Читать книгу Peter Pond - Fur Trader and Adventurer - Harold Adams Innis - Страница 6
Оглавление(1761-1773)
The conquest was over and for Peter Pond there came the problem of adjustment to civil life. "All Canaday subdued I thought thare was no bisnes left for me and turned my atenshan to the seas thinking to make it my profesion and in sixtey one I went a Voige to the islands in the West Indees and returned safe but found that my father had gon a trading voig to Detroit and my mother falling sick with a feaver dide (on June 16, 1761) before his return." For the time Pond found it necessary to curb his restless temperament which army experience had intensified. He writes "I was oblige to give up the idea of going to sea at that time and take charge of a young fammaley til my father returnd". After his father's return "I bent my mind after differant objects and tared in Milford three years". No information is given in his journal as to his activities but according to records he was married during this interval to Susanna Newell by whom he had at least two children one of whom, Peter Pond, the third, was born in 1763. These family ties explain his three year sojourn at Milford. "Which was the ondley three years of my life I was three years in one place sins I was sixteen years old up to sixtey".
Information on the activities of his life in the decade after 1763 is extremely scanty. His father apparently joined the numbers of traders in 1761 who rushed to the west after the conquest of New France. He may have returned in 1762 and doubtless found prospects had suffered through the uncertainties of Indian trade previous to the outbreak of Pontiac's war in 1763. It is known that he died insolvent in 1764 and that his principal creditors were Captain John Gibb and Garrett Van Horn Dewitt. With the close of the Indian wars and possibly assuming his father's debts Peter Pond decided to follow in his father's footsteps. In 1765 he left Milford to engage in the Detroit trade. Little is known of his activities in the six years of his residence in the Detroit country. He writes in his journal "I continued in trade for six years in different parts of that countrey but beaing exposed to all sorts of Companey. It hapend that a parson (person) who was in trade himself to abuse me in a shamefull manner knowing that if I resented he could shake me in peaces at same time supposing that I dare not sea him at the pints or at leas I would not but the abuse was too grate. We met the next morning eairley and discharged pistels in which the pore fellowe was unfortenat. I then came down the country and declard the fact but thare was none to prosacute me". It is probable that like other traders he was under the close supervision which Sir William Johnson exercised over the southern posts. Along with other traders at Detroit, including Isaac Todd, he signed a petition [1] on 26th November, 1767, asking Sir William Johnson to restrict the amount of rum brought by traders to 50 gallons in each 3 handed battoe load of dry goods and also to permit the petitioners to trade beyond the fort of Detroit since otherwise the trade was lost to small unscrupulous traders. He appears to have wintered at some time at Michilimackinac since he mentions the fishing at the straits of Mackinac in winter. "I have wade a trout taken in by Mr. Camps with a hook and line under the ice in March sixtey six pounds wate." Again he writes "I was at Mackinac when Capt. George Turnbull comanded". Turnbull apparently went to Mackinac in 1770 and left for the West Indies with his regiment in 1773. Probably Pond was at Michilimackinac in the winter of 1770-1. His main interest during the period centred about Detroit, during the later years, extending his trade to outlying points as at Michilimackinac. With the extension of trade beyond the posts regulation became less effective and it was inevitable that Pond should meet numbers of rough characters who were notorious in the trade at that time. That Pond was not prosecuted for the results of the duel is evidence that these events were not uncommon.
In 1771 he came down to Milford and made another "ture to ye West Indies" in 1772. On his return he received a letter from a Mr Graham in New York asking him to come down to arrange for a partnership to venture in the trade from Michilimackinac. This invitation was evidence that Pond's apprenticeship in the Detroit trade had ended. He had acquired wide experience in the trade and probably some capital. Graham had apparently been engaged in the Michilimackinac trade for several years as his name appears as an Albany trader at that point in 1767. In the intervening period he had probably acquired a substantial supply of capital from the trade by Green Bay to the Mississippi and in 1773 he appears to have been one of the largest traders to that district. It was significant of the impression which Pond had made on his fellow traders as to his ability as a trader, and his honesty and integrity, that he should have been chosen as the active partner for this important venture. No higher tribute could have been paid to him.
He had acquired at the end of this period a thorough grasp of the demands of the trade. He knew the character of goods required for a successful trade. He probably knew the Indian languages and had a knowledge of French. From his voyages to the West Indies and his army experience he had probably acquired a knowledge of astronomy and navigation sufficient to enable him to determine latitude and longitude. He had prepared himself for the active years which were to follow. He was a master trader at thirty-one.
