THE EARLY SCOTS AT MONTREAL By Col. Paul Phelps Hutchison

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During the French regime there were a few of Scottish descent here but they were exiled Scots who had become soldiers of the French monarchy. One recalls a French soldier like the Comte de Fraser or the eleventh governor of Montreal, Claude de Ramezay, whose Chateau still stands opposite Montreal City Hall, perhaps partly because it was kept in such good condition by another Scot, William Grant, who purchased it in 1763. When, however, the Scots really descended upon Montreal was soon after the conquest. Montreal capitulated on September 8th 1760. Some of you may remember the story: how the plan was for three British armies to march against the city for a simultaneous attack, even if in those days there was no telegraph or wireless to co-ordinate the troop movements. One force under Sir Jeffery Amherst came in from the west; another under a Lowland Scot, General James Murray, came from Quebec City; and the third moved north from Lake Champlain. Amherst arrived first and settled his troops for the night in a field which is now the Cote des Neiges Reservoir. He planned to move the next morning down the gully between the two hills to attack the little city on the banks of the St. Lawrence River. But that night the French plenipotentiaries came out to negotiate for the surrender at the farmhouse, which later became known as ”Capitulation Cottage”. It was in the reservoir field and not, as many have thought, the bigger freestone house known as ”Amherst House” further along Cote des Neiges The latter at the end of the Victorian Era was owned by Lieut. Colonel J.A.L. Strathy, who commanded our local regiment of Highlanders from 1893 to 1897; he knew the history of the district and gave his home the Amherst name.

When the capitulation was signed Amherst led his troops down the present Cote des Neiges into the city. With them were two battalions of The Royal Highland Regiment. This was the first occasion when the streets of Montreal reverberated to the Pipes and Drums of The Black Watch. Amherst became ”Lord Amherst of Montreal” for his bloodless victory. Actually, the other two armies arrived almost immediately. With Murray were the Frasers and the Montgomerie Highlanders who, the previous year, had led the scaling of the Clif at Wolfe’s Cove and had performed so gallantly at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. On September 11th, 1760, three small armies paraded on the Place d’Armes at Montreal, among them four battalions of kilted Highlanders. Murray, the Elibank Scot, became the first military governor of Canada and was later often in trouble with his Scottish compatriots who flocked to Montreal as merchant adventurers and led a local agitation for representative government. The Highland soldiers soon left Montreal but one wonders if their stories of the little French city on the St. Lawrence may not have influenced some of them and their relatives in Scotland to come to Canada. We know, for example, that one of Montreal’s earliest doctors was a Daniel Robertson, a retired Lieutenant of the 42nd Black Watch. A Scottish merchant who came with the troops and stayed was Alexander Henry, who became a great explorer in the Indian trade. (Note how these Scottish names linger on in Montreal: in today’s telephone book there are still columns and columns of Robertsons and Henrys). But immediately after the Conquest the earliest influx of traders to Montreal was from the American Colonies; only a few of them were Scots.

The real influx from Scotland came a very few years later. So many of those who then arrived in Montreal were inter-related and came from Highland clans long established within a few miles of Lord President Duncan Forbes’ estate at Culloden, that one wonders why they came. They were not poor emigrants from abroad. Many were well educated; some were not without independent means. But their families and clans had been out in the ’45 fighting for Bonnie Prince Charlie and his defeat at the Battle of Culloden must have been a sore blow. These Scots had no love for the Sassenach, recalled the Ancient Alliance of Scotland and France, learned of a friendly French population in Canada from their kin who had been there with Amherst’s and Murray’s Highlanders so they set off to renew their fortunes at Montreal. At least that is my personal theory. More came later in a further influx at the turn of the century, with stalwart sons whom they did not wish to have fighting for England during the French revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. At Montreal they became merchants, fur traders, millers, shipowners, bankers and, in due course, builders of great railways.

