===== Fraser, Simon ===== (20 May 1776-18 Aug. 1862), fur trader, explorer. Born near Bennington, Vermont. Parents: Simon Fraser and his wife Isabella Grant. This couple came to New York Province on the //Pearl// in 1773. (For //Pearl//, see Glossary) Simon Fraser the father died while a prisoner of the American revolutionaries. His widow came to Canada as a Loyalist. Young Simon received a little education in Montreal. He entered the service of the NWC in 1792, and was named a partner in 1801. He conducted his famous exploration of the Fraser River in 1808, reaching after an arduous journey the mouth of the Fraser River in the area of what is today Vancouver. Fraser named the Thompson River after David Thompson, and it was Thompson who in 1813 named the Fraser River after Simon Fraser. Simon Fraser was involved in the strife at Red River between the NWC and Lord Selkirk's settlers. In 1818 he was tried at York (Toronto) for treason and other offences in connection with these disturbances, but was acquitted. Simon Fraser retired from the fur trade and settled on a farm at St. Andrew's just west of GC about 1818. George Woodcock wrote in his article on Fraser in //The Canadian Encyclopedia// that he "retired to St Andrews among the Scots of Glengarry County, where he spent the rest of his life uneventfully." If this statement is geographically not quite correct, it does at least incorporate the truth that St. Andrew's is well within the "Greater Glengarry" and has always enjoyed something of the status of an honorary Glengarry village. John Mactaggart, who seems to have found his conversation with him informative and helpful, mentions in his //Three Years in Canada// (1829), II, 190, that "by accident" he met the explorer "Simon Frazer [sic], now a settler in Glengarry, Upper Canada." Fraser's life during the more than 40 years he lived at St. Andrew's is poorly documented. J.G. Harkness, a vigorous researcher, wrote in 1946, describing his own efforts, that "A diligent effort has been made to learn something of his life at St. Andrew's but almost without result." (P. 396) In the //Cornwall Observer// of 4 Oct. 1833 Simon Fraser, of St. Andrew's, advertised for a miller to tend a grist mill. "None need apply but those of regular habits." In the same newspaper, issue 20 June 1834, he listed lands totalling 1200 acres for sale in Mountain, Osgoode and Finch Tps. In the 1861 census he was listed as having 240 acres at St. Andrew's. We may suppose that being so close to GC he exchanged visits frequently with such eminent GC residents as the Nor'Westers David Thompson and John McGillivray and Col. Alexander Fraser of Fraserfield. The text of Simon Fraser's note of 1 Aug. 1859 to John Mcdonald of Garth on occasion of his last visit to the Garth household was published in the Cornwall //Standard-Freeholder// 15 Nov. 1935. Simon Fraser was a relative of Bishop Alexander Macdonell, and again we may suppose the two men knew each other well. Fraser served as a captain in the Stormont militia in the suppression of the Rebellion of 1837-1838. John Fraser in his eyewitness recollections of the rebellion stated that "The company of the Glengarries stationed at the Cascades that night [10 Nov. 1838] was commanded by Simon Fraser, of St. Andrews, the discoverer of the Fraser River." John Fraser could have been correct. Perhaps the great explorer did step on this particular occasion into the command of a Glengarry unit. More likely, however, John Fraser was just including the Stormont militia as Glengarrian. During his militia service, Simon Fraser, already aged 62, suffered, in 1838, an accident which left him partially crippled for the remainder of his life. Simon Fraser died at St. Andrew's, and is buried in the St. Andrew's cemetery (the tiny, beautiful, old cemetery beside the river; John Sandfield Macdonald is buried nearby). Roman Catholic. He was married in 1820 to Catherine Macdonell, born 17 March 1790, daughter of Allan Macdonell of Matilda Township, Upper Canada, of the Macdonells of Leek. (children) She died the day after her husband. She was a relative of Sir Richard Scott and W.L. Scott, and the Fraser's daughter Harriet lived for some years in the elder Scott's Ottawa home after the death of her parents. (Harkness 49, 396) Besides the Fraser River, his name is commemorated in Western Canadian topography by Fraser Lake (lake and village), Simon Bay on Fraser Lake, Fort Fraser and Mount Fraser. On this mountain the peaks are called Simon, Bennington, and (in memory of Fraser's wife) McDonell. There are also Simon Glacier, Bennington Glacier, Fraser Glacier and Simon Creek. (Rayburn p. 199) Simon Fraser University founded in Burnaby, B.C. in 1963 and the Simon Fraser Library in Cornwall were named after him. The HBC placed a monument on his grave at St. Andrew's in 1921. In 1936 Ontario Premier Hepburn ordered the "rehabilitation" of the graves of Simon Fraser and John Sandfield Macdonald. (//Standard Freeholder// 31 July, 5 & 7 Aug. 1936) See also [[cuneo_cyrus_cincinatto|C. C. Cuneo]] and [[mcgregor_donald|Col. Donald McGregor]]. ---- Life by W. Kaye Lamb in //Dictionary of Canadian Biography// * //The Letters and Journals of Simon Fraser 1806-1808//, ed. W. Kaye Lamb (1960). Much biog. material in Introd., portrait, maps, bibliog. * Wallace * Harkness: index (has good documentary material) * MacGillivray & Ross 48 * birthdates of Fraser and his wife: Barbara Rogers, "The Find of the Century," //The British Columbia Genealogist//, 21:1 (March 1992) pp. 13-15 * Boss 27-28 * //HHCT// 76 * Alan Rayburn, //Naming Canada// (1994) * John Fraser, //Canadian Pen and Ink Sketches// (1890) 99 * geneal. in Duncan (Darby) MacDonald, //Scotland's Migrations to North America//, Part two (1990) and the same author's //Three Fraser Families with Roots in St. Andrews// (1995) * //Bibliography of Glengarry//: index * HBC 1921 & Hepburn 1936: //Cornwall Freeholder// 6 Oct. 1921 and prev. issues, //Glengarry News// 16 Dec. 1921; //Standard Freeholder// 31 July, 5 & 7 Aug. 1936 * repr. //Glengarrian// 20 May 1887 of newspaper clipping of 23 Aug. 1862 on Fraser's burial * death of Miss Harriet Fraser, "last of the family" of Simon Fraser, //Cornwall Standard //23 Aug. 1907 * death of Mrs Alex E. McRae, whose father James Macdonell was a neighbour and "intimate close friend" of Simon Fraser, //CS //21 July 1927 * article by Harold Lee on Simon Fraser, //SFH// 25 Sept. 1947 (CKSF radio series) * "Elizabeth or Isabella," //GN// 12 June 1991 (on Christian name of Fraser's mother) [<6>]