Date Published:
July 2005

L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

Benjamin Frobisher

Frobisher, Benjamin (1782-1819), fur-trader, was born in Montreal in 1782, the son of Joseph Frobisher. He entered the service of the North West Company in 1799, and in that year was a clerk at Lake Winnipeg. From 1804 to 1808 he represented the county of Montreal in the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada. In 1819, during the Selkirk trouble, he was captured by the Hudson's Bay men, was carried to York Factory, and perished from exhaustion at Cedar Lake in an attempt to escape to a North West Company post. An account of his death is to be found in S. H. Wilcocke, "Death of B. Frobisher", in L. R. Masson, Les bourgeois de la Compagnie du Nord-Ouest (2 vols., Quebec, 1890).

Source  : W. Stewart WALLACE, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada, Vol. II, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 411p., pp. 400-401.