Mackenzie, Sir Alexander

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: W. Kaye Lamb, “MACKENZIE, Sir ALEXANDER (1764-1820),” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 5, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/mackenzie_alexander_5E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Fur trader, explorer, and author; b. 1764 at Stornoway, on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland, third of four children of Kenneth Mackenzie, of Melbost farm (two miles east of Stornoway), and Isabella Maciver, whose family was prominent in the town; m. 1812 Geddes Mackenzie, and they had three children; d. 12 March 1820 at Mulinearn, near Dunkeld, Scotland.
    • In the 1770s a severe depression developed on Lewis, and in 1774 Kenneth Mackenzie decided to join his brother John in New York. His wife had died while Alexander was still a child. Kenneth sailed for North America with his two sisters and Alexander, leaving both his daughters behind. (Alexander’s older brother Murdoch studied medicine; a terse family record states that he then “followed the sea and was lost on the coast of Halifax.”) Only months after the family’s arrival the American revolution broke out, and Kenneth and John joined the King’s Royal Regiment of New York.
    • Alexander Mackenzie’s fame is based solidly upon his two remarkable expeditions, both of which penetrated far into huge areas hitherto unexplored. He was only 29 when he returned from the Pacific in 1793, and the relative ineffectiveness of his activities thereafter made his later career somewhat of an anticlimax. The union of the New North West Company with the NWC in 1804 excluded him from the fur trade in Canada, and Selkirk defeated his attempt to gain control of the HBC in 1811. Only after his death did the newly reconstituted HBC adopt many aspects of his scheme for a continent-wide fur trade.
  • Son of Proven United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=4935
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/73824616/alexander-mackenzie