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HARPER, ALEXANDER (1845-1919)
HARPER, ALEXANDER, watchmaker; b. Aberdeenshire, Scotland, 1788; m. 1818, Louisa Noble; d. Bushville, 21 May 1866.
Alexander Harper arrived on the Miramichi around 1816 and settled at Bushville. In the 1851 census, he and his son Robert, age twenty-two, were enumerated as watchmakers. In 1861, his sons William and Alexander Jr, were in business with him as well.
In 1863 William N. Harper advertised a watchmaking business near the ferry landing in Newcastle. There was also a shop in Chatham with which Robert Harper's name was associated in 1864. In the 1870s W. & A. Harper advertised a watchmaking and repairing service in Chatham.
Alexander Harper Jr died in 1879, at age forty-two. His brother William N. Harper was "the oldest watchmaker on the river" when he died at Chatham in 1901.
Harper's wife, Louisa Noble, died in 1889, at age eighty-seven. There were at least five sons and two daughters in the family, most of whom did not marry.
Sources
[b] tombstone [m] official records [d] Gleaner 2 Jun 1866 / Advocate 8 May 1889; Fraser (C); Gleaner 20 Jun 1863; Memories; Times 25 Mar 1879; World 3 Apr 1901