Date Published:
January 2005

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

Norman Wolfred Kittson

Kittson, Norman Wolfred (1814-1888), fur-trader, was born at Chambly, Lower Canada, in 1814, the son of George Kittson and Nancy Tucker. His paternal grandmother married en secondes noces Alexander Henry, the author of Travels and Adventures. In 1830 he was apprenticed to the American Fur Company for three years, and went west. In 1843 he became an agent of the American Fur Company, in charge of the valleys of the Upper Minnesota river and the Red river ; and he established himself at Pembina, in opposition to the Hudson's Bay Company. He withdrew from the furt-rade in 1854; and went into the general supply business for the Indian trade. In the sixties he developed a line of steamers and barges on the Red river that came to be known as the Red River Transportation Company. In his later years he was associated with James J. Hill in his railway enterprises. He died in 1888. See C. W. Rife, Norman W. Kittson (Minnesota History, 1925).

Source : W. Stewart WALLACE. Ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada, Vol. III, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 396p., p. 343.