Hoosick, NY’s Simon Fraser: Explorer of British Columbia

Simon Fraser (1776-1862), the Canadian explorer of British Columbia, had his roots in Hoosick, New York. He was born during the early years of the American Revolution in the small village of Mapletown in East Hoosick, Rensselaer County, NY, near Bennington, Vermont.

According to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography his father, also Simon Fraser, emigrated on the ship Pearl in 1773 with other mostly Catholic Scottish Highlanders. He married Isabella Grant, and they settled briefly in Albany before moving to the Hoosick-Bennington area, where Hugh Fraser, a relative, had already settled.

John Spargo’s book Two Bennington-born Explorers and Makers of Modern Canada (1950) reports that in 1764 Hugh Fraser had purchased 500 acres of land in Mapletown, in the New Hampshire Grants, lands that were in dispute between New York and New Hampshire.

When Simon purchased land nearby around 1775, it was described as “lying in Bennington, Province of New York,” as Vermont did not become a state until 1791.

The Letters and Journals of Simon Fraser, 1806-1808 (2007), edited by W. Kaye Lamb also gives details of the Fraser farm, and points out that their loyalty to the British crown caused them to become targets of suspicion and attacks. “Hugh Fraser fled to New York towards the end of 1776, and Simon stayed behind and became more active in the loyalist interest,” Lamb says. Hugh Fraser had previously served as a lieutenant in the 78th Highland Regiment.

Simon Sr., also a loyalist, joined Gen. John Burgoyne’s forces during the American Revolutionary War, which made the family even more unpopular in the neighborhood.

He was wounded during the Battle of Bennington in 1777 and then sent to jail in Albany where he suffered harsh treatment and died in 1779. A record of his imprisonment can be found in the Minutes of the Albany Committee of Correspondence of December 24, 1777.

A different Simon Fraser (it was a very common Scottish name), a Brigadier General, also served with Burgoyne as his right-hand man. He sent a letter to General Horatio Gates in September 1777 in defense of the jailed Simon Fraser in Albany.

After Simon Sr. died in 1779, his widow Isabel and their children moved to Glengarry Coounty, Canada, where her husband’s brother John Fraser was Chief Justice of Montreal. After some schooling, young Simon began to work for his relative Simon McTavish, Director of the North West Fur Trading Company of McTavish & Frobisher.

Through this company, Simon began his explorations of present-day British Columbia. ABCBookworld (which provides reference information for books and authors pertaining to British Columbia) says that in 1793 Simon was sent to Athabasca, a town in Northern Alberta, and was assigned to explore west of the Rockies, building trading posts, which he did for many years.

During these adventures he and his men traveled down a river in 1808 which was subsequently named the Fraser River after him. Also named after him is Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia. The University archives contain additional biographical  information and a link to some letters, several relating to Fraser family genealogy.  The Fraser family is also listed in the United Empire Loyalists Association of Canada, though there are some date errors.

In 1820 Simon married Catherine MacDonell of St. Andrews West, Ontario. Two children were listed in the St. Andrews Parish Register according to Two Bennington-born Explorers – Simon William (1821) and Catherine Harriet (1827). (Wikipedia says that he had a total of nine children, one dying in infancy).

In 1838 at 62, Fraser took up arms for the government during the Rebellions in Canada, but injured his knee in a fall. Permanently disabled, he applied for a small pension, which he received in 1841.

Simon died in relative poverty and obscurity in 1862. His wife died the next day and both were buried in St. Andrews Cemetery.

In 1908, the Buffalo Courier published a lengthy sketch of his 1808 explorations along the Fraser River, and honoring him, stated that “By the death of Mr. Fraser the country loses not only one of its respectable and honorable residents, but one of the most illustrious men who ever settled within its borders.”

In November, 1907, British Columbia began to memorialize him, as reported in the Victoria Daily Times. His granddaughters had sent some of his artifacts which included a book of the Fraser clan, a painting of Simon, letters he wrote to his men during their explorations, and a letter written by his father while a prisoner of war in the Albany jail.

Back in Hoosick, NY, a roadside marker was placed at the Simon Fraser home in June 1977, by the Hoosick Historical Society. An article in the Washington County Post reported on the celebration.

Illustrations, from above: Simon Fraser House on Route 102 in Hoosick, NY;  Brig. Gen. Simon Fraser’s letter about Simon Fraser Sr., then being held in Albany; and a pre-1826 painting of Fraser by an unknown artist (Bennington Museum).