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, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals have been the mos ...

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'', while another party traveled overland from St. Louis. ...

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, C ...

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, th ...

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 Cr ...

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 an ...

. They settled in the

Glengarry The Glengarry bonnet is a traditional Scots cap made of thick-milled woollen material, decorated with a toorie on top, frequently a rosette cockade on the left side, and ribbons hanging behind. It is normally worn as part of Scottish military ...

region of

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

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 Fort Fork a North West Company (NWC) trading post on the Peace River, established in 1792. From 1 November 1792 to 9 May 1793, Alexander Mackenzie wintered there prior to his expedition to the Pacific Ocean. The fort was used until the NWC merged ...

( Peace River, Alberta) 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 continen ...

, 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 List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

. 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 John Jacob Astor (born Johann Jakob Astor; July 17, 1763 – March 29, 1848) was a German-American businessman, merchant, real estate mogul, and investor who made his fortune mainly in a fur trade monopoly, by smuggling opium into China, and ...

. 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 Gabriel Franchère ( 3 November 1786 –12 April 1863) was a French Canadian author and explorer of the Pacific Northwest. Franchère was born in Montreal to Gabriel Franchère (4 March 1752 - 16 May 1832) and Marie-Félicité Morin (20 August 176 ...

, 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 Jonathan Thorn (8 January 1779 – 15 June 1811) was a career officer of the United States Navy in the early 19th century. Early life and Naval career Born on 8 January 1779 at Schenectady, New York, during the Revolutionary War, Thorn was ...

, 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 Dubouzet ...

. 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 A supercargo (from Spanish ''sobrecargo'') is a person employed on board a vessel by the owner of cargo carried on the ship. The duties of a supercargo are defined by admiralty law and include managing the cargo owner's trade, selling the merchand ...

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 , image = Clayoquot Sound - Near Tofino - Vancouver Island BC - Canada - 08.jpg , image_size = 260px , alt = , caption = , image_bathymetry = Vancouver clayoquot sound de.png , alt_bathyme ...

, 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 fro ...

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