1957 "The North West Company" Annotated First Edition, Research Ephemera and Robertson–Higinbotham Letter on Pioneering Canadian Surgical Procedures

On offer is a distinctive first edition of Marjorie Wilkins Campbell’s The North West Company, preserving a history of close reading, historical inquiry and correspondence that extends well beyond the printed text. Presented by Frances McDowell to her husband Clendon at Christmas 1957, this extensively annotated volume contains newspaper clippings, a letter challenging a newspaper’s account of fur-trade history, and an earlier, particularly compelling letter from Mary Higinbotham Robertson, wife of pioneering British Columbia surgeon Dr. Ross Robertson and daughter of western Canadian pharmacist and memoirist John David Higinbotham.

The book brings these interests together in a tangible working collection: a published history read with pencil and pen in hand, supplemented with contemporary reporting, personal recollections of its author, and evidence of the owners’ determination to investigate Canadian history for themselves.

The book and its ownership

Author: Marjorie Wilkins Campbell
Title: The North West Company.
Publication: New York: Macmillan–St. Martin’s Press, 1957. 
Details: First edition, first printing. Hardcover in publisher’s cloth boards, with dust jacket. Approximately 5½ × 8¾ inches; xiv, 295 pages.

Campbell’s history follows the Montreal fur-trading enterprise whose commercial ambitions and inland networks helped shape the exploration and mapping of northern and western Canada. Its subjects include the company’s traders and explorers, its rivalry with the Hudson’s Bay Company, and the eventual amalgamation of 1821.

Inside the front cover is the ownership inscription of Clendon Albert Pierce McDowell, with his address at 66 Binswood Avenue, Toronto. Beneath it, Frances’s Christmas 1957 presentation inscription gives this particular copy its defining theme:

“For Clen who is ever in search of historical accuracy and fuller information”

The annotations and accompanying papers show how thoroughly that invitation was taken up.

Pencil notes, underlining, and marginal entries in red and black ink record dates, identify relationships, question details and direct the reader towards further sources. There is particular attention to David Thompson, Charlotte Small and the Small family. On page 110, a reader challenges the stated age of Charlotte at her marriage:

“x she was 13 not 14 until Sept”

Elsewhere, a note identifies Patrick Small as the father of Mrs. David Thompson. Dates have been extracted into the margins, passages underlined, and two additional names handwritten under the book’s list of principal people. These interventions preserve the readers’ priorities and questions; they should be understood as research annotations rather than uniformly verified corrections.

A recommendation to read Elizabeth Clutton-Brock’s Woman of the Paddle Song is especially revealing. That book appeared in 1972, fifteen years after Frances’s Christmas gift. Its presence in the annotations demonstrates that at least some of the engagement with this copy belongs to a substantially later period. The handwritten publication date has been transcribed as 1992, but the cited work was published in 1972. The individual annotators have not all been identified.

Accompanying Ephemera:

The 1953 Mary Higinbotham Robertson letter

The most substantial personal document that accompanies is a 1953 letter from Mary Higinbotham Robertson to her sister Phyllis, combining family news, reports of her husband’s surgical work, and an extended discussion of Marjorie Wilkins Campbell.

Written four years before The North West Company appeared, the letter offers earlier personal recollections of the author and her family. Mary discusses the Wilkins family’s prairie background and South African connections, Marjorie’s position as the eldest of six sisters, her responsibilities within the family, her marriage to Dr. Angus Campbell, and her involvement in the Girl Guides. She names the sisters, Nora, Dorothy, Sylvia, Freda and Gay, and supplies information about their husbands and whereabouts.

Mary also offers a candid reader’s assessment of Campbell’s writing:

“correctly written but lacking in picturesqueness”

She prefers the colour of Bruce Hutchison’s The Fraser, while recalling favourably some of Campbell’s short stories in Maclean’s. Her discussion also refers to the earlier family-background work The Soil Is Not Enough. These comments give the letter particular interest for the study of Campbell’s literary reception and the personal networks surrounding Canadian historical writing.

The same letter contains a striking account of Dr. Ross Robertson’s surgical workload in 1953. Mary, who used to work as a nurse in Toronto and therefore has background medical knowledge, reports an operation for lung cancer, a mitral valve commissurotomy performed that morning, another scheduled for the following day, and the dilation of a one-year-old child’s esophagus following surgery when the child was only hours old.

