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| (20 May 1820-12 Oct. 1899), author. Born at Lachine, Que. Parents: John Fraser and his wife Catherine Fraser. Catherine Fraser (d. 18 Oct. 1835) was the sister of Col. Alexander Fraser of Fraserfield. John Fraser the younger, i.e., the John Fraser who is the subject of the present sketch, was in business in Montreal as a wine merchant in partnership with his brother Hugh Fraser (d. 1870). John Fraser left the partnership and lost his money. Unfortunately, he put much effort into trying, unsuccessfully, to upset the will of Hugh Fraser. This was the will by which Hugh Fraser founded the Fraser Institute, a free public library, of Montreal. In his //Canadian Pen and Ink Sketches// John Fraser says that “In the spring of this year, 1890, although aged and poor, I purpose to return to the old farm [at Lachine], to seek a shelter within its ruined walls and almost roofless home,…” (pp. 367-68) | (20 May 1820-12 Oct. 1899), author. Born at Lachine, Que. Parents: John Fraser and his wife Catherine Fraser. Catherine Fraser (d. 18 Oct. 1835) was the sister of Col. Alexander Fraser of Fraserfield. John Fraser the younger, i.e., the John Fraser who is the subject of the present sketch, was in business in Montreal as a wine merchant in partnership with his brother Hugh Fraser (d. 1870). John Fraser left the partnership and lost his money. Unfortunately, he put much effort into trying, unsuccessfully, to upset the will of Hugh Fraser. This was the will by which Hugh Fraser founded the Fraser Institute, a free public library, of Montreal. In his //Canadian Pen and Ink Sketches// John Fraser says that “In the spring of this year, 1890, although aged and poor, I purpose to return to the old farm [at Lachine], to seek a shelter within its ruined walls and almost roofless home,…” (pp. 367-68) |
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| <tab>John Fraser wrote for the Montreal press, sometimes in letters or articles signed Uncle John. His //Canadian Pen and Ink Sketches// (Montreal, Gazette Printing Company, 1890) was assembled from his previous writings, presumably mostly newspaper journalism. It is one of the much-quoted and most-familiar sources for Glengarry history, and is a contribution of force and substance to the literature of the Glengarry mystique. It includes both Glengarry material and material on other parts of Canadian history. In the former category there are sizeable sections on the 2nd Glengarry Fencibles in the War of 1812, John Grant’s Inn of Montreal, the Glengarry soldiers in Lower Canada at the time of the 1837-1838 Rebellion (with his own eyewitness observations), the famed 19th-century Glengarry sleigh trade to Montreal, and his visit to his uncle Colonel Alexander Fraser at Fraserfield in 1839 or 1840. To his embarrassment, he found on his arrival at Fraserfield that a banquet was in progress, but he was, though unexpected, most hospitably received. (date of visit from pp.114, 336, and see life of Colonel Carmichael). | <tab>John Fraser wrote for the Montreal press, sometimes in letters or articles signed Uncle John. His //Canadian Pen and Ink Sketches// (Montreal, Gazette Printing Company, 1890) was assembled from his previous writings, presumably mostly newspaper journalism. It is one of the much-quoted and most-familiar sources for Glengarry history, and is a contribution of force and substance to the literature of the Glengarry mystique. It includes both Glengarry material and material on other parts of Canadian history. In the former category there are sizeable sections on the 2nd Glengarry Fencibles in the War of 1812, John Grant’s Inn of Montreal, the Glengarry soldiers in Lower Canada at the time of the 1837-1838 Rebellion (with his own eyewitness observations), the famed 19th-century Glengarry sleigh trade to Montreal, and his visit to his uncle Colonel Alexander Fraser at Fraserfield in 1839 or 1840. To his embarrassment, he found on his arrival at Fraserfield that a banquet was in progress, but he was, though unexpected, most hospitably received. (date of visit from pp.114, 336, and see life of [[carmichael_lewis_or_louis|Colonel Carmichael]]). |
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| <tab>The book has also shorter notices of other GC subjects such as shanty-going (p. 125) and public works contracting (p. 126). Far from being a mere chronicler, John Fraser noticed in his easy and quietly effective style, which is both vivid and gentle at the same time, many significant social changes. In one of his socially-significant observations, he stated that there were not at his time of writing one half as many young men in Glengarry County as there were at the time of the 1837 Rebellion. (pp. 126, 331; for discussion of the observation, see also MacGillivray & Ross 60-61) The point is highly relevant to explaining the extraordinary vigour of the Glengarrians’ response to the Rebellion. Perhaps some of the men had been driven back to the county by the economic depression that preceded the Rebellion. But this was also the relatively stay-at-home era before Glengarry ex-migration to the rest of North America became a flood. Thomas Tweed Higginson, the diarist of Vankleek Hill and Hawkesbury, records that he was visited on 12 Nov. 1890 by a subscription agent for the sale of the book, evidently Fraser himself. It was not, however, till nearly six years later that Higginson records spending a “day at home” with the //Pen and Ink Sketches//, a book he commended. | <tab>The book has also shorter notices of other GC subjects such as shanty-going (p. 125) and public works contracting (p. 126). Far from being a mere chronicler, John Fraser noticed in his easy and quietly effective style, which is both vivid and gentle at the same time, many significant social changes. In one of his socially-significant observations, he stated that there were not at his time of writing one half as many young men in Glengarry County as there were at the time of the 1837 Rebellion. (pp. 126, 331; for discussion of the observation, see also MacGillivray & Ross 60-61) The point is highly relevant to explaining the extraordinary vigour of the Glengarrians’ response to the Rebellion. Perhaps some of the men had been driven back to the county by the economic depression that preceded the Rebellion. But this was also the relatively stay-at-home era before Glengarry ex-migration to the rest of North America became a flood. Thomas Tweed Higginson, the diarist of Vankleek Hill and Hawkesbury, records that he was visited on 12 Nov. 1890 by a subscription agent for the sale of the book, evidently Fraser himself. It was not, however, till nearly six years later that Higginson records spending a “day at home” with the //Pen and Ink Sketches//, a book he commended. |
