GNB
Archives provinciales du Nouveau-Brunswick

Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

1 109 entrées disponibles dans cette base de données
IntroductionIntroduction | Index des nomsIndex des noms | Index des professionsIndex des professions | Index des organisationsIndex des organisations | Recherche plein texteRecherche plein texte | Le DictionnaireLe Dictionnaire

Langue de présentationLangue de présentation
Page 342 de 1109

Aller à la page
FOWLER, JAMES (1829-1923)

FOWLER, JAMES, native son; Presbyterian minister and natural scientist; b. Bartibog, 16 Jul 1829, s/o George Fowlie and Jane McKnight; m. 1858, Mary Ann McLeod, of Truro, N.S.; d. Kingston, Ont., 11 Jan 1923.

"Jim Fowlie," as he was known on the Miramichi, adopted the surname "Fowler" and is referred to under that name in most records.

Fowler studied at the County Grammar School under James Millar and was trained for the ministry at the Free Church College in Halifax. After graduating in 1855 he taught in the affiliated Free Church Academy. He was ordained in 1857 and began to preach at Black River and Kouchibouguac. As a youth, he had no doubt been influenced by the Rev. Angus McMaster's sermons at Black River, and like him he was avowedly of the 'Free Church connexion'. However, there was still a strong traditionalist faction within the Black River congregation in the 1850s, which may explain why his pastoral tie with the community was of very short duration.

Fowler was living in Kouchibouguac when the census of 1861 was taken, but later that year he accepted a call to Bass River, west of Richibucto. It was reported in 1869 that he had resigned there because the field was "yielding an inadequate support," but he stayed until the end of the year 1876. He then left the active ministry entirely, citing a throat affliction as the cause.

During his years as a clergyman Fowler pursued an interest which he had in natural history, by independent study, observation, collecting, and cataloging, and became "the first naturalist to make an itemized inventory of the New Brunswick flora." In 1872 the University of New Brunswick recognized the importance of his work by awarding him an honorary MA. In 1878 he was engaged as science master of the Provincial Normal School, and in 1880 he was appointed lecturer in natural science at Queen's University.

Fowler's academic career is well-documented. He became a full professor at Queen's in 1890 and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1891. In 1900 the University of New Brunswick awarded him an honorary LLD. In 1902 a knotweed which he had collected in 1869 was officially named polygonum fowleri. Also in 1902 William F. Ganong proposed naming a peak in the Naturalists Mountains, adjacent to Upsalquitch Lake, "Mount Fowler," and the name was later adopted officially.

Fowler retired from the Queen's faculty in 1907, at age seventy-eight. He and his wife, Mary Ann McLeod, had two daughters. Both his wife and younger daughter predeceased him. His elder daughter, Eliza A. L. Fowler, was residing with him in Kingston at the time of his death in 1923, at age ninety-three.

Sources

[b] Morgan (CM&W) 1912 [m] Presb. Witness 14 Aug 1858 [d] Daily British Whig (Ont.) 11 Jan 1923 / Advance 8 Feb 1877; Advocate 17 Jul 1907; Archibald; Betts (FF); Fowler biog. data; Gleaner 17 Aug 1861; Rayburn; Telegraph 1 Jul 1869


4.11.1