Here Peter Groundwater Russell tells the story of Andrew Groundwater who served nine years with the Hudson's Bay Company.
He had the distinction of being born in the same parish as Rae, serving under him in Canada, and travelling home aboard the same ship in 1854.
Andrew
Groundwater was born on June 12, 1824, at the farm of Piggar in the
parish of Orphir, the ninth child of William Groundwater and Catherine
(née Robertson). When he was seven years old his father died
and his mother was left with six young children to support. She managed
to carry on for a few years, until Piggar became incorporated into
Swanbister, one of the largest farms on the Mainland of Orkney. The
family then moved in with James, the second eldest son, who had
recently acquired the tenancy of the farm of Dykend on the Smoogro
estate.
Groundwater was living at Scapa at the time of his marriage to Isabella Thomison, younger daughter of William Thomison, a farmer in Flotta, and Mary (née Barnett); the wedding took place at Crooksteeths in Linnadale, Orphir, on September 18, 1845. Andrew and Isabella set up home in the neighbouring district of Clestrain where their first child, William, was born on January 17, 1846.
The Hall of Clestrain was the birthplace of Dr John Rae, surgeon, Arctic explorer and chief factor with the Hudson’s Bay Company, whose death 100 years ago is currently being commemorated by the exhibition “No Ordinary Journey” at the Tankerness House Museum in Kirkwall. Groundwater was later to serve under Rae at Fort Good Hope, on the Mackenzie River, and they would meet again aboard the Company’s vessel Prince of Wales.
Since the beginning of the 18th century Orkney had been a favourite recruiting ground for the Hudson’s Bay Company. Many young men were attracted by the prospects of a higher standard of living and a better chance of saving money than a labouring life at home was likely to offer. Supplies for their establishments in North America were shipped annually to the Hudson Bay supply depots by the company’s vessels which left the Thames in early June and arrived in Hudson Strait as the ice was giving way to open water.
In 1847, Andrew Groundwater signed a five-year contract with the company as a labourer at a salary of £17 per annum. On June 24 he boarded the Prince Rupert at Stromness which, together with the Prince Albert and the Westminster sailed to York Factory on the west coast of Hudson Bay. Isabella was then carrying their second child who was to be born seven months later and named Alexander, after one of Andrew’s older brothers. A full account of Alexander Groundwater’s life can be found in Memories of an Orkney Family by Henrietta Groundwater, The Kirkwall Press, (1967).
Life was hard in the wilderness of northern Canada, with nine months of winter followed by three months of rain and mosquitoes. Relief from the dreary monotony in this unrelenting environment was often found in alcohol, although each Hudson’s Bay Company post had a “bachelors’ hall” where card and dice games and dancing took place.
After an initial winter at York Factory, supply depot and headquarters for the company’s Northern Department of Rupert’s Land, Groundwater was transported to the Mackenzie River District. He then wintered at Fort Resolution, Great Slave Lake in 1848-49, and at Fort Good Hope from 1849 to 1852. Fort Good Hope, close to the Arctic Circle, is over 800 miles north-west of Lake Athabasca and was one of the company’s remotest outposts.
When Groundwater’s five year contract expired in 1852, he signed on at Fort Simpson, headquarters of the Mackenzie River District, for a further two years of service, at an increased salary of £22 per annum. This second term was spent at Fort Resolution which enjoyed the reputation of being “one of the company’s neatest and cleanest establishments.”
In 1854 Groundwater retired from company service, taking passage home from York Factory aboard the Prince of Wales, which sailed on September 21 and arrived off Deal 32 days later. A fellow passenger was the celebrated Dr John Rae; it had been in June, 1850 while Groundwater was serving at Fort Good Hope, that Governor George Simpson appointed Rae as chief factor for the Mackenzie River District, although most of his time was devoted to further Arctic exploration.
Rae, still flushed with success over his part in solving the mystery surrounding the disappearance of Sir John Franklin, would have been hoping to write the report of his recent exploration of the west coast of Boothia and draw a chart of his discoveries. Both were eagerly awaited by the Honourable Committee in London, but the voyage across the Atlantic proved to be so stormy that he was unable to complete either of them.
It was while Rae was surveying the Boothia Peninsula the previous April that he had met an Eskimo wearing a gold-braid naval cap band. Through him, and others, Rae became the first European to learn of the fate of Sir John Franklin’s doomed search for the North West Passage, a search which had ended long before the last members of this expedition died of scurvy and starvation near the mouth of Back's Great Fish River in the spring of 1850. Rae purchased 45 objects from the Eskimos, including Sir John’s Order of Merit and a silver plate engraved with his name, and all of these artefacts were brought back to England in the York Factory packet box aboard the Prince of Wales.
