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Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

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MUIRHEAD, HENRY ALEXANDER (1850-1895)

MUIRHEAD, HENRY ALEXANDER, businessman and sportsman; b. Chatham, 6 May 1850, s/o William Muirhead and Ann Gray; m. 1st, 1876, Clara J. Reed, of Saint John, and 2nd, 1892, Francis J. Blair, d/o George Adam Blair and Sarah Mignowitz Williston; d. Chatham, 19 May 1895.

Henry A. Muirhead studied at the County Grammar School under James Millar and became associated with his father's business at an early age. At the time of his first marriage in 1876 he bought "Blink Bonnie," the elegant residence originally owned by George H. Russell. In 1878, he engaged James Desmond to build a large sailing vessel for the Muirhead firm. The 872-ton barque, the last square-rigged ship to be constructed at Chatham, was finished in 1879 and christened the Clandeboye. The rigging of the vessel had been superintended by Capt. Thomas Quigley, and he was in command for her maiden voyage from Chatham to Belfast, Ireland, with a cargo of deals, and with Muirhead himself on board. As noted elsewhere, the passage was a rough one which presaged the Clandeboye's sorry end. In 1885 she was stranded and lost at Schooner Pond Rock, off the coast of Cape Breton Island.

In 1879 Muirhead and Joseph Ruddock took over operation of the Miramichi Foundry, which had been owned previously for many years by W. J. Fraser & Co. and more recently by James W. Fraser. Muirhead was the general manager and Ruddock the mechanical superintendent. With a workforce of up to thirty men, the foundry undertook steel fabrication jobs, including the complete construction of steam ferries and tugs. Among vessels launched from the yard in this period were the Loyalist (1882), a tug built for Robert P. Whitney, and the Sybella H. (1884), a new Chatham ferry constructed for Thomas Haviland. In November 1884 the company was dissolved and the foundry turned over to Henry A. Murihead's brother, William W. Muirhead. Meanwhile, in 1882, Henry A. Muirhead opened a ship chandlery in the former Parker store in Chatham. After his father's death he was milling and shipping manager with the William Richards Co., which leased the big Muirhead sawmill and became, in effect, the successor to Muirhead's.

Henry A. Muirhead was one of the first yachtsman of the Miramichi, and he was on the committee of stewards formed in 1881 to organize regattas on the river. At an ambitious regatta held in 1886 he won awards with two yachts in different size categories: the Yum-Yum and the Pooh-Bah. In 1895 he owned the tug Mascot, which he used in his capacity as port warden of Chatham. His death that year, at age forty-five, was sudden and unexpected. He was survived by his second wife, Frances J. Blair, a daughter, and two sons of his first marriage, as well as by two young children. A third child born posthumously did not live to adulthood. His eldest son, W. Harry Muirhead, OBE, had a distinguished record in World War I and was later a business executive in Montreal, while his son Roy G. Muirhead was the manager, for different periods, of the Royal Bank of Canada's branches in Paris, Havana, and Buenos Aires.

Sources

[b] church records [m] Advocate 30 Aug 1876; official records [d] Advance 23 May 1895 / Advance 11 Aug 1881, 14 May 1885 (re. foundry), 27 Sep 1894; Advocate 3 May 1876, 6 Nov 1878, 28 May 1879, 17 Sep 1879, 4 Feb 1880, 13 Oct 1886, 26 Jan 1895, 2 May 1922, 8 May 1935; Manny (Ships); Manny index (re. W. H. Muirhead); World 29 Apr 1882, 22 Nov 1884, 18 Sep 1886


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