Letitia MacTavish Hargrave

Letitia MacTavish Hargrave ( – 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, in 1813, Letitia MacTavish Hargrave was the eldest of nine children of Dugald MacTavish, 20th Hereditary Chief of Clan MacTavish, and Letitia Lockhart. MacTavish met her future husband, James Hargrave, through her brother, William — later the 21st Hereditary Chief of Clan MacTavish — and his career in the HBC. Letitia MacTavish and James Hargrave married on 8 January 1840. 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. James Hargrave joined the North-West Company following his emigration and came under the tutelage of John George MacTavish. The union between the North-West Company and the HBC led the two to be folded into the new company, being stationed at York Factory in Rupert's Land.

James Hargrave returned to Britain on medical leave in 1837 where—at the behest of his good friend, William MacTavish—he visited the MacTavish family. James met Letitia MacTavish in the early months of 1838 and very quickly intended to marry her. They would marry on 8 January 1840, where they would remain in Scotland until late April.

Following their marriage, Letitia and James Hargrave were invited to stay with sir George Simpson, Governor-in-Chief of the Hudson's Bay Company, in his home in London. The couple would remain in Britain until the summer of 1840.

In Rupert's Land James and Letitia Hargrave embarked from Britain to the New World in 1840. The particularly rough voyage (for a well-to-do Scottish Lady) in a Hudson's Bay Company cargo ship caused a fair bit of discontent for the young Mrs. Hargrave, and the subsequent dramatic change in the way of life at York Factory were the first obstacles in forging a new life in Rupert's Land.

York Factory, located in the far Northern expanse of modern-day Manitoba, was a major trading post for the Hudson's Bay Company. At the mouth of the Hayes River, the trading post gave access to the vast waterways protruding from the Hudson's Bay throughout the Northwest.

This was the new, rugged home of Letitia MacTavish Hargrave. The Hargraves essentially had full control over a district "more than twice the size of Great Britain". Letitia's experiences in adapting from a socialite life in Britain to that of an important woman on the frontier is the source of many of the compiled letters attributed to her, in which she describes life in the frozen wastes of the North and her dealings with fellow trader's wives, the local indigenous peoples and the dramatic weather.

Letitia held on to the societal and material comforts to which she was accustomed, wearing elaborate gowns and retaining a host of servants in the manor in which they lived. Letitia adapted to the new world in which she lived by holding on to the lifestyle to which she was accustomed.

Letitia, as the only permanent white female resident at York Factory, enjoyed a life of privilege and reverence from the native inhabitants of the settlement, developing unique relationships with local "Squaw" women, who referred to her as a Chieftainess in their own language. In the course of her research Mrs. MacLeod identified the MacTavish chiefly descent and wrote to the Lord Lyon King of Arms, initiating the process that eventually led to the restoration of the Clan MacTavish chiefship in 1997.