George Stewart Simpson

GEORGE STEWART SIMPSON

HBC Chief Trader at Dunvegan

George Stewart Simpson is the bastard son of Sir George Simpson and Margaret Taylor. HBC Archives

1881 Census for Yale in the Nicola and OKanagan District of British Columbia, Canada: Library and Archives Canada: 1881 Census of Canada

1891 Census for Victoria in British Columbia, Canada: Library and Archives Canada: 1891 Census of Canada

1891 Census for Victoria in British Columbia, Canada: Library and Archives Canada: 1891 Census of Canada

1881 Census, shown as retired Chief Trader, living with Isabella 1891 Census, living with Peers family, Isabella living with son James, or perhaps that is just where the Census caught them.

Fur Trade Family History Nancy Marguerite Anderson

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Governor George Simpson's son, George Stewart Simpson

As I told you I have been in the midst of writing speeches for the author's celebration and for the Victoria Historical Society talk, both of them in November. In order to write the speech for VHS, I re-read and quoted from "the Private Journal of Henry Peers from Fort Langley to thompson's River, Summer 1848," found in the British Columbia Archives under [its old number] E/A/P34A. I had never particularly noticed before, but Alexander Caulfield Anderson travelled into Kamloops with a new clerk, named "Simpson." Of course when I was consulting this journal years ago when I wrote the chapter, I had no way to check who this Simpson fellow was. In fact I barely noticed him. Now I have Bruce Watson's Lives Lived West of the Divide, and in volume 3 I find this biography:

Simpson, George Stewart (1827-1894) (probably Canadian: Scottish and probably Native) Birth: possibly Red River Settlement -- 1827 (born to Sir George Simpson and Margaret Taylor) Death: Victoria, March 13, 1894 HBC Apprentice, Fort Vancouver general charges (1841-1842); Apprentice and clerk, Honolulu (1842-1847); Clerk, Fort Colvile (1847-1848); Clerk, Thompson River (1848-1850); Clerk, Fort Victoria sales shop (1850-1857); Clerk disposable, Western department (1857-1858); Chief Trader, Western Department (1858-1860)

George Stewart Simpson came to Fort Victoria as a boy of eight with the 1836 brigade. In 1838, according to Reverend Herbert Beaver, young Simpson had arrived decently clothed but two years later, he was running about "in appearance like a beggar's child, and at one time suffered so much from sores, brought on entirely by the neglect of Chief Factor McLoughlin's woman, under whose charge he was placed" (Beaver, p. 84). Young Simpson had probably got his sores from flea bites from his beating furs in the large fur house at the fort, a job that young children often did. In 1841, he joined the HBC, likely at Fort Vancouver, and joined his father, Sir George Simpson, for a voyage to Honolulu where he spent the next four years in apprenticeship. He rose through the ranks and around 1858 became Chief Trader. He spent the last two years of his working career as chief Trader at Fort Dunvegan in the Athabasca Department but returned to the coast in 1864 when he pre-empted 320 acres in the Fraser Valley. George Stewart Simpson died on March 13, 1894, at his residence on Cook Street in Victoria, B. C. On June 12, 1857, at Fort Langley, Simpson married Isabella Yale (c.1840-), daughter of James Murray Yale and together they had four children....

So there you go, if you are a descendant of this Simpson, then you will find more about him in Peers' journal in BC Archives.

Let's see what James Raffen says about this young man, in "Emperor of the North: Sir George Simpson and the Remarkable story of the Hudson's Bay Company:"

p. 233-34 -- While Simpson tended to these labours in Lachine, "the commodity" [Margaret Taylor] gave birth at York Factory in February 1827 to a bouncing baby boy, whom she named George Stewart Simpson. Simpson met the child for the first time that summer, during the Northern Council at the Depot, just before he hurried back south to make his way via Osnaburgh House, Martin Falls and Fort Albany to Moose Factory....On his way back upriver in September, to return to Lachine, he jotted off another quick private note to McTavish, in which his paternal responsibilities were given their usual shrug: "Pray keep a sharp look out upon Madam, if she behaves well let her be treated accordingly but on the contrary [be] sent about her business and the child taken from her. Should any accident happen to me and that the youngster lives until 4 or 5 years old he will in all probability be claimed by some of my friends in England or Scotland."

p. 264 -- [he arrived at Fort Alexander where Margaret Taylor was; he was travelling with his new wife] Not surprisingly, there was not time for a proper inspection stop at Fort Alexander at the mouth of the Winnipeg River. Their accounts say very little about this portion of the journey, but there cousin Thomas gives the impression of a very quick hello: "We arrived at Bas de la riviere [Fort Alexander] on the 5th of June. The Governor and Lady started the same evening for Red River. There was no time to stop -- they camped on the shore below Fort Alexander. ...In the rush to move on to Fort Garry there was no time at Fort Alexander to meet for the first time his new son James Mackenzie Simpson, or to pick up in his arms George Stewart Simpson, or to introduce his unsuspecting English wife to his half-Chipewyan wife, who had been counting the days until his return..."

Poor Margaret Taylor! But at least it looks as though George Simpson did not entirely abandon his son.

Posted by  Nancy Marguerite Anderson     at  11:54 AM