Memorable Manitobans: Andrew McDermot (1789-1881)

Fur trader, merchant.

Born in Roscommon, Ireland, in 1789, the son of Miles McDermot, he was educated privately as a Roman Catholic. He was subsequently recruited by Lord Selkirk for the Hudson's Bay Company in 1812, and sailed from Sligo aboard the Robert Taylor. When there was a mutiny on ship, he supported the mutineers. He always claimed he learned to speak Gaelic on this voyage.

He married Sarah McNab at Norway House in 1816. They had fifteen children, including Annie McDermot Bannatyne, Mary Jane McDermot Taillefer (wife of Joseph N. Taillefer), Harriet, Fanny, Thomas, Henry, Ellen, Andrew, Miles, Catherine, and Sarah.

He chafed at his slow advance in the HBC and retired to Red River in 1824, where he opened his own store and engaging in the fur trade under special license. He speculated in land in what would become Winnipeg, and McDermot Avenue, located at the north edge of his property, is named after him. He was appointed to the Council of Assiniboia in 1839. In the 1840s he was a leading supporter of free trade in the fur trade, resigned from the Council but returned in 1847, becoming ex officio president of the General Quarterly Court in 1849. He resigned his offices in 1851 because of lack of trust in Major William Caldwell as governor of Assiniboia.

He was a member of St. John’s Cathedral after leaving the Catholic Church in 1866, and subsequently helped found Holy Trinity Church. He stayed out of the Red River Rebellion, and became an honoured senior citizen of Manitoba. He provided land for Winnipeg’s first post office and, with his son-in-law, A. G. B. Bannatyne, land for the Winnipeg General Hospital. He was one of the founders of the Winnipeg Board of Trade, in 1873.

McDermot died on12 October 1881. He is buried in the cemetery of the Anglican St. John’s Cathedral.

He is commemorated by McDermot Avenue in Winnipeg.

See also:

Andrew McDermot, Dictionary of Canadian Biography XI, 545-46.

Andrew McDermot, Manitobans Who Made A Difference, Manitoba Historic Resources

Sources:

Pioneers and Early Citizens of Manitoba, Winnipeg: Manitoba Library Association, 1971.

Dictionary of Manitoba Biography by J. M. Bumsted, Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1999.

This profile was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Profile revised: 31 January 2011

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