By May of 1812, David Thompson had finished his surveying work for the North West Company and was bound for retirement in Montreal. His wife Charlotte and their five children hadn’t seen him for over a year.
David Thompson Retires from the Fur Trade
How David Thompson got his family to Montreal is unknown. Historian Jack Nisbet writes that David “steered his canoes east, picking up Charlotte and the children, including a year-old boy he had never seen, somewhere along the way”. Writer D’Arcy Jenish, however, says, “He had already sent Charlotte and most of his children to Montreal”.
It was slightly unusual for fur trade employees to take their wives with them on retirement. Many men who married Native or Metis wives in the custom of the country left their wives in the country or found other husbands to care for them. Charlotte’s father had left behind his wife and three children when he returned to England. One wonders if Charlotte feared being left behind as her mother had.
Charlotte Small’s Baptism and Marriage
Montreal must have been a shock to the Thompsons. David had left London at age fourteen and worked in the sparsely populated Canadian West ever since; Charlotte had never seen a big city, nor had her children. In September, Charlotte and her five children were baptized. In October, David and Charlotte solemnized their marriage vows.
Tragedy Strikes the Thompsons
The Thompsons settled in Terrebonne, joining other retired NWC employees. David’s journals make note of his work on his maps and the couple’s busy social schedule.
Then in 1814, tragedy hit. Five-year-old John died in January, and David wrote in his journal, “This loss has plunged us in deep affliction, especially his poor Mother.” Seven-year-old Emma died in Feburary of roundworms, and was “buried . . . close touching her little Brother John in the same Grave.”
In 1815, David and Charlotte moved their family to Williamstown, a “village of about four hundred people, five miles north of the St. Lawrence” according to Jenish. Charlotte’s sister Nancy and her husband, John MacDonald, were also settled near here. Charlotte had given birth to two children in Terrebonne, and her next six children were born in Williamstown.
David and Charlotte Thompson Face Bankruptcy
The next years were not kind to David and Charlotte. The NWC folded and David’s attempts to sell his maps failed. David and several of his children made poor business decision, and petty debts accumulated. In 1836, he faced three lawsuits and bankruptcy. With seven of their ten children, Charlotte and David moved to Montreal. There, Charlotte was forced to pawn possessions while David searched for work. Their youngest two daughters went out as domestic servants.
In 1846, Charlotte and David moved in with their daughter and her husband. From then until their deaths in 1857, they moved between their children’s homes. David attempted to compile a Narrative of his travels. However, he never finished, and, according to Jenish, on his death left behind “a few personal possessions, more than eighty journals, a few unpublished maps and a handwritten manuscript of some seven hundred pages”.
Charlotte Small Thompson
One of her grandsons described Charlotte as “slightly built, active and wiry, with coppery complexion. She dressed plainly but neatly, loved her home and was an excellent housekeeper. In her ways and manners, she was extremely reserved except when among family.” This woman had travelled thousands of miles with her husband, born thirteen children, and adjusted to a new way of life in Eastern Canada. Yet today, while her husband’s fame grows, she remains mostly unknown.
Sources:
Nisbet, Jack Sources of the River: Tracking David Thompson Across Western North America, (Sasquatch Books, 1994)
Jenish, D'arcy Epic Wanderer: David Thompson and the Mapping of the Canadian West, (Doubleday, 2003).
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