GNB
Provincial Archives of New Brunswick

Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

1,109 records available in this database
IntroductionIntroduction | Name IndexName Index | Occupation IndexOccupation Index | Organization IndexOrganization Index | Full-Text SearchFull-Text Search | The DictionaryThe Dictionary

LanguageLanguage
Page 444 of 1109

jump to page
HENDERSON, PATRICK (1767-1842)

HENDERSON, PATRICK, trader, retail merchant, and sawmill owner; bap. Rothes parish, Morayshire, Scotland, 2 Mar 1767, s/o Alexander Henderson and Catherine Taylor; m. 1794, Elizabeth Henderson; d. Chatham, 26 Jul 1842.

Patrick Henderson's parents and their eight children, all under age seventeen, came to the Miramichi in 1776 from Morayshire, Scotland. They were the first immigrants of Anglo-Saxon origin to settle east of Davidson & Cort's grant, and while they had to endure many hardships, culminating in the premature death of Alexander Henderson around 1785, several of the sons became substantial landowners and businessmen. They included John Henderson, a prosperous businessman in the Newcastle area in the decades prior to his death in 1819, and Patrick and George Henderson, who were among the early traders and merchants of Chatham.

Like his younger brother George Henderson, who was his next-door neighbor, Patrick Henderson owned a large part of the land which was later occupied by the town of Chatham. He engaged extensively in trade, using Henderson's Wharf for shipping and receiving goods and produce, and he conducted a retail store until the mid 1830s. He was also the proprietor of a "double-geared" sawmill at French Fort Cove. This was damaged by fire in 1816 and again in 1825 but was operational in 1831 and no doubt at most other times during the sawmilling season. It was advertised for sale in 1836, together with a 1200-acre block of land.

Henderson was the original owner of the Joseph Cunard house in Chatham, which Cunard bought in 1833 and remodeled. Henderson notified the public in 1840 that he was planning to give up housekeeping and was offering his present home in Chatham for sale. Various other Chatham properties of his were also listed. He evidently fell on hard times in the end and was all but insolvent when he died in 1842. His executors, who were his daughter Margaret and her husband, Dr Alexander Key, announced in 1844 that his personal estate was insufficient to cover his debts and that real estate would have to be sold. His wife predeceased him, as did his son Alexander P. Henderson, a Chatham businessman who was married to Ann Johnson, the eldest daughter of John M. Johnson Sr.

Sources

[bap] LDS-IGI [m] official records [d] NB Courier 6 Aug 1842 / county records (29/255, will of George Henderson, 1823); Fraser (C and L); Gleaner 11 Oct 1831, 18 Mar 1834, 14 Jun 1836, 5 May 1840, 4 Oct 1842, 7 Dec 1844; PANB (petition of Catherine Henderson, 1786)

Notes

The records of the Henderson family at Chatham are confused by the fact that the name "Peter Henderson" appears in certain documents, but there is little doubt that Peter and Patrick Henderson were one and the same. There is no baptism record for a Peter Henderson in the family of Alexander Henderson and Catherine Taylor and no land petitions or similar documents in his name. Also, the two names are not known to appear together in any document.


4.11.1