Date Published:
July 2005

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

Samuel Gerrard

Gerrard, Samuel (1767-1857), merchant, was born in Ireland in 1767, and came to Canada about 1787. He entered business in Montreal, and became a partner in the firm of Parker, Gerrard, and Ogilvy, later Gerrard, Gillespie and Co. This was one of the firms which financed the XY Company between the years 1797 and 1804; and through it Samuel Gerrard acquired after 1804 an indirect interest in the North West Company. When the firm of McTavish, McGillivrays and Co. failed in 1825, Samuel Gerrard was appointed one of the trustees; and it largely fell to him to unravel the tangled finances of the North West Company. His papers, which are now in the Sulpician Library in Montreal, naturally contain a vast amount of material of interest to the historian of the fur-trade. Gerrard died in Montreal on March 24, 1857, aged 90 years; and his wife, Ann Grant, who was the granddaughter of Richard Dobie, died in Montreal on October 18, 1854, aged 81 years. Their only surviving child, Samuel Henry Gerrard, died in Germany in 1858. For further details, see Charles Drisard, L'honorable Samuel Gerrard (Bull. des rech. hist., 1928).

Source  : W. Stewart WALLACE, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada, Vol. III, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 396p., p. 28.