Groundwater returned to a croft in Linnadale and to his wife and two sons, the younger of whom, then aged six, he had never seen! Necessity forced him to turn his hand to a variety of different jobs, including those of a quarry labourer and a mason, which he combined with work around the croft.
Over the next eight years Andrew and Isabella were “blessed” with five more children. With such a large family to support, making ends meet was not easy, and for a second time he applied to the Hudson’s Bay Company for employment.
In late December, 1863, Edward Clouston, the company’s agent in Orkney, wrote to Thomas Fraser, the company’s corresponding secretary in London: “… I have an application for a re-engagement as a labourer by Andrew Groundwater who retired in 1854 after being seven years in the service - the whole of which was at Mackenzie River under Messrs Macpherson and Bell and Dr John Rae and Mr Anderson, successively, with the exception of the first winter of his contract spent at York Factory under Mr Hargrave. His age was 39 last June which is beyond the usual limit - but he is a healthy looking man, and to all appearance still fit for the service which however would have to be medically certified before contract being entered into. I should feel obliged by being informed whether he may be re-engaged at your earliest convenience - as he speaks of having some other arrangements in view (possibly emigration to Australia) if his present application cannot on account of age be granted.” Fraser replied that: “… Groundwater had come home with a character as ‘a good servant’ and if his health proved satisfactory after a medical examination, he might be re-engaged.” Accordingly, on January 26, 1864, he was taken on as a labourer for a term of five years’ employment at £22 per annum.
In June that year he travelled from Stromness to York Factory aboard the 524-ton Prince of Wales. Of his five-year contract, Groundwater served only two years, which were spent in the Lake Island area, supervised by Chief Trader James Green Stewart in charge at Oxford House, Oxford Lake (present-day Lake Manitoba) in the York Factory District.
No particular reason has been found for his
premature retirement in 1866, but it may have been on compassionate
grounds or even through temporary ill-health. On September 25, 1866,
Chief Trader J. W. Wilson, in charge at York Factory, sent to the
Company in London a list of the retiring employees with notes as to
their characters; unfortunately this document has not survived.
Wilson’s letter noted that of the 30 servants
“retiring or discharged” only 16 had actually
completed their term of contract, “the remainder being sent
home either in consequence of unfitness for work or refusing
duty.” Wilson's letter continued at length regarding labour
troubles noting:
“… Dissatisfaction with the service is nearly
universal among Europeans, although of late years both their rations
and wages have been better than formerly.”
For each of the two years he served, Groundwater was paid a gratuity of £2 in addition to his salary. He took passage from York Factory aboard the company’s ship Prince Rupert which reached London on October 31, 1866.
Two days later the Hudson’s Bay Company secretary, W. G. Smith, wrote to Edward Clouston at Stromness as follows: “This will be handed to you by Andrew Groundwater who has just returned to England by the Prince Rupert and leaves London tomorrow morning by steamer en route to the Orkneys. He has no money to receive from the company on his own behalf but I have instructions to pay him £10 on account of Chief Trader J. G. Stewart, exclusive of the travelling expenses of himself and two of Mr Stewart’s children whom he is taking to Jedburgh. He has received from me £6 on account, and you will be pleased to pay him the difference on his handing you a note of his charges. I have told him that he is to get the same allowance for his own expenses from hence to the Orkneys as is given by the company, say £2.10.0.” The fact that Stewart placed two of his own children in Groundwater’s care leaves little doubt that he left the company without a blemish on his character.
Again Groundwater returned to Linnadale which at that time extended to 40 acres, although only six were arable. Two more children were born there; sadly, the younger, Caroline, died six weeks before her first birthday.
By
1880, all three of his sons had left home, two
later emigrating to America, and Groundwater decided to move to the
much smaller holding of Cott of Roadside in the district of Smoogro.
His wife Isabella died there on September 30, 1899 and is buried in the
Orphir cemetery, a few yards to the south-east of the famous 12th
century St Nicholas Church, where a headstone marks the family grave.
Soon after, Groundwater retired and the running of the croft was taken
over by his daughter Mary and her husband William Muir Shearer, my
great-grandparents.
On November 12, 1917, he was found slumped against the outside wall of the house, apparently having literally died standing up, and his body had to be carried into the house. He was 93 years old.
Although small in stature, Groundwater was very strong and remarkably placid by nature. He is remembered as being a good storyteller and had a large repertoire of old songs which, by all accounts, he sang in fine voice.
Andrew Groundwater was laid to rest in Orphir Cemetery beside his beloved Isabella but times were hard in 1917 and there was no money to spare on such a luxury as an inscription on a tombstone.
Today, Andrew Groundwater’s descendants are widely scattered throughout the world. We are proud to bear his name.
Peter Groundwater Russell.