(29 Nov. 1837-1 July 1918), tanner. Born probably at Plantagenet, Prescott County, Ont. His father Alexander Fraser was a native of Stratherrick, Scotland. About 1860, Simon Fraser established a tannery and his home on the southwest corner of Lot 23 in the 9th Concession of Lochiel. In his home, on 1 July 1867, the first Dominion Day, he opened a post office. The post office was at first called McNab, after, it is said, the future MP for GC, Archibald McNab. Inconveniently, there was another Ontario post office of the same name, and the McNab name was changed in 1872 to Lochinvar. Simon Fraser operated the post office till about 1885, when it was shifted (the name remaining unchanged) to the nearby Bullfrog Tavern. The Lochinvar post office closed in 1890. Lochinvar remains on the maps as a place, though as at Skye, a few miles farther west, only the slightest resemblance of a village ever developed. For many years local people commonly referred to this place as The Tannery, rather than as Lochinvar. In 1879 Simon Fraser purchased a property across the road on Lot 23, 8th Lochiel, and there he built one of the finer houses of the neighbourhood. He was a Presbyterian. He was married 6 Aug. 1863 to Isabella McCrimmon (1840-8 Nov. 1933), of the 8th of Lochiel. She was the sister of Angus MCRIMMON, K. C., and of Dr D. A. McCrimmon.

     At some point Simon Fraser’s son Donald Angus (Dan, Dan A., Donald A.) Fraser (March 1867-12 May 1947) took over management of the tannery, following which event Simon occupied himself with the farm across the road in the 8th concession. The tannery ceased operations in 1920, two years after Simon Fraser’s death. Donald Angus and his wife Catherine Ann (Kate) Campbell lived thereafter at Pembroke and Vankleek Hill. Donald Angus kept from 1889 to1947 a most useful diary of deaths, births and marriages mainly in the GC-Prescott area, which was printed in an edition of regrettably few copies, 1991.

     The Fraser tannery was a small family business. More a workshop than a “factory” in the usual sense, it was important locally in providing leather for horse harness and other farm purposes, and as a place where local people could take hides for custom tanning. At one time a shoemaker was connected with the tannery for the making of men’s shoes. A valuable description by Donald S. Fraser, Simon Fraser’s grandson, of the operation of the tannery has been printed in Lochinvar to Skye.

Lochinvar to Skye, 22-26, 65, 69-77,136, 176-177, 491-492 * MacGillivray & Ross 334, 336 * Dumbrille, U, 127 *Donald A. Fraser, Lochinvar Journal: Deaths, Births, Marriages, ed. Alex W. Fraser (1991), abbreviated “Lochinvar diary” in notes to present dictionary * hist. of Lochinvar by Harold Young, Glengarry News 8 April 1954 * “the runway between Fraser’s tannery and Vankleek Hill, in the early days, being noted for deer” (quotation from obituary of Donald Lothian, a devotee of hunting, GN 19 Jan. 1934)