Aitkin's Lifetime Career in the Fur Trade Begins
William Alexander Aitkin was born in Scotland in about 1785. His family moved to Canada when he was just a small boy. The earliest record of him entering the fur trade was as a clerk in the employ of a trader by the name of Drew in about 1802. Aitkin operated for a time as a free-trader. Following the War of 1812 it became illegal for non-citizens to conduct trading operations on American soil, so he became a naturalized American citizen in 1820.

An Important Influential Alliance Forms
Aitkin worked for a trader by the name of Charles Ermatinger in his early career. Ermatinger had a half-Ojibwe daughter named Madeleine. In about 1818, Aitkin married Madeleine making him the son-in-law of an influential trader and the husband of Chief Broken Tooth's granddaughter. He developed a close trade relationship with the Ojibwe of the region, who called him Sha-gah-naush-eence (Translation: "Little Englishman").

The American Fur Company Years
Aitkin became a partner in John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company (AFC) in about 1824. Aitkin managed the AFC regional operations throughout the company's glory days from his post on nearby Sandy lake. The Fond du Lac district of Astor's Northern Outfit covered much of what is now northern Minnesota. Aitkin controlled several posts in the region and opened a fishery at Grand Portage, a post formerly abandoned by the North West Company around 1800. In 1838, Aitkin was dismissed by the AFC's new owner, Ramsey Crooks. This ended William Aitkin's 14 years of involvement with the AFC. It is unclear about the politics that caused Aitkin's dismissal, but it could be speculated that Crooks' feared that Aitkin, with his tribal ties through marraige and his sons as post clerks throughout the region, held too much power over the Company's richest fur trade district. It was only hastening the inevitable, as the American Fur Company went out of business about four years later.

Aitkin's Mud River Post Causes a Stir
Aitkin returned to this region in about 1840. He had made arrangements in St. Louis to supply his independent trade operation. Despite competition by the AFC at Sandy lake, Aitkin brought the advantage of trade alliances based on marriage. With his Mud river post, he also held a strategic trade location that separated Mille Lacs lake and the western and southern reaches of the Mississippi river from the Sandy lake headquarters of his former employment.
In 1841 Aitkin was accused of trading liquor and was forced to move further down the river. The action may have been politically motivated and a result of the pressure he was placing on the struggling American Fur Company trade at Sandy lake. The American Fur Company was undoubtedly also trading in liquor at that same time in this area, but no known record shows any citation issued to them for similar practices at that same time.

A Long Career In The Trade
Aitkin began work in the fur trade industry in his youth and rose to one of the most powerful positions in the western Great Lakes region in his lifetime. He had made and lost a fortune in the industry in that same lifetime. Aitkin continued to operate posts along the Mississippi after leaving this area--ever moving southward. Finally establishing a trade house at a place in Benton county called Swan River (near present-day Little Falls, MN), Aitkin spent his remaining days operating the post with his sons until his death in 1851. William Aitkin is remembered today in the name given to our city and county. He still has decedents living in Minnesota.

The Tibbetts brothers who founded our community were friends of the Aitkin family in the late 1840s when both families resided in Benton county. The town was named in honor of William Aitkin because of his prominence in Minnesota history and because he operated a post here in about 1840-41, along the banks of the Mississippi. William Aitkin spent a large portion of his adult life in what is now known as Aitkin county, thus he was also honored in the naming of our county.