Note 208 — Chapter XXVII

The date of the building of Fort William is variously given—the removal had begun in 1802, but was not completed until 1805, and the new post did not receive its name until 1807. See Henry-Thompson Journals, p. 220. The site was occupied as early as 1678 by a stockade built by Duluth, the great coureur des bois. His fort had fallen into ruins when that of La Noue was built in 1717. The French maintained this post until the close of their régime. In 1757 it was farmed to M. Toussaint Pothier, and produced from sixty to seventy bundles of furs. The English traders having abandoned this route for the easier one of Pigeon River, clustered at Grand Portage until Fort William was erected. Lord Selkirk captured the post in 1817, during the struggle of the Red River settlement with the North West Company. Upon the coalition of the latter corporation with the Hudson’s Bay (1821), Fort William was abandoned, and two years later was falling into ruins. The Canadian Pacific Railway station of Port Arthur is eight miles beyond the site of old Fort William. The classic account of Fort William’s palmy days is that of Irving, in Astoria.—Ed.