Munro, Hugh

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: W. A. Spray, “MUNRO, HUGH,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 7, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/munro_hugh_7E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Businessman, jp, judge, politician, office holder, farmer, and agriculturalist; b. c. 1764 in Ross-shire, Scotland; m. Martha—; father of three sons and three daughters; d. 25 Sept. 1846 in Bathurst, N.B.
    • Hugh Munro received his early education in Scotland and immigrated with his parents to New York in 1774. Nine years later he went with other loyalists to Quebec, and when Gaspé was opened to loyalist settlement in 1784 he moved to New Carlisle; he was described at this time as a lumberman. In 1792 he was appointed a judge of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas, only to be removed in 1794 when the judicial district of Gaspé was reorganized. He then crossed the Baie des Chaleurs and settled near St Peters (Bathurst), N.B., where he began operations as a merchant and shipper of fish.
    • Munro soon expanded his activities into lumbering. In 1818 he claimed his was “the first and most ancient establishment” in the timber trade of Nepisiguit Bay; that year he cut about 5,000 tons of timber and had many people employed in the woods. 
    • In 1807 Munro was appointed a justice of the peace and judge of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas for Northumberland County. He entered politics in 1819 as a candidate for one of the two county seats in the House of Assembly; defeated, he lodged a protest claiming that the sheriff had shown favouritism to his opponent. He was successful in the election of the following year, and was to hold his seat until 1827, when Northumberland County was divided and the county of Gloucester created. That year, as the most influential settler in the new shire, he was appointed justice of the peace, judge of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas, registrar of wills and deeds, and trustee of the grammar school. He was also elected the county’s first representative in the assembly.
  • United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=6088
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/243339285/hugh-munro