Peter Pond (abt. 1740 - 1807)

Born about 18 Jan 1740 in Milford, New Haven, Connecticut Colony

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 6 Mar 1807 at about age 67 in Milford, New Haven, Connecticut, United States

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Biography

Peter Pond is Notable.

Peter Pond was an army officer, fur trader, explorer and map maker.

Birth

According to the 1894 manuscript of Nathan Gillette Pond, Peter Pond was born in Milford, Connecticut on 18 January 18 1740 to Peter Pond and Mary Hubbard.^[1][2][3]

Marriage and children

He married Susannah Newell. Together they had at least one child, Peter Pond.

A notable life

While there is no known illustration of Peter Pond, we learn from a 1759 County of Suffolk Muster Roll that he was 5 foot 8 1/2 inches tall and had a dark complexion. His occupation was then recorded as "Shoe Maker" (like his father).^[4]

After serving with the Connecticut Regiment during the Seven Years’ War and a short-lived stint as a seafarer, Pond decided to try his hand at fur trading. He learned the ins and outs of the business and how to survive in the wilderness in the area southwest of the Great Lakes. In 1775, as the stock of beaver pelts began to diminish in the east, he joined the traders moving into the Northwest.

In 1778 he headed into Athabaska River country, a region known only to the local Chipewyan people. He set up a trading post near the confluence of the Athabaska and Embarras rivers. During the time he spent there, the Chipewyan taught him how to make pemmican, dried meat that was lightweight and stored well, making it ideal for fur trading expeditions.

In the next four years, he explored Lake Athabaska and Great Slave Lake and produced the earliest maps of the region (now known as the Mackenzie Basin) based on Aboriginal accounts and his own travels. He became a partner in the North West Company and in 1785 travelled to Montreal, where he became a charter member of the Beaver Club. Three years later, he left the fur trade after being implicated in two murders and sold his share in the NWC to William McGillivray. Pond returned to Milford, where he wrote his memoirs. He died there in 1807.^[5]

Pond’s discoveries and maps had a great influence on the explorations of Alexander Mackenzie and his use of pemmican caches changed the fur trade, freeing traders from hunting daily for food.

Peter Pond Lake in Saskatchewan is named after him.

Sources

1. ↑ “The Ponds of Milford, CT” by Nathan Gillette Pond, The Connecticut Magazine, vol. 10, pp. 163 (https://books.google.com/books?id=2T0GAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA163#v=onepage&q&f=false)
2. ↑ The search continues for a primary record of his parentage and birth.
3. ↑ The parentage of Peter was the source of some confusion among 19th century Pond family genealogists. Danier Streator Pond, in his 1875 Genealogical Record of Samuel Pond and His Descendants, did not even record that Samuel Pond (1679-abt.1726) had a son named Peter (see pages 11 & 12 at https://archive.org/details/genealogicalreco00inpond/page/10/mode/2up) and he stated incorrectly that the Peter Pond of this profile and his brother Charles Pond were both sons of Phineas Pond (1715-1750) (see page 12 at https://archive.org/details/genealogicalreco00inpond/page/12/mode/2up). Nathan Gillette Pond in his 1894 Ponds of Milford noted that "It is with this [the 3rd] generation that the published Pond genealogies are in error and confusion by making their descent of the Ponds of Milford from Phineas and Martha, instead of Peter, his brother (see page 162 at https://books.google.com/books?id=2T0GAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA163#v=onepage&q&f=false). Given this confusion, it would be worthwhile compiling a summary of the primary records and most robust secondary sources which document that Peter was the son of Peter. This summary would note that it was father Peter and not Phineas who is named in Milford records.
4. ↑ ‪Annual Report of the State Historian, Volume 2‬, New York State Printers, 1897, Google eBook, p. 947 (https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=5NwTAAAAYAAJ&pg=GBS.PA946&hl=en)
5. ↑ Barbour collection. Milford Vital Records. Vol. BP. Page 15. (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHV-D3C8-WNKG?i=9943&cat=295370)

• Barry M. Gough, “POND, PETER,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 5, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed March 28, 2016, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/pond_peter_5E.html.
• Chapin, David. Freshwater Passages: The Trade and Travels of Peter Pond. University of Nebraska Press, 2014
• Peter Pond Society
• Wikipedia: Peter_Pond
• Wikidata: Item Q1887065
• http://www.peterpondsociety.com/pondbio.html
• 'Did Peter Pond participate in the ethnic cleansing of Western Canada's Indigenous Peoples?' by Lorraine Hoffman (Mercredi) and Phillip R. Coutu [1]
• History of Milford, Connecticut, 1639-1939 (The Milford Tercentenary Committee, Inc., 1939) Page 40.
• "[httpsw://archive.org/details/departmentofhuds00belcrich/page/214/mode/2up Department of Hudson's Bay"]; George Antoine Belcourt, Pg. 215.