Norman Wolfred Kittson was born on March 05, 1814 at Chambly, Quebec, Canada, the son of George and Nancy (Tucker) Kittson. His grandfather, John George Kittson, was a native of England and, according to family tradition, served under Wolfe at Quebec.
Kittson obtained a limited education at the Sorel Grammar School.
Kittson began at sixteen an apprenticeship with the American Fur Company and served as clerk at various posts in the region which includes the present Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa. Since 1834 Henry Hastings Sibley had been the chief agent of the American Fur Company at St. Peter's (later Mendota, Minnesota), opposite Fort Snelling. In 1843 Sibley admitted Kittson as one of his special partners and assigned him the still profitable valleys of the upper Minnesota and the Red River of the North as far as the British possessions. Sibley supplied the merchandise; Kittson was manager, and profits and losses were equally shared.
Although the boundary between the United States and the British possessions had been established in 1818 at the Forty-Ninth parallel, the Hudson's Bay Company, with headquarters at Fort Garry (later Winnipeg), still traded on United States soil. Kittson resolved to expel the intruder. In 1844 he established a trading post at Pembina, near the international boundary. Eastward and westward on a frontier of 300 miles he planted smaller posts. The winter he devoted to trade; the summer, to transportation. In June a train of ox-drawn, peltry-laden carts began a 400-mile trip to civilization; in August the carts came creaking back with supplies. During ten strenuous years Kittson carried on a spirited trade war with the Hudson's Bay Company, each side bidding for the trade of the Indians and half-breeds. The Company rehabilitated its posts and cut prices ruinously. Kittson competed shrewdly, sometimes bought furs on British soil, but frowned upon the use of liquor. Handicapped by limited capital, distance from his base, and inferior American supplies, and finally convinced that his opponent would not buy him out, he withdrew in 1854. His total profits "in this rascally fur business" were not large, but he had prompted the extension of de facto American government to the boundary.
Kittson was member for the Pembina district in the legislative council of Minnesota Territory, 1852-1855, thrice making the arduous trip to the capital in winter by dog-train. In 1854 he moved to St. Paul, where he owned real estate that was rapidly increasing in value, and in 1858, although he hated politics, he was elected mayor as a Democrat.
When the Hudson's Bay Company began importing supplies by way of Minnesota for the Fort Garry trade, it made Kittson, in 1860, its purchasing and forwarding agent--a remarkable tribute. In 1861 the Company placed a steamboat on the Red River of the North, thereby shortening the journey by ox-train. For years Kittson directed overland and river traffic, both for the Company and for private individuals. In 1871 James J. Hill began a steamboat service in opposition; but the following year Kittson and Hill wisely combined, and formed presently the highly remunerative Red River Transportation Company, with "Commodore" Kittson as manager.
In 1873 the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad, which was expected to open the Red River Valley to settlement and to connect with a Canadian line from Winnipeg, became insolvent. Kittson, Hill, and Donald A. Smith (later Lord Strathcona), an influential Scotch-Canadian interested in Manitoba, watched proceedings closely and, in 1878, in association with George Stephen (later Lord Mount Stephen), a Montreal magnate, secured control, reorganizing the line strongly (1879) as the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railway. To consummate the transaction, Hill and Kittson pledged $280, 000--almost everything they had. "I did not dare to tell you, " Kittson later told his best friend, Sibley, "because you would have thought that I was mad. " This solid achievement made Kittson enormously wealthy. His health was failing, however, and he shortly retired from business. His sudden death in 1888 removed the oldest white settler in Minnesota and Dakota.
Kittson ranked high among the pioneer leaders and did much to open the Red River Valley to settlement. He became a wealthy man and one of the large horse-fanciers of the country, with stables in Midway Park, St. Paul, and Erdenheim, Pennsylvania. He was the founder of the Red River Transportation Company. He also played an instrumental role in reorganizing Saint Paul and Pacific Railroad into the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway and establishing the first rail link between St. Boniface and St. Paul.
Kittson was tall, energetic, straightforward, unassuming, warm in friendship and respected by the many people.
Norman Kittson was married three times. His first wife, Élise Marion, was a Métis from the Red River Colony. He then married the Swiss Sophia Perret, daughter of Abraham Perret, and finally, Mary Cochrane. Kittson had nine children by his three wives.
