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Provincial Archives of New Brunswick

Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

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CLARKE, CHRISTOPHER (1796-1834)

CLARKE, CHRISTOPHER, businessman and JP; bap. Stirling, Scotland, 15 Apr 1796, s/o William Clarke and Jean Cummings; m. 1827, Jane Abrams, d/o William Abrams and Sarah Triglohan; d. Chatham, 1 Feb 1834.

Christopher Clarke, who was born into a family of some distinction, came to the Miramichi in the early 1820s. From soon after his arrival he was an auctioneer in Chatham and one of the town's principal grocery, clothing, and hardware merchants. In 1824 he played a leading part in the formation of the Chatham Fire Company. In 1825 he was appointed a justice of the peace, and he later served on the committee which provided relief to victims of the Miramichi Fire. In 1826 he was enlisted as an ensign in the 1st Battalion of militia. He was an officer of the Miramichi chamber of commerce in 1827, a school trustee and member of the Miramichi Sabbath School Society in 1832, and president of the Miramichi Temperance Society in 1833.

Clarke was thirty-seven at the time of his death in 1834, and his widow, Jane Abrams, was thirty-nine when she died in 1849. They had three sons and a daughter. Their eldest son, William Clarke, who was educated in Halifax and Glasgow, was a grammar school teacher in Toronto, then a physician for many years in Paris, Ont., and finally a Presbyterian minister at Bracebridge, Ont., where he died in 1897.

Sources

[bap] LDS-IGI [m] Mercury 16 Jan 1827 [d] Gleaner 8 Feb 1834 / Advance 18 Nov 1897; Cooney (H); Facey-Crowther; Fraser (C); Gleaner 6 Jul 1830, 18 Oct 1831, 14 Aug 1832, 20 Aug 1833, 3 Apr 1849; Mercury 9 Jan 1827; Spray (ENC); Williston Collection


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