Deseronto Archives

On this day in 1918 Harold Powless was conscripted in Brantford. He was born in January 1897 in Deseronto, the son of Isaac Powless, a Mohawk, and Myrtle (née Thompson). On November 22nd, 1917 he married Leah Myrtle Culbertson in Midland, Ontario.

Powless joined the 2nd Depot Battalion of the 2nd Central Ontario Regiment with the regimental number 3310637. He was five feet seven and a quarter inches tall, with a sandy complexion, grey eyes and red hair. His service record shows that he was discharged on February 14th as “erroneously ordered to report”. Indigenous men had been exempted from conscription by an Order in Council of January 17th, 1918.