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View Tree for Matthew CockingMatthew Cocking (b. 1743, d. 1799)

Matthew Cocking was born 1743, and died 1799 in Esingwold. He married Ke-che-cho-wick.

 Includes NotesNotes for Matthew Cocking:
Matthew was a HBC chief factor and explorer; b. 1743, apparently in York, England, probably the son of Richard Cochin, tailor, and Jane Carlton; d. 17 March 1799 in York.

1765-1770 - "writer" [Clerk] at York Fort
1770-1772 - Second in command at York Fort
1772, 27 June-1773, 18 June - Travelled inland up Hayes & Fox Rivers to Saskatchewan
1773-1774 - Second in command at York Fort
1774, 4 July-1775, 27 June - To help Hearne establish at Basquia, but instead was taken to
Red Deer Valley west of Lake Winnipegosis
1775, Oct.-l777 - In charge of Cumberland House
1777-1781 - Master of Severn
1781-1782 - Chief Factor at York Fort
1782, 24 Aug. - sailed for England on King George just before LaPerouse captured post
- Settled in the "Suburbs of city of York" where a sister and half-brother lived
1797/98 - made a Will, leaving money for his three daughters
1799, 17 March - Died in York

According to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 4, pages 156-158:

Little is known of Matthew Cocking before 1765, when the Hudson's Bay Company "entertained" him as a writer at an annual rate of pay of £20 for five years. He sailed to the Hudson Bay on the company's ship, the King George, and landed at York Factory on the 8th of September 1765. There he transcribed post journals and correspondence in his elegant hand, kept accounts, and checked shipments of goods and furs inward and outward against indents and inventories. His intelligence and diligence were recognized in 1770, when he was made second at York with a salary of £50 per annum. The Council at York reported on him as being "a very vigilant deserving young man."

In 1772 Cocking volunteered to go inland when Andrew Graham, acting chief at York, complained that the accounts of the trade situation given by the company's servants who had been sent on trips inland were "incoherent and unintelligible." On 27 June 1772, under the guidance of a reluctant "Indian Leader," Cocking began an arduous journey in an Indian canoe which he did not know how to steer. The Indians were"sickly" and a canoe mate died. They travelled slowly by the usual route up the Hayes, Fox, and Minehage (Minago) rivers (Man.) and so to the Saskatchewan River. At the site of an old French post, where friends awaited them, they "threw away" their canoes and then proceeded overland from Peonan Creek (Sask.), across the South Saskatchewan, to the Eagle Hills (south of Battleford). Cocking wandered with the Indians, hunting out on the open plains southwest of modern Biggar and in the parklands until it was time again to build canoes for the journey down to the Bay. He arrived back at York on 18 June 1773. In his detailed journal, log, and concluding "Thoughts on making a settlement inland," Cocking gave, as Graham had expected, a "rational account" of the buffalo country and of the life and customs of its people, among them the "stranger Indians" of the plains, notably the Siksikas (Blackfeet). He described the prairies and parklands, their wildlife and vegetation, and the route that connected them with the bay. He discussed the posts, procedures, and trade standards of the Canadian pedlars who were intercepting the York trade. He made clear how urgent it was that the company push trading operations inland and identified the many problems to be overcome, among them the company's lack of canoes and experienced men.

NB. Cockings Journal of this voyage is available today in the Canadian Exploration Litterature: An Anthology by Germaine Warkentin, 1993.


Peter Newman adds a few thoughts in the Company of Adventurers, pages 359-360.

Matthew Cocking returned to York Factory after a lengthy journey up country to report with grave concern that the Montrealers were monopolizing the fur trade of the Saskatchewan River area and were poised to cut off the HBC from its main supply of furs. This hardy scribe, who had little idea of how to steer a canoe, had managed to penetrate as far as the Eagle Hills (just south of present-day Battleford), had hunted with the Blackfoot, observed the flow of the fur trade but, unlike his emotional and romantic predecessors, came back to record in his precise copper-plate script the operational details of the inland panorama. "The natives are very dilatory in proceeding," he noted. "Their whole delight is to sit smoking and feasting. Yesterday I received an invitation to no less than ten feasts." He was disturbed by his camping companions. "I get no rest at nights," he complained, "for Drumming, Dancing, &c."

Cocking's accountant's eye view of the wood buffalo country, his tidy reconstruction of the extent to which the pedlars were controlling the fur trade and his exact descriptions of how this rich fur country could he exploited confirmed the London Committeemen's inclination to act - that, plus the actuarial evidence supporting his contention that the pedlars were drying up the fur traffic to the bay. York Factory's return in 1773 was only eight thousand made-beaver, down from an annual average of thirty thousand made-beaver in the decade before 1766. There had been a running argument within Company cirdes about inland posts since Anthony Henday's journey. The specific decision to move, taken in May 1773, was based on recommendations from Andrew Graham, the chief factor at York Factory, and first-hand testimony from Isaac Batt, one of the HBC's most experienced inland travellers.

