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Simon Fraser | |||
Simon Fraser's Family Fraser's of Culbokie Research Notes Simon Fraser - Explorer by Barbara Rogers Simon Fraser's Snuff Box by Hughie P. MacMillan Bowering's Guide to Eastern Ontario (St. Andrew's West & Simon Fraser) Questions answered on Simon Fraser - Vancouver Sun many years ago Simon Fraser - Explorer Written by James Saunders and edited by Barbara Rogers, 28 December 1995. Appeal by General Simon Fraser For better treatment of Simon Fraser's father Simon
History of the Settlement of Upper Canada, With Special Reference to the Bay of Quinte INDIVIDUAL
COMBATANTSCONTINUED. page 102 The
Cornwall Freeholder, notices the death of Mr. Frazer, of St. Andrew's, C.
W., the discoverer of Frazer river, and of Mrs. Frazer, who departed this
life a few hours afterwards. Mr. Frazer was one of the few survivors of
the find old Northwesters, and his name, as the first explorer of the
golden stream which bears it, will be remembered with honor long after
most of the provincial cotemporaries are forgotton. The Freeholder says:
Mr. Frazer was the youngest son of Mr. Simon Frazer, who emigrated to the
State of New York, in 1773. He purchased land near Bennington; but upon
the breaking out of the revolutionary war, he attached himself to the
royal cause, and served as captain, at the battle of Bennington; where he
was captured by the rebels. He died in Albany jail, about thirteen months
afterwards, his end being hastened by the rigorous nature of the
imprisonment. He was [p.102] married to Isabella Grant, daughter of
Daldregan, and had issue, four sons and five daughters. The widow, with
her children, came to Canada after the peace of 1783. Simon Frazer, the
elder, the father of the object of this notice, was the second son of
William Frazer, the third of Kilbockie, who, by his wife, Margaret,
daughter of John McDonell, of Ardnabie, had nine sons:1st. William, the
fourth of Kilbockie: 2nd. Simon, who came to America, as we have seen;
3rd. John, who was captain in Wolf's army, shared in the honors of the
capture of Quebec, and was subsequently for many years, Chief Justice of
the Montreal district; 4th. Archibald, who
was Lieutenant in Frazer's regiment, under General Wolfe, was afterwards
captain of the Glengarry Fencibles, and served in Ireland during the
rebellion in 98; 5th. Peter, a doctor of medicine, who died in Spain; 6th.
Alexander, who served as captain in General Caird's army, and died in
India; 7th. Donald, a Lieutenant in the army, who was killed in battle in
Germany; 8th. James, also a Lieutenant in the army, and one of the
sufferers in the Black Hole of Calcutta, in 1756; 9th. Roderick, who died
at sea.
Tuesday, December 15,
1998 - Page 25 KEN
MCKENNA Simon
Fraser John McDonald of
Garth, the subject of two previous columns, has descendants in this
area, among them Grant Campbell, QC and his brother Atholl Breadalbane
Campbell, as well as their sister Mrs. Lorna Pierce of Kingston and
their families. As noted previously, Garthand Simon Fraser met
for the last time in 1859 and composed a short memo of their years
of friendship and adventure. To most Canadians,
Simon Fraser is connected only with the river that bears his name. Few
know that he lived in Glengarry and lies buried in St Andrews West
churchyard. Heres how Hugh
MacLennan in Rivers of Canada describes the 800-mile Fraser River:
This is the most exciting country in Canada,,and I
dont see how anyone could visit any part of it without longing to return.
Its beauty makes you catch your breath. But it was a westerner, Bruce
Hutchison, who remarked that the beauty of the most spectacular parts of
the Fraser River is that of a nightmare. This is the savagest of all the
major rivers of America. It is probably the savagest in the
world. This is the river
that Simon Fraser, John Stuart and their NorWesters, voyageurs and Indians
navigated for 36 days in birch-bark canoes in 1808, thinking that it was
the Columbia and that it would provide a safe route to the Pacific. They
quickly realized that they had made a terrible mistake, but there was no
way to stop. For hundreds of miles, the river, has few real banks, the
rushing water swirling between sheer cliffs a, thousand feet
high. Fraser recorded the
terrible fear that they would not survive the
tremendous gulfs and
whirlpools... ready at every moment to swallow a canoe
with all its contents. When they finally
passed through the last of the terrible rapids now fittingly known as
Hefls Gate and reached calmer water, they abandoned their canoes and
bought dugouts from a friendly tribe. Finally, they concluded that their
expedition was a failure. They returned to their beached canoes, and
retraced their way back up the river! This journey was even
worse. They were running out of food and the Indians had become hostile,
raining rocks on them from the cliffs. But they made
it. Bill McIntyre,
publisher of The Glengarry News, is the only man I have ever met who has followed
Frasers exploit down this fearsome river. He tells me that the large
inflatable raft that held him and his companions was tossed about so
wildly that they sometimes found themselves completely turned around
and carried up against the current.. Sometimes the raft dropped suddenly
and they found themselves staring up at a wall of water towering over
their heads. But at least they knew~ that others had survived this
terrifying ride and that they would eventually reach calmer water and
safety. Simon Fraser and his companions in their fragile birch-bark canoes
had no such consolation. Fraser was not born
in Scotland but in Bennington, Vermont, the son of Highland settlers who
had come to what was then British North America. When the American
Revolution began, Simon Frasers father,. an army officer, was captured by
rebel forces and thrown into prison. He eventually died there and Simon
and his mother Isabella, ne Grant, fled to Canada and settled in
Glengarry. There is a strange
sidelight to Frasers family history which involves Alexander Macdonell of
St Raphaels, the man who became the legendary Big Bishop, and the
mystery of the origins of James MacPhersons 18th century publications of
what he said were translations of the pre-Christian Gaelic poems of
Ossian. The most popular of MacPhersons Ossianic verses was the epic
Fingal. It
became a best-seller; it was Napoleons favourite reading and he carried it
on his campaigns. MacPhersoh always
claimed that he had (or had seen) the Gaelic originals, but never
revealed them. Cynics claimed that he was a fraud. The controversy has
never been resolved. But some clues may (or may not) be found in the
following possibilities. Simon Frasers father
was reputed. to have brought with turn to Vermont what might have
been some of the original Gaelic verses that had inspired MacPherson.
They were destroyed when the Fraser home was. burned by the American
rebels. Bishop Macdonell in
his memoirs claimed that as a boy in Glen Urquhart, he often visited an
aunt who would let him read an ancient leather-bound collection of Gaelic
poems, said to have been studied by MacPherson. She was a Fraser of
Culbockie, and the collection was later alleged to have been taken to
America by a relative. That relative may have been Simon Frasers
father. Chart by F. R. McDonald  | |||
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