John Nairne

Lieutenant-Colonel John Nairne (1 March 1731 – 14 July 1802) was a Scottish-Canadian soldier and seigneur. Nairne came to Canada in 1758 as a lieutenant, and participated in the captures of Louisbourg and Quebec City. Given Nairne's lack of prospects back in Scotland, he decided to remain in Canada, and in 1762 he received, along with his friend Malcolm Fraser, the seigneury of La Malbaie, with Fraser taking Mount Murray and Nairne receiving Murray Bay and a section of Charlevoix, Quebec. Nairne retired on half-pay as soon as he received his land as was common practice amongst British officers and soldiers at the time. Devoting himself to his seigneury, Nairne had it surveyed, and brought some soldiers from the regiment with him to settle the land. Nairne, hoping to establish a Protestant settlement on his lands, found it impossible to procure a Protestant minister for the settlement, having none but a few Protestant adherents living on his seigneury. Although Nairne happened to be an excellent farmer, it was difficult to turn a profit off the land he had acquired and many of his requests for funding (such as asking for a road to be built) were left unanswered. In 1769, Nairne married a fellow Scot by the name of Christina Emery. With Christina, Nairne had four children, but by the time Nairne returned from a 1773 trip to Scotland, three of them had died. Eventually, he would have five more children with Christina Nairne, building a large manor house for his family and continuing his work in the settlement. In 1775, with an American invasion imminent, Governor Guy Carleton charged Nairne with organizing a regiment from his seigneury and the surrounding communities. On August the 12th of 1775, Nairne offered himself for any available Captaincy. He was appointed as Captain in the Royal Highland Emigrants in the following month of September,1775. The group was largely composed of soldiers from Nairne's former regiment, the 78th Regiment of Foot. Nairne played a key role fighting for the Loyalist side during the Siege of Quebec.