Over the years we have recorded over 600 descendants of
(Deacon) Thomas Fraser (1749-1813) and his wife, (Lady) Margaret Fraser
(1748-1792) who emigrated to Pictou, Nova Scotia in the late 18th
century. In 1834 their grandson, the Rev William Fraser, D.D. (1808-1892)
was sent to the Province of Canada [now Quebec & Ontario], where he served
his congregation in a log cabin, which was replaced about 1841 with a log
building, before a third structure of brick was erected in 1881. Dr.
Fraser officiated at all of them and, because the church had its origin in
the home of James Ellison, for sixty years it was known as Ellison’s
Church. In 1891, in honour of the first minister who laboured so
vigorously in the interests of the congregation, the name was changed to
the Fraser Presbyterian Church, located in Tottenham, Ontario [the place,
coincidentally, where Simon Fraser of Lovat’s illegitimate daughter’s
grandson settled after emigrating from Ireland in the early 19th
century].
On May 10, 1784, two of the church elders at Kirkhill,
Inverness-shire, namely, Thomas Fraser (1749-1813), in Englishtown, and
Simon alias Bain Fraser, in Kirktown (1736-1787), informed the session
that they were going to America and wished to have their burying ground
registered in the Session Book, which was approved by Alexander Fraser,
Session Clerk. They sailed with their wives and families for Pictou, Nova
Scotia on the "John" in June, arriving at Halifax in August 1784, before
proceeding to Pictou. When the James Church was organized on September 17,
1786, the minutes of the Associate Session of Pictou noted: "Thomas Fraser
and Simon Fraser, Elders from Kirkhill and Alexander Fraser, Elder from
Kilmorach, in Scotland, were unanimously received by the congregation of
Pictou as elders, to rule over them, in the Lord." Alexander Fraser, known
as Alexander Fraser (McAndrew), died shortly thereafter.
Several years ago we received an interesting letter
from a gentleman in California, who had inherited a genealogical chart
prepared in the 1930s that has obviously been widely distributed among
descendants of this Fraser family.
"My mother (d. 1984) used to tell me that we were
descended from the Lord Lovat who was beheaded after betraying both sides
in the ’45. (That statement needs a good deal of qualification, no doubt;
but that would be an ancestor worth having.) But the records were lost in
a church fire… The fact that (Deacon) Thomas Fraser’s wife is shown as
(Lady) Margaret Fraser lends a little bit of credibility to this. I know
that the peerage was abolished when the wicked/unfortunate Lord Lovat was
attainted and beheaded, and not re-granted until 1837. Hence the
parentheses around ‘Lady’? Mind you, the courtesy title of ‘Lady’ would be
given to the daughter of an earl or better, whereas Lord Lovat was only a
baron before his condemnation. As she was born in 1748, a year after Lord
Lovat’s demise, she would have had to be his granddaughter, at the
closest.
"The connection seems unlikely, but whoever made up the
chart years ago must have had something in mind. Perhaps the lady in
question had admirable table manners, and in those rough-and-ready days it
earned her a nickname. I wonder if Deacon Thomas was really a deacon;
you’d think it would have been a matter of public record in a Presbyterian
community, so why the parentheses? He was preachy, and she had fine
manners, and so their neighbours gave them both nicknames…"
A healthy skeptic, perhaps? Margaret Fraser is reported
to have been born in Beauly on 20th August 1748. The register
of baptisms for the parish of Kilmorack, Inverness-shire for August 21st
1748 shows "Simon ffraser in ffarley had a Daughter called Margret". She
was the eldest of five children born to Simon Fraser & Elsie McCrae.
According to the register of marriages for March 17th 1747,
"Simon Fraser in Kirkhill & Elsie McCrae in ffarley did promise to marry
each other, accordingly were proclaimed & being married." Simon Fraser in
Farley was recorded as holder of Pew #30 in 1756. So, in the absence of
evidence to prove that Simon was an illegitimate son of Simon Fraser 11th
Lord Lovat, it appears that his daughter Margaret was unlikely to have
been a member of Lord Lovat’s family.
Aren’t family legends wonderful?
