(13 Dec. 1852-28 Feb. 1919), auditor general of Canada. Born at Loch Garry, GC. Parents: James Fraser and his wife Isabella McDonald. He attended his local school, then was employed as a clerk at Lancaster and Alexandria. In Alexandria, he lived with the family of George W. Miller. John Fraser was clerk and bookkeeper in Alexandria for Hon. D.A. Macdonald from 1870 to 1875, which included the period during which Macdonald was postmaster general in the Mackenzie government. When Macdonald became lieutenant-governor of Ontario in 1875, he secured a position for Fraser in the Finance Department at Ottawa. Fraser, who began his residence in Ottawa May 1875, the month his civil service employment began, rose in the Finance Department as chief clerk, Dominion book-keeper and inspector of government savings banks. He declined the position of deputy minister of finance which was offered to him during the Laurier government. (For another Glengarrian who held this position, see W.C. Clark) In 1905, however, Fraser became auditor general of Canada.

     The First World War, with its unprecedented demands on the Canadian economy and government, brought new burdens to his office. He remained auditor general till his death, for a total period in office of 13 years. Outside government service, he was honorary secretary-treasurer of the Victorian Order of Nurses. John Fraser died at Daytona, Fla. He was a Presbyterian and a Presbyterian elder. He was married on 4 July 1876 to Mary Jane Atchison (31 Aug. 1854-14 April 1946). Their nine children included Robert James Fraser, Arthur Angus Fraser, who was law clerk of the House of Commons, Allan Joseph Fraser, who was a judge of the Ottawa Juvenile Court and Court of Domestic Relations, and Harold John Fraser, Q.C., who was mayor of Prince Albert, Sask., and a member of the Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly. Another Glengarrian, James J. Macdonell, was later auditor general of Canada. Also, R.W. Sellar, another auditor general of Canada, was the nephew or other close relative of the journalist Robert Sellar who was a friend and observer of GC from just outside its borders.

Glengarry News 7 March 1919, Cornwall Freeholder 6 March 1919 * biographical data on Fraser and his children in Fraser (1959) (with portrait) * Morgan (1912) * Sonja Sinclair, Cordial but Not Cosy: a History of the Office of the Auditor General (1979)