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The Old Northwest
Company.—Partners who Subsequently Resided in Glengarry.—Mr. Duncan Cameron,
the Honourable John MacGillivray, Mr. John Macdonald, Mr. Angus Macdonell,
Mr. Alexander Macdonell, Laird McGillis.
I had hoped that the space at
my command would have enabled me to notice at some length the Northwest
Company, its objects and history, its partners and their services in
connection with the fur trade and partial opening up of the illimitable
country, which, after the absorption of the Company by or amalgamation with
the Hudson Bay Company, was practically monopolized by that Company until
the enlightened statesmanship of Sir John Macdonald and his colleagues in
the Government of Canada threw it open to the people of Canada and the
emigrants from the Old Country, and which is now traversed by that gieat
highway to the Pacific Coast, the Canadian Pacific Railway, the most
important, probably, of ail the great works originated and consummated by
that ablest of the Colonial statesmen of Britain. I am warned, however, that
I have already exceeded the limits laid down with the printer of these
sketches, and I can but refer to it incidentally. This is to be regretted,
as many of those most intimately connected with that great pioneer
enterprise were also closely associated by birth, family connection and
residence with the County of Glengarry. The Company appears to have been
formed almost immediately after the close of the Revolutionary War;
additional partners were from time to time admitted, and agreements as to
shares, governance, etc., entered into between them in 1802 and 1804, which
are set out at length by the Honourable L. R. Masson, formerly
Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Quebec, in his interesting work,"Les
Bourgeois de la Compagnie du Nord Ouest." The officers or partners of the
Company were almost entirely Scotchmen, as their names would indicate. Those
in 1804 were John Gregory, William MacGillivray, Dunian MacGillivray,
William Hallowell and Roderick Mackenzie, composing the house of McTavish,
Frobisher & Co., of Montreal; Angus Shaw, Daniel Mackenzie, William McKay.
John McDonald, Donald McTavish, John McDonell, Archibald Norman McLeod,
Alexander McDougall, Charles Charboillez, John Sayer, Peter Grant, Alexander
Fraser, .Æneas Cameron, John Finlay, Duncan Cameron, James Hughes, Alexander
McKay, Hugh McGillis, Alexander Henry, John McGillivray, James McKenzie,
Simon Fraser, John Duncan Campbell, David Thompson, John Thompson (composing
the company or concern known as the Old Company); Sir Alexander Mackenzie,
Thomas Forsyth, John Richardson and John Forsyth (composing the great
Montreal house of Forsyth, Richardson & Co.); Alexander Ellice, John Inglis
and James Forsyth, of London, Eng. (forming the firm of Phyn, Inglis & Co.);
John Ogilvie, John Muir, Pierre Rocheblave, Alexander Mackenzie, John
McDonald. James Leith, John Haidane and John Wills, wintering partners and
the trustees of the estate of the firm of Leith, Jamieson & Co. and Thomas
Tain. The voyageurs and other employees of the Company, of whom there were
hundreds, were principally French-Canadians, and during the War of 1812-14
were formed into the Corps so distinguished during that war known as the
Corps des Voyageurs Canadien, a list of the officers of which is given at
page 185. It was largely those men who so gallantly defended Fort
Michihmacmmac and captured the post of Prairie du Chien on the Mississippi,
about 450 miles distant, and took the enemy's war vessels "Scorpion" and
"Tigress" in the closing days of that War. The name of this Corps and its
distinguished services will be found constantly referred to by all the
historians who treat of the subject of the War. Great trouble eventually
arose between this Company and Lord Selkirk's, which led to violence,
illegal arrests, confiscations and robbery, and culminated in the total
destruction of Fort Gibraltar, the headquarters of the Northwest Company, at
the forks of the Red River, and in the tragedy of the 19th June, 1816, by
which Governor Semple, of Lord Selkirk's Company, lost his life, Fort
Douglas was destroyed and Lord Selkirk's Company were dispersed. One of the
principal partners, Mr. Duncan Cameron, afterwards member for Glengarry, was
arrested in consequence of these occurrences, detained for more than a year
at York Factory, and taken prisoner to England, for which high handed arrest
and illegal detention he obtained damages to the extent of £3,000 sterling.
