Clopper, Henry George

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: D. M. Young, “CLOPPER, HENRY GEORGE,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 7, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/clopper_henry_george_7E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Office holder, banker, and magistrate; b. 25 April 1792 in Kingsclear Parish, N.B., son of Garret Clopper and Penelope Miller; m. 9 Feb. 1820 Mary Ann Ketchum in Woodstock, N.B., and they had two daughters; d. 4 Nov. 1838 in Fredericton.
    • Henry George Clopper’s father was a New York loyalist of Dutch descent who had served with the provincial forces during the American revolution and who held minor civil offices in New Brunswick; his mother’s family were genteel Massachusetts loyalists, with a connection to the family of Edward Winslow. After attending Fredericton Academy and serving some time as an apprentice to a Halifax merchant, Henry became a clerk in the commissariat department at Fort Cumberland (near Sackville, N.B.) in 1813.
    • Clopper was appointed in February 1821 to succeed his father as registrar of deeds and wills for York County. On his father’s death in July 1823 he also replaced him in the offices of sergeant-at-arms of the House of Assembly and county clerk. Small official plums would continue to come his way, among them the post of sub-collector of customs for Fredericton in 1831. Late in 1837 he gave up the office of county clerk, whose duties included that of acting as prosecutor, and became a justice of the peace and a judge of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas.
    • In 1834 Clopper became the first president of the Central Bank of New Brunswick, located in Fredericton. It was incorporated that year by a legislature which had recently shown itself entirely unreceptive to efforts of a group of Saint John merchants to launch a second bank in that city. It may have helped that Charles Simonds, an important figure in the Bank of New Brunswick and one of the most powerful politicians in the province, was Clopper’s brother-in-law. 
    • Years afterwards the People’s Bank of New Brunswick honoured him by placing his portrait on its five-dollar notes.
  • Son of Proven Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory –https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=1446
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/60948358/henry-george-clopper