At the time of the British Conquest, Montreal was a tiny city. Even forty years later, by 1800, its population was only some 8,000. Yet through the industry and vision of these first Scots the city soon became a business centre out of all proportion to its population and the most important fur trading spot in the world. The story of these Scottish fur traders is most romantic; one could wish that even today more emphasis might be given in our schools to its part in Canadian history. During the French regime there had been some trade from Canada with the Indians In the North West, while the Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson’s Bay had also sought its furs in the north country. It was the early Scots at Montreal who in 1766 reopened the trade with the North West. The first who decided to penetrate west from Montreal , to the furthest limits of the French discoveries, was Thomas Curry, a Scot who set off with guides in four canoes as far as the Saskatchewan River, returning the next spring with his canoes filled with fine furs. James Finlay, another Scot, followed Curry as far as the last French settlement on the Saskatchewan . From there the Scottish fur traders of Montreal spread out over a vast and unknown territory in the North West. Their success led the Hudson’s Bay Company (incidentally, most of its servants in the territory to the north were also Scots) to push down and west from the Bay.

Soon at Montreal there were several vigorous firms of these Scottish traders – Gregory & Co.; Todd & McGill ; McTavish & Co.; and others. By 1780 ninety to a hundred of their canoes annually left Montreal, laden with goods to trade for furs with the Indians and the white trappers of the North West, each canoe-load worth £660 at Michillimackinac at the head of the Great Lakes. Quite outstanding men from Scotland led these firms. For example, Simon McTavish, son of a Fraser Highlander. He came to Montreal in 1774, was known as ”The Marquis” married a French-Canadian, Marguerite Chaboillez, in 1793 and died in 1804 leaving a fortune of $600,000. He had a substantial winter house near the waterfront on Jean Baptiste Street but, in summer, lived on his country estate, which stretched from the slopes of Mount Royal to the present Dorchester Boulevard. His nearest neighbour to the east was James McGill on his ”Burnside” estate, which also stretched from the Mountain down to Dorchester Boulevard and which he left to found the college which bears his name. James McGill came to Montreal from Glasgow, one of three brothers (John and Andrew McGill were the others) and all of them were at Montreal by 1774. Their firm was Todd & McGill which, in 1769, formed a connection with another trio of brothers, Benjamin, Joseph and Thomas Frobisher. Benjamin Frobisher came to Montreal before 1765. ”Beaver HaII” outside the city was his home, halfway up the slope which is now Beaver Hall Hill . The Frobishers linked up later with McTavlsh and the firm became McTavish, Frobisher & Co. McTavish brought out his nephews from Scotland to assist him, William and Duncan McGillivary, who later succeeded him in charge of the firm. It was these nephews who erected the McTavish Monument at the head of the uncle’s estate – on Pine Avenue just above McTavish Street named for Simon McTavish – near the castle on Mount Royal which McTavish was building when he died.

To avoid excessive competition in the fur trade of the North West these Montreal trading firms pooled their interests in 1782 to form the North West Company, among the partners being Todd, McGill, the Frobishers, Alexander Henry and, at their head, “The OId Lion of Montreal” Simon McTavish. When McTavish died his nephew, William McGillivary, succeeded to the leadership of the North West Co. Fort William on Lake Superior was named for him. His home was at the corner of the present Guy and Dorchester Streets and was called ”St. Antoine House” or ”Chateau St. Antoine”. From this probably the suburb further west took its name, Cote St. Antoine, which today is the City of Westmount. Among the earliest residents of Cote St. Antoine were my curling cousins. In the days of the horse-cars they journeyed to the end of the line, at that same Guy and Dorchester corner, where their horn and buggy met them to drive on to their homes in the country, which were on what are now Kensington Avenue and nearby St. Catherine Street West.

