Letitia MacTavish Hargrave

Letitia MacTavish Hargrave (c. 1813 – 18 September 1854) was a Scottish-born Canadian settler and socialite. The wife of Hudson’s Bay Company trader James Hargrave, MacTavish-Hargrave travelled across the Canadian frontier, mainly staying at the York Factory settlement south of Churchill, Manitoba and in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. MacTavish Hargrave is known for a series of written correspondence which detail a female perspective of accounts detailing life in colonial Canada in the 19th century.
Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, at some point in 1813, Letitia MacTavish Hargrave was born into the wealthy MacTavish clan, known at the time for their dealings with the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC). MacTavish met her future husband, James Hargrave, through her brother, William and his career in the HBC. Letitia MacTavish and James Hargrave married in 1839. In the following spring, the couple travelled to London to the home of Governor-in-Chief of the Hudson’s Bay Company, George Simpson. Letitia would develop a long-term friendship with Simpson’s wife and sister-in-law-Frances and Isobel, respectively.
The newly married couple embarked from the United Kingdom to James’ post at the York Factory settlement and HBC trading post in the summer of 1840. The dramatic and bleak change of scenery led Letitia to write a series of letters to family detailing life as a pioneer in the Northwest of Canada on the Hudson’s Bay amongst traders and Indigenous peoples. Though located in the vast, cold expanses of the North, the Hargraves enjoyed a position of relative comfort and privilege. The Hargraves stayed at York Factory until James’ position at the HBC was transferred to Sault Ste Marie in 1851. As James was sent to work in Sault Ste Marie, he sent Letitia and their children to the UK temporarily. Returning in 1852, the Hargraves were reunited and lived at the HBC post until Letitia’s death by cholera on 18 September 1854. She is buried in Toronto.