Alexander Henry the elder
Alexander Henry 'The Elder', in French: Alexandre Henri Le Vieux was an American-born explorer, author, merchant who settled in Quebec following the Conquest of New France and was a partner in the North West Company and a founding member and vice-chairman of the Beaver Club. From 1763 to 1764, he lived and hunted with Wawatam of the Ojibwe, who had adopted him as a brother.
Alexander Henry the elder
A Canadian fur trader in 1777
The portrait of Alexander Henry (1739–1824) from his 1809 book
Nelson's Column, Montreal. Erected in 1809, Henry was one of the principal donators.
The North West Company was a fur trading business headquartered in Montreal from 1779 to 1821. It competed with increasing success against the Hudson's Bay Company in the regions that later became Western Canada and Northwestern Ontario. With great wealth at stake, tensions between the companies increased to the point where several minor armed skirmishes broke out, and the two companies were forced by the British government to merge.
Company coat of arms
Following the 1787 death of Benjamin Frobisher, Simon McTavish dominated the company, until his own death in 1804. His nephew William McGilivray ran the company, until the Hudson's Bay Company merger of 1821.
