“The End of One-Pound-One,” or, the Long Suffering Gladstone Hates His Boss

Have you ever had a boss that you absolutely despised? W. Gladstone certainly did. Not to be confused with the nineteenth century British Prime Minister of the same name, Gladstone was a labourer for the Hudson’s Bay Company in his youth during the 1840s and 1850s and decades later wrote a really evocative biographical account of his life during the fur trade era. Here is the amazingly vicious description Gladstone wrote of the death of John Rowand: Chief Factor of the Saskatchewan District and his ultimate boss in Rupert’s Land. One of Rowand’s nicknames was “One Pound One” after his shuffling footstep from a limp he’d acquired after a hunting accident in his youth. He was known for his “tyrannical” attitude and impatience towards the labourers under his command. Historian John MacGregor wrote of an incident described by Father Albert Lacombe, a Catholic Missionary, at Fort Edmonton:

“[Lacombe] sympathized with the overworked boatmen. Never had he seen such travail and his warm heart went out to the voyageurs to the extent that on behalf of one of them who was ill but carrying on, he tried to induce John Rowand to give the man a rest. Rowand was flabbergasted and scolded the priest for being impertinent enough to approach him in such a case. In Rowand’s defense, it may be said that if he had permitted himself to relax the man’s labors, he would soon have been overwhelmed by all his trackers trying to take advantage of a man they considered a weak boss.

‘But the man is ill,’ pleaded the priest, ‘and has been ill for a week.’

‘Bah!’ said the rugged Rowand. ‘He’s all right. Any man who’s not dead after three days’ sickness is not sick at all.'”

(J.G. MacGregor, John Rowand, Czar of the Prairies (Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1978), 161-2.)

“A first-class devil”? (According to Gladstone.) The only known photograph of Chief Factor John Rowand, circa 1847. Note the jowls. Image courtesy of the Glenbow Museum and Archive.

The year was 1854…

“Chapter XIV

THE END OF ONE-POUND-ONE

Having ended my first five years with the Hudson’s Bay Company, I commenced my second term as a journeyman boat builder and soon after I signed a contract for two more years, the boats left for York. About three weeks after their departure, a son of One-Pound-One came from Fort Pitt to take charge for the summer at Edmonton. He told us all the particulars of his father’s death.

It seems that when the men arrived at Fort Pitt they got into a general fight and raised a row that reached the old man’s ears. He hastened to the scene of the fight, fuming with rage and frothing at the mouth. He got himself worked up to a great pitch, trying to stop the fight and swore like a madman.

Suddenly he dropped in his tracks and when lifted up was found to be stone dead. When the men who were on the river bank heard the news there was a great rejoicing and all around the country.

His son threatened to kill the man who was the innocent cause of his father’s death, but this man escaped to the woods and with a French half-breed and his wife as guides, fled from pursuit. One night they camped at Vermillion River. The fugitive, whose name was Paul, took his axe to cut timber for a raft and the half-breed with his gun, left the camp to hunt game for supper.

While Paul was engaged in felling a tree he was shot dead by the frenchman who claimed that seeing him dimly through the underbrush, he mistook him for a wild animal and fired. We all believed that the truth of the matter was that Paul had been murdered by the half-breed and that One-Pound-One’s son had bribed him to follow Paul and killed him. The poor fellow was buried where he fell and nothing further was said about the matter.

The chief factor was the only judge and jury then and could do pretty much as he liked even to the extent of making away secretly with an enemy. There was no one besides him to represent the law and no one to insist on justice. One-Pound-One was buried at Fort Pitt. Next spring his body was taken up and an old Cree boiled all the flesh off his bones which were sent to St. Boniface for burial.

The women say that long before the water boiled in the cauldron they heard groans and hisses issuing from it. It did not take much to make the old man hot when he was alive and perhaps even his inflammable carcass resented being boiled in a pot like beef. Women are always a trifle superstitious and I didn’t put much faith in that story.

Perhaps it grew some since, for there was also a yarn about them making a by-product of soap from his remains, so that on wash days, the old man, in the form of soap, became a blessing to the fort. But I don’t believe that story either, for he was too far from godliness when alive, to become an agent of cleanliness after death.

So, good-bye to old One-Pound-One, and I hope he is not in that hot place to which he was always sending us, but if he is Satan must have given him a place among his advisors, for he certainly had all the qualifications to make a first-class devil. His son was a chip off the old block and when we got rid of him too, a year later, there was not one of us who did not bear his grief like a man and if we needed our handkerchiefs, it was to hide our smiles.”

(W. Gladstone, The Gladstone Diary: Travels in the Early West(Lethbridge, Alberta: Historic Trails Society of Alberta, 1985), 40-1.)

[Unprofessional aside: OH SNAP.]

Gladstone’s account is one of the few written sources we have written from the point of view of the labouring class during the fur trade, and as such he represents a unique perspective of what life was like on the ground – and working under intimidating figures like John Rowand. You can really feel the hatred for his boss oozing off of the page, written decades after the events he describes. Rowand is described in animalistic terms – “frothing” at the mouth, for instance. I love the “first-class devil” description. Even when Gladstone was casting doubt on the nasty rumour that Rowand’s considerable fat was used for soap, he made it into an insult; in essence, “there’s no way that could have happened, because cleanliness is next to godliness and there was nothing godly about John Rowand.” Of course, as he was not present, much of what he evocatively describes of the incident is malicious rumour, but we do know that Rowand’s body was disinterred from its burial spot at Fort Pitt, rendered to the bones, and sent to Montreal in a barrel. Rowand was buried in Mount Royal Cemetery over four years after his initial death.

The story of the death of John Rowand (or “The Tale of the Pickled Factor,” as one of my friends and former colleagues describes it) remains a popular narrative at Fort Edmonton Park. I am currently finishing a term paper on interpretive techniques and myth making at historic sites using this story as a case study. Keep an eye out for video and audio recordings of a fuller version of this tale on this blog in the future.

Further Reading and Related Posts

• This large quotation was an excerpt from a reprint of Gladstone’s journals found here: Gladstone, W. The Gladstone Diary: Travels in the Early West. Lethbridge, Alberta: Historic Trails Society of Alberta, 1985.
• MacGregor, J. G. John Rowand, Czar of the Prairies. Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1978.
• Silversides, Brock. Fort de Prairies: The Story of Fort Edmonton. Victoria; Calgary; Vancouver: Heritage House Publishing Ltd. Co., 2005.
• Another blog post of mine related to John Rowand: Hidden Treasures of Banff: A log shouldn’t be this exciting – but this isn’t just any log
• Where is Fort Edmonton?
• Views of the reconstructed Fort where John Rowand spent the latter years of his life:  (Re)visiting Fort Edmonton Park Part IV: the 1846 Fort and the Return to 2013
• Just for fun, check out this recent song by Cadence Weapon: “One Pound One (Hudson’s Bay) is a timpani-based club anthem based on the legend of John Rowand, a chief trader for the Hudson’s Bay Company and proprietor of Fort Edmonton.”

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