William Davidson (lumberman)

William Davidson (1740 – 17 June 1790) was a Scottish-Canadian lumber merchant, shipbuilder and politician. He was the first permanent European settler on the Miramichi River in the Canadian Province of New Brunswick.

Davidson was born in Cowford, in the Parish of Bellie, Moray, Scotland, and was engaged in salmon fishing as a young man (see River Spey). He was born John Godsman, but changed his name to William Davidson after his grandfather. In 1765 he arrived in Nova Scotia and obtained extensive land grants, he and a partner getting 100,000 acres (400 km²), of which 2/3 was Davidson's share. This amounted to a strip of 13 miles (21 km) on either side of the Miramichi River (then a part of Nova Scotia) with fishing and lumbering rights. He was required to clear and improve the land and establish one Protestant settler for every two acres (8,000 m²). He settled many people on the Miramichi. Davidson is best known as the first settler in the Miramichi.

Davidson went to New England in 1766 to recruit settlers and supplies. Soon he was shipping fish to the West Indies and furs and fish to Europe. To employ his workers in the winter he began to cut lumber and brought out from Great Britain a master shipbuilder, shipwrights and other craftsmen.

Throughout his life this visionary, practical, industrious and intelligent man was plagued by bad luck. His first locally built ship, the Miramichi, sank off Spain on her maiden voyage and his second ship was wrecked in 1775 off the northern tip of Prince Edward Island. But, other cargoes got through and he soon had a seven-year contract with a British firm to supply fish and lumber.

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