Cameron, Duncan

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Jennifer S. H. Brown, “CAMERON, DUNCAN,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 7, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/cameron_duncan_7E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Fur trader and politician; b. c. 1764 in Glen Moriston, Scotland, son of Alexander Cameron and Margaret McDonell; d. 15 May 1848 in Williamstown, Upper Canada.
    • In 1773 Duncan Cameron immigrated to New York with his parents, who settled in Tryon County; seven years later, during the American revolution, he joined a loyalist regiment, probably the King’s Royal Regiment of New York. He came to the province of Quebec in 1785, in which year he entered the fur trade as a clerk for Alexander Shaw and Gabriel Cotté, independent traders in the Lake Nipigon (Ont.) region.
    • Cameron soon established himself as a formidable opponent to the Hudson’s Bay Company as it tried to expand into the territory north and west of Lake Nipigon. After Gabriel Cotté died in February 1795, Cameron arranged for the firms of Forsyth, Richardson and Company and Todd, McGill and Company to supply his trade goods. When these firms temporarily withdrew from the northwest trade, a result of their rejection of the shares offered to them in 1795 by the North West Company, Cameron evidently had no choice but to join that concern, in which he became a partner. In 1796 he was placed in charge of its Nipigon department, a position he held until 1807. In 1796–98 he was at Fly Lake (Whiteloon Lake) in the Severn River headwaters.
    • During at least the years 1807–12, Cameron had had an Indian wife and family, a connection that evidently linked him to the Ojibwas of the loon clan in the Nipigon area. A letter of 28 July 1812 contained a warning to a young relative against allowing “Love to get the better of Raison . . . if he should get Married before he is settled in a proper way, then all his future prospects are dished . . . this I too well know by dear bought experience.” In the fall of 1820 Cameron married Margaret McLeod, in Upper Canada, and they had a daughter and three sons, including Sir Roderick William, who became active in the shipping trade to Australia. Duncan Cameron represented Glengarry in the Upper Canadian House of Assembly during the ninth parliament (1825–28). 
  • Proven United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=1155
  • Find A Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/207153298/duncan-cameron