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Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

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FAIRLEY, JOHN (1821-1881)

FAIRLEY, JOHN, lumberman; b. Boiestown, c1821, s/o James Fairley and Christianna Scott; m. 1872, his cousin Sarah A. Hughes; d. Saint John, 21 Sep 1881.

John Fairley's parents arrived on the Southwest Miramichi around 1820 from Co. Tyrone, Ireland, and settled on land which they were granted west of the Taxis River, near Boiestown. There the father died in 1846, at age sixty-six, leaving a somewhat younger widow and six children.

"A man of great business energy and capacity," John Fairley was one of several brothers who were at the forefront of the lumber industry on the Southwest branch. His brother James Fairley was a successful lumberman at Taxis River; his brother Justus Fairley was a lumber operator at Boiestown and the owner of a general store in the 1880s; and his bachelor brother Scott Fairley was his partner in J. & S. Fairley, which was one of the most respected lumber firms in business on the river. The "Messrs. Fairley" employed hundreds of men at lumber camps on their timber limits, deep in the Miramichi woods, and conducted legendary river drives which carried the logs to their own mills and to larger sawmills further downstream. Their river-driving interests were represented by John Fairley in his capacity as a director of the South West Boom Co. In "The Man Behind the Boathook," Hedley Parker praises the rivermen's "pluck," which,

...broke the jam in '69

When Fairley's drive was stuck.

John Fairley was seriously injured while rafting logs in the fall of 1881. He spent several weeks in Saint John receiving medical treatment, but blood poisoning set in, and he died of its effects in his suite at the Royal Hotel. He had been married late in life and left a youthful widow and three children, the youngest of whom was only nine months old. It was said that he left them "the priceless heritage of a good name."

Several years before John Fairley died, his brother Scott Fairley withdrew from partnership and bought the MacLaggan sawmill at Blackville. He operated this jointly with James S. Wilson, and later on his own. For several years he was the largest employer in Blackville parish. He also had a general store and lived in one of the finest houses in the village. In 1889 he sold the business to Alexander ("Boss") Gibson of Marysville.

Sources

[m] Farmer 6 Jan 1873 [d] Weekly Telegraph 28 Sep 1881 / Advance 29 Sep 1881, 26 Oct 1893; Advocate 11 Oct 1876, 18 May 1887 and 27 May 1889; Gleaner 29 Aug 1857; Parker; Spencer research; World 20 Oct 1883


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