Commemorative Biographical Record of Essex Co., pg. 308-313:
...
Alexander [McCormick] found a position in business with a merchant in Philadelphia, and remained in the Eastern States for several years. But his restless and roving disposition soon reasserted itself, and presumably, between 1768 and 1770, he joined a company of traders going into the western wilderness across the Allegheny mountains...The next known of him he had passed over the Ohio river, and on into the vast unexplored region north to the Great Lakes and the Detroit river, known as the western district or the Northwest Territory. It was inhabited by tribes of the Wyandotte, Shawnee, Cherokee, Delaware and other Indians, and Mr. McCormick was living with a band on Wyandottes, but whether as a captive or trader is not known...The Indians were pleased with him, formally adopting him into the tribe as brother with appropriate ceremony, and the chief gave him his sister, a comely young squaw, for a wife, the young couple marrying by the Indian ceremony...By his Indian wife McCormick had a son, of whom he always took great care, and who came to Canada with him, when, years later, he settled down to civilized life. It is said the mother died a few years after the son's birth.
...
The William McCormick Papers, p. 4, H.E.I.R.S files:
"Kingsville Reporter", February 20, 1891. Obituary of Mrs. William McCormick:
Alex McCormick moved to a farm on the bank of the Detroit River called the Cowan place, [probably on the Canadian side] in 1795 for a short time, then moved his family to what is known as the Dowler farm, and went to Ireland and was gone about a year, he instructed his son David [of his Indian wife]** to construct a house on the back farm, where Mack McCormick now lives and the family moved there before his return."
- *Note - This is the only definitive mention of this son by the Indian wife that has been found thus far. What later happened to him is unknown.
David
McCormick
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