FISHER, Alexander: 1756 - 1830
Tile ordered and paid for by George Kirkpatrick, * Kingston, Ontario, July 1888
Alexander Fisher was the eldest son of John and Mary Campbell Fisher who emigrated from Killen in Perthshire, Scotland to settle in New York State. At the time of the American Revolution, being Loyalists, they left New York and made their way first to Montreal and later to Upper Canada. John and Mary Fisher had four children: Alexander, Finley, Anne and Margaret. Their daughter Anne, born in 1765, married Nicholas Hagerman (Tile # 15).
Alexander Fisher had a long and illustrious career after coming to Adolphustown. He had a fine farm of six hundred acres in the third concession of Adolphustown on the south shore of Hay Bay. He is described as a man of much prominence among the early United Empire Loyalists. Alexander was appointed Justice of the Peace in 1788 and became the first Judge of the Midland District in 1794. His Highland hospitality was legendary and his obituary, which appeared in the May 29, 1830 edition of the Kingston Chronicle, reads in part as follows: “We believe there are few whose death could cause more general regret, or leave a greater blank in the social circle. While his integrity secured him that esteem and respect of all who knew him, his kindness of disposition and unbounded hospitality rendered him generally beloved.”
Alexander had a son, also named Alexander, born in 1783 and a daughter, Mary born in 1792 with his first wife. Alexander junior became a trader with the North West Company and his twenty-five year career is documented in the Hudson’s Bay Company Personnel Files.(1) Mary married Allan Macpherson, U.E.L., Oct 15, 1818.(2) Mary’s husband, Allan Macpherson became a very influential man in Napanee. He owned and operated a sawmill and a distillery, was the first postmaster of Napanee, built the first schoolhouse and bought the first press for the first newspaper.(3) In 1826 he built the imposing, Georgian style, Allan Macpherson house on the northern bank of the Napanee river. The house remained in the family for many years. It is now maintained by the Lennox and Addington Historical Society and is open to the public.
Alexander Fisher’s second wife was Henrietta McDonnell whom he married on March 15, 1802.(4) They had four daughters: Anne, Henrietta, Helen and Janet. Daughter Henrietta married Stafford Kirkpatrick. Helen married Thomas Kirkpatrick. Helen and Thomas' son, Sir George Airey Kirkpatrick, became Lieutenant Governor of Ontario and held that office from 1892-96. Their youngest daughter, Janet, is described by a traveler and diarist who accompanied Janet on a canoe trip, as “a remarkably agreeable person and the best suited to the backwoods of any young lady I have seen in Canada. She is however too high game for such as me, I am afraid, having a very nice fortune of her own.”(5) The diarist indeed had no chance and Janet later married James Wallis.
Judge Alexander Fisher died in Adolphustown in 1830 and was buried in the Fisher Cemetery on his property on the third concession.
* This tile was sponsored for Judge Alexander Fisher in 1889 by his grandson George Kirkpatrick who became Lieutenant Governor of Ontario in 1892.
1. “Fisher, Alexander, 1783-1847,” Hudson’s Bay Archives, via www.gov.mb.ca.
2. Reverend McDowall’s Marriage Register (Toronto: Ontario Historical Society, Vol. 1, 1899), via www.my.tbaytel.net.
3. Walter S. Herrington, History of the County of Lennox and Addington, 1913 (Global heritage Press, 2003).
4. Reverend McDowall’s Marriage Register (Toronto: Ontario Historical Society, 1899), via www.my.tbaytel.net.
5. Early Days in Upper Canada: The Letters of John Langton (Toronto: Macmillan, 1826).