William Henry McNeill was a Boston boy who went to sea at 13 years of age 1814. In 1817, he was appointed first mate of the Boston Brigantine, Paragon, under Dixey Wilde of the Boston firm, Marshall and Wilde. After a season of trading on the coast, he returned to Boston. He returned to the northwest in the Brigantine, Llama. As he rounded Cape Horn he said in the log that it would be his last time around Cape Horn. He traded on the coast for a season. On a visit to the Nass River he stole Chief Sakawan's wife, Matilda, and sailed to The Sandwich Islands. There he sold the LLama to the Hudson Bay Company and was retained by the Company as its captain. He returned to Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River. He sailed out of Fort Vancouver for two seasons and successfully drove the other Boston fur traders of the coast by giving the Indians exorbitant prices for their skins.When the Steamship Beaver arrived at Fort Vancouver, he was appointed Captain of SS Beaver and continued to fur trade until 1837 He was in charge of the Company Fort in Puget Sound for a number of years. The Company sent him to England in the Cowllitz in order to obtain British citizenship from the English Parliament. In this the Company failed and he returned to the northwest coast in the Cowlitz taking a cargo to Sitka, Alaska. The Company assigned him charge of Fort Stikine from 1845 until the Company closed the Fort in 1849 and sent Captain McNeill to build a new Fort at Beaver Harbor next to an Indian village to be named Fort Rupert where coal had been discovered. Hi wife, Matilda, died after the birth of twins, their 7th and 8th children in 1850. They lived an adventurous life. On two occasions his crew of the Llama and SS Beaver mutinied against him. He was opposed to the Christianizing policies of British rule. He was a signatory to a petition that British Columbia secede to the USA.