GRANT, Robert of Elchies, London Merchant, Fur Trader in Canada ^{1 2}

   Another name for Robert was GRANT, Robert Laird of Wester Elchies.⁴

   User ID: Z88.

  General Notes:

Robert Grant purchased estates of Wester Elchies, Carron and Knockando from James Grant of Carron in 1783. He was a merchant in London, in the firm of Robert Grant, who were involved in the fur trade in Canada. He is the person referred to as 'Elchies' in the 'news from home' sections of William Grant's letters to Lewis. His descendants are now styled the Grants of Carron.


"Sir Archibald (Grant of Moneymusk 3rd Baronet and founder of Archiestown) sold part of his estate to a local lad who had made his fortune in Canada and London. Robert Grant became first Laird of Wester Elchies in 1783 and lived at the mansion house. His son Charles inherited the estate and founded Charlestown of Aberlour in 1812. He died unmarried in 1828 and his brother James William became third laird, and though he was an absentee landlord who worked in India until his retirement, he cared deeply for the estate and its people. He was sympathetic towards their financial needs and provided land and materials for churches in Archiestown and Aberlour following the Disruption.

His unmarried son William continued to live at Carron House when he inherited the title as did succeeding lairds. The mansion of Wester Elchies was sold to Gordonstoun's Kurt Hahn for a prep school and was finally demolished in the 1960s.
The last laird, Archie, died without heirs in 1951."

"Grant
Robert
14/6/1804
of Wester Elchies
testament dative & inventory
Moray Commissary Court
CC16/4/9"

from Wills and Testaments ^{1 4 5}

  Research Notes:

THE FAMILY OF GRANT AND THE CANADIAN CONNECTION

This post has so much information regarding the families of Grant relevant to this file that much of it has been reproduced here, with thanks:

"From: "Larry Quinto" <quinto@cyberus.ca>
Subject: [METISGEN-L] GRANT ancestry
Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 01:53:02 -0500

Hi Listers,
I have been in contact with Malcolm GRANT, a researcher from New Zealand. He sent me ten pages of info on our GRANT line, written by W.S. WALLACE....

From Strathspey and its neighbouring glens there came to Canada after the British conquest a veritable emigration. Into the Canadian fur-trade, for instance, there flocked so many Grants from Strathspey that their identities and relationships have been a sort of Chinese puzzle. Among them were a number of pioneers of the North West Company, as well as some who tried to break the company's monopoly. One of them, Cuthbert Grant was the first to reach Great Slave Lake; and his son was the leader of the bois-brules at the massacre of Seven Oaks in 1816. It was through his connection with the Grants that John Stuart, the companion of Simon Fraser the explorer, entered the North West Company; and it was John Stuart who introduced into the Hudson's Bay Company Donald A. Smith, afterwards Lord Strathcona, who was not only a native of Strathspey, but was descended from Grants on both his father's and his mother's side.

Sir William Grant, master of the Rolls in England at the beginning of the nineteenth century, was Attorney-General of Quebec from 1776 to 1777; and the Hon. William Grant of St. Roch, who was one of the first of the Clan to reach Canada, was Deputy Receiver of Quebec from 1777 to 1784, and a member of the Legislative Council. The latter through his marriage to the dowager Baroness de Longueuil, and his nephew's subsequent marriage with the Baroness, brought about the perpetuation of the only barony of the French regime that has been recognised by the British Crown....

The emigration from Speyside seems to have had its fons et origo in the operations of a firm of Scottish Merchants in London, known as Robert Grant & Company, the partners of which were Robert, Alexander and William Grant. Robert Grant who was the active head of the firm, was born in 1720 and died in 1803, and was the founder of the present family of Grant of Elchies. It has generally been assumed that the William Grant who was a member of the firm was the Hon. William Grant of St. Roch; for when the Hon. William Grant of St Roch came to Canada as a very young man, he made an abortive purchase from the Marquis de Vaudreuil of a grant of fur-trading rights at La Baye, on Lake Michigan, 'for himself and the firm of Robert Grant & Co.' There are however, in the British Museum series of letters written by the William Grant who was a member of the firm; and from these it was clear that he was a wholly different person, a son of Robert Grant of Tammore and a cousin of Robert Grant of London. These letters throw a flood of welcome light on the operations of the firm of Robert Grant & Co., and on the emigrants from Speyside to Canada.

It is clear from them, that long before the Britsh captured Quebec, the members of the firm were doing business in Halifax. In 1756 Robert Grant was in Halifax, Nova Scotia and was made a member of the Council of the province; and William Grant writes, under date of August 31, that he has 'just sent of Peter Stewart and John Grant with some goods to Nova Scotia.' When Quebec was captured, the firm seems to have transferred its attention to Canada. It is reasonable to suppose that the 'Peter Stewart' who was sent out to Nova Scotia in 1756 was the Peter Stewart who later became a prominent merchant of Quebec, interested in the fur-trade of the King's Posts on the St Lawrence; and there is no doubt that the Hon. William Grant of St Roch was sent out to Quebec about 1762 as an agent of the firm. There must also have been others, for William Grant, the writer of the letters, says in a letter from London, dated Feb. 10, 1763, 'I can take care of three or four lads every year without being any loss to me and hope to give as good an account of those as them I have already exported, who have all been peculiarly lucky.'

During these years, the firm of Robert Grant & Co. evidently prospered. William Grant, writing under the date of March 12, 1761, says, 'Robert Grant has thoughts of going soon of North America.... He has finished a new contract for the Navie in North America'; and on January 17, 1767, he writes 'Robert Grant's contracts turn out extremely well as does the two I have got in my own name.' The only fly in the ointment was the unwillingness of William Grant of St Roch to pay his just debts to the firm which had sent him out to Canada, or at any rate backed him. It was decided to send William Grant, the letter writer, out to America to collect the debts owing to the firm; and on November 15, 1767, Robert Grant of London wrote to William Grant's father, Grant of Tammore, 'Your son has been pretty successful in collecting the debts. He has met with little trouble but from William Grant, and was in hopes to get security for most of what he owes us. He will be obliged to return there in the spring, as the people owing us there, particularly William Grant, pays less attention to their words, character, and credit, than the worst thief you ever knew in the Highlands of Scotland.' When William Grant the letter-writer, returned to Canada in the spring of 1768, he wrote to his father from Montreal on May 27:
I am sorry I must confirm what Robt. Grant has wrote you with regaird to Wm. Grant, were I to give you a full history of his conduct since I came here it would take up severall sheets and would hardly meet with credite. I have at last got matters refered to arbitration and am not affraid of getting justice tho he has showen great dexterity and cleverness in preventing it so long by stoutly asserting ofring [sic] to swear to Five thousand pounds Errors and impositions in our accounts settled and signed by himself and John Gray and insisting on us proving every artickle since the beginning of 1762 as if accounts had never been settled...However I have got an award for upwards of L6,000 Str. besides what remittances I got last year, I would now get a final ward for the whole but the arbitrators chouse to wait for some further proofs we have at London. Meantime the artickles in dispute are reduced to a very few hundred pounds and I am fully convinced there will not
be an error of five pounds in all out accounts which will amount to above L80,000 and that as I hope and believe he is able I will by Dec. next make him willing to pay his just debts. Tho' I ofered him a present of L500 rather than have this dispute with him... I shall only further add on this disagreeable subject that all honest men even his best friends here greatly disapprove of his conduct in this affair---'

from Grants in Canada by W.S.Wallace, posted on Rootsweb ³

Robert married Isabel CAMPBELL. (Isabel CAMPBELL was born about 1760.)