[1] Patterson had been Postmaster of Toronto and was asked by the federal Conservative Party to become publisher of the newspaper.

[2] Patterson remained proprietor and editor until it changed hands with John Riordan (major creditor of the debts owed by the Mail) and Christopher William Bunting with the former assuming ownership.

[5] It was the city's conservative paper until it declared itself independent of any political party in 1886.

That prompted Prime Minister John A. Macdonald to found the Toronto Empire in 1887.

Bunting and Charles Riordan remained with the new paper, but Bunting died in 1896 and Riordan sold his stake in 1927 to Izaak Walton Killam.