The American Revolution seriously interfered with the western fur trade and, indeed, for nearly a year, Montreal was occupied by the American rebels. It was governed then from the Chateau de Ramezay by an American Commission consisting of Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase and Charles Carroll of Carrollton. When the Americans withdrew, the fur trade f rom Montreal sprang to life again and soon reached an annual value of one million dollars. The furs were brought in to Montreal and Quebec, and over to England. Some, however, were brought here by an American competitor of the Montreal Scots. The German merchant John Jacob Astor of New York, who came frequently to Montreal, usually staying with Alexander Henry at his home on lower St. Urbain Street. Indeed, Astor had a Montreal warehouse of his own at Vaudreuil and St. Therese Streets. The partners of the North West Co. formed the famous Beaver Club in 1785 which met at Dillon’s Inn on the Place d’Armes.

Fur traders of the North West Co., on their trading journeys, kept pushing further and further west into unknown country. Two of the outstanding explorers for the Company were Sir Alexander Mackenzie and Simon Fraser, two more Highlanders from near Culloden. Mackenzie came from Inverness in 1779 to join John Gregory’s firm, which was then in competition with McTavish and the Frobishers. He was a clerk with the firm at Montreal for five years, then he went west as a servant of the North West Co. In 1789 he explored down the great river named for him, the longest river in North America; four years later he was the first man to reach the Pacific Ocean overland. In 1808 Simon Fraser extended the activities of the North West Co. west of the Rockies and explored in a bark canoe down another great river, named for him the Fraser. With Fraser was another Scot, John Stuart, who influenced his nephew, Donald Smith, to come to Canada, as a result of which young Smith later became Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal.

McTavish ”the Marquis” and William McGillivary – he, too, had his nickname ”the Lord of the North West” – ruled with a strong hand from Montreal and at the annual gatherings of the wintering partners of the North West Co. at Fort William. Some of the partners resented this and seceded in 1799 to form the XY Company. Competition between themselves cut into profits and in 1804, Sir Alexander Mackenzie and his cousin, Roderick Mackenzie, were the leading spirits which led to the amalgamation of the two companies. An even greater threat to the fur trade in the North West soon came during the second decade of the 19th century. This resulted from the settlement grant bestowed in England upon the Earl of Selkirk. He was given a crown grant of land by the Red River in the present Manitoba, land which he been the domain of the Montreal merchants for a quarter of a century. Much rivalry ensued; fights and even bloodshed resulted between the two factions in the west; and the old Hudson’s Bay Co., in which the noble Earl from Scotland was a large shareholder, began to compete strongly for the furs of the Indians. Profits dwindled to such an extent that the obvious answer was for the two great companies to join together. The union of the North West Co. with the Hudson’s Bay Co. took place in 1821, with George Simpson as the first resident Governor in Canada of the united companies.

Simpson was another fascinating Scot of strong character who settled at Montreal and left his imprint on the city and, indeed, Canada as a whole. He, too, came from the Highlands near Culloden; in fact, he was a descendant in the fifth generation from Duncan Forbes of Culloden. Born in 1789, the son of George Simpson and an unknown mother, he was brought up by his clergyman grandfather, the Reverend Thomas Simpson, whose second wife was Isabel MacKenzie, a granddaughter of Lord President Forbes. Incidentally this Scottish padre must have been quite a man – he had twenty children by his first wife and twelve by the Mackenzie!

