CAMPION, ÉTIENNE-CHARLES, fur-trader and merchant; baptized 15 Jan. 1737 at Montreal (Que.), son of Étienne Campion, dit Labonté, an innkeeper, and Charlotte Pepin; m. there 23 Nov. 1773 Madeleine Gautier; m. secondly 17 Feb. 1794 Marie-Josephte Maillet at Trois-Rivières (Que.); buried 23 Dec. 1795 at Montreal.

Étienne-Charles Campion first went into the pays d’en haut in 1753. By 1761 he was well acquainted with the region and was recommended as a guide and assistant to Alexander Henry* the elder, who planned a trading voyage to Michilimackinac (Mackinaw City, Mich.). Campion’s knowledge and support proved invaluable when Henry arrived at the post before the British force of occupation and was in some danger from the local Indians [see Minweweh*]. Campion continued as his assistant until 1763 and behaved, according to Henry, “with honesty and fidelity.”

Although Campion’s residence was in Montreal, he was active in religious and community affairs at Michilimackinac from 1765 to 1794. He traded to the south and to the northwest as well as at Michilimackinac, and he sold merchandise to the Indian department there. During the American revolution he occasionally went on missions for the department. In 1779 a group of Michilimackinac traders including Campion pooled their goods in a partnership known as the General Store. Disorder connected with the revolution complicated their business, however. They had merchandise and furs at Fort St Joseph (Niles, Mich.) when in the fall of 1780 it was pillaged by raiders from Illinois. With a force of local Potawatomis, Campion overtook the party at a place called Rivière-du-Chemin (Michigan City, Ind.) and recovered most of the plunder, but in 1781 an attack in his absence destroyed the St Joseph post.

Once peace had been restored, Campion resumed his southwestern trade on an extensive scale. There was a marked increase in trading generally in the region during the years after the revolution, and competition was destructive of profits. In 1785 Campion joined with a number of merchants at Michilimackinac (Mackinac Island, Mich.) in a partnership known as the General Company of Lake Superior and the South, or as the General Society, which concentrated on the trade south to the Illinois country and west to the headwaters of the Missouri. In that year also, Campion became one of the 19 founding members of the Beaver Club in Montreal. The General Society apparently dissolved in 1787. Campion, along with William Grant* of Montreal and some others, formed Grant, Campion and Company, which moved into the trade west of Lake Superior as far as the Saskatchewan country. It became an important rival of the North West Company. Campion’s group was party to a 1792 arrangement by which Joseph Frobisher* of the North West Company secured agreement among a number of the opposing concerns to diminish the competition at the western posts. Grant, Campion and Company continued to outfit wintering traders and to sell wholesale to small merchants at Michilimackinac; it also became associated with James Grant in the Timiskaming trade.

Campion was involved in a murder at Michilimackinac in 1792. According to the commandant, Edward Charlton, an Ojibwa named Wawenesse attempted to stab a trader and two others. Overpowered, his hands tied behind him, he was being led to the authorities when he was attacked and killed by seven men including Campion. The incident was considered by a grand jury at Detroit, but the resolution is not known.

Campion went on with his normal business activities. The tendency to new alliances in the fur trade continued to exert itself, and in 1795 Grant, Campion and Company acquired one of the 46 shares in the North West Company. Campion was in poor health, however, and he died in December.

in collaboration

      ANQ-M, État civil, Catholiques, Notre-Dame de Montréal, 15 janv. 1737, 23 nov. 1773, 23 déc. 1795; Greffe de J.-B. Adhémar, 30 avril 1754; Greffe de J.-G. Delisle, 19 déc. 1795; Greffe de Pierre Panet, 22 nov. 1773; Testaments, Testaments olographes, Étienne Campion, 19 déc. 1795. PAC, MG 19, B3, p.4. Ste Ann’s Parish (Mackinac Island, Mich.), Registre des baptêmes, mariages et sépultures de Sainte-Anne-de-Michillimakinak. Correspondence of Lieut. Governor Simcoe (Cruikshank), I. Docs. relating to NWC (Wallace). Henry, Travels and adventures (Bain). Michigan Pioneer Coll ., IX (1886), X (1886), XI (1887), XIII (1888), XIX (1891), XXIII (1893), XXIV (1894). Lebœuf, Complément, 1^re sér., 24. Lefebvre, “Engagements pour l’Ouest,” ANQ Rapport, 1946–47. C. W. Alvord, The Illinois country, 1673–1818 (Chicago, 1922; repr. 1965). Rich, History of HBC, II. W. S. Wallace, The pedlars from Quebec and other papers on the Nor’Westers (Toronto, 1954). W. E. Stevens, “Fur trading companies in the northwest, 1760–1816,” Mississippi Valley Hist. Assoc., Proc. (Cedar Rapids, Iowa), IX, pt.2 (1918), 283–91.