Alexander Henry "The Elder" (1739-1824)

He was "blessed with as many lives as a cat". Born at New Brunswick, New Jersey, he received a good education and became a merchant at Albany, New York. By the age of twenty, he was making a lucrative but hazardous living supplying the British army during the French & Indian War. He was known among the Indians as “the handsome Englishman”. In 1763–64, he lived and hunted with Wawatam of the Ojibwa, who had adopted him as a brother. He recounted this and subsequent fur-trading explorations in "Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories between the years 1760 and 1776 (New York, 1809), which he dedicated to his friend, Sir Joseph Banks. The book is considered an adventure classic and one of the best descriptions of Native Indian life. An "easy and dignified" raconteur, in 1776 he was invited to give an account of his journeys at the Royal Society in London and at Versailles to Queen Marie Antoinette.

Henry is remembered for his “accomplishments in business and society... (as) one of the most important business leaders who turned Montreal into an innovative centre of business expansion, and of the fur trade, he was one of the founding members of Montreal's Beaver Club”. Henry was a close associate of the likes of James McGill (1744-1813) and Simon McTavish (1750-1804). In the 1780s, he introduced John Jacob Astor (173-1748) into the Canadian fur trade and subsequently Astor would stay as Henry's guest during his annual visits to Montreal. Henry was the stepfather to two children (Kittson) and the father of at least six children, the eldest of whom was born to his "country wife".