Sir alexander mackenzie biography of barack

MACKENZIE, Sir ALEXANDER, fur trader, explorer, and author; b. 1764 at Stornoway, on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland, third of four children of Kenneth Mackenzie, of Melbost farm (two miles east of Stornoway), and Isabella Maciver, whose family was prominent in the town; m. 1812 Geddes Mackenzie, and they had three children; d. 12 March 1820 at Mulinearn, near Dunkeld, Scotland.

In the 1770s a severe depression developed on Lewis, and in 1774 Kenneth Mackenzie decided to join his brother John in New York.

His wife had died while Alexander was still a child. Kenneth sailed for North America with his two sisters and Alexander, leaving both his daughters behind. (Alexander’s older brother Murdoch studied medicine; a terse family record states that he then “followed the sea and was lost on the coast of Halifax.”) Only months after the family’s arrival the American revolution broke out, and Kenneth and John joined the King’s Royal Regiment of New York, rais