Mr. Cameron remained but a short time in England, where he was immediately
set at liberty without even being brought to trial, and on his return to
Canada he retired from the Northwest Company and settled at Williamstown, in
this County, where he led a quiet life in the genial company of several
other old Nor'-Westers who had made Glengarry their home. One of his sons,
Sir Roderick Cameron, is now residing in New York, and engaged in the
Australian trade. He retains a warm affection for Glengarry, as those who
have been so fortunate as to partake of his princely hospitality are aware.
Another of the partners was
the Honourable John MacGillivray, who also resided in the neighbourhood of
Williamstown, and became a member of the Legislative Council of Upper
Canada. He was the father of the late Neil MacGillivray, who succeeded to
the estate of Dunmaglass in Scotland and the chieftainship of his clan, and
of Mr George H. MacGillivray, so well known to us in Glengarry, who occupies
the homestead of this highly respected family.
John Macdonald of Gart, after
retiring from the Company in which he had long been partner, settled on the
property of the late Major Gray of the King's Royal Regiment of New York,
known as the Gray's Creek estate on the River St. Lawrence. His father was a
captain in the 84th Regiment, and after his death his grand-uncle, General
Small, who had commanded one of the Battalions of the Highland Emigrant
Regiment during the Revolutionary War, and an elder brother, bound Mr.
Macdonald to Mr. Simon MacTavish as an apprenticed clerk in the Company,
which he thus joined in 1791. A short but interesting account of his life,
with his notes relating to his experience in the Northwest, is given in Mr.
Masson's book, volume 2, page 3 et seq. Mr. Masson describes him as being
like most of his comrades in that adventuresome undertaking, brave, rash,
reckless and domineering. Mr. Macdonald's arm was slightly deformed in
consequence of an accident in childhood, and the old Canadian voyageurs, in
order to distinguish him from the numerous other Macdonalds and Macdonells
in the Company, called him Monsieur Macdonald le bras croche. On Scotch
people, whose French was not quite perfect, rendered it Brock-rosh, and by
the latter designation he is well and affectionately remembered. He was the
father of the late Judge Holland Macdonald, of Welland, and of Mr De
Beqefeuille Macdonald, of Montreal.
Angus Macdonell (Greenfield),
a brother of Colonels John, Duncan and Donald Greenfield Macdonell, was also
is the Company, and was murdered in the Northwest in one of the many
convicts there. His murderer was tried in Montreal but acquitted. His fate,
however, after leaving the Court House, is unknown.
Alexander Greenfield
Macdonell, another brother of the latter, was also a partner in the later
years of the Company's existence. He returned to Glengarry subsequently, and
represented the County in the Legislature, as also Prescott and Russell. He
was Sheriff of the Ottawa District. He did good service for the Company in
its controversy with that of Lord Selkirk, and appears to have been the
chief literary partisan of the former. His "Narrative of the transactions in
the Red River country, from the commencement of the operations of the Earl
of Selkirk till the summer of the year 1816," published in London, England,
in 1819, is an exceedingly able presentation of his Company's case. He died
in Toronto while attending to his legislative duties before the Union of the
Provinces in 1841.
Mr. Hugh McGillis, another
partner, also settled at Williamstown on his retirement from the company,
and acquired a great deal of property in the neighborhood. None of his
family are now living there, and his property has now passed into other
hands. In fact, with the solitary exception of Mr. G. H, Macgillivray, not a
descendant or representative of any of the above named gentlemen is now in
the County to my knowledge.
Another resident of
Williamstown, a former partner in the Northwest Company, and who had served
as an Astronomer Royal on the Pacific Coast, was Mr. David Thompson. Mr.
Thompson resided in the house (originally built by the Rev. Mr. Bethune),
now occupied by Mr. Murdoch Farquhar McLennan. |
