NESMITH, JOHN (1791-1858)
NESMITH, JOHN, businessman, JP, and JCP; b. c1791; m. 1820, Catherine Dawson; d. Newcastle, 1 Apr 1858.
According to the census of 1851 John Nesmith, of Scottish ancestry, entered the province in June 1817. He settled in Newcastle, where he was one of the earlier merchants and traders. His marriage in 1820 to Catherine Dawson, a native of Pictou, N.S., took place in Halifax.
Nesmith was named a justice of the peace in 1824 and was a trustee for the building of the first Presbyterian Church in Newcastle. In 1840 he was appointed a justice of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas. He and his wife had at least five children, several of whom did not marry. Their son Richard Nesmith was an accountant in Newcastle, and their daughter Louisa Nesmith was the first wife of Dr John S. Benson.
Sources
[m] Halifax Marriages [d] Gleaner 3 Apr 1858 / Gleaner 24 Mar 1840, 11 Aug 1855; Hoddinott; Spray (ENC)
Notes
i) John Nesmith may have been the son of a James Nesmith who arrived in New Brunswick in 1836 with his wife Jean. In 1851 James and Jane Nesmith were living in Newcastle with John Nesmith and his family. ii) It is not known if John Nesmith was a relative of the businessman William M. Nesmith, a descendant of one of the founding families of Londonderry, N.H., who also came to the Miramichi around 1816 and stayed until the late 1820s. He and his first wife, Harriet Willis, were the parents of James Willis Nesmith, who was born at Newcastle in 1820. A politician in Oregon, and a United States senator from that state, James W. Nesmith has an informative entry in the Dictionary of American Biography.