On August 26, 1854, Hudson’s Bay Company trader John F. Kennedy wrote a letter to his daughter Mary. It was addressed “Fort Simpson,” a fur trading post near today’s Prince Rupert.
Kennedy mailed it from the brig Ida in Prince Frederick Sound, Alaska, which was then part of Russia. It was delivered by the SS Beaver, the historic steamboat that sailed the B.C. coast from 1836 until it was wrecked off Prospect Point in 1888.
One hundred and sixty years later, it’s one of the oldest letters to survive from early British Columbia. On February 21, it is going to auction.
Read more about this story in the Vancouver Sun article, Rare artifact from early B.C. goes to auction.
The Hudson’s Bay Company Archives are held at the Manitoba Archives.
