MACLAGGAN, ALEXANDER (1793-1871)

MACLAGGAN, ALEXANDER, lumber operator, JP, and benefactor; b. St Mary's parish, York Co., N.B., 1793, s/o Peter MacLaggan and Margaret MacIntosh; m. 1st, 1820, Catherine McNabb, of St Mary's parish, and 2nd, 1833, Christianna Duff; d. Blackville, 21 Apr 1871.

Alexander MacLaggan began working in the lumber industry on the Miramichi at age twenty-one. Around 1818 he built a sawmill at Blackville in partnership with James and Robert Doak. He became sole owner of this mill in 1834 when the partnership, which then included himself, Robert Doak and Stephen Hilton, was dissolved. To supply his lumber needs he had a 10,000-acre mill reserve on the Bartholomew River.

MacLaggan was the leading general merchant at Blackville. In 1854 he was a shareholder and director of the North West Bridge Co., which erected the first bridge across that branch of the Miramichi. Between 1855 and 1866 he was the business partner of his son-in-law William Park, in MacLaggan & Park, which owned the steam-powered sawmill in Douglastown of which Park was the operator.

MacLaggan was the most active of the school trustees in Blackville parish in the 1830s and 40s. In 1838 he was appointed a justice of the peace, and the appointment was renewed under a new commission in 1855. He enlisted in the 3rd Battalion of militia as a captain in 1841 and was promoted to major in 1848. He returned to the militia when it was rejuvenated in the early 1860s, following a period of dormancy, and retired as an honorary lieutenant colonel in 1864.

MacLaggan was exceptionally generous towards the Blackville community. He built the first school in the village and was the principal founder of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church. He donated the land on which the church was erected in 1840, built the first manse, and left £1,000 to the church trustees at the time of his death.

MacLaggan and his first wife, Catherine McNabb, had three daughters and a son, and there were five sons born of his marriage to Christianna Duff. The daughters included Margaret MacLaggan, the wife of William Park, and Elizabeth (MacLaggan) Porter, the wife of William H. Grindlay. The sons of the second marriage included John and Peter MacLaggan, who kept the lumber and mercantile business at Blackville for a few years and then sold it to the lumberman Scott Fairley of Boiestown.