FLETT, JOHN (1822-1889)

FLETT, JOHN, blacksmith, lumber company head, and carding mill owner; b. Nelson, 1 Feb 1822, s/o George Flett and Susan Godfrey; m. 1856, Mary Ann Underhill, d/o Thomas Ward Underhill and Mary Sutherland; d. Nelson, 2 Jul 1889.

John Flett's father, a native of the Orkney Islands in Scotland, brought the Flett surname to the Miramichi in 1816, when after a period of seafaring he settled at Nelson as a farmer and blacksmith. Several of his sons also began their working lives as blacksmiths. They included John and William Flett, who later engaged as partners in a variety of business enterprises.

In 1850 the Northumberland Agricultural Society offered a grant of £50 for the erection of "a carding, fulling, and dressing machine." Flett Bros claimed the grant the following year, together with an award of £15 from the New Brunswick Society for the Encouragement of Agriculture, Home Manufacture, and Commerce. The "fulling, dyeing, and dressing establishment" which they opened at that time under the management of Thomas Ambrose was the principal carding mill on the Miramichi for the next eighty years.

By the early 1850s the Fletts were also actively involved in the lumber business. Their partnership lasted until 1867, when William Flett died at less than forty years of age, leaving a widow and five young children at Nelson. Afterwards, John Flett conducted the business on his own. In the 1870s he also began to manufacture bricks. Several years later brickmaking was carried on at his yard by two nephews, George A. Flett and Harvey S. Flett, under the firm name of Miramichi Steam Brick Works.

John Flett and his wife, Mary Ann Underhill, had at least five children, including Thomas W. Flett, who inherited the business. The children of William Flett, who were their nephews and nieces, included George C. Flett and William Flett Jr, who were both successful printers in Boston, and Penelope Flett, a graduate of Vassar College, who was a physician in Waverley, Mass.