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Re: JOHN EDWARD HARRIOTT (1797-1866)

Posted: Tue Jan 14, 2014 12:57 pm
by EdmontonTom
Other users of this forum might find this Fort Edmonton Park blog interesting:

http://www.fortedmontonpark.ca/1846-for ... hn-rowand/

A few years ago our 'John Rowand' moved to a new position and two new interpreters (none of whom with the 'girth' to play Rowand) took on the role of Harriott to provide the fort with a clerk in charge. Some of the female interpreters enjoyed playing Nancy!

Re: JOHN EDWARD HARRIOTT (1797-1866)

Posted: Tue Jan 14, 2014 4:04 pm
by EdmontonTom
Hi Tom, The case in which JEH testified was CONNOLLY V. WOOLRICH AND JOHNSON ET AL. (1867), 17 R.J.R.Q. 75 (also reported. 11 L.C.Jur. 197). Quebec Superior Court, Monk J., 9 July 1867. The facts of the case are discussed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concubinage_in_Canada. I'd really appreciate it if you would post pictures of the Harriott children. The only Harriott child I've seen a picture of so far is Margaret. Thanks! Karen
Thanks Karen!

Harriott's marriage to Nancy is very interesting for those studying fur trade families and the cultural milieu of distant posts like Edmonton and Rocky Mountain House. There is an interesting note in Philip Goldring's "Governor Simpson]'s Officers: Elite Recruitment in a British Overseas Enterprise, 1834-1870" Journal of the Canadian Plains Research Center, Vol. 10, No. 2, Fall 1985 that strongly suggests to me that Harriott's children (and Rowand's daughters, including Nancy) only spoke Cree - or at least spoke it as their first language.

The text, on Page 265 reads "Even if educated in Canada or Scotland, most of [the mixed-blood children of Company officers] had spent six to ten formative years in the Indian country, and had non-European influences in their upbringing. An extreme example was an apprentice postmaster named Edward John Harriott; his father and maternal grandfather were both English-born chief factors, but he grew up in the Saskatchewan district in the 1840s without learning a word of English until he was sent to school at Red River."

This presumably refers to John Edward Harriott Jr. The footnote quotes a schoolmaster speaking of the newly arrived Harriot children "none...can speak English & all as wild & untamed as the Buffalo" as well as a letter Harriott wrote to James Hargrave on 25 November 1854 confirming that his children "did not understand a word of English when I brought them here."

English was the language of HBC administration, but even in the homes of officers like Rowand and Harriott it seems that Cree was the language of the family!

Re: JOHN EDWARD HARRIOTT (1797-1866)

Posted: Thu Jan 16, 2014 5:06 pm
by gnstill
Tom: I have added the pictures you sent to this Family Page. Thanks very much!

Apparently young Alex died at age 16 (must have been not long after that picture was taken). I wonder what happened to him?

Re: JOHN EDWARD HARRIOTT (1797-1866)

Posted: Fri Jan 17, 2014 12:14 pm
by bthor
Hi Gary
Christine Marion daughter of John Edward Harriott died in 1855 and is at the St Boniface Cathedral Roman Catholic Cemetery. Any idea who she married? Beth

Re: JOHN EDWARD HARRIOTT (1797-1866)

Posted: Fri Jan 17, 2014 10:00 pm
by gnstill
I can't find anything about her. According to that, it appears she died when only 19 years old. Did she marry anyone?

Re: JOHN EDWARD HARRIOTT (1797-1866)

Posted: Fri Sep 01, 2017 2:43 am
by Aussiegirl81
I believe I am a descendant of John Edward Harriott's older sister Sophia. When I read on this site that in his will he remembered his three sisters and one brother I immediately wanted to know more. :-) Could you please tell me more information of what his will included regarding his siblings? Do you also have any information about what happened to his parents and siblings? I have some information but it mainly concerns my link, Sophia who married Robert Ellis. Their daughter Harriet immigrated to Australia, where she married and had children and after a few more generations, I was born and am now looking find out about the Harriott family.

Any information you could add would be greatly appreciated.
Linda Begg

Re: JOHN EDWARD HARRIOTT (1797-1866)

Posted: Fri Sep 01, 2017 3:04 pm
by gnstill
Who did Harriet marry?
Tell us more about your ancestry down from her.

Re: JOHN EDWARD HARRIOTT (1797-1866)

Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2018 11:56 pm
by Aussiegirl81
Hi,

Sophia Harriott was the sister of John Edward Harriott, she was a couple of years older. She married Robert Ellis and they lived in London, where they had 6 children: John Edward, Harriett, Sophia, Sophia, Elizabeth and Charlotte. My direct ancestor is Harriett and she immigrated to Australia as a single woman in about 1858 where she met and married Edwin Sams. The couple lived in Goulburn and then in the Hunter Valley of NSW until her death in 1893. Edwin and Harriett had a daughter Louisa and she and her husband had a son Charles, who is my great grandfather.

I am currently looking at the brothers and sisters of my direct ancestors to get a more broad picture of what their lives were like, hence why I am interested in John Edward Harriott.

Linda