Item 14 - Letter from Simon Fraser to Simon McTavish, 21 July 1796

Simon Fraser was born in 1776 in Mapletown (near Bennington, Vermont) and died on his farm near St Andrews, Stormont County (Ontario). He was the eighth and youngest child of Simon Fraser and Isabella Grant. On June 7, 1820, Fraser married Catherine Macdonell and they had five sons and three daughters. In 1790, Fraser moved to Montreal with his family, and began an apprenticeship in the North West Company two years later. He served as a clerk in Athabasca in 1799 and became one of the company’s partners in 1802. In the autumn of 1805, Fraser built the Rocky Mountain Portage House at the end of the Peace River Canyon, after being instructed to extend fur trade operations west of the Rocky Mountains. He then built a small fort called Trout Lake Post (now known as Fort McLeod), which was the first permanent white settlement west of the Rockies. Fraser then went on to establish Fort Fraser and Fort George (now Prince George in British Columbia). He went on leave after these expeditions and then was assigned again to the Athabasca Department in 1810, where he remained until 1814. In 1815, Fraser travelled to Red River, where he became involved in a crisis between the North West Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company. He assisted other North West Company partners in escorting Miles Macdonell, governor of the colony, to Fort William that summer, and because of this, he was arrested by Lord Selkirk (1771-1820, Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk). He, along with other North West Company partners including Alexander McKenzie, John McDonald, John Siveright, and John McLoughlin were tried in York (Toronto) in October 1818 on charges relating to the violence in Red River. They were all acquitted and their trials are known as one of the most controversial series of trials in Canadian legal history. By this time, Fraser had settled on farm lands on the Raisin River, near St Andrews.