Connaught
Connaught is located
in Northern Ontario situated on the south shore of the Frederick House Lake.
The Massacre
In the late 1700’s, and until 1821, both the Hudson’s Bay Company and the North West Companies were well-established rivals in the fur trade in Northern Ontario.
On Mattagami Lake, (then called Matawagamingue), the North West Company’s post primarily traded with Fort Temiskaming, on the east side of Lake Temiskaming in what is now the province of Quebec. Their furs were destined for Montreal.
33 miles further north on what is essentially the same body of water, at The Cache on Lake Kenogamissis, the Hudson’s Bay Company had their post. Furs brought there were taken north on the Mattagami River, to a landing marker on the shore at what would become the city of Timmins. (A 60-foot white tower now stands where that marker was located.) After a series of portages, the furs were brought to another Hudson’s Bay Post at Frederick House, built in 1785. Eventually, they would be taken to Moose Factory to be shipped to England.
By 1812, both Frederick House and The Cache were virtual outposts of the company and just before Christmas that year, three men left Frederick House to pick up furs and trading goods at The Cache. Alexander Belly, Robert Sabiston and Hugh Slater left the Cache on December 23 to return home. Nothing was heard from or about them until late March, 1813.
Richard Good, the commander at Kenogamissis, sent two of his men, John Knight and Charles Beads to investigate. They reported that the dwelling house, storehouse and cellars were ransacked; guns and ammunition were missing. There was no sign of the residents, nor were there any traces of the dogs, cats and poultry, but they did find corpses of an Ojibwe man and his wife. Frightened, Knight and Beads returned to The Cache at Lake Kenogamissi with the terrifying news.
Good sent four men back to Frederick House to try and retrieve any furs or other valuables that may have been left behind. They returned to the Cache with Belly’s journal of Post activities, which had its last entry on December 16. This indicated that Belly and his men, Sabiston and Slater had never made it back to Frederick House. The only furs left were of poor quality, casting suspicion on anyone connected with the North West Co.
Good’s men found the body of Slater in the servant’s house, the corpses of a Native couple and their baby in a nearby tent, the bodies of a dog and cat, but no sign of Belly or Sabiston. All the dead had been shot.
Even though there was intense rivalry between the Hudson’s Bay Company and the North West Company, Richard Good enlisted the help of Angus Cameron at Matawagamingue (Mattagami Lake). Items such as the missing furs, red cloth, calico shirts or guns found in the possession of anyone, might lead to the identity of the murderers. Cameron did not think anyone from his company could be involved, but offered both his help and his suspicions about some Natives from Fort Abitibi, (North West Company territory) who were reported to be cannibals. However, no evidence of cannibalism had been found.
It wasn’t until the end of June, 1813 that the full extent of the bloody massacre was known. It appeared that anyone who had approached the post during that winter, had been shot. The bodies of Sabiston and Belly, five more Natives and the remaining animals were discovered and buried. Still unaccounted for, were one Englishman and three children. Their bodies and other partial remains would remain undiscovered until the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway was under construction in 1911. Their shallow graves were unearthed by steam shovels.
There are no accurate records of the total number of dead in this incident, but most reports agree that there were between fifteen and seventeen. It is generally believed that the murderers were members of a family headed by an Abitibi Native, Capascoos, and his sister. They were never brought to justice.
The site at Frederick House was never permanently resettled after the massacre. Only one Ojibwe family escaped the horrific tragedy. Their family name is Buffalo, and their most famous descendant was Princess Maggie Buffalo Leclair, who died in Timmins in 1963. Buffalo Bay, on the northeast edge of Frederick House Lake is named for the family where, to this day, they have a hunt camp.
