HOME





James McGill
James McGill (6 October 1744 – 19 December 1813) was a Scottish-born businessman, politician, slaveholder, and philanthropist best known for being the founder of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. He was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada for Montreal West and appointed to the Executive Council of Lower Canada in 1792. He was an honorary lieutenant colonel of the 1st Battalion, Montreal Militia, a predecessor unit of The Canadian Grenadier Guards. He was also a prominent member of the Château Clique and one of the original founding members of the Beaver Club. His summer home stood within the Golden Square Mile. McGill was a highly influential and record breaking trader (specifically with furs) within Canada during his life, with it being argued that McGill was "the richest man in Montreal" at the time of his death by his business contemporaries in reflection. Two prime examples of McGill's status as a record-breaking and influential trader are: 1) McG ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Glasgow
Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom and the 27th-most-populous city in Europe, and comprises Wards of Glasgow, 23 wards which represent the areas of the city within Glasgow City Council. Glasgow is a leading city in Scotland for finance, shopping, industry, culture and fashion, and was commonly referred to as the "second city of the British Empire" for much of the Victorian era, Victorian and Edwardian eras. In , it had an estimated population as a defined locality of . More than 1,000,000 people live in the Greater Glasgow contiguous urban area, while the wider Glasgow City Region is home to more than 1,800,000 people (its defined functional urban area total was almost the same in 2020), around a third of Scotland's population. The city has a population density of 3,562 p ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Burgess (title)
A burgess was the holder of a certain status in an English, Irish or Scottish borough in the Middle Ages and the early modern period, designating someone of the burgher class. It originally meant a freeman of a borough or burgh, but later came to be used mostly for office-holders in a town or one of its representatives in the House of Commons of England. Etymology The word was derived in Middle English and Middle Scots from the Old French word ''burgeis'', simply meaning "an inhabitant of a town" (cf. ''burgeis'' or ''burges'' respectively). The Old French word ''burgeis'' is derived from ''bourg'', meaning a market town or medieval village, itself derived from Late Latin ''burgus'', meaning "fortress" or "wall". In effect, the reference was to the north-west European medieval and renaissance merchant class which tended to set up their storefronts along the outside of the city wall, where traffic through the gates was an advantage and safety in event of an attack was easily a ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Joseph Frobisher
The Hon. Joseph Frobisher (April 15, 1748 – September 12, 1810) Member of Parliament, M.P., Justice of the Peace, J.P., was one of Montreal's most important fur traders. He was elected to the 1st Parliament of Lower Canada and was a seigneurial system of New France, seigneur with estates totalling 57,000 acres. He was a founding member of the North West Company and the Beaver Club, of which he was chairman. From 1792, his country seat, Beaver Hall, became a centre of Montreal High society (group), society. Early life Joseph Frobisher was born at Halifax, West Yorkshire, Halifax, Yorkshire in 1748. He was the third of five sons born to Joseph Frobisher (1710–1763) and Rachel Hargreaves (1718–1790). The Frobishers were an old Yorkshire family descended from Richard Frobysher of Altofts and Thorne, South Yorkshire, Thorne, a first cousin of Martin Frobisher, Sir Martin Frobisher. Joseph's eldest two brothers, Benjamin Frobisher, Benjamin and Thomas Frobisher, Thomas (174 ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Benjamin Frobisher
Benjamin Frobisher (1741 – April 14, 1787) was born in England, the son of Joseph Frobisher and Rachel Hargrave and immigrated to Canada about 1763. Two brothers also immigrated to Canada and all three were involved with the fur trade and its expansion into the northwest. In 1770, the three brothers, partnered with Richard Dobie, had a successful fur trading expedition which went up the Saskatchewan River well past Fort Bourbon situated near the mouth of that river. More successful expeditions followed and in 1779 the Frobishers set up a company that owned two of the sixteen shares in the North West Company established that year. They were among the shareholders who got their fur trade goods from the London merchant John Strettell. At the time of Benjamin's death, the northwest was beginning to be the most important region in the fur trade and a time when the North West Company was on the point of having almost total control of the area's trade. He was one of the seventeen or ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Grand Portage
Grand Portage National Monument is a United States National Monument located on the north shore of Lake Superior in northeastern Minnesota that preserves a vital center of fur trade activity and Anishinaabeg Ojibwe heritage. The area became one of the British Empire's four main fur trading centers in North America, along with Fort Niagara, Fort Detroit, and Michilimackinac. The ''Grand Portage'' is an (2720 rod) footpath which bypasses a set of waterfalls and rapids on the last of the Pigeon River before it flows into Lake Superior. This path is part of the historic trade route of the French-Canadian voyageurs and coureur des bois between their wintering grounds and their depots to the east. Composed of the Pigeon River and other strategic interior streams, lakes, and portages, this route was of enormous importance in pre-industrial times. It provided quick water access from Canada's settled areas and Atlantic ports to the fur-rich Rupert's Land and the North-Western Terr ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Isaac Todd
Isaac Todd ( c. 1742 – 1819) was one of Montreal's most prominent merchants following the British Conquest of New France and a founding member of the Beaver Club at Montreal and the Canada Club at London. He was one of the earliest partners in the North West Company before it was formalized, but was better known for his partnership with James McGill. In 1812, he purchased Buncrana Castle in Inishowen, County Donegal, which he left to his nephew, William Thornton-Todd, the younger brother of Andrew Todd. Early life Isaac Todd was born around 1742 into a wealthy merchant family at Coleraine, County Londonderry, in Ulster, the son of John Todd and his wife Elizabeth Patterson. Elizabeth was a native of Fox Hall, near Ramelton, in County Donegal, also in Ulster. The Todds, established members of the local Protestant gentry, had been prospering at Coleraine since at least 1630 and held several valuable land leases from the Earls of Antrim. Isaac Todd spent his early manhood as ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Michilimackinac
Michilimackinac ( ) is derived from an Ottawa Ojibwe name for present-day Mackinac Island and the region around the Straits of Mackinac between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan.. Early settlers of North America applied the term to the entire region along Lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior. Today it is considered to be mostly within the boundaries of Michigan, in the United States. Michilimackinac was the original name for present day Mackinac Island and Mackinac County. History Woodland period (1000 BCE–1650 CE) Pottery first appears during Woodland period in the style of the Laurel complex. The people of the area engaged in long-distance trade, likely as part of the Hopewell tradition. Anishinaabe and the French (1612–1763) The Straits of Mackinac linking Lakes Michigan and Huron was a strategic area controlling movement between the two lakes and much of the pays d'en haut. It was controlled by Algonquian Anishinaabe nations including the Ojibwa (called Chippewa ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


