The Last of the Great Fur Traders Reuben Ploughman, the last of the great fur traders, was a born and bred Newfoundlander whose career with the Hudson's Bay Company stretched from 1939 to 1979. The eldest son of John and Addie (Hedges), he was born in his father s hometown of Port Rexton, Newfoundland, in 1920. His father was a schoolteacher whose career took him to many places and the Ploughman family subsequently lived in Upper Gullies. Port-de-Grave, Bay Roberts, Coley's Point and St. John's.