JAMES GADDY

James Gaddy was born about 1774 in St. Ola, Orkney. He entered the service of the HBC in 1791 and the Company accounts show that he began his service as a labourer in the York Factory inland district. Beginning in 1794, he worked in the Company canoes for 10 years and then returned home. He rejoined the Company in 1896 as a labourer in York Factory, inland district, where he attained the rank of Assistant Trader by 1811. According to the Company records, he retired to the Colony in 1823.

During his years with the HBC, James Gaddy and his “country wife”, an Indian woman known as Mary, had four children (Isabella, James, William, and John) who came with him to Red River. The children were baptised at the settlement in 1822, so it seems that the family were in Red River a year earlier than the HBC records shows. A son Charles was baptized in 1824.

Mary died in January 1833 and later that year James married Angelique Beaulieu (country marriage), with whom he had one son, Alexander. James drowned at the settlement in July 1833 and Alexander was born after his death. Angelique died in the Moose Jaw area in 1870.