SUTHERLAND, MURDOCH (1851-1922)

SUTHERLAND, MURDOCH, general merchant, fisheries officer, and stipendiary magistrate; b. Red Bank, 3 Apr 1851, s/o George Sutherland and Elizabeth Mullin; m. 1878, Edith J. Blackmore, d/o Jeremiah Blackmore and Martha Parks, of the Little Southwest; d. Red Bank, 5 Feb 1922.

Murdoch Sutherland was the proprietor of a general store at Red Bank for most of his life. In 1879 he was appointed postmaster, but a few years later the position was transferred to his wife, Edith J. Blackmore, who held it until her death in 1916, at age fifty-six. Her conduct of the post office in conjunction with the family store was universally approved and her premature death much lamented. "By her genial disposition and faithful attention to business," stated the Union Advocate, "and her kindly interest in everything that pertained to the community's welfare she won the lasting friendship of all who knew her."

In 1887 Sutherland was appointed a fisheries officer for the Northwest Miramichi district. He was later the fisheries overseer for the Northwest and Little Southwest branches. He was a salmon fisherman himself, and in 1889 was included among the guests at Camp Adams, the fishing retreat owned by Michael Adams on the Northwest. He was a justice of the peace and the stipendiary magistrate for South Esk parish, as well as a county councillor for two separate terms. He was, in the words of the North Shore Leader, "one of the outstanding figures on the Miramichi, and no man was held in higher esteem."

Sutherland was survived by five daughters and six sons. The daughters included Annie Sutherland, a graduate of the Provincial Normal School who conducted the post office at Red Bank between 1916 and 1919 and was later a businesswoman there, and Irene Sutherland, the wife of Dr Frank G. Wilson. Among the sons was John D. Sutherland, who succeeded his father as general merchant and stipendiary magistrate. After he died in 1931, at age thirty-seven, his brother M. Norman Sutherland, who had studied pharmacy at Dalhousie University, conducted a combination general and drug store at Red Bank for many years.