Henry, Alexander (1765?-1814), was a fur trader of English descent who spent many years working in what is now central and western Canada. He is best known for his journal, first published in an edited version in New Light on the Early History of the Greater Northwest (1897). The journal contains a priceless record of Canada’s early fur trade and the people involved in it.
Virtually nothing is known of Henry’s birth or early life, except that he was part of a family of fur traders. He became known as Henry the Younger to distinguish him from his uncle, also named Alexander Henry and a well-known fur trader. The younger Henry’s career began in 1791 in the Lower Red River department of the North West Company, a Canadian fur-trading operation based in Montreal. Over the next 23 years, Henry worked at various trading posts, mainly along the Red River in what is now southern Manitoba and along the North Saskatchewan River in what is now Alberta. He began writing his journal in the autumn of 1799 and maintained it until his death.
In 1813, while a partner in the North West Company, Henry was sent to the mouth of the Columbia River in what is now Oregon. There, he recorded the company’s purchase of Astoria, founded by the American businessman John Jacob Astor’s Pacific Fur Company. The North West Company renamed Astoria Fort George. On May 22, 1814, while traveling from Fort George to the ship Isaac Todd, Henry drowned after his boat capsized. Henry’s journal notes that in 1801 he married the daughter of an Ojibwa chief and that the couple had four children. Henry’s will indicates that he also had three older children.
See also Henry, Alexander ; North West Company .
