Duncan McGillivray (abt. 1775 - 1808)

Born about 1775 in Scotland

Ancestors

Died 9 Apr 1808 at about age 33 in Montreal, Lower Canada

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Biography

McGILLIVRAY, DUNCAN, fur trader and author; b. in Inverness-shire, Scotland, probably in the early 1770s, second son of Donald McGillivray and Anne McTavish, sister of Simon McTavish; d. 9 April 1808 in Montreal, Lower Canada.

Duncan McGillivray was one of several kinsmen of Simon McTavish whose education and careers benefited from the patronage of this Montreal fur-trade merchant. By the early 1790s McGillivray had followed his brother William – from Scotland to Montreal and into the North West Company.

By 1800, fur traders were searching for new trade partners and lands not yet exhausted by a century and a half of trapping, as was the case with many of the areas east of the mountains. John McDonald and Duncan McGillivray were building North West Company posts along the North Saskatchewan River throughout the 1790s and heard stories of a tribe living west of the mountains, in the Columbia River Valley, the Kootenay, now known as the Ktunaxa.

With the aim of providing a trade centre for the Ktunaxa, McDonald established Rocky Mountain House in 1799 on the headwaters of the North Saskatchewan River. McGillivray and experienced trader and cartographer David Thompson, soon joined him and sought to discover a route across the Rockies to reach the Columbia River Valley.

He left no record of marriage, but he had one and probably two children with an Indian woman. Magdalene, born in 1801, was baptized in Montreal on 7 Oct. 1804 in her parents’ absence with William McGillivray as witness. Duncan was also probably the father of company clerk William McGillivray, described by Governor George Simpson in 1832 as a “half breed of the Cree Nation.” William entered the NWC in 1814 and later served in the Athabasca country and the New Caledonia region (B.C.). He married a daughter of HBC chief factor Alexander Stewart (Stuart) and was drowned on 31 Jan. 1832 in the Fraser River.

McGillivray died in Montreal on 9 April 1808 and was buried in the family vault of Simon McTavish.

Sources

• Sylvia Van Kirk and Jennifer S. H. Brown, “McGILLIVRAY, DUNCAN,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 5, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed February 8, 2016, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/mcgillivray_duncan_5E.html.
• Wikipedia