Page 121 - Fortier Family History

Roderick Finlayson 1818-1892 HBC Chief Factor 1859-1872 Dictionary of Canadian Biography FINLAYSON, RODERICK, HBC officer, farmer, businessman, and politician; b. 16 March 1818 in Loch Alsh (Kyle of Lochalsh), Scotland, son of Alexander Finlayson, sheep and stock farmer, and Mary Morrison; m. 14 Dec. 1849 in Fort Victoria (Victoria, B.C.) Sarah Work, daughter of John Work and Josette Legacé, and they had seven daughters and four sons; d. 20 Jan. 1892 in Victoria. One of a family that had fallen on hard times, Roderick Finlayson was educated at a parochial school in his native Ross-shire, and in July 1837 emigrated to New York City. Through the influence of a relative there, he received an appointment as apprentice clerk with the Hudson’s Bay Company at its head office in Lachine, Lower Canada. (Two of his uncles, Nicol and Duncan Finlayson, were already employed by the company.) Roderick was soon transferred to Fort Coulonge on the Ottawa River where, during the winter of 1837–38, he was initiated into the company’s mode of trade with natives and lumbermen. The following summer he was appointed to Fort William (Thunder Bay, Ont.) and in 1839 he proceeded to the Columbia district with a brigade under the command of John McLoughlin. Their orders were to take possession of part of the Russian territory that had been leased by the HBC for trade purposes from the Russian American Company \[see Sir George Simpson\]. The party took over the Russian post at the mouth of the Stikine River in 1840. After leaving a few men to carry on the trade, Finlayson and the others, led by Chief Factor James Douglas, proceeded to the Russian American Company’s primary station at Sitka (Alaska), where trade matters were settled amicably between the two companies. Douglas’s party then ascended the Taku River to a point 50 miles upstream, where they built Fort Taku. Finlayson was appointed second in command. Over the ensuing two winters he was transferred first to Fort Stikine (Alaska) and then to Fort Simpson (Port Simpson, B.C.). The HBC had now decided, however, that the steamer Beaver could handle the majority of trade in the district, and that resources would be better concentrated on the southern end of Vancouver Island. On 1 June 1843 Finlayson became second in command at Victoria Harbor and began to work on the construction of Fort Victoria. The following year, after the death of Charles Ross, the officer in charge, Finlayson was promoted to command the post and in this role he earned Douglas’s praise: “He is not a man of display, but there is a degree of energy, perseverance, method and sound judgement in all his arrangements. . . . He is besides a young man of great probity and high moral worth.” Finlayson had to face the problem of the company’s uneasy relations with the Songhees Indians and, after several confrontations, he persuaded them to move across the harbor to the site of the future Indian reserve. Under his direction one of the several farms at Fort Victoria was established. Dairy and agricultural produce was shipped north to the Russian American Company, in accordance with the terms of the agreement of 1839, and was sold to local settlers and visiting ships. Finlayson was also involved in the formation of the ill-fated Vancouver’s Island Steam Saw Mill Company at Esquimalt. Roderick Finlayson - HBC Chief Trader/Factor Sarah Work - Roderick's wife