Born about 1736, probably in the Mohawk valley of New York, Mary Brant, known usually as Molly, was of the Mohawk tribe, the daughter of a sachem and an elder sister of Joseph Brant. Sometime in the late 1750s she came to the attention of Sir William Johnson, hero of Crown Point in the French and Indian War and superintendent of Indian affairs for the northern colonies. She became his mistress following the death of his wife and bore him nine children at Fort Johnson and later Johnson Hall, his manorial estate. She also managed his household and entertained the many distinguished guests, Native American and colonial alike, who visited.
After Sir William╒s death in July 1774 Brant relinquished Johnson Hall to his eldest son by his wife, Sir John Johnson, and moved with her children to a farm near Canajoharie, New York. She and all her family were Loyalists during the Revolution: her brother Joseph became a feared leader of warriors, notorious for the Cherry Valley Massacre of November 11, 1778; her eldest son Peter was credited with the capture of Ethan Allen at Montreal in September 1775; and she herself conveyed intelligence on American movements and supplied ammunition to the British before the battle of Oriskany, August 6, 1777. Her influence, both as daughter of a sachem and as consort of the popular Sir William, was decisive in bringing the entire Iroquois nation into the British camp, and much of the war she spent in the Tory stronghold of Niagara. After the war she settled in Ontario, where she and other Loyalist refugees founded the town of Kingston. In the same year, 1783, she was granted a British pension for her services. Like her brother, she was in her last years a devout member of the Episcopal church. She died in Kingston, Ontario, on April 16, 1796.
