Sutherland family papers, 1832-1975

James Sutherland (1778-1844), a native of Scotland, was a chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company and eventually lived in the Red River Settlement in Manitoba. His son Roderick McKenzie Sutherland (1821-1896) traveled overland to Oregon with his family around 1855 and eventually settled in Portland. Roderick Sutherland's wife, Mary Emily (Lowman) Sutherland, was born in England in 1823 and came to Canada's Red River Country with her parents in 1833. Her mother, Mary Kelly Lowman, served as a governess at the Red River Academy and later married her second husband, Chief Factor James Bird. Mary Emily married Roderick Sutherland in 1846 and the couple had eleven children, including Curtis G. Sutherland of Portland, Oregon, Alfred J. Sutherland, and Alice Maud Sutherland Masters, who later moved to England.