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Title: Some Further Material on Peter Pond

Date of first publication: 1935

Author: Harold Adams Innis (1894-1952)

Date first posted: February 2, 2026

Date last updated: February 2, 2026

Faded Page eBook #20260204

This eBook was produced by: Hugh Dagg, John Routh, Brittany Jeans & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net

Since the publication of my Peter Pond, fur trader and adventurer (Toronto, 1930), additional material has been made available from a variety of sources which warrants brief discussion. Mrs. LeGrand Cannon of New Haven, Connecticut, a descendant of Peter Pond, has confirmed minor points and has been good enough to arrange for photostats to be made of the journal in the possession of Mr. LeGrand Cannon, Jr. These are now in the possession of the University of Toronto library. Pond’s Beaver club medal in the possession of Mr. Winthrop Pond of New Rochelle, New York, carries “Peter Pond Fortitude in distress 1769” on one side and “Beaver Club instituted Montreal, Industry and Perseverance 1785” on the other. The Beaver club minutes, on the other hand, state that he went west in 1770. It is probable that he first wintered at, or west of, Mackinac in 1769-70.

As to his later activities there is much evidence to suggest that he stayed in the country on his first trip in 1778 two years and not one, and that he came out in 1780 and wintered at Mackinac in 1780-1.^[1] He went in from Grand Portage to winter with Waden in 1781-2.

The scepticism expressed by various reviews of my book, including that by Professor A. S. Morton in the Review of June, 1932, as to Pond’s probable innocence in the murders of John Ross in 1787 and Etienne Waden in 1782, warrants a brief review of the evidence, particularly as additional material has come to light since the publication of the volume.

In reply to the question “whether upon the examination before the committee of François Nadeau for the murder of John Ross, the committee of Privy Council does think the said François to be vehemently suspected of the said murder?”, Mr. Grant replied for the affirmative and Mr. Baby, Mr. de St. Ours, Judge Mabane, Judge Dunn, and Mr. Finlay for the negative. The same question, substituting the name Eustache le Compte, brought a reply in the negative from all the members.^[2] Having cleared the names of these men we may turn to that of Peche, a name suggested by J. J. Bigsby in his narrative on Peter Pond.^[3] According to Bigsby, Pond “persuaded his men to rob Mr. Ross of a load of furs in open day. In the course of the altercation Mr. Ross was shot, really by accident, from a gun in the hand of a voyageur named Peche.” The publication of the Journals of Samuel Hearne and Philip Turnor, edited by Mr. J. B. Tyrrell (Toronto, The Champlain Society, 1934) throws light on this and other problems. Peter Fidler in his journal of 1791 writes: “Mr. Ross was shot by one Peche a Canadian by orders of Pond” (p. 394 n.) and again Peche was apparently in charge of the North West Company post at the mouth of the Slave River as “The Canadian master . . . absconded with the Chepewyans and remained with them 3 winters and 3 summers, before he could venture back . . . frightened of the gallows”. In 1800 at Fort Chipewyan James McKenzie wrote of Peche as “a little crack brained and as variable as the wind” (p. 417n). It would appear that Professor Morton’s interpretation of Roderick Mackenzie’s statements to the effect that “Pond so far from restraining his men, had encouraged them to go to extremes in case of a clash with the men of the rival fort, but there again they [the statements] may mean much more” should be modified at least by omission of the part beginning “but there . . .” It is obvious that we cannot accuse Pond of the murder of Ross.

The case against him in the charge of the murder of Waden is based on the affidavit of Joseph Fagniant. Mr. F. J. Audet has sent a copy of the sworn statement which has been collated since the copy in Peter Pond, fur trader and adventurer (pp. 94-6) was made. Minor changes now make possible the more adequate translation given below.^[4] The petition of Josette Waden, dated May 29, 1783, was based on the affidavit: “That from the affidavit here annexed your petitioner hath a great cause to believe that the said murder was committed by one Peter Pond and one Toussaint le Sieur, the deceased’s [Waden’s] clerk.”

