ERECTED 1759
John Jacob Astor, the founder of the Astor fortunes, is said to have lived in this building, on the southwest corner of Vaudreuil and Ste. Therese streets, still standing, and stored here Canadian beaver, racoon and muskrat skins, Canadian coatings, etc., all of which he sold in 1789 at No. 81 Queen Street, New York.
OLD ST. GABRIEL CHURCH ON ST. GABRIEL STREET
Erected in 1792, standing till recently. The first “Scotch” Church in the Province. Its chief supporters were the Scotch fur-traders of the North-West Company. The bell in the steeple of this church is said to have been “the first Protestant bell sounded in Canada.”
The voyageurs he got at Montreal in July, 1810, were not of the best, for the old rival North West Company had secretly interdicted the prime hands from engaging in the new service. It was not long after the party left Lachine for St. Anne’s that the “recruits enlisted at Montreal were fit to vie with the rugged regiment of Falstaff; some were able-bodied but inexpert; others were expert but lazy; while a third class were expert but totally worn, being brokendown veterans incapable of toil.” (“Astoria,” by Washington Irving, Chapter XII.)
These two parties together founded “Astoria” at the mouth of the Columbia. But most of Astor’s employees were British subjects derived from men of the North West and Mackinaw Companies, and when the 1812 War broke out between the United States and Great Britain a British warship came up the Pacific coast and promptly turned it into “Fort George.” Forthwith the North West Company bought up the derelict property of Mr. Astor’s company. British employees and a few Americans in the concern retreated inland and after almost incredible suffering from the attacks of unfriendly Indians succeeded in reaching the Mississippi.” (“Pioneers in Canada,” by Sir Harry Johnston.)
But the most powerful rival of the North West Company was to be found in the person of Lord Selkirk, who had bought two-fifths of the stock of the Hudson’s Bay Company. In May, 1811, he prevailed on the directors to grant him 160,000 square miles of territory in fee simple on condition he should establish a colony and furnish from the settlers men required by the company at a certain rate. In 1811 ninety persons, mostly Highland cotters from Sutherlandshire, with some emigrants from the west of Ireland, reached Hudson’s Bay, sent by Selkirk. Others followed in subsequent years. This may be regarded as the beginning of the North West Red River settlement. Its history was one of bitter rivalry for the Montreal company. This was felt all the more since Lord Selkirk, being a Douglas and a Scot, had after the failure of this first settlement in Canada at Buldoon received much hospitality and attention at Montreal from the Scottish merchants of the company, who had given him so much inside information on the subject of the fur trade industry that he had turned his thoughts to the Hudson’s Bay Company and become for many years the most determined opponent of his hosts. This opposition, to the extent of bloodshed, did not cease till the union of the two bodies as the reestablished Hudson’s Bay Company in 1821.
But the competition with Selkirk’s Hudson’s Bay party had brought sorry losses to both; no dividends were able to be paid by the North West and there was a loss of men on either side in the sanguinary incursions into one another’s territories. The amalgamation of 1821 was therefore not too soon. The union was followed by the gift of the government to the impoverished companies of the exclusive trade of the territory which, under the names of the Hudson’s Bay and North West territories, extended from Labrador to the Pacific and from Red River to the Arctic Ocean. The Hudson’s Bay Company, as the amalgamated company was called, held Rupert’s Land by perpetual charter and the rest of the territory, including Vancouver Island, granted to it in 1848 by special license till 1859, maintaining under its supreme rule about four million square miles. In 1860 it employed five surgeons, eighty-seven clerks, sixty-seven postmasters, 1,200 permanent servants and 500 voyageurs, making with temporary employees about three thousand men on its payroll, while about one hundred thousand Indians were actively engaged in supplying it with furs. Its profits were enormous, being from May 31, 1852, to May 31, 1862, an annual average of £81,000 on a paid-up capital of £400,000. In 1863 the company was reorganized with a capital of £2,000,000, with Sir Edmund Head as governor. After confederation the northwestern territories and Manitoba were joined to the Dominion on the indemnification of £3,000,000. This will be told in its place. Henceforth the old company, no longer a feudal government, is to play its part as one of the mercantile bodies of Canada, but one which still has a great civilizing power in the northern wilds of Canada.