Alexander MacKay ( 1770 – 15 June 1811) (also spelled McKay in some records) was a Canadian

fur trade The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal ecosystem, boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals h ...

r and explorer who worked for the

North West Company 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 what is present-day Western Canada and Northwestern Ontario. With great weal ...

and the

Pacific Fur Company The Pacific Fur Company (PFC) was an American fur trade venture wholly owned and funded by John Jacob Astor that functioned from 1810 to 1813. It was based in the Pacific Northwest, an area contested over the decades between the United Kingdom o ...

. He co-founded

Fort Astoria Fort Astoria (also named Fort George) was the primary fur trading post of John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company (PFC). A maritime contingent of PFC staff was sent on board the ''Tonquin (1807 ship), Tonquin'', while another party traveled overl ...

near the mouth of the

Columbia River The Columbia River ( Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia ...

on the Pacific coast.

Early life

MacKay was probably born in the

Mohawk Valley The Mohawk Valley region of the U.S. state of New York is the area surrounding the Mohawk River, sandwiched between the Adirondack Mountains and Catskill Mountains, northwest of the Capital District. As of the 2010 United States Census, ...

area of central

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, where his father Donald MacKay had brought the family after the

Seven Years' War The Seven Years' War (1756–1763) was a global conflict that involved most of the European Great Powers, and was fought primarily in Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific. Other concurrent conflicts include the French and Indian War (1754 ...

Loyalists Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British Cro ...

during the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

, the family departed the area and first lived in the Trois Rivières area of

Lower Canada The Province of Lower Canada (french: province du Bas-Canada) was a British colony on the lower Saint Lawrence River and the shores of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence (1791–1841). It covered the southern portion of the current Province of Quebec ...

. They settled in the Glengarry region of

Upper Canada The Province of Upper Canada (french: link=no, province du Haut-Canada) was a Province, part of The Canadas, British Canada established in 1791 by the Kingdom of Great Britain, to govern the central third of the lands in British North Americ ...

about 1792. Alexander MacKay married Marguerite Waddens or Wadin ''Descendants of Alexander McKay'' http://museum.bmi.net/Picnic%20People%20M.Z/mckay,%20WC.htm Retrieved: 5 September 2015 and had one son,

Thomas McKay Thomas McKay (1 September 1792 – 9 October 1855) was a Canadian businessman who was one of the founders of the city of Ottawa, Ontario. Biography McKay was born in Perth, Scotland and became a skilled stonemason. He emigrated to the C ...

, and three daughters: Annie Nancy McKay, Catherine McKay and Marie Wadin McKay. His natural son Alexander Ross MacKay was born by another woman.

North West Company career

MacKay was working for the

(NWC) sometime before 1791. In 1792 he was transferred to Fort Fork (

Peace River, Alberta Peace River, originally named Peace River Crossing and known as in French, is a town in northwest Alberta, Canada. It is along the banks of the Peace River at its confluence with the Smoky River, the Heart River and Pat's Creek. It is approxima ...

) on the request of Alexander Mackenzie. MacKay accompanied Mackenzie on his 1793 overland journey to the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the conti ...

, the first such journey north of Mexico. From 1793 to 1800 MacKay was probably a clerk in the NWC's Upper English River (now called Churchill River) fur district near ''Lac La Loche'', present-day

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada, western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on t ...

. In 1800 he was made a NWC partner and worked in the English River district until 1804. In 1808 MacKay resigned from the NWC and returned to the East to retire wealthy at age 38 in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...

. This was an indication of the scale of income which partners received in the fur trade.

Pacific Fur Company career

In 1810 Mackay, along with several other retired NWC personnel, such as Donald McKenzie and Duncan McDougall, signed a preliminary agreement with the American businessman John Jacob Astor. Astor intended to establish a new fur trading company to operate in the

region. MacKay, McKenzie, and McDougall recruited additional workers in Montreal for Astor's company, the

. MacKay enlisted a number of people, including Gabriel Franchère, David Stuart, Robert Stuart, and MacKay's own son Thomas, who was 13 at the time. All of these people joined MacKay in his 1811 sea voyage to the mouth of the Columbia River on the '' Tonquin''. During the voyage, enmity developed between MacKay and Jonathan Thorn, captain of the ''Tonquin''. Thorn tried to maroon MacKay and others at the

Falkland Islands The Falkland Islands (; es, Islas Malvinas, link=no ) is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and about from Cape Dubouze ...

. Along with Alexander Ross, MacKay was instrumental in founding

in early 1811. MacKay led a trading and exploring party up the Columbia River in May 1811. Then in June 1811 he sailed as supercargo on the ''Tonquin'', and led an expedition that attempted to acquire furs from natives along the coast to the north. In a conflict in 1811 with the indigenous people of Clayoquot Sound, the ''Tonquin'' was attacked and blown up. Nearly everyone on board, including Alexander MacKay, was killed. As MacKay's son Thomas had stayed at Fort Astoria, he survived. MacKay's wife Marguerite Waddens MacKay had not journeyed to the west with the expedition. As a widow, she later married

John McLoughlin John McLoughlin, baptized Jean-Baptiste McLoughlin, (October 19, 1784 – September 3, 1857) was a French-Canadian, later American, Chief Factor and Superintendent of the Columbia District of the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Vancouver fr ...

and came to the Columbia River region. McLoughlin cared for Thomas MacKay as his stepson.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mackay, Alexander Oregon Country 1770 births 1811 deaths North West Company people Canadian fur traders Pre-Confederation British Columbia people