(l749-l8 Oct. 1821), U E Loyalist, public figure. Born in Stratherrick, Inverness-shire, Scotland. He went to New York colony with his father William Fraser. Thomas Fraser, who took the loyal side in the American Revolution, was for a time a prisoner of the Americans at Albany, and he served in Jessup’s Rangers. In Canada, he was a U E Loyalist settler in Edwardsburgh Township in Grenville County, but later he moved to Matilda Township in Dundas County. Fraser acquired large amounts of land, with grants of over 6000 acres, plus land he purchased, with the result that he had over 15,000 acres at the time of his death. Fraser was not a GC resident, but he represented GC in the House of Assembly of Upper Canada 1808-1812. Earlier, he had represented Dundas County. Harkness is probably right in thinking that his wife’s Macdonell connections secured him the GC position. Fraser fought in the War of l812, and as a militia officer served with Red George Macdonell in the capture of Ogdensburg in 1813. Fraser was a member of the Legislative Council of Upper Canada from 1815.

     Fraser was a slaveholder, although apparently on a fairly small scale. The baptismal records of St. Andrew’s Church, Williamstown, state that on 22 May 1793 the Rev. John Bethune baptized Aaron Fraser, a Negro belonging to Capt. Thomas Fraser of Edwardsburgh, and that on 8 June 1796 Bethune baptized Sarah, daughter of York and Patience who were Negroes belonging to Capt. Thomas Fraser. The same records list baptisms 1789-1893 of what are evidently the slaves owned by Thomas Fraser’s brother William.

     Thomas Fraser married (1) Mary MacBain or MacBean, (2) on 7 Feb. 1795, Mary MacDonell, dau. of John Macdonell (Leek), and (3) Cornelia Paterson. He was a Presbyterian. His farm on the St. Lawrence in Edwardsburgh Township was called Fraserfield. His son (by the first marriage) Richard Duncan Fraser who inherited part of his property continued the farm under the Fraserfield name. See also Col. Alexander Fraser of Fraserfield (for Fraserfield in GC) and Amego Londonderry. Thomas Fraser appears in J. Fraser’s Skulking for the King: a Loyalist Plot (Erin, The Boston Mills Press, 1985).

Life by Catherine Shepard in Dictionary of Canadian Biography Vol. VI (also life of his son Richard Duncan Fraser in Vol. VIII) * Scott, i, 36-37 * Harkness: index * Johnson: index for the Frasers father and son * Armstrong 54-56, 97 * Baptisms: list kindly supplied by Karen Walker, of Cobourg, Ont. * geneal. in Duncan (Darby) MacDonald, Three Fraser Families with Roots in St. Andrews (1995)