Cuthbert Grant

Cuthbert "James" Grant (1793 – July 15, 1854) was a Métis leader of the early 19th century who participated in the Pemmican War as an employee of the North West Company.

Cuthbert Grant was born in about 1793 at Fort de la Rivière Tremblante, a North West Company trading post located near the present-day town of Togo, Saskatchewan, where his father was a manager.

It is not known exactly when he returned to Western Canada, but in 1812, he entered the service of the North West Company at the age of 19.

The capture and destruction of the North West Company's Fort Gibraltar in 1816, caused further anger at the HBC from the Nor'westers and the local Métis.

This led to the bloody encounter known as the Battle of Seven Oaks, where Robert Semple and 21 colonists from the Red River Colony were killed.

[1] Despite this, when the two rival companies merged in 1821 under the name the Hudson's Bay Company, the new governor, Sir George Simpson, requested Grant to head a Métis settlement of some 2,000 people situated some 16 miles west of the Red River Colony on the Assiniboine River.

[1] By 1825 wheat was becoming an important food crop and although there were several windmills in operation in the area, Cuthbert Grant was the first to undertake the construction of a watermill.