LAWLOR, JAMES ROGERS (1861-1924)

LAWLOR, JAMES ROGERS, registrar of deeds, 1897-1924; police magistrate, and sportsman; b. Douglastown, 11 Jun 1861, s/o John Lawlor and Sarah Landy; brother of Richard Alban Lawlor; m. 1885, Sarah Ellen Sharp, a native of Sussex, N.B.; d. Newcastle, 3 May 1924.

J. Rogers Lawlor moved to Newcastle with his parents at an early age and attended school there. In 1883 he joined the Newcastle branch of Johnston & Co., a farm machinery dealership, as bookkeeper. In 1886-87 he was manager of the Adams House hotel in Chatham. In 1887 he was named deputy registrar of deeds, as assistant to his father. In 1896, during the troubles at the Newcastle post office involving John Fish, he was installed as acting postmaster, but his appointment was disallowed by the Laurier government, which came to power in July of that year. In 1897 he succeeded his father as registrar of deeds. At the same time, his daughter Mary A. Lawlor became deputy registrar. In 1915 he was also appointed police magistrate for Newcastle, as successor to Richard L. Maltby. He retained both positions for the remainder of his life.

As a young man, Lawlor was an officer in the Newcastle Field Battery and an expert rifleman. Later he showed a lively interest in public and community affairs. He was one of the eight candidates elected in 1899 to the original Newcastle Town Council but was voted out, along with all the others, in 1900. In the same year, he received an appointment as a Newcastle school trustee. He served for many years is this capacity and also sat for a time on the Miramichi Hospital Board.

Lawlor was always prominent in sports circles. He was president of the Newcastle Curling Club on more than one occasion, and during the two years prior to his death he was president of the Newcastle Baseball Club. From the early 1890s onward he was a frequent guest at Camp Adams, the fishing hideaway which Michael Adams owned on the upper waters of the Northwest. During a day's fishing there in 1898 he and Robert H. Armstrong caught six large salmon and fifteen trout. In 1895 he was on a hunting expedition with John McKane on the Bartibog caribou plains. In 1899 he was one of only two Canadian members of the Miramichi Fish & Game Club, the organizers of which were residents of the United States.

Lawlor and his wife, Sarah Ellen Sharp, had one son and seven daughters. Their daughter Mary A. Lawlor succeeded to the position of registrar of deeds in 1924. When she completed her term of service in 1952 the office had been occupied by members of the family for a total of ninety-five years.