Background
He was born on January 18, 1740 at Milford, Connecticut, United States, eldest son of Peter and Mary (Hubbard) Pond, and a descendant of Samuel Pond who settled in Windsor, Connecticut, not later than 1642.
He was born on January 18, 1740 at Milford, Connecticut, United States, eldest son of Peter and Mary (Hubbard) Pond, and a descendant of Samuel Pond who settled in Windsor, Connecticut, not later than 1642.
There is no information about his education.
As a soldier he served in the French and Indian War; in 1756 under Capt. David Baldwin of the 7th Connecticut Regiment; two years later with General Abercromby at Ticonderoga; in 1759 as sergeant in the New York regiment from Suffolk County; and, as a commissioned officer (1760) under General Amherst at Montreal. Of his services at Lake George and Niagara he gives a circumstantial account in his journal, which has a crude power and is the evident report of an eye witness.
After the close of the war he undertook a trading voyage to the West Indies, but in 1765 entered the western fur trade, which occupied him for the most part for over twenty years. His first venture was at Detroit, whence he traded for five years and bought property at Grosse Point. In 1770 he transferred his headquarters to Mackinac but returned to Milford in 1771 and made another trip to the West Indies the following year. In 1773-74 he made two journeys from Mackinac to the upper Mississippi, trading particularly among the Sioux on St. Peter's, now the Minnesota, River. His journal of his experiences in Wisconsin, ending in 1775, while illiterate and uncouth in form, is vivid and picturesque in description.
In 1775 he determined to try his fortune in the Far West and went via Grand Portage on Lake Superior to winter in the interior, overtaking Alexander Henry on the way and accompanying him. After two years on the Saskatchewan River, Pond pooled interest with the Frobishers and Alexander Henry for a push into the farther north. In a quarrel at his post in 1782 a rival trader, Jean Étienne Waden, was slain, and in 1784 Pond was summoned to Montreal for trial, where he was acquitted. In the winter of 1783-84 the North West Company was organized, in which Pond had one of the sixteen shares.
Before returning to the Northwest he visited his home and presented to Congress a map of his voyages, which was copied for the archives of Great Britain and of France. Going back to the Athabasca in 1785, he prepared another map for the Empress of Russia. In 1788 he withdrew from the fur-trade company, selling his share for eight hundred pounds, and by 1790 was again at Milford. He visited President Stiles of Yale College, who made a copy of his revised map of the West.
Little is known of his last years; he is said to have died in poverty at Boston.
Pond had the virtues and defects of his calling. He was bold, enterprising, courageous, and persevering, but ruthless in competition, sacrificing all for success.
While in Milford, sometime between 1761 and 1765, he married Susanna Newell by whom he had at least two children.