Fraser, Simon

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: W. Kaye Lamb, “FRASER, SIMON,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 9, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/fraser_simon_9E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Fur-trader and explorer; b. at Mapletown (near Bennington, Vt) in 1776; d. on his farm near St Andrews, Stormont County, Canada West, 18 Aug. 1862. He was the eighth and youngest child of Simon Fraser, who was descended from the Frasers of Culbokie and Guisachan, a cadet branch of the Frasers of Lovat, and Isabella Grant, daughter of the laird of Daldregan.
    • Simon Fraser’s parents joined the noted migration of Highlanders, mostly Roman Catholics like themselves, who came to New York in the Pearl in 1773. After spending about a year in Albany the Frasers moved to Mapletown, where they settled on the farm on which the explorer was born. They soon encountered anxious times in Mapletown. The area was in dispute between New York and New Hampshire, and conflicting land titles cost them 60 of their 160 acres. Much more serious was the outbreak of the American Revolution; the Frasers were loyal to the British crown, whereas the community was strongly in sympathy with the rebel cause. In spite of abuse and persecution, Simon Fraser Sr was active in the loyalist interest. This came in 1777, when General John Burgoyne led his ill-fated expedition into the region. Simon Fraser and William, his eldest son, enlisted in July and took part in the battle of Bennington on 17 August, when the British were decisively defeated. Then or soon after Fraser was apprehended by the Americans and taken to Albany, where he was imprisoned under such rigorous conditions that he died in little more than a year.
    • When the war ended, Isabella Fraser determined to move to Canada. Captain John Fraser, one of the brothers who had served in Fraser’s Highlanders, had settled in Montreal and had been appointed a judge of the Court of Common Pleas. In 1784, with his help, Isabella and her younger children were able to join her son William, who had taken up land at Coteau-du-Lac, west of Montreal.
    • In the autumn of 1805 he ascended the Peace River and built Rocky Mountain Portage House at the eastern end of the Peace River Canyon. This post was intended to be both a trading post and a base for the push across the mountains. It is clear that Fraser had been instructed to reexamine Mackenzie’s route up the Peace and Parsnip rivers, over the divide that separated the watersheds of the Peace and the Fraser, and thence down the Fraser, which was still believed to be the Columbia. Indian reports of impassable rapids and canyons had caused Mackenzie to turn back in the vicinity of Alexandria; Fraser was to press on down the river and put the Indian tales to the test.
    • Fraser’s fame rests upon his remarkable journeys in the years 1805–8. These are recorded in considerable detail in his three journals and 11 contemporary letters. Writing to John Stuart, he described his 1806 journal as being “exceeding ill wrote worse worded & not well spelt,” but his narratives are direct and frequently dramatic. The versions now available are “fair copies,” a term for somewhat revised versions of the originals. The most important of them is the account of the 1808 expedition down the Fraser River.
    • Possessed of great physical courage and endurance, Fraser remained calm and determined in the face of dangers and difficulties. Few feats of exploration surpass his journey to the sea and back in 1808. Nevertheless, recognition of his achievement was slow in coming. A son and daughter received small pensions from the government of Canada in 1890, but little popular interest was aroused until the government of British Columbia organized a centennial celebration of the journey in 1908. 
  • Son of Proven Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory –https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=2955
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/54155781/simon-fraser