And so, London woke from its slumbers and ordered Cocking and Hearne to establish Cumberland House, the HBC's first permanent western inland settlement.

The Dictionary of Canadian Biography continues:

Cocking's next trip inland in 1774-75 gave him bitter experience with one of these difficulties:
total dependence on the Indians for "carriage." He left on 4 July 1774 to help Samuel HEARNE, who had preceeded him by a few days, establish Cumberland House, the company's first permanent western inland settlement, at Pine Island Lake (Cumberland Lake, Sask.). He was accompanied by James Leask, Robert Davey and a "leading indian called Mis tick co nap." Cocking took a route via Lake Winnipeg (Man.) which he hoped would be feasible for large canoes. On the way he "came up with" Isaac BATT, an expenenced inland traveller, and Charles Thomas Isham*, who had been abandoned by their Indian guides. Cocking stayed with them, not wishing to leave them to starve. His own Indians could not be persuaded to go on up the Saskatchewan where many of the natives were ill; eventually other Indians came to take him on, not to Basquia (The Pas, Man.), where Hearne awaited him, but to their own country up the Red Deer River, west of Lake Winnipegosis. He wintered at Witch Lake (perhaps Good Spirit Lake, Sask.). Undaunted, Cocking described this new territory in his journal and sought to attach to the company the stranger Indians he met. He set off down the Red Deer River on his return journey on 20 May 1775 and arrived at York on 27 June, four days after Hearne's return to that place..

Although Cocking had in 1774 been appointed master of Severn House (Fort Severn, Ont.), Ferdinand JACOBS, chief at York, and the York council reported that he had been sent inland once more, despite his great reluctance and "an ugly rupture." Travelling by way of the Nelson River (Man.), he took command of Cumberland House from Hearne on 6 Oct. 1775. From that post he led the opposition to the Canadian pedlars, sending out Robert Longmoor*, Malchom Ross, and William WALKER, among others, to compete with them. Cocking visited York Factory faor a short period in the summer and early autumn of 1776 and wasthen sent back inland to Cumberland once more on direct orders from the London committee.

In August 1777 Cocking at last received permission to take up his appointment at Severn. Severn, like York, was suffering from the pedlars' competition, but there, besides dealing with the Indians, Cocking was concerned mainly with the routine provisioning and daily management of the post. Although ill-health was "growing on him," and in 1779 he requested permission to return home. This was granted in 1781 but he did not avail himself of it since he was obliged to take command of York in 1781 when illness forced its chief, Humphrey MARTEN, to return to England. At York, Cocking's last recorded official act was to try to check the spread of the devastating smallpox epidemic of 1781-82 by sending urgent warnings to Severn, Albany (Fort Albany, Ont.), and Moose Factory (Ont.) in August 1782. It was in August 1782 that he wrote from York Factory: "...I believe never Letter in Hudson's Bay conveyed more doleful Tidings than this. Much the greatest part of the Indians whose Furrs have been formerly & hitherto brought to this Place are now no more, having been carried off by that cruel disorder the Small Pox. ... the whole tribe of U'Basquiou Indians ... are extinct except one Child...".

Marten returned to relieve Cocking just before the French, Comte de Laperouse [GALAUP] arrived at York. Within a few days Humphrey Martin was obliged to surrender the Fort and the majority of the inmates were conveyed as prisoners to France. Cocking sailed for England on 24 August on the "King George", which, with a cargo of furs, eluded the French force. His "long services and good Behaviour" had earned the "Approbation" of the company. The records he left are today an invaluable source of information about the early west.

Settled in the suburbs of York, where a sister and a half-brother lived, Cocking did not forget his transatlantic family ties; he secured permission from the company to send an annual remittance for "the use of his children and their parents in Hudson's Bay." When he died his major legatees were English relatives, but his will provided for goods worth £6 a year to be supplied to each of his three mixed-blood daughters, the eldest to receive the full amount, the others to share their portion with their mothers. The council at York requested that part of this legacy might be "laid out in Ginger Bread, Nuts &tc. as they have no other means of obtaining these little luxuries, with which the paternal fondness of a Father formally provided them."

author - IRENE M. SPRY

Children of Matthew Cocking and Ke-che-cho-wick are:
  1. +Wash-e-soo-E'Squaw Cocking, b. 1780, d. 1850.
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