Fur trader.
Born in Scotland, he joined Forsyth, Richardson and Company in 1799 and remained in the employ of the North West Company after the mergers of 1804. He was stationed in Manitoba at the time of the confrontation between the settlers at Red River and the NWC in 1815 and 1816, and he was one of those tried (and acquitted) in York in 1818 as accessory to the murder of Robert Semple. From 1816 to 1823 he served at the Sault, and then on the upper Ottawa, where he was unable to stem the advance of the lumbering interests. From 1843 to 1847 he served at Timiskaming, and he retired as chief factor in 1849. He died in Edinburgh.
More information:
John Siveright, Dictionary of Canadian Biography VIII, 820-22.
Dictionary of Manitoba Biography by John M. “Jack” Bumsted, Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1999.
Page revised: 27 April 2008
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