Name Joseph Hargrave Role Author | Books Red river | |
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Occupation Chief Trader, Hudson’s Bay Company Parents Letitia MacTavish Hargrave Titles Royal Geographical Society | ||
Joseph James Hargrave (1841–1894) was a Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) trader, author, and journalist. He wrote the 1871 book, Red River, a history of the Manitoba Red River Colony.
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Early life
Joseph James Hargrave was born and raised at York Factory, a fur trading post on Hudson Bay. He was the oldest son of York Factory's Chief Trader James Hargrave and his wife Letitia MacTavish Hargrave. His family took him to Scotland in 1846 where he studied at Madras College, St. Andrews, and completed his studies as a surveyor in 1859.
Hudson's Bay Company
Hargrave returned to North America in 1861, where he became an apprentice clerk in the HBC and a secretary to his uncle William Mactavish, the governor of Rupert's Land and Assiniboia. In 1869, he began writing a series of articles for the Montreal Herald about the anticipated transfer of land from the HBC to Canada. In 1871, he published the book Red River describing the history of the Red River Colony prior to the 1869–1870 Red River Rebellion of Louis Riel.
Before his retirement, he became a Chief Trader in the HBC. He died in 1894 in Edinburgh, shortly after returning to Scotland.