The examination and report of Joseph Fagniant of Berthier, voyageur to the upper country, who having sworn on the bible, declared that having wintered in the upper country at the Lake de la Rivière aux Rapides in the English River, he was, in the month of March 1782 in a small post with Peter Pond and Jean Etienne Waden, traders. On a day early in March about 9 o’clock in the evening he retired to his house, which was at the side and touched the house of Sieur Waden, which he had just left, and after taking off his shoes or about ten minutes after his return, having left Waden on his bed, he heard two gun shots, one after the other, suddenly, in Waden’s house on which he sent a man to see what it was. The man went and returned saying that Mons. Waden was on the ground having received a gun shot, at which he got up and ran immediately to Waden and found him on the ground beside his bed on which he had left him a short time before, with his left leg shattered from the knee down. On approaching Waden the latter said to him Ah mon amis je suis mort, at which he attempted to tear his trousers [dechirer ses culots à metasses] to examine the leg and found the mark of powder on his knee and holes where two balls had entered and the leg shattered below the knee where the two balls had left from behind, having found them [the balls] on the spot. Sieur Waden asked him to find the Turlington Balsam and stop the blood. Having asked him who had done this to him he replied I will tell you but having lost very much blood by that time he was not able to say more. On entering Waden’s house on this occasion, he saw Peter Pond and Toussaint Sieur leaving it and entering their own. He found an empty gun and another broken in the house and saw that the one which was empty had been recently fired but that the other had been carried away [mais que l’autre etoit emporté]. On entering Waden’s house after the shots he saw Peter Pond and Toussaint Sieur at the door. Sieur asked Waden if it was he Sieur who had killed him. Waden replied Go away both of you that I may not see you. Thereupon two men led Toussaint Sieur to bed and Peter Pond entered his own house. About a month before Peter Pond and Waden had fought and again on the same evening that Waden was killed. About an hour before supper Peter Pond quarrelled and argued with Waden. That he has good reason to believe that it was Peter Pond and Toussaint Sieur or one of them who killed Sieur Waden and for the present has nothing more to say.

Such is the evidence. Sieur’s question and Waden’s answer lead one to suggest that a scuffle had occurred and that Sieur had been implicated in the fatal shots.

The volume edited by Dr. Tyrrell makes his activities more definite on other minor points. In 1775, contrary to Alexander Henry’s account, Pond did not go to Cumberland House before proceeding south to Lake Dauphin. He passed Cumberland House on October 7, 1777, on his way up the Saskatchewan in that year, and he arrived with five canoes on May 26, 1778, at Cumberland House on his way to Athabasca. Fresh evidence of a generous disposition is available in the following citation from the Cumberland House journal of the Hudson’s Bay Company, dated May 26, 1778:

[Pond] brought Isaac Batt with two bundles of furs from the Upper Settlement, he not having a canoe to come down in. I could not but in civility ask him to come in for his kindness, I also returned him thanks for the supply of provisions he gave to William Walker when he arrived at the Upper Settlement, which Wm. Walker informs me was of great service to him, there being no Indians there to trade provisions with (p. 55).

A final item of interest, touching Pond’s activities as an explorer rather than as a trader, has been made available through the discovery by Miss Grace Lee Nute in one of the copies of the Gentleman’s magazine for March, 1790, of a map accompanying the well-known letter in that issue. The map ^[5] brings out clearly the general belief in a river from Slave Lake to Cook’s Inlet and supports the letter written at Quebec on November 7, 1784, by Isaac Ogden to David Ogden in London and forwarded on January 23, 1798, to Evan Nepean. It is possible that the map was drawn in London and based on the contents of the letter but it is quite probably a copy of the map referred to by Ogden as in Pond’s possession. It should be consulted with the copy of Pond’s map made by Ezra Stiles, president of Yale University, and at present in the possession of the library of Yale.^[6] This map shows no outlet either by the Mackenzie or by Cook’s Inlet. It is difficult to believe that Pond had learned of Mackenzie’s failure in 1789, by March, 1790. The latter returned from the mouth of the Mackenzie to Chipewyan on September 12 and there is no evidence of a winter express which would enable the news to reach Montreal by March, 1790. Prospects of success would certainly have deterred Pond’s departure from Montreal. That he left Montreal by that date and that the Stiles map shows no reference to Cook’s Inlet would seem to indicate that by March, 1790, he had lost faith in the possibilities of the route. The map published for the first time in that month is definite evidence that he believed in the route in early November of the preceding year, and that the map submitted to Stiles had been redrawn to conform to his doubts.

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.