After some business experience in London, young George Simpson came to Canada in 1820 as a local governor for the Hudson’s Bay Company. For forty years as the Company’s head in North America he ruled a vast domain which comprised fourteen of the present states of the American Union and all of the present Canada except for the Maritimes and a narrow strip along the St. Lawrence River. In his day, under his jurisdiction, there were one hundred and ten of the Company’s forts, stretching across the Continent, down to Southern California and across the Pacific to the Philippine Islands and Siberia. During his governorship Simpson travelled 100,000 miles by canoe, sitting in state wearing his beaver top hat, with his personal piper, Colin Fraser, in Highland costume beside him, ready to pipe the Governor ashore and to his inspection of a fort. In alternate years Simpson travelled from Montreal his inner and his outer circle, the former north to Hudson’s Bay and west to Fort Garry, the present-day Winnipeg; the latter even across the Pacific Ocean. He was the first man to journey overland right around the world. Sir George Simpson, as he became, was known as “The Little Emperor of the North” a fiery, short, imperious, red-haired Scot. At Montreal his home was at Lachine where there is now a convent and opposite the little fur post which still stands and from which the cavalcade of canoes annually left for the west via the Ottawa River, Lake Nipissing, French River to Sault Ste. Marie and the head of Lake Superior. Simpson’s country home was the whole of Dorval Island but he also owned property on the side of Mount Royal as a result of which we now have Simpson Street. He also built the terrace of greystone residences On the north side of Sherbrooke Street between McTavish and Peel Streets, which he named ”the Prince of Wales terrace”, in honour of the visit of that Heir to the Throne who became King Edward VII (Other Scots who lived there for many years were Principal Sir William Peterson of McGill, Sir William Macdonald the tobacco millionaire and Robert Lindsay).

Sir George Simpson’s closest friend was a son of the Chief of Clan McTavish, John George McTavish, one of the wintering partners of the North West Company who later became Chief Factor of the Hudson’s Bay Company at the Lake of the Two Mountains. They met on the ship when Simon came out In 1820. This McTavish was a doughty Scottish warrior. During the War of 1812 he crossed the continent by canoe flying the British Flag and captured John Jacob Astor’s fur post, Astoria, on the Pacific Coast. It is intriguing to note how patriotic these Highland Jacobites became during that war, even if they and their families had come to Canada to avoid service in the English Army during the Napoleonic Period. Take, for example, the case of John Ogilvie who had a country estate near Capitulation Cottage. When the news of Nelson’s death reached Montreal he and other local Scots were prominent on the committee which commissioned the Nelson Monument to be made in England and had it erected on Notre Dame Street close by the Chateau de Ramezay, the first public monument in the British Empire to the great f ighting admiral. At the same time Ogilvie named his estate “Trafalgar” and erected a tower on it just west of the present Cote des Neiges. Each year he f ired a cannon salute from the top of the tower on the anniversary of the sea battle. Because of this early Ogilvie estate we now have ”Trafalgar Avenue”. Today we refer to the hill and district west of Mount Royal as ”Westmount” but on old plans and maps that hill is shown as ”Mount Trafalgar”.

Another Highland Scot who was a contemporary of Simpson’s in the Hudson’s Bay Company, but in a much more junior capacity, was the Donald Smith I have already mentoned. Smith came to Canada in 1837, serving for many years at various of the Company’s posts in the north and west before he, too became Governor. His home in Montreal was on Dorchester Street West, near Atwater Avenue. For a lengthy period Donald Smith represented Montreal in Parliament; before he died he was a Peer of the Realm and Canada’s High Commissioner in London.

It was undoubtedly they early Scots in the fur trade who put Montreal on the business map of the world. But as they prospered here others from Scotland joined them and also prospered in other branches of business which they started. One Montreal industry which has always fascinated me was that of flour milling. It, too, goes back to the earlier days of Montreal under the British flag. For nearly two centuries it has been closely identified with the name of Ogilvie. In 1800 Archiband Ogilvie, with his wife, Agnes Watson, and their three sons, came to Canada. The Watsons came to Montreal even earlier, in fact, during 1779, and I suspect must have had something to do with the milling of flour in the Old Country. In any event, in the early part of the 19th century Agnes Ogilvie’s nephews, Robert and William Watson, were in turn Chief Flour Inspectors of the Port of Montreal. Robert Watson was assassinated by a wild Irishman in 1827; but his brother became one of the leading personalities of his time in Montreal. Archibald Ogilvie, after farming for a while, built a flour mill near Quebec in 1801, but it was his grandson, Alexander Walker Ogilvie, who was a real founder of the big milling industry of Canada. He, at 22 years of age, became the partner of his uncle, James Goudie (whose wife was an Ogilvie), in a flour mill at Montreal in the earlier years of the 19th century. I have been told this mill was the stone windmill at the Lachine end of the Lower Lachine Road remnants of which still stand near the old Lasalle House. In 1855 A. W. Ogilvie and his brother, John, formed A.W. Ogilvie & Co., a flour-milling partnership, adding another brother, the first William Watson Ogilvie, five years later. These firms built mills at Montreal and at Winnipeg, and garnered their wheat from the fast-growing prairies. When W. W. Ogilvie became the head of other flour-milling interests they were the greatest in the world under one man’s control. His home ”Rosemount” at the head of Simpson Street (it is now the Percy Walters Park) he bought from another outstanding Scot, Sir John Rose. Bart., the first second-in-command of our local Black Watch Regiment and Minister of Finance in the first Dominion government. After thirty years in Canada Rose returned to Britain and became an outstanding banker in the Anglo-American firm of Morton, Rose & Co.

