A story of intense competition that led to a massacre is this week’s look back on Cochrane history.
About 20 km west of town is Frederickhouse. It’s the site of an ill-fated Hudson’s Bay Company post in the 18th century.
Cochrane Public Library archivist Ardis Proulx-Chedore reads from an Ontario Heritage Foundation document. It says the post was established in 1785 and named for a son of King George the Third, “…to prevent Canadian fur traders in the Abitibi region from intercepting the passage of furs to Moose Factory on James Bay.”
“Throughout its operation,” Proulx-Chedore continues, “it encountered intense, occasionally violent competition, particularly from a rival concern on nearby Devil’s Island.”
Two labourers and several indigenous people were murdered at Frederickhouse during the winter of 1812-13.
The post was not permanently staffed after that and abandoned in 1821, when the merger of Hudson’s Bay with the North West Company brought the competition to an end.
Stories like this by the hundreds if not thousands can be found in the archives at the Cochrane Public Library. All you need is a library card.
