed a surveyor in the Province of Quebec, 1788. In the same year he received for his services to the crown a tract of 1000 acres of land on the Ottawa River in the area of what is today the village of Pointe-Fortune. Pointe-Fortune is named after him. Until the 1830s Pointe-Fortune was an important transportation centre for travellers on the Ottawa River and the adjacent portions of what is now Eastern Ontario. William Fortune was active as a surveyor in the newly-established Upper Canada in the 1790s. See the entry for his son Joseph Fortune for the surveys they shared close to the GC borders.

Biog. by A.P. Walker in OLS No. 47 (1932) 89-91 * E. T. Wilkie on East & West Hawkesbury Township surveys, OLS No. 19 (1904) * Thomas 477-478, 638 * Brault 241-243 * Second Report:index * UE List 176 (both Fortunes) * Reid 112 * Ladell: index * Verity (for early hist. of Pointe-Fortune)