Walter Traill Correspondence

Collection

Identifier: SC 334

Staff Only

Scope and Content

Copies of correspondence (1877-1887) between Traill and his mother, Catherine Parr Strickland Traill, and other relatives in Ontario, Canada, relating to family matters and his daily activities as fur trader in Frog Point (later Bellmont), Traill County, N.D.; and correspondence with T.R. McCloy.

Dates

1877-1955.

Creator

Traill, Walter, 1847-1932. (Person)

Access

The collection is open under the rules and regulations of the NDSU Archives.

Copyrights

Copyrights to this collection is held by the NDSU Archives.

Biography

Walter John Strickland Traill was born in August 9, 1847, to Thomas and Catherine Parr Traill in the Gores Landing, Ontario, Canada. In 1866 he came west to Fort Garry to work as a clerk with the Hudson's Bay Company. He was appointed as postmaster of Fort Ellice in 1870. By 1874 he was in charge of five Hudson Bay Co. posts in the United States, including one at Grand Forks. From 1874 to 1876 he liquidated the company's holdings in Dakota Territory. He then took a leave of absence and traveled to Florida and points in the southwest. He resigned from the Company in 1877, and engaged in the business of buying and selling grain at St. Paul.

In 1881 he married Mary Purdy Gilbert, a widow with two children, Cora and Hardesty. The couple had another child, Walter A. who died in infancy. They lived in Pembina, and then in St. Paul. Then from 1890 to 1910 they lived in Kalispell, Montana, where he ran a ranch. He then moved to Grand Forks, British Columbia, where he built a fruit farm. After the business failed, he headed south to the Okanagan Valley, in north-central Washington state. He returning to British Columbia in 1927. He died in Grand Forks, British Columbia on June 20, 1932.

Traill County, North Dakota was named after Walter J. S. Traill.