John Norton was likely born in Scotland in the early 1760s to a Scottish mother and an English father of Cherokee birth. The elder Norton had been taken as a boy by British soldiers, when they destroyed his hometown of Keowee during the French and Indian War. Norton's father was brought back to England, and raised in an English family. John Norton likely received schooling in Scotland. He served an apprenticeship as a printer, but ran away to join the army. He was assigned to Scotland, where he married. Next he was stationed in Ireland, where there were numerous Scots and border English immigrants. In 1785 he was assigned to Lower Canada (Quebec) after the end of the American Revolutionary War. While stationed with his regiment at Niagara (Upper Canada) in 1787, Norton deserted the army and was discharged. For a time, he taught at the Mohawk settlement of Tyendinaga on the Bay of Quinte, west of Kingston, Ontario. In 1791 he traveled through the Ohio Valley as a trader, establishing many contacts. During this time, he became increasingly involved with the Iroquois Six Nations of the Grand River. In 1794, he returned to Fort Niagara, where he served as an interpreter for the British Indian department. He became known to Joseph Brant, the prominent Mohawk Nation leader who became his mentor. In his early 30s, Norton was adopted into the Mohawk, with Brant as his uncle. He was given the Mohawk name of "Teyoninhokarawen" (roughly translated as "open door") to mark this passage. Norton moved to the Grand River reserve, where he married Catherine, a woman from one of the six Iroquois nations. Before the Canada (Constitutional) Act of 1791, on the authority of the Haldimand Proclamation, John Norton acted as interpreter in the transaction of farm land granted to 10 recipients. Norton was strongly influenced by Joseph Brant (Thayendanega), the most prominent Mohawk chief, who had led much of the tribe through the end of the American Revolution and their resettlement in Upper Canada. Norton became a protégé of Brant, learning the Mohawk language and culture; he was adopted into the people as Thayendanega's nephew. Later he was appointed a "Pine Tree Chief," in a public ceremony, according to Iroquois custom. This was an honorary position and was not within the hereditary line.