Archibald Fraser: an Innovative Spirit

May 1873 saw close to 600 early settlers disembark in Kinkardine, located in Victoria County, to build a settlement for their families. Donald Fraser, a logger, his wife Ann and their two sons, Archibald and Donald, thus arrive in New Brunswick. The family owns a farm in upper Kincardine where Donald builds a sawpit and hires two men. Four years later, he buys a small sawmill in River de Chute and eventually undertakes an important series of acquisitions with his business partners.¹

Donald Fraser's two sons, as well as other families such as the Matheson's and the Brebner's, are part of this group. In 1905 they set up the F & M Lumber Company of which Archibald Fraser becomes president. The company buys a good number of logging rights and a few sawmills across the provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec. Amongst these, we note the James Murchie & Son Company in Edmundston,² bought in 1911 by Fraser Limited. It would later become the Fraser Companies Limited, in 1917. Archibald Fraser is still at the helm as president when a year later, a pulp mill is built in Edmundston, forever changing the face of Madawaska.