William Macomb (c. 1751 – April 16, 1796) was a British colonial merchant and fur trader in the Detroit, Michigan area before and after the American Revolutionary War. He got his start as a young man in the colony of New York. He was a brother of Alexander Macomb, and the two were partners in Detroit.
After the war, Macomb was elected as a member of the first parliament of Upper Canada in 1792, and he was the largest slaveholder in the area of Michigan at the time of his death. He died shortly before the British evacuated from Fort Detroit under the Jay Treaty, which was ratified in 1795.
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Early life
Macomb was born in County Antrim, northern Ireland around 1751, of Scots ancestry. He was the son of John Macomb, a merchant, and Jane Gordon. When he was a child, his family emigrated in 1755 to the colony of New York. They settled in Albany, where his father John Macomb was a merchant. With his older brother, Alexander, William also went into fur trading in upstate New York, dealing with the six nations of the Iroquois and other tribes around the southern part of the Great Lakes.
Career in Detroit
In 1774 the brothers moved to Detroit (now Michigan, USA) as agents for Phyn & Ellice, fur traders in Schenectady, who sold them their stock for that site. Trading here since the 17th century, French Canadians were fiercely competitive in the area, but the young men felt they had a good start.
