Joseph Montferrand

Joseph Montferrand, known as Jos, was a French-Canadian logger, strongman and folk hero of the working man, born Joseph Favre in Montreal on 25 October 1802 and died there on 4 October 1864. He stood 6 feet 4 inches tall and was known for his strength and his prowess in a fight; at sixteen he is said to have felled the champion of Canada with a single punch at a boxing match in the Champ de Mars in Montreal. He worked as a voyageur for the Hudson's Bay Company, then as a logger and later as a foreman on the Ottawa River log drives, retiring in 1857, and he defended French-Canadian workers against gangs of Irish immigrants in the Bytown area. His name was anglicized into Big Joe Mufferaw, the hero of many tall tales, and he is remembered by a statue in Mattawa, Ontario, a park in Montreal and a 2023 designation as a National Historic Person.