Evan Fraser

Owner of Pleasing Hope and Ridge estates in Essequibo until his death in 1830. David Alston identifies this man as the Evan Fraser who was partner in Evan and Angus Fraser & Co. and in Campbells Fraser until 1814 (although there is potential for confusion with Evan Fraser jun. (q.v.). There was an appeal for creditors of the late Evan Fraser jun. 'of this colony' [Berbice] in 1822, and a call for creditors of Pleasing Hope and Ridge of Evan Fraser late of this colony [Demerary and Essequibo] deceased in 1831. It is clear that these two calls related to different men: with Evan Fraser of Belladrum (d. 1813, q.v.), there seem in fact to have been three Evan Frasers active in what became British Guiana.

1. Evan Fraser's estates of Pleasing Hope and Ridge were the subject of the suit of Campbell v Dent, heard by the Privy Council in 1838, which concerned competing claims of British merchants on the estates. John Campbell senior & Co. of Glasgow had a mortgage of £14,000 over Ridge in 1822 and made further advances of £30,000; Davidson Barkly had a mortgage of £6000, which the firm assigned in 1833 to Colin Campbell & Co.

London Gazette 17817 14/05/1822 p. 811; David Alston, 'Slaves and Highlanders' Angus & Evan Fraser, http://www.spanglefish.com/slavesandhighlanders/index.asp?pageid=228355 [accessed 20/06/2018; in 1817 Evan Fraser registered 93 enslaved people as proprietor in Demerara on an unnamed estate, T71/397 F32716; in 1819 Evan Fraser had registered the enslaved people on a Plantation called Naida or Maida on the West Coast of Corentyne, the property of Campbells, Fraser (q.v.), and a man of the same name had registered the enslaved people on Seafield 'situated on the West Coast' as proprietor. LBS has tentatively associated the Seafield estate with Evan Fraser jun. but it might have belonged to the Evan Fraser (d. 1830) of this entry.

1. Edmund F. Moore Reports of Cases Heard and Determined by the Judicial Committee 1837-1838, Volume 2 pp. 292-311.