My grandfather, Matthew Hutchison, succeeded the Watsons as Chief Flour Inspector of the Port of Montreal. The flour inspectorship was one of the top jobs at Montreal in those days, bringing to the inspector $15,000 a year in fees, a no mean salary 100 years ago in the days of no income taxes. As a result, it became a government patronage appointment. When Sir John A. Macdonald’s government fell as a result of the C.P.R. Scandal, Matthew Hutchison lost his lucrative appointment and he then joined his Ogilvie brothers-in-law in the new flour-milling partnership of Ogilvie & Hutchison, which built a mill at Goderich, Ontario. Matthew Hutchison moving there to run it. His home in Montreal had been at the top of Beaver Hall Hill (where the DuPont Building now stands), which was then in the country. It was there my father was born . The district attracted Matthew Hutchison, as it had his father, James Hutchison, before him. Matthew Hutchison was offered half of the present Dominion Square and the whole of the Windsor Hotel/Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Laurentian Hotel properties for $500; he was inclined to buy. But he consulted A. W. Ogilvie who said to him : ”Don’t be a damn fool – the city will never grow out that far! ” James Hutchison had come out to Montreal from Scotland in 1833 to farm near St. Laurent – that farm was sold for $3,000; it was eventually bought by the C.N.R. for a million dollars. James Hutchison later had a farm which ran over Mount Royal to the east of the McTavish/McGill properties which accounts for the name of Hutchison Street.

As the furs from the North West accumulated in the warehouses at Montreal and Quebec; as the wheat from the Prairies and Upper Canada came to the mills of the Ogilvies at Winnipeg, Goderich and Montreal to be turned into flour; as other products were grown or manufactured in the Canadas, ships were needed to carry them overseas and to bring back needed goods manufactured abroad. One of the earliest Scots at Montreal to meet this need was James Miller – his sister was the wife of the previously mentioned James Hutchison. Immediately after the Napoleonic Period the sailing ships of James Miller & Co. were plying regularly between Montreal and Glasgow, and more vessels were being built in Canada by the firm. Miller was an important figure of the business world at Montreal, Chairman of the Committe of Trade which later became the Board of Trade, and holding other public offices. His home was just outside the City’s walls, facing the Haymarket at the foot of Beaver Hall Hill; today his property is appropriately the head- quarters of Canada Steamships on Victoria Square. There through the week Matthew Hutchison, as a boy, lived with his uncle Miller while attending Dr. Black’s School. The Scottish ladies were not pampered in those days – at weekends young Matthew walked in and out to the family farm at St. Laurent.

One of Miller’s sea captains was Alexander Allan. On one of his trips to Montreal he spoke to Mr. Miller about his son, Hugh, just finishing school in Scotland, and the skipper was advised to bring the lad out on his next voyage. Hugh Allan came in 1826 and soon settled down as a clerk in the shipping firm which had become Miller, Edmonstone & Co. Allan, before long, became its chief clerk. When Miller died in 1833 his estate was bought out by Edmonstone and young Allan. In due course Edmonstone, Allan & Co. became a partnership of Hugh Allan and his brother, Andrew; still later it was the Allan Steamships which eventually was such a substantial part of Canadian Pacif ic Steamships.

