Fraser Companies Ltd.
The name of Fraser has been prominently identified with logging on the Tobique River for over 100 years.
In 1895, Donald Fraser Sr., the founder of Fraser Companies Limited participated in organizing the Tobique Log Driving Company. The firm's name at that time was Donald Fraser and Sons, incorporated in 1859, comprised of Donald Fraser Sr. and his two sons, Archibald and Donald. At this point, most of the logs cut on the Tobique were water driven to mills on the St. John River. In 1894, Donald Fraser and Sons had built a large sawmill at Fredericton called the Aberdeen Mill. This mill burnt in 1905 and was never re-built.
In 1900 they incorporated the Tobique Manufacturing Company Ltd., which in 1901 acquired the Hale Mill property including a sawmill on the site of the present mill. In 1908, the name of this firm was changed to Fraser Lumber Company and this company in turn became one of the group of companies incorporated as Fraser Companies Limited in 1917. Today the mill is called Fraser Paper Inc.
Thus, the firm of Fraser has been operating sawmills on the Tobique River since 1900 and quite possibly logging on this river as far back as 1895 or even earlier. In the intervening years they have operated intermittently several other mills, sawing both softwood and hardwood. The Plaster Rock mill, however, has been in continuous operation up to the present.
Many varieties of lumber trees grow along the Tobique River, which include: pine, spruce, fir, poplar, cedar, tamarack, hemlock, maple and birch. Extensive forest fires in 1825, 1855, 1884, 1912, 1923 and 1933 have all had their impact on the nature of the forest which followed. The actual record since 1937 indicates the average area burned per year has been 750 acres.
