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 trade in Canada, Canadian 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 a ...

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 among the United Kingdom of G ...

. He co-founded

Fort Astoria Fort Astoria (also named Fort George) was the primary Fur trade, 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 tra ...

near the mouth of the

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

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 (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

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

Seven Years' War The Seven Years' War, 1756 to 1763, was a Great Power conflict fought primarily in Europe, with significant subsidiary campaigns in North America and South Asia. The protagonists were Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and Kingdom of Prus ...

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 the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

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

Lower Canada The Province of Lower Canada () was a British colonization of the Americas, British colony on the lower Saint Lawrence River and the shores of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence established in 1791 and abolished in 1841. It covered the southern portion o ...

. 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 () 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 America, formerly part of the Province of Queb ...

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, 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 approxim ...

) 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 Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

, 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. It is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and to the south by the ...

. 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 is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

. 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-born American businessman, merchant, real estate mogul, and investor. Astor made his fortune mainly in a fur trade monopoly, by exporting History of opiu ...

. 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 Canadians, 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-Félicit ...

, 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 (; ), commonly referred to as The Falklands, 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 from Cape Dub ...

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

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 Clayoquot Sound is located on the west coast of Vancouver Island in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of British Columbia. It is bordered by the Esowista Peninsula to the south, and the Hesquiaht Peninsula to the North. ...

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

References

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