Roderick Finlayson

by Jock Paul

Member of the Grand Jury that Heard the Trial of Tshuanahusset

Roderick Finlayson was born the son of a sheep farmer in Ross-Shire, North Britain in 1818. He was educated there, and then sailed from Glasgow in July of 1837 reaching New York in early September. Upon his arrival in New York he bumped into a relative, an event that was to shape his future. The relative was able get the young Roderick a position as an apprentice clerk in the Hudson's Bay Company. By steamer, stage, canoe, horse carriage, steamer again, the first railway in the dominion, ferry, and finally by caleche, a varied introduction for any new "colonial," Roderick Finlayson reached his destination; the head office of the Company in Canada at Lachine on the St. Lawrence River. He worked at the desk there until an opening came about at the post in Ottawa, where he worked in a store, traded with the aboriginals and learned the ways of the Company. In early 1839 he was told to be ready to join a brigade of four canoes heading west past the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia District, and arrived on the west coast at Fort Vancouver in November, a full six months later. He was in charge of a sawmill for the winter and spent the next spring aboard the Beaver under the command of James Douglas.

The Beaver patrolled the west coast of present day British Columbia, and Finlayson spent the next two years manning trading stations, one at Fort Durham, the next at Fort Stikeen. In his autobiography Finlayson recounts a tense confrontation with the aboriginals at Fort Durham, he describes them as "a wild turbulent race so that we only allowed a few of them at a time to enter the fort at the gate for trade." He tells of how some aboriginals mistook them for Americans with whom the aboriginals had had a quarrel a couple of years previously and how "with this view a warrior of the tribe attempted to force his way in at the gate, where a number of others were watching the gatekeeper a Sandwich Islander did all he could to keep the man out, but failed, when I went to the rescue, having pistols in my belt, and forced the fellow out, in doing so I was struck by a bludgeon and in the heat of passion I went outside the gate where I was laid hold of by a party of the wild savages and forced away a distance from the gate, when I called out to open blank cartridges from the cannonades in the bastion to frighten them. In the meantime I managed to get my back to a tree drew my pistols from my belt and threatened to kill the first man that attempted to lay hold of me, my face was covered with blood and otherwise badly hurt. The firing from the bastion frightened the fellows off so I was enabled to returned to the fort."

In the summer of 1843, the Hudson's Bay Company had found that the Beaver could do all the trading of Fort Durham and Fort Stikeen so these were disbanded. The forces of the abandoned stations, about fifty men, were consolidated at Fort Victoria and Mr. C. Ross was appointed to be in charge. The next March, Mr. Ross died, so Finlayson was placed in charge. The role of the fort diversified under him. Agriculture became prominent and relations with the aboriginals solidified. Finlayson again proudly recounts with detail a conflict ensuing as a result of the aboriginals killing the Company's cattle. He describes how he first ensures that the chief's lodge is empty and then, "I Fired a nine pounder with grape in, and pointed the gun to the lodge, which flew into the air in splinters like a bombshell, after this there was such a howling that I thought a number were killed, and was quite relieved when the interpreter came round and told me none were killed but much frightened, not knowing we had such destructive arms."

Finlayson remained superintendent of the Fort until 1849, the year of the colonization of the island, when James Douglas came up from his depot on the Columbia River to assume the post. In 1849 Finlayson married Sarah Work, the second daughter of fellow Hudson Bay Company employee John Work. Finlayson continued to hold a prominent position in the Hudson's Bay Company as head accountant, and as such, he was expected to sit on the jury of the William Robinson murder trial. He stayed on as head accountant until 1862, with a brief leave to visit Britain and his parents in 1861. At his own request he was appointed to superintend the Company's affairs of the interior, which he did until retirement in 1872. Finlayson died January 29th, 1892.

Notes:
Roderick Finlayson, "An Autobiography of Roderick Finlayson: A Retired Officer of the Hudson's Bay Company," Washington Historian vol.1-vol.2 (October, November, December, 1900, January 1901).

Library Division, Provincial Archives of British Columbia, Newcombe Collection, Biography of Roderick Finlayson, 1981.

Sixty Years of Progress in British Columbia, Brief Biographical Data and Photographs, 1913 (Victoria). Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions, 73748, vol.1, First Plate.