Peter Pond

Peter Pond
Captain Peter Pond
Born	1740-01-18 Milford, Connecticut
Died	1807 Milford, Connecticut
Occupation	Fur trader, explorer, mapmaker, army officer
Father	Peter Pond (senior)
Mother	Mary Hubbard
Partner	Susanna Newell

Peter Pond ((1740-01-18)18 January 1740 – 1807) was an American-born fur trader, explorer, and mapmaker who pioneered the route into the Athabasca Country and became a central figure in the early North West Company.

Early life and military service

Pond was born on 18 January 1740 in Milford, Connecticut, the son of Peter Pond senior and Mary Hubbard. As a young man he enlisted and served during the French and Indian War from 1756 to 1760, taking part in operations at Fort Carillon and at Fort Niagara under Sir William Johnson, and was present at the fall of Montreal in 1760. After the conquest he briefly tried seafaring before turning to the fur trade.

Fur trade career

Pond entered the western fur trade around 1765, operating initially out of Detroit. Through the early 1770s he traded along the Mississippi River system before moving northward to Grand Portage, on Lake Superior's western shore, which served as the principal inland depot for the Montreal-based trade.

In 1778 Pond was chosen to lead a joint trading venture into the largely unexplored northwest. He became the first fur trader to cross Portage La Loche (Methye Portage), descending to the Athabasca River and establishing trade in the Athabasca Country. This single journey opened the richest beaver territory on the continent to the Montreal pedlars, and Harold Adams Innis later credited Pond's initiative as the driving force behind the formation of the first organized North West Company.

Violence and departure from the trade

Pond's career was shadowed by two violent deaths. In 1782 the trader Jean-Étienne Waddens was shot and mortally wounded at Lac la Ronge, with suspicion falling on Pond or members of his party; the location fell outside Quebec's established jurisdiction and no definitive prosecution followed. In 1787 another trader, John Ross, was shot in a confrontation involving Pond's men, though evidence points to a man named Péché as the actual killer. These incidents damaged Pond's standing among his partners.

After the 1788 trading season Pond withdrew from the fur trade permanently. He sold his share in the North West Company to William McGillivray in 1790 for £800.

Cartography

During the winter of 1784–85, Pond produced a celebrated manuscript map depicting the river and lake systems from the Great Lakes and Hudson Bay westward to the Rocky Mountains and north toward the Arctic. He presented a copy to the United States Congress and another to Quebec's lieutenant governor Henry Hamilton in April 1785, seeking patronage for a northwestern exploration scheme. Pond subsequently revised his maps to incorporate the Pacific coast discoveries of Captain James Cook, though his theory that Cook Inlet represented an eastern drainage from Great Slave Lake proved mistaken. When Alexander Mackenzie descended the river later named for him in 1789, the route broadly confirmed what Pond's earlier maps had suggested.

Later life

After leaving the fur trade Pond sought employment in the United States. In 1792 he was instructed by the American Secretary of War to assist in negotiations with Indigenous nations at Niagara and Detroit, though whether he actually participated is undocumented. He spent his remaining years in Milford, living in reduced circumstances, and died there in 1807.

Legacy

Peter Pond is commemorated by Peter Pond Lake in Saskatchewan and by a National Historic Site at the junction of the Sturgeon River and the North Saskatchewan River. Contemporary observers assessed him variously: Alexander Henry called him "a trader of celebrity," while David Thompson acknowledged his industrious habits but noted a violent temper and unprincipled character.

External links

• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography