LETSON, WILLIAM (1794-1866)

LETSON, WILLIAM, businessman and JP; b. Halifax, 23 Aug 1794, s/o Robert Letson and Elizabeth Cullimore; m. 1819, Mary Ann Farnham, of Halifax; d. Chatham, 26 Jun 1866.

William Letson, his wife and three children, and his younger brother George Haywood Letson, came to the Miramichi from Nova Scotia in 1824. In 1825 he and Leonard Hawbolt opened a store in a new building on Water Street. The partnership was dissolved in 1832, and the next year he was in the wholesale grocery and provision business on his own. In 1834 he gave notice that he had become an auctioneer and commission agent. In his store in Chatham in 1836 he was selling everything from cayenne pepper to augers and gimlets.

In 1839 Letson advertised the start-up of a candle and soap manufactory, in which his brother George H. Letson, who was otherwise a saddler, had an interest. He was still conducting this plant in 1847, but in future years he returned to the auctioneering business. He also had a farm about a mile south of Chatham on the road to Napan which he offered for sale in 1863.

Letson was one of the first firewards with the Chatham Fire Company, which was formed in 1824. In 1827 he was a member of the first Miramichi chamber of commerce. In 1836 he was serving as clerk of the Board of Health for the port. He was appointed a justice of the peace in 1838. As a vestryman of the Anglican church in 1846, and later as a warden, he was one of the most headstrong opponents of the ministry of the Rev. James Hudson. In 1847 he and John T. Williston were the magistrates charged with responsibility for getting the quarantine station ready to receive the passengers and crew of the barque Looshtauk (Capt. John M. Thain). In 1852 he became a commissioner of the Seamen's Hospital. He was elected president of the Chatham YMCA in 1859.

Letson and his wife, Mary Ann Farnham, had ten children, most of whom lived to adulthood. Two of their daughters married natives of England and made their homes there. Four of their sons were businessmen on the Miramichi: W. Albro Letson, who later relocated in Halifax, and H. Farnham Letson, George E. Letson, and Francis J. Letson, all of whom died in middle age. Nephews Henry H. and Robert A. Letson, sons of George H. Letson, were also in business in Chatham at different times.