Alexander Henry The Elder - Family

Family

As was the custom with early fur traders, Henry had taken a 'country wife', a Native Indian whose sister was in the same way married to Simon McTavish. By her he was said to have fathered several children, but only one daughter is recorded. In 1785, having by then returned to society at Montreal, he married Julia Calcutt Kittson (1756–1835), "a woman of considerable personal fortitude". She was a native of Limavady and the widow of an Anglo-Irish army officer, John George Kittson (d.1779), whose home was in Co. Cork but had seen considerable service in North America. Mrs Julia Henry was the godparent with Sir Isaac Brock of William McGillivray's youngest daughter. It is open to debate whether Julia and Alexander met in Canada, England or Ireland around 1780, but they were the parents of several children, two of whom were born before they were married. Henry was step-father to two Kittsons, and the father of six known children,

• Martha Henry (1777–1849), natural daughter by Henry's country wife. At Albany, New York, 1798, she married William Hallowell (1771–1838), who had purchased his partnership into the North West Company from Henry that year. Their daughter, Elizabeth, married John Bethune, Dean of Montreal.
• Mary Kittson, Henry's stepdaughter, married to John Cates, brother of Lt. Samuel Cates of the King's Royal Rifle Corps whose wife (Mary Tucker) was the sister of Mrs George Kittson.
• George Kittson (1779–1832), Henry's stepson, married Anne Tucker and was the father of several children including Norman Kittson. Their daughter, Margaret, married Henry's business partner in later life, Norman Bethune (1789–1848), son of Rev. John Bethune. Another son, William Henry Kittson, married a sister of Chief Justice Sir William Collis Meredith. Meredith's former business partner at Montreal, Strachan Bethune, was the grandson of Martha (Henry) Hallowell.
• Julia Henry (b.1780), died unmarried.
• William Henry (1784–1864), was a fur trader with the North West Company and later a surveyor and civil engineer at Montreal. He carried several scars from knife wounds received in quarrels with various Indians, and in the Rocky Mountains he had his scalp torn off by a Grizzly bear before being rescued by an Indian. He was inducted into the Beaver Club in 1817. He was married to Jane Doe Felton, sister of The Hon. William Bowman Felton. They had several children including Charles Henry (1832–1897), who ran away from home at the age of thirteen to lead an adventurous life on the seas which included being shipwrecked on one of the islands off Hawaii, for a brief period, where he was married to a native.
• Alexander Henry (1785–1812), not be confused with his first cousin Alexander Henry the younger. He also worked for the North West Company, but was "barbarously murdered" by Native Indians at Fort Nelson near Port Nelson, Manitoba.
• Robert Henry (born after 1785-, wintering partner of the North West Company and director of the Commercial Bank of the Midland District at Cobourg. He was inducted into the Beaver Club in 1815. He married Christine Bethune (1787–1865), daughter of Rev John Bethune and sister of John and Norman Bethune.
• John Henry (1786–1787), died an infant. His godparents were Mrs Isaac Todd and Mrs John Gregory, wives of two of the earliest and most prominent partners of the North West Company.