William Grant (seigneur)
William Grant (June 15, 1744 – October 5, 1805) was a Scottish-born businessman, seigneur and political figure in Lower Canada. He is frequently referred to as ''William Grant of St. Roch'' to differentiate him from his many cousins. Life Grant was born at Blairfindy, Scotland in 1744, the son of William Grant (d.1762), Laird of Blairfindy, and Jean Tyrie. In 1759, he was hired by a relative, Robert Grant, who was supplying the Royal Navy at Quebec and sent there as an agent of the company. While there, he became involved in other business on his own, including trade in the seal and salmon fisheries, grain and furs. He also acquired property in the province, including land holdings at Saint-Roch, which he was able to have designated a fief; he also purchased the sub-fief of La Mistanguienne (also known as Montplaisir) and the seigneury of Aubert-Gallion. In 1779, he purchased the seigneury of Beaulac and part of Chambly; he later acquired part of Île-d'Anticosti. He secre ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Quebec City
Quebec City is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the Census Metropolitan Area (including surrounding communities) had a population of 839,311. It is the twelfthList of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, -largest city and the seventh-List of census metropolitan areas and agglomerations in Canada, largest metropolitan area in Canada. It is also the List of towns in Quebec, second-largest city in the province, after Montreal. It has a humid continental climate with warm summers coupled with cold and snowy winters. Explorer Samuel de Champlain founded a French settlement here in 1608, and adopted the Algonquin name. Quebec City is one of the List of North American cities by year of foundation, oldest European settlements in North America. The Ramparts of Quebec City, ramparts surrounding Old Quebec () are the only fortified city walls remaining in the ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Great Lakes
The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes spanning the Canada–United States border. The five lakes are Lake Superior, Superior, Lake Michigan, Michigan, Lake Huron, Huron, Lake Erie, Erie, and Lake Ontario, Ontario (though hydrologically, Lake Michigan–Huron, Michigan and Huron are a single body of water, joined at the Straits of Mackinac). The Great Lakes Waterway enables modern travel and shipping by water among the lakes. The lakes connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River, and to the Mississippi River basin through the Illinois Waterway. The Great Lakes are the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total area and the second-largest by total volume. They contain 21% of the world's surface fresh water by volume. The total surface is , and the total volume (measured at the low water datum) is , slightly less than the volume of Lake Baikal (, 22–23% of the world's surface f ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

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 have been the most valued. Historically the trade stimulated the exploration and colonization of Siberia, northern North America, and the South Shetland Islands, South Shetland and South Sandwich Islands. Today the importance of the fur trade has diminished; it is based on pelts produced at fur farms and regulated fur-bearer trapping, but has become controversial. Animal rights organizations oppose the fur trade, citing that animals are brutally killed and sometimes skinned alive. Fur has been replaced in some clothing by synthetic fiber, synthetic imitations, for example, as in ruffs on hoods of parkas. Continental fur trade Russian fur trade Before the European colonization of the Americas, Russia was a major supplier of fur pelts to W ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

British Conquest Of New France
The conquest of New France () was the military conquest of New France by Great Britain during the French and Indian War. It started with a British campaign in 1758 and ended with the region being put under a British military regime between 1760 and 1763. Britain's acquisition of the New France colony of Canada, which the Kingdom of France had established in 1535, became official with the 1763 Treaty of Paris that concluded the Seven Years' War. The term is usually used when discussing the impact of the British conquest on the 70,000 French inhabitants, as well as on the First Nations. At issue in popular and scholarly debate ever since is the British treatment of the French settler population along with the long-term historical impacts of the conquest. Background The conquest represents the final episode of a long series of conflicts between Britain and France over their North American colonies. In the decades preceding the Seven Years' War and the Conquest of New France, bo ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]