Notes
This oil painting depicts sisters Annie (1831-1904) and Mary McLeod (b. 1834); daughters of Hudson’s Bay Trader John McLeod (1788-1849) and his wife Charlotte Pruden (1806-1889). McLeod commissioned paintings of at least three of his nine children as well as one of himself. Library and Archives Canada holds the portraits of John and Malcolm McLeod.
This portrait was completed by American itinerant artist Moses Pierce (c. 1793- 1897) sometime between 1842 and the death of John McLeod in 1849. Pierce’s son, George, had married John’s daughter Flora in 1842. It would be their daughter, Georgianna Pierce, who would bequeath this painting, as well as John McLeod’s powder horn, to the Bytown Museum upon her death in 1926.
After the death of John McLeod in 1849, many of his children remained in Deux Montagne County, Qu�bec. However, by 1881 Malcolm, Annabella, Annie, and Mary were living in Aylmer, Qu�bec, just across the river from Ottawa. Annie and Mary worked as teachers while Malcolm was a barrister. By 1889 Annie was living in the Victoria Ward of Ottawa where she would remain until her death in 1904. Mary died sometime before 1901.