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Provincial Archives of New Brunswick

Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

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JOPLIN, WILLIAM (1787-1842)

JOPLIN, WILLIAM, businessman, JP, harbormaster, and customs officer; b. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, c1787; m. 1820, in Halifax, Sarah Jameson Hanington; d. Chatham, 9 Jun 1842.

William Joplin was an able and versatile resident of the Miramichi who played many roles. In 1824 he was appointed a justice of the peace. Between 1825 and 1828 he was a member, and later chairman of the Miramichi Fire relief committee. He was a charter member of the first Miramichi chamber of commerce in 1826. In 1830 he published a pamphlet advocating the establishment of colonial banks. In 1833 he was appointed to the first board of health created for the port. At various times in the 1820s and 30s he served as a commissioner and supervisor of roads and ran survey lines. In 1835 he succeeded William Abrams as harbormaster, and in 1836 he was appointed to the customs service as surveyor, gauger, and weighmaster. He was a leading figure in the first temperance movement on the Miramichi in the early 1830s and was elected president of the Miramichi Temperance Society in 1836. At the time of his death he held a lieutenancy in the 1st Battalion of militia.

Joplin and his family were adherents of the Anglican church. His wife, Sarah J. Hanington, died at age thirty-two in 1824, two years after their daughter, Mary Caroline Joplin, was born. When he died in 1842 he willed his possessions to his daughter, who was married in London, England, in 1847, to a surgeon, Dr George Lowdell.

Sources

[m] Halifax Marriages [d] NB Courier 18 Jun 1842 / church burial records (re. Sarah Jameson Hanington Joplin); Cooney (H); Facey-Crowther; Gleaner 18 Aug 1829, 8 Jun 1830, 26 Jul 1831, 23 Apr 1833, 4 Aug 1835, 1 Mar 1836, 25 Oct 1836; Mercury 16 May 1826, 9 Jan 1827, 9 Sep 1828; NB Courier 20 Feb 1847; St Michael's Museum (copy of the will of William Joplin)


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