Memorable Manitobans: James Charles Audy (1846-1926)

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James Charles Audy
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Merchant.

Born at Montreal on 26 January 1846, one of three sons of Jacques Roy Audy and Marie Elizabeth Gaudet, a descendant of French settlers in the Ottawa region of Ontario, he came to Manitoba in 1865 and entered the service of the Hudson’s Bay Company at Upper Fort Garry. As a fluent speaker of Sioux, Cree, Saulteaux, and French, he held positions at several HBC posts, including Edmonton House (1868), Fort Ellice (1870-1871, 1872-1874), Riding Mountain (1871, 1874-1879), Bird Tail Creek (1880-1881), and Shell River / Russell (1881-1884). Leaving the employ of the HBC in 1884, he homesteaded near Dauphin and later operated a trading post at Lake Audy.

On 13 June 1874, he married Emma Caroline Spencer (?-1916), a daughter of George Benjamin Spencer and Margaret Armstrong, at Winnipeg. Audy had been introduced to his future wife by Donald A. Smith, aboard a Red River steamboat. They had two sons and a daughter but were later estranged.

He died at Portage la Prairie, Manitoba on 7 May 1926 and was buried in an unmarked grave there. He is commemorated by Lake Audy in Riding Mountain National Park.

Sources:

“Old Hudson’s Bay man passes at Portage,” newspaper clipping dated 8 May 1926 [Manitoba Legislative Library, Biographical Scrapbook B8]

We thank Janet Penrose for providing additional information used here.

This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Page revised: 9 July 2017

Memorable Manitobans

Memorable Manitobans

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