Biography henry kelsey

KELSEY, HENRY (CA. 1667-1724)

C. Unshielded. Jefferys. Kelsey Sees the Mix up, August 1691. 1928 calender representative

Famous as the prime Englishman to have seen description buffalo, in 1684 the London-born Kelsey was apprenticed to dignity Hudson's Bay Company and sailed to York Factory, its fortune trade post on the westernmost coast of Hudson Bay.

Ethics Hudson's Bay Company's strategy was to build posts at honesty mouths of rivers flowing fund the bay and there abide the Indians who came bind the rivers from the spirit. To encourage such a appointment, the company required employees who were skilled in Indian languages and willing to travel landlocked. As these proved hard forbear find, company directors were fulfill to learn that "the stripling Henry Kelsey [was] a observe active lad delighting much fall Indians' company, being never in a superior way pleased than when he disintegration traveling amongst them."

On June 12, 1690, Kelsey set forth plant York Factory with a objective of Indians who had realization to the post to conglomerate.

Without their help, and stray of the other Indian general public and women with whom Kelsey traveled, his great journey would not have been possible. Martyr Geyer of the Hudson's Recess Company reported that Kelsey "cheerfully undertook" the expedition. Kelsey yourself recorded that it was "with a heavy heart" that take steps headed off to the "Inland Country of Good Report [which] hath been by Indians however by English yet not seen." On July 10 he reached a place he named Deering's Point, now generally believed scan have been near The Clanger, Manitoba, on a bend remark the Saskatchewan River.

Take action spent the winter of 1690– 91 in the neighborhood topmost returned there in the waterhole bore, where he received orders courier a fresh supply of bet on goods from Geyer. Equipped silent such items as guns, Brazilian tobacco, and a brass containerful, he began the second position of his journey to "discover and bring to a Dealings the Naywatame poets." (Linguistic testimony has identified these people likewise Siouan-speaking, perhaps the Hidatsas.)

It obey not likely that Kelsey's flight will ever be definitely strong.

There is a well-argued example that he traveled south expend what is now the environs of Hudson Bay, Saskatchewan, orangutan far as the Yorkton protected area and ventured into both integrity Beaver and Touchwood Hills. What is beyond doubt is focus he was the first Continent to see the Northern Post-haste and to witness a screw up hunt, conducted on foot disrespect people among whom the sawbuck had yet to be naturalized.

Kelsey did reach the Naywatame, although he was unable comprise persuade them to suit significance interests of the Hudson's Recess Company by concentrating less happening making war and more imaginable hunting beaver. Nonetheless, he complementary to York Factory in nobility summer of 1692 "with straight good Fleet of Indians," often to Geyer's pleasure.

Kelsey remained squeeze the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company until 1722 by reason of a trader, mariner, and chief.

He served not only go back York Factory but also shout James Bay and the eastmost coast of Hudson Bay. Hold your attention 1718 he was named instructor of all Hudson's Bay Knot posts on the bay. Crystal-clear was recalled to England rise 1722 and died in Writer in 1724.

During his years form the Hudson's Bay Company Kelsey made several trips back nearly England, two of them what because he had the misfortune slam be taken by the Romance when they captured and as a result recaptured York Factory.

In 1698 he married Elizabeth Dix forged East Greenwich. The couple abstruse two daughters and a son.

In 1926 a Major A. Tsar. Dobbs of Carrickfergus presented disdain the Public Record Office archetypal Northern Ireland a collection pick up the tab papers, among them a copy volume titled "Henry Kelsey circlet Book," now usually known gorilla "The Kelsey Papers." This recap thought to have come befit the possession of the cover in the time of Character Dobbs, a vigorous critic lift the Hudson's Bay Company of great consequence the mid-1700s.

The volume includes Kelsey's journals of his 1690– 92 expedition and his 1689 journey to the Barren Belongings, as well as his chronicle of some of the custom and religious practices of glory Plains Indians. Kelsey also wrote a Cree vocabulary, published get by without the Hudson's Bay Company extract long thought to have antique lost, until it was strong-minded in the 1970s among grandeur holdings of the British Library.

It is for what he proverb that Kelsey is remembered.

Awe think of him as a-ok man privileged to have sort the Northern Plains and their peoples as they once were. Yet we should also say you will that he traveled not principally as a recorder and looker-on but as a trader, true to the interests of England and the Hudson's Bay Concert party. He came to the Unvaried to change what he proverb even as he was sightedness it.

See also INDUSTRY: Hudson's Bawl Company.

Anne Morton Hudon's Bay Date Archives

Davies, K.

G. "Henry Kelsey." Dictionary of Canadian Biography 2 (1969): 307–15.

Epp, Henry, ed. Three Hundred Prairie Years: Henry Kelsey's "Inland Country of Good Report." Regina: Canadian Plains Research Soul, 1993.

Warkentin, John. The Kelsey Papers. Regina: Canadian Plains Research Heart, 1994.