Believed to have been born in Scotland, Cathie was among a group twenty-three passengers that arrived at Esquimalt from England aboard the Harpooner on the last day of May in 1849. In September of the same year he spent a day in confinement under order of Roderick Finlayson (who questioned his skills as a baker) for 'refusing duty'. He was married to an unnamed woman at Fort Victoria in 1852. His whereabouts following his retirement from the HBC in 1856 have not been traced.