Freshwater Passages: The Trade and Travels of Peter Pond

by David Chapin

Peter Pond, a fur trader, explorer, and amateur mapmaker, spent his life ranging much farther afield than Milford, Connecticut, where he was born and died (1740–1807). He traded around the Great Lakes, on the Mississippi and the Minnesota Rivers, and in the Canadian Northwest and is also well known as a partner in Montreal’s North West Company and as mentor to Alexander Mackenzie, who journeyed down the Mackenzie River to the Arctic Sea. Knowing eighteenth-century North America on a scale that few others did, Pond drew some of the earliest maps of western Canada. In this meticulous biography, David Chapin presents Pond’s life as part of a generation of traders who came of age between the Seven Years’ War and the American Revolution. Pond’s encounters with a plethora of distinct Native cultures over the course of his career shaped his life and defined his reputation. Whereas previous studies have caricatured Pond as quarrelsome and explosive, Chapin presents him as an intellectually curious, proud, talented, and ambitious man, living in a world that could often be quite violent. Chapin draws together a wide range of sources and information in presenting a deeper, more multidimensional portrait and understanding of Pond than hitherto has been available.

384 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Breck Baumann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peter Pond, the relatively unknown eighteenth-century renaissance man is chronicled by David Chapin, in which the amateur cartographer, fur trader, explorer, and alleged murderer is given a proper account—albeit with some hypotheticals given. Chapin is brilliant in his investigations of the primary and secondary sources made available, aptly summarizing actual facts from myths and hearsay, such as the killing of Phineas Pond (Peter’s brother) by Natives. In this instance, his use of various secondhand letters and entries declare the death of Peter to be false by matching specific dates of Pond’s trades and travels at the time with that of others’ firsthand knowledge and accounts of Phineas temper, quarrel, and eventual death-stroke by stabbing. One gripe and another's praise would be Chapin's numerous quotes found on every other page that feature Pond's own pen, where typical of the eighteenth century, the average-educated traveler humorously (and innocently) uses his own idea of how the English language should read on paper:

"Thay Began to Repete the Saisfaction thay had with that frind while he was with them and How fond he was of his frinds while he Could Git a Cag of Rum and how thay youst to Injoy it togather."

Almost halfway through the book, Chapin addresses the elephant in the room, noting that from here onwards Peter Pond’s journal ends and the rest of the narrative is left to his maps, ledgers, partners, competitors, and other primary and secondary sources from the late-eighteenth century. While obviously disappointing, interestingly enough Chapin does a superb job filling in speculative gaps by giving one or two outcomes of Pond’s journey for that given year—with the little bits of knowledge of his dealings and whereabouts being addressed beforehand. By acknowledging what scattered bits of source material Chapin (and fellow historians) has at hand for Pond’s later years, this is altogether a captivating and well-researched biography in its own right.