Hugh Allan prospered mightily, became Sir Hugh and built himself a baronial castle ”Ravenscrag” on his property on the slopes of Mount Royal – that property had been part of the earlier Simon McTavish and James Hutchison lands. Sir Hugh, no doubt, was a ruthless old tycoon. He built a straight stonewall along the west side of his property, ignoring the fact that at the back was a semi-circular bit, part of a reserved section around the Simon McTavish Monument. The McTavish heirs, then living in the United States, learned of this encroachment, sued Sir Hugh and the latter was obliged to tear down part of his expensive wall which was replaced by a semi-circular wooden fence. It is curious what happens as the years go by. When Sir Hugh’s son, Sir Montagu, gave ”Ravenscrag” to The Royal Victoria Hospital as a memorial to his father, I was the lawyer who prepared the deed of donation. As it was about to be signed, I accompanied Sir Montagu Allan one Sunday Morning on his last tour of his family property. In one of the rooms was an oil painting of the sea captain grandfather, beside it another of their senior ”partner”, James Miller. In the grounds I pointed out the circular fence and told Sir Montaju its story which he had never known. Today ”Ravenscrag” has forgotten its past glories of luxurious social gatherings and is the very modern Allan Memorial Institute of Psychiatry.

Another early need in the prosperous growing business world of the early Scots at Montreal was a banking facility. Here again the Scots led the way. In 1817 the Bank of Montreal was established, with many Scottish names amongst the incorporators: McTavish, McGillivary, Stewart, Leslie, MacKenzie, Macdougall, Paterson, James Miller and others. One of its outstanding early presidents was Peter McGill who became Mayor of Montreal, Speaker of the Legislative Council. Chairman of the first railway in Canada and goodness knows what else. McGill Street downtown is named for him, in spite of the fact that ”McGill” was not his real name. He was actually Peter McCutcheon but changed his name when he became the heir of the Honourable John McGill of Toronto. One recalls so many of Scottish birth or descent who have directed Canada’s oldest bank: Lord Mount Stephen; his cousin, Lord Strathcona; R.B. Angus; Sir George A. Drummond; Sir Edward Clouston; Sir Charles Gordon; and many others.

Still later, but much nearer our own time, came the two great railways, the Grand Trunk and the Canadian Pacific. Again one sees many of these same Scots largely responsible for building these networks of rail lines across the Continent: George Simpson, J.G. McTavish and William Watson among the original incorporators of the G.T.R .; in the C.P.R. Donald Smith George Stephen, R .B. Angus, Duncan McIntyre and other local Scots.

When the Scots prospered in business it was natural that they should also be primarily responsible for setting up other local amenities of a social , religious, educational and public health character. It is not surprising, therefore, that their Royal Montreal Curling Club is the oldest on the Continent; that the Royal Montreal Golf Club also claims to be the oldest in North America; that the first Protestant Church in Montreal was the St. Gabriel’s Church of these early Scots; that the St. Andrew’s Society of Montreal goes back to 1834; that our great local university bears the name of its original benefactor, James McGill the fur trader; that the oldest Protestant English-speaking school for girls was founded as the Trafalgar Institute by a Donald Ross who had acquired part of the former Trafalgar-Ogilvie property and left it to start the school; that the oldest Highland Regiment of the British CommonweaIth outside Scotland is our local Black Watch; and that so many Scottish names appear among the incorporators and down the years as benefactors, directors and officers of our two great local public hospitals, the Montreal General and The Royal Victoria. Truly we can agree with His Excellency the Governor-General in rendering tribute to the Scots of Montreal for what they have contributed in the development of this City and of Canada.