Career
Connolly joined the North West Company (NWC) in 1801 as an apprentice clerk. Two years later, he married, according to the local custom, a Métis Cree girl Miyo Nipiy (also known as Susanna Pas de Nom), step-daughter of an influential chief. Later, the couple had their first child, John Connolly, probably near Southern Indian Lake, as he was stationed at Nelson House, Manitoba between 1802 and 1803 he was at Nelson House (Man.) and did not move to the Rat River House until 1804. Over the course of their marriage, the couple were to have six children together, including a daughter, Amelia born in 1812, who would become the 1st first lady of British Columbia.
Connolly gradually ascended the corporate hierarchy of the NWC and later the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC). When the NWC absorbed into the HBC in 1821, Connolly went west to New Caledonia to reexamine all regional operations in 1821. He was appointed Chief Factor in 1825 and held managerial responsibilities from Fort St. James until 1831, when Peter Warren Dease took over. While at Fort St. James he took James Douglas under his wing, impressed by Douglas' skills. Because of their close relations, Connolly agreed to Douglas marrying his daughter Amelia and performed their customary ceremony at the fort.
In 1832 Connolly took his family back to Montreal, but disavowed his marriage to Susanna as being non-legally binding. On 16 May 1832, he married Julia Woolrich, his second cousin in a Catholic ceremony. Though he had repudiated his first family, he continued to support them, even after they left Montreal and moved to Saint Boniface, Manitoba, where Susanna lived in the Grey Nuns' convent. Soon after the marriage to Julia, the HBC placed him in charge of the king's posts they rented in Lower Canada and he and his new wife moved to Tadoussac. His territory increased over time and within six years included Mingan, Quebec, but Julia, by then the mother of two children, longed to return to Montreal. Connolly asked for leave and the company, hoping to push him into retirement offered a post at Fort Albany on James Bay, which they felt certain Julia would reject as unsuitable. In 1843, Connolly accepted retirement and returned to Montreal, where he lived lavishly until his death, on 3 June 1848 in Montreal.
The Hudson's Bay Company is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, it became the largest and oldest corporation in Canada, and now owns and operates retail stores across the country. The company's namesake business division is Hudson's Bay, commonly referred to as The Bay.
Fort Vancouver was a 19th century fur trading post that was the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company's Columbia Department, located in the Pacific Northwest. Named for Captain George Vancouver, the fort was located on the northern bank of the Columbia River in present-day Vancouver, Washington. The fort was a major center of the regional fur trading. Every year trade goods and supplies from London arrived either via ships sailing to the Pacific Ocean or overland from Hudson Bay via the York Factory Express. Supplies and trade goods were exchanged with a plethora of Indigenous cultures for fur pelts. Furs from Fort Vancouver were often shipped to the Chinese port of Guangzhou where they were traded for Chinese manufactured goods for sale in the United Kingdom. At its pinnacle, Fort Vancouver watched over 34 outposts, 24 ports, six ships, and 600 employees. Today, a full-scale replica of the fort, with internal buildings, has been constructed and is open to the public as Fort Vancouver National Historic Site.
The North West Company was a fur trading business headquartered in Montreal from 1779 to 1821. It competed with increasing success against the Hudson's Bay Company in the regions that later became Western Canada and Northwestern Ontario. With great wealth at stake, tensions between the companies increased to the point where several minor armed skirmishes broke out, and the two companies were forced by the British government to merge.
Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk FRS FRSE was a Scottish peer. He was noteworthy as a Scottish philanthropist who sponsored immigrant settlements in Canada at the Red River Colony.
Peter Pond was an American explorer, cartographer, merchant and soldier who was a founding member of the North West Company and the Beaver Club. Though he was born and died in Milford, Connecticut, most of his life was spent in northwestern North America, on the upper Mississippi and in western Canada.
Sir George Simpson was a Scottish explorer and colonial governor of the Hudson's Bay Company during the period of its greatest power. From 1820 to 1860, he was in practice, if not in law, the British viceroy for the whole of Rupert's Land, an enormous territory of 3.9 millions square kilometres corresponding to nearly forty per cent of modern-day Canada.
John Rowand was a fur trader for the North West Company and later, the Hudson's Bay Company. At the peak of his career, he was Chief Factor at Fort Edmonton, and in charge of the HBC's vast Saskatchewan District.
