Fairweather , Charles Henry

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Elizabeth W. McGahan, “FAIRWEATHER, CHARLES HENRY,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 12, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/fairweather_charles_henry_12E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Businessman; b. 4 May 1826 in Norton, N.B., son of James Fairweather and Martha Humbert; m. first 15 Aug. 1849 Margaret R. Robertson in Saint John, N.B.; m. secondly Lucille H. Hall; he had 11 children; d. 12 June 1894 in Saint John.
    • As a young man of 13, Charles Henry Fairweather moved to Saint John and became a clerk in the wholesale firm of Stephen Wiggins and Son. In 1854, with Stephen Sneden Hall, he founded the wholesale grocery firm of Hall and Fairweather, with which he was to be associated until his death. Possessing a substantial waterfront warehouse, Hall and Fairweather was one of a nucleus of similar enterprises which helped establish Saint John in the mid and late 19th century as the wholesale centre for the Maritimes. By the late 1880s the company was importing tea from China and large amounts of flour from Ontario. It was the first firm in the city to establish a connection with the New York produce exchange, a move which took place in 1863.
    • The questions of reciprocity, protection, and labour-business confrontations reflected the new circumstances that faced Saint John after confederation. However, these issues, while important, were overshadowed by the greater and more immediate need to secure a role for the port of Saint John within the newly formed nation and its emerging transportation network. Throughout the 1880s Fairweather and others in Saint John strove to have their city become the eastern terminus for the Canadian Pacific Railway. Recognizing that a post-confederation function for the port rested on its ability to export grain from elsewhere in Canada, Fairweather was one of the earliest advocates for the erection of grain elevators at the port. This initiative eventually helped to establish Saint John as the winter port of Canada during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For Fairweather, union with the other provinces meant an opportunity to foster a cross-Canada trade. 
    • DesBrisay will be better remembered as a historian than as a judge or politician. His essay on the history of Lunenburg County, submitted for the Akins Historical Prize at King’s College in 1868, was published in an expanded version two years later in Halifax and in a greatly enlarged second edition (Toronto, 1895). Based on a wide range of documents and on interviews with many elderly settlers, the History of the county of Lunenburg is a serious attempt to recreate the atmosphere of early Lunenburg and to describe the progress of settlement. It is not without errors, which the dependence on reminiscences made inevitable. In glorifying the county’s hardy pioneers, the book employs a tone that is often moralizing.
  • Grandson of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=2690
  • Find A Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/225074462/charles_henry-fairweather