John Rowand - Death

Death

In spring of 1854, Rowand joined the boat brigades which annually carried furs to Hudson Bay where they would be loaded onto ships and commence their voyage to England. Rowand would stop at Norway House as usual to attend a factors' convention, but he did not make it this far. On May 31, while at Fort Pitt - a post commanded by his son John - Rowand was about to intervene into a dispute between two tripmen, when he clutched his chest and fell suddenly dead.

Initially buried at Fort Pitt, Rowand's remains were exhumed. George Simpson explained in a letter to Rowand's son Alexander, "It was one of the last instructions your father gave John, on the day preceding his death, that his bones were not to be left in the Indian Country but removed to Canada and interred near those of his own father." The intended burial place was Montreal, but lacking means to preserve Rowand's body for a journey of so many weeks, his cadaver was boiled down to the bones. Ripley's states that his remains were "pickled" in a keg of rum and shipped overland. Simpson took the bones in a package to Red River, but from fear that superstitious boatmen might try to dispose of it on the longer journey to Montreal, he had them repackaged and shipped to England via York Factory instead, where they could then be shipped again to Montreal. In a course of years, Rowand was buried at Mount Royal Cemetery with a sizeable monument.