Sir James Douglas was a Canadian fur trader and politician who became the first Governor of the Colony of British Columbia. He is often credited as "The Father of British Columbia". He was instrumental to the resettlement of 35 African Americans fleeing a life of racial persecution in San Francisco who arrived in the province aboard the steamship Commodore in what later became known as the Pioneer Committee. In 1863, Douglas was knighted by Queen Victoria for his services to the Crown.
Fort Espérance was a North West Company trading post near Rocanville, Saskatchewan from 1787 until 1819. It was moved three times and was called Fort John from 1814 to 1816. There was a competing XY Company post from 1801 to 1805 and a Hudson's Bay post nearby from 1813 to 1816. It was on the Qu'Appelle River about 20 km from that river's junction with the Assiniboine River and about 7 km west of the Manitoba border. It was on the prairie in buffalo country and was mainly used as a source of pemmican which was sent down the river to Fort Bas de la Rivière at the mouth of the Winnipeg River.
Angus Bethune was the oldest son of the Reverend John Bethune. He had several distinguished brothers: Alexander Neil, who became Anglican bishop of Toronto; John, Anglican clergyman, dean of the diocese of Montreal and principal of McGill University; James Gray prominent Upper Canada businessman; Donald, an important political figure in Upper Canada.
Lt.-Colonel The Hon. William McGillivray, of Chateau St. Antoine, Montreal, was a Scottish-born fur trader who succeeded his uncle Simon McTavish as the last chief partner of the North West Company until a merger between the NWC and her chief rival - the Hudson Bay Company. He was elected a member of the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada and afterwards was appointed to the Legislative Council of Lower Canada. In 1795, he was inducted as a member into the Beaver Club. During the War of 1812 he was given the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Corps of Canadian Voyageurs as he was the highest up in the NWC's business hierarchy; the ranks of the Corps reflected one's position within the NWC as the Company had created the Corps under their own volition, and using employees as soldiers. He owned substantial estates in Scotland, Lower and Upper Canada. His home in Montreal was one of the early estates of the Golden Square Mile. McGillivray Ridge in British Columbia is named for him, as well as a handful of elementary schools in Ontario, Quebec, or British Columbia.
Green Lake is a northern village in Saskatchewan, Canada. Its residents are predominantly Métis people. Green Lake is located northeast of Meadow Lake, and northwest of Big River. It lies in the southern boreal forest, and takes its name from nearby Green Lake. Fishing, tourism, and farming, are the major industries.
Thomas McKay (1796–1849) was an Anglo-Métis Canadian fur trader who worked mainly in the Pacific Northwest for the Pacific Fur Company (PFC), the North West Company (NWC), and the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC). He was a fur brigade leader and explorer of the Columbia District and later became a U.S. citizen and an early settler of Oregon.
Pine Island Fort and Manchester House were trading posts on Pine Island, a small narrow island on the North Saskatchewan River in Saskatchewan, Canada, from 1786 to 1793. Pine Island Fort was a post of the North West Company while Manchester House was a post of the Hudson's Bay Company.
The Pemmican War was a series of armed confrontations during the North American fur trade between the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) and the North West Company (NWC) in the years following the establishment of the Red River Colony in 1812 by Lord Selkirk. It ended in 1821 when the NWC merged with the HBC.
Pierre Chrysologue Pambrun was a French Canadian militia officer and later a fur trader in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company. Pambrun fought against the United States in the War of 1812, in particular the Battle of the Châteauguay. He joined the HBC during a time of turmoil with its competitors, the North West Company. After the Battle of Seven Oaks, he was among those held captive by men employed by the NWC.
James Birnie (1799–1864) was an employee of the North West Company (NWC) and the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), serving primarily within the Pacific Northwest. With the Oregon Question resolved in 1846, he became the first settler of Cathlamet.
Connolly v Woolrich (1867), 17 RJRQ 75, 11 Low Can Jur 197, is a decision in which the Quebec Superior Court held that a marriage under Cree law could be recognized under Quebec law.
Amelia, Lady Douglas was a Métis woman significant in the early history of Canada as the wife of the first governor of the Colony of British Columbia.
John George McTavish was a Scottish-born fur trader who played a significant role in the North West Company's activities in North America during the early 19th century. He entered the North American fur trade in 1798 with the North West Company, wherein he challenged the monopoly of the Hudson's Bay Company. Personal controversies arose from his marriages, notably abandoning his common-law wife Matooskie, an Indigenous Canadian woman, for Catherine Aitken Turner, sparking condemnation and rumours.
