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Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

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BAXTER, JAMES MCGREGOR (1845-1921)

BAXTER, JAMES MCGREGOR, doctor and naturalist; b. Truro, N.S., 18 Apr 1845, s/o the Rev. John Irving Baxter, the Presbyterian minister at Onslow, N.S., and Jessie Gordon; unmarried; d. Chatham, 12 Jan 1921.

James McG. Baxter's father was a native of Annan, Scotland, who came to Nova Scotia at age eighteen. His mother was a daughter of the Rev. Peter Gordon, DD, of St Peter's Bay, P.E.I., and a stepdaughter of the Rev. James D. McGregor (q.v.) of Pictou, N.S.

Baxter attended the Presbyterian college in Truro and Dalhousie University (1863-64). He then went to Boston to study medicine with the city coroner, Dr Foye, and was subsequently trained at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia and at Harvard (MD 1871). He had a brother R. Gordon Baxter who was a doctor in Moncton and a brother David A. Baxter who was a dentist in Quebec. He settled in Chatham immediately after acquiring his credentials, and being a single man, took rooms at the Bowser House.

Baxter cultivated a successful medical practice in Chatham and pursued a lifelong personal interest in natural science. In 1883 he was elected a corresponding member of the Natural History Society of New Brunswick. A year later he gave a collection of Indian relicts to the society's museum. When the Miramichi Natural History Association was organized in 1897, at the initiative of Philip Cox, he was elected president and chosen as first speaker. In the years that followed he delivered a large number of scientific addresses, including "The Story of a Pebble" (1900) and "Minute Animals" (1905), an elaborately-illustrated presentation on tiny creatures which he had discovered in brooks and streams along the Miramichi.

The Miramichi Natural History Association was created "to study the natural history, physical and biological phenomena of the region known as 'North Shore' including the four counties, viz.: Kent, Northumberland, Gloucester, and Restigouche." It had thirty-five members at the start, plus forty-nine associate, corresponding, and honorary members. It sponsored weekly lectures for as many as 200. Two years into Baxter's five-year term as president the first of seven issues of the association's Proceedings was published. In this period he was also helping to gather objects for display in the association's museum, which was organized in 1908, and for which he was assigned most of the credit.

Soon after his arrival on the Miramichi, Baxter was appointed surgeon to the Chatham battery of the New Brunswick Regiment of Artillery, a unit which was continued until 1884. In 1888 he was named assistant surgeon of the 73rd Battalion of militia, and between 1892 and his retirement from the militia in 1904 he was surgeon major of the battalion. In 1907 he was appointed quarantine officer for the port of Chatham, which prompted him to set about gathering data on situations which had required the use of quarantine in the past. Some of his findings were published in an article entitled "Ship Fever in 1847," in volume six (1911) of the Proceedings of the MNHA. In another article in the same issue, and in a third article in the seventh volume (1913), he explored a number of other topics of interest in Miramichi history.

Baxter was elected president of the Chatham Cycle Club when it was formed in 1896. One of his many other interests was the study of languages. He collected a library, "quite polyglot in its character and of no mean dimensions," and "became quite an accomplished linguist, whose services were often in demand in translating foreign correspondence." He was also "a talented raconteur with an unlimited repertoire." He was "regarded as unique," observed the Chatham World, "possibly as eccentric, but he had the courage of his convictions." He demonstrated this when he left the Presbyterian church as a young man and became one of the only acknowledged 'free-thinkers' on the Miramichi, and again some years later when he became a Spiritualist. Before he died he promised to report back to the living, and in 1922 Chatham hotel keeper J. Duke LaHay claimed to have received two messages from him through the ouija board.

Among Baxter's survivors in 1921 was a niece, Iredell Baxter, who was the wife of the well-known jurist Ivan C. Rand.

Sources

[b] tombstone [d] World 15 Jan 1921 / Advance 28 Jun 1888, 4 Feb 1897, 3 May 1900; Baxter; Betts (FF); Biog. Review NB; Fraser (C); Globe 24 Mar 1905; Leader 8 Mar 1907; MacMillan; News 20 Jul 1983; World 3 Mar 1883, 26 Nov 1884, 25 Mar 1922

Remarques

See Henry W. Bowser, Philip Cox, Crawford M. Hutchison, Archibald C. McLean, Archibald McQueen, and William Wyse.


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