John Strettell

Who was John Strettell?

John Strettell of London, England, was one of the most important merchants providing trade goods to the Canadian fur trade in the period between the Conquest of Canada and his death in 1786.

Born in 1721, he was the second son of Robert Strettell, a London merchant and Quaker. Robert Strettell took most of his family to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he was successful in business and became Mayor of Philadelphia. John remained in England, and was trained in business by his mother's brother, the merchant John Owen. The business was that of a commission merchant, who supplied English manufactured goods to American merchants on credit, and sold the goods that the customers sent to pay their debts. John Strettell became his uncle's partner, and later carried on the business alone. By 1758 he was shipping trade goods to the Indian Commissioners of the colony of Pennsylvania, and he continued to trade to Pennsylvania at least till the outbreak of the Revolutionary War.

It was in Canada, however, that Strettell made his great success. Near the end of his career, he referred to "my Canada Friends, to whose favours I principally owe my present happy circumstances".