Thomas Fraser of Beaufort, by right eleventh Lord Lovat, died at Dunvegan in Skye in May 1699. By his first wife, Sibylla, fourth daughter of John Macleod of Macleod, he had fourteen children, ten of whom died young. Simon, the eldest surviving son, was the celebrated Lord Lovat, beheaded in April 1747.
The clan Fraser formed part of the army of the Earl of Seaforth, when, in the beginning of 1645, that nobleman advanced to oppose the great Montrose, who designed to seize Inverness, previous to the battle of Inverlochy, in which the latter defeated the Campbells under the Marquis of Argyll in February of that year. After the arrival of King Charles II. in Scotland in 1650, the Frasers, to the amount of eight hundred men, joined the troops raised to oppose Cromwell, their chief’s son, the Master of Lovat, being appointed one of the colonels of foot for Inverness and Ross. In the rebellion of 1715, under their last famous chief, Simon, Lord Lovat, they did good service to the government by taking possession of Inverness, which was then in the hands of the Jacobites. In 1719 also, at the affair of Glenshiel, in which the Spaniards were defeated on the west coast of Inverness-shire, the Frasers fought resolutely on the side of government, and took possession of the castle of Brahan, the seat of the Earl of Seaforth. On the breaking out of the rebellion of 1745, they did not at first take any part in the struggle, but after the battle of Prestonpans, on the 21st September, Lord Lovat “mustered his clan,” and their first demonstration in favour of the Pretender was to make a midnight attack on the Castle of Culloden, but found it garrisoned and prepared for their reception. On the morning of the battle of Culloden, six hundred of the Frasers, under the command of the Master of Lovat, a fine young man of nineteen, effected a junction with the rebel army, and behaved during the action with characteristic valour.
Lord Lovat’s eldest son, Simon Fraser, Master of Lovat, afterwards entered the service of government, and rose to the rank of lieutenant-general in the army.
General Fraser was succeeded by his half-brother, Colonel Archibald Campbell Fraser of Lovat, appointed consul-general at Algiers in 1766, and chosen M.P. for Inverness-shire on the general’s death in 1782. By his wife, Jane, sister of William Fraser, Esq. of Leadclune, F.R.S., created a baronet, 27th November 1806, he had five sons, all of whom he survived. On his death, in December 1815, the male descendants of Hugh, ninth Lord Lovat, became extinct, and the male representation of the family, as well as the right to its extensive entailed estates, devolved on the junior descendant of Alexander, fifth lord, Thomas Alexander Fraser, of Lovat and Strichen, who claimed the title of Lord Lovat in the peerage of Scotland, and in 1837 was created a peer of the United Kingdom, by that of Baron Lovat of Lovat.
The family of Fraser, of Castle Fraser, in Ross-shire, are descended, on the female side, from the Hon. Sir Simon Fraser, of Inverallochy, second son of Simon, eighth Lord Lovat, but on the male side their name is Mackenzie.
American Frasers.
We cannot close our account of the Frasers without briefly referring to the numerous members of the clan who inhabit British North America. Concerning these we have been obligingly furnished with many details by the Honourable John Fraser de Berry, of St Mark de Cournoyer, Chambly River, Vercheres Cy., District of Montreal, Member of the Legislative Council for Rougemont. The information furnished by this gentleman is very interesting, and we are sorry that the nature of this work, and the space at our disposal, permits us to give only the briefest summary.
It would seem that in the Dominion of Canada the ancient spirit of clanship is far from dead; indeed, it appears to be more intensely full of life there than it is on its native Highland mountains. From statistics furnished to us by our obliging informant, it would appear that in British North America there are bearing the old name of Fraser 12,000 persons, men, women, and children, some speaking English and some French, many Protestants and many Roman Catholics, but all, we believe, unflinchingly loyal to the British throne. Not one of these, according to the Honourable J. Fraser de Berry’s report, is a day labourer, “earning daily wages,” but all more or less well-to-do in the world, and filling respectable, and many of them responsible positions. Many are descendants of the officers and soldiers of the “Fraser Highlanders,” who settled in British North America after the American war. “They are all strong well built men, hardy, industrious, and sober, having fine comfortable houses, where quietness reigns and plenty abounds.”
Some years ago a movement was formed among these enthusiastic and loyal Frasers to organise themselves into a branch clan, to be called the “New Clan Fraser,” partly for the purpose of reviving and keeping alive the old clan feeling, and partly for purposes of benevolence. At a meeting held in February 1868, at Quebec, this movement took definite shape, and “resolutions were unanimously passed defining the constitution of the clan, pointing out its object, appointing its dignitaries, determining their duties, and the time and manner of their election.”
As “Chief of the Frasers of the whole of British North America,” was elected the Honourable James Fraser de Ferraline, Member of the Legislative Council for the Province of Nova Scotia, “a wealthy and influential merchant, born in 1802, on the Drummond estate in the braes of Stratherrick, Inverness-shire, Scotland; descended by his father from the Ferraline family of the Frasers, and by his mother from the Gorthlic Frasers. The true Fraser blood,” we are assured, “runs very pure through the veins of the worthy chief.”