Simon Fraser was born near Albany, New York, May, 20, 1776. His family had emigrated from Scotland to the North American Colonies in 1773. Good timing eh?. In 1784, Simon Fraser's father was put in jail because he was a Loyalist, and fighter for Britain during the war(he later died because of harsh treatment in the Albany jail). Due to the harrassment of American rebels even after the peace of 1783, Simon Fraser's mother brought the family to Canada where her brother-in-law was a judge, in Montreal. Simon found work as a clerk in the North West Company whose quarters were in Montreal. When he reached the age of 20 he was sent forth to the lands of Athabasca and to the Peace River. He was so good, in 1801 he became a partner in the North West Company. He became an important guy and was selected to oversee work that was done for the Company in the lands past the Rocky Mountains. He did this overseeing from 1805 until 1808, a time in which he learned about and traded with the Indians of the interior of a land he called New Caledonia (well he was Scottish! Had the Name stuck we'd have two New Scotlands in Canada, one on each end!).
Finding a passage to the Pacific was a priority among the NWC and Fraser was told to sail the Columbia River and seek the navigable passage to the Pacific. Yet quite by accident it was not the Columbia, Simon Fraser was sailing down but rather another river, which is now named Fraser.
Fraser now found himself in a place where people had not yet seen Europeans and was quite unknown. Yet Fraser was friendly with the Nations he encountered as he calmed their doubts and suspicions. Fraser continued on foot until he reached the Fraser valley. There a local chief gave him a canoe and from there he went on to find the mouth of the river.
Simon Fraser ended his career in 1818, after legal problems arose after the Seven Oaks Massacre in, a conflict over the Red River setlements between the North West Company and the Hudon's Bay Company. Simon Fraser was charged in the affair yet was acquited later. He then moved to Cornwall and died there with his wife in 1862.
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