Brantford 6.46

Brantford is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, founded on the Grand River. It is surrounded by Brant County, but is politically separate with a municipal government of its own that is fully independent of the county's municipal government.Brantford is often known as the "Telephone City". Former city resident Alexander Graham Bell invented the device at his father's homestead, Melville House, now the Bell Homestead.Brantford is also the birthplace of hockey player Wayne Gretzky, comedian Phil Hartman, as well as Group of Seven member Lawren Harris. Brantford is named after Joseph Brant, an important Mohawk chief during the American Revolutionary War and later, who led his people in their first decades in Upper Canada. Many of his descendents, and other First Nations citizens, live on the nearby Reserve of Six Nations of the Grand River, 20 kilometers from Brantford; it is the most populous reserve in Canada.HistoryThe Iroquoian-speaking Attawandaron, known in English as the Neutral Nation, lived in the Grand River valley area before the 17th century; their main village and seat of the chief, Kandoucho, was identified by 19th-century historians as having been located on the Grand River where present-day Brantford developed. This community, like the rest of their settlements, was destroyed when the Iroquois declared war in 1650 over the fur trade and exterminated the Neutral nation.