Childhood and Early Career
McLoughlin was born in Rivière-du-Loup, Quebec, of Irish (his grandfather came from Sharagower in the Inishowen peninsular of County Donegal), Scottish, and French Canadian descent. He lived with his great uncle, Colonel William Fraser, for a while as a child. Though baptized Roman Catholic, he was raised Anglican and in his later life he returned to the Roman Catholic faith. In 1798, he began to study medicine with Sir James Fisher of Quebec. After studying for 4½ years he was granted a license to practice medicine on April 30, 1803. He was hired as a physician at Fort William, Ontario (now Thunder Bay), a fur-gathering post of the North West Company on Lake Superior; there he became a trader and mastered several Indian languages.
In 1814 he became a partner in the company. In 1816 McLoughlin was arrested for the murder of Robert Semple, the governor of the Red River Colony, after the Battle of Seven Oaks (1816), though it is often claimed he stood in proxy for some Indians who were blamed. He was tried on October 30, 1818, and the charges were dismissed. McLoughlin was instrumental in the negotiations leading to the North West Company's 1821 merger with the Hudson's Bay Company. He was promoted to the Lac la Pluie district temporarily shortly after the merger.
Read more about this topic: John McLoughlin
Famous quotes containing the words childhood and, childhood, early and/or career:
“Toddlerhood resembles adolescence because of the rapidity of physical growth and because of the impulse to break loose of parental boundaries. At both ages, the struggle for independence exists hand in hand with the often hidden wish to be contained and protected while striving to move forward in the world. How parents and toddlers negotiate their differences sets the stage for their ability to remain partners during childhood and through the rebellions of the teenage years.”
—Alicia F. Lieberman (20th century)
“The quickness with which all the “stuff” from childhood can reduce adult siblings to kids again underscores the strong and complex connections between brothers and sisters.... It doesn’t seem to matter how much time has elapsed or how far we’ve traveled. Our brothers and sisters bring us face to face with our former selves and remind us how intricately bound up we are in each other’s lives.”
—Jane Mersky Leder (20th century)
“The conviction that the best way to prepare children for a harsh, rapidly changing world is to introduce formal instruction at an early age is wrong. There is simply no evidence to support it, and considerable evidence against it. Starting children early academically has not worked in the past and is not working now.”
—David Elkind (20th century)
“Like the old soldier of the ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Goodbye.”
—Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964)