John Pritchard (d.1855, aged 79).

John Pritchard was one of the real pioneers of the West. He came out from England as a young boy and later worked in the fur trade for the X.Y. Company and later for the Hudson’s Bay Company.

He was present at the Seven Oaks Massacre in June 1816 when Governor Robert Semple and 20 of his men were killed in a battle with men of the Nor’West Company who sought to annihilate the Selkirk Settlers. Pritchard was one of the three or four whose life was spared in that massacre and he went on to become a leading citizen in the Settlement.

The late Archbishop Matheson was his grandson.