These are contemporary domestic reports of demanding thoracic, cardiac and infant surgical work. Their significance is strengthened by Robertson’s place in British Columbia medical history: four years after this letter was written, Dr. Ross Robertson  collaborated with Peter Allen, Phil Ashmore and Bill Trapp, in the first open-heart procedure at Vancouver General Hospital in 1957. 

Mary thanks Phyllis for looking after Ross during his visit to Guelph and relays his news of her father, John D. Higinbotham, and Aunt Alice. Further passages concern her son Gordon's proposed visit, his medical studies, and her other two children's upcoming midterm examinations.

The medical and literary observations remain embedded in a substantial family letter, preserving their original domestic setting.

Frances McDowell and the public correction of history

Among the accompanying material is a 1967 clipping from the Toronto Telegram’s “Where in the World” quiz, together with a letter by Frances McDowell to the editor disputing an answer about Fort William.

Frances objects to the newspaper’s identification of Fort William with the Hudson’s Bay Company, stresses its North West Company history, and directs the editor to pages 270–280 of Campbell’s book. Preserved with the clipping that prompted it, the letter provides unusually direct evidence of this volume’s use: the book served as a reference for a reader willing to challenge the presentation of Canadian history in the popular press.

Additional Ephemera

Other material found tipped into the book include a 1959 clipping reporting Campbell’s $4,500 Guggenheim Fellowship for further fur-trade research, a review of The North West Company by Heather Robertson, and large colour magazine pages featuring four Canadian fur trappers and accounts of their work. Together, these additions place the volume within a continuing interest in the author, the fur trade and its public interpretation.

Research interest and associations

This copy offers material for researchers interested in Canadian fur-trade historiography, the reception of Marjorie Wilkins Campbell, private historical study, women’s correspondence, and the history of medicine in British Columbia. Its annotations show what readers questioned and pursued; Frances’s newspaper letter records historical inquiry carried into public debate; Mary’s correspondence supplies personal literary commentary alongside contemporary surgical news.

The ownership inscriptions establish the McDowell provenance. The Robertson and Higinbotham associations arise through Mary’s enclosed letter; ownership of the book by either Dr. Robertson or John D. Higinbotham is not established. The circumstances by which the 1953 letter joined the later volume remain undocumented, although its substantial discussion of Campbell gives it clear relevance to the collection.

Condition

A well-used, extensively annotated copy retaining its dust jacket. The jacket has wear and small tears and is enclosed in a protective plastic cover. The binding remains together but shows cracking from use. Ownership and presentation inscriptions are present, with pencil and ink annotations, underlining, marginal dates and additions to the printed text.

The wear and markings are material condition considerations. The annotations also form an important part of this copy’s documentary character and should be preserved with its accompanying correspondence and ephemera. Please review photographs carefully for exact condition as they form part of the description.

Biographical Notes

Marjorie Wilkins Campbell (1901-1986) was a Canadian historical writer whose work repeatedly returned to western exploration and the fur trade. Her books included The Saskatchewan, The Nor’Westers, The North West Company and studies of William McGillivray and Simon Fraser. She received two Governor General’s Literary Awards and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Clendon Albert Pierce McDowell (1911–1989) was a Second World War RCAF veteran and educator who became Head of Guidance at East York Collegiate Institute. His ownership inscription and Frances’s dedication identify him as the recipient of this volume and explicitly record his interest in historical accuracy.

Frances Ross Silcox McDowell (1915–2008) was a teacher and homemaker whose interests included Toronto’s historical, cultural and charitable institutions. Her presentation inscription and surviving letter to the Toronto Telegram provide direct evidence of her own active engagement with Canadian history.

Mary Higinbotham Robertson was the wife of Dr. Ross Robertson and daughter of John David Higinbotham. Her letter connects a Vancouver medical household with family in Guelph and preserves personal recollections of Campbell and the Wilkins family.

Dr. Ross Robertson (1902–1993) was a British Columbia surgeon associated with the early development of cardiac surgery in the province. Mary’s 1953 letter records aspects of his thoracic, cardiac and infant surgical practice several years before his participation in Vancouver General Hospital’s first open-heart operation.

John David Higinbotham (1864–1961) was an Ontario-born pioneer pharmacist of the Canadian West, associated with Fort Macleod and Lethbridge, and the author of When the West Was Young (1933). His career combined pharmacy, civic service and an enduring interest in western Canadian history. The year 1884 marks his arrival in the West, rather than his birth. His connection to this collection is through his daughter Mary and the family news in her letter.