IV (part 7)
Bourgeois, Hon. Jean Baptiste, Three Rivers, Quebec, was born in the parish of St. Dominique, county of Bagot, Quebec, on the 19th May, 1835. He is the son of François Bourgeois and Scholastique Coté, his wife. His grandparents came from Acadia. The subject of this sketch was educated at St. Hyacinthe, taking a full classical course; afterwards studied law in the offices of Maurice Laframboise and Augustine C. Papineau, both since appointed judges of the Quebec Superior Court, and was called to the bar on 1st May, 1858. At the bar he soon distinguished himself, especially as a municipal lawyer. He rose rapidly, and soon took his place among the leading lights of the fraternity, ranking with such foremost lawyers as Messrs. Sicotte, Chagnon, and others. After the elevation of Mr. Sicotte to the bench, Mr. Bourgeois was the acknowledged head of the bar of St. Hyacinthe, and for sixteen years thereafter he enjoyed a large, and, needless to say, a lucrative practice. He was appointed one of the judges of the Superior Court for the province of Quebec, in June, 1876; his appointment being looked upon by his numerous friends as a fitting compliment to his learning, ability, and integrity. On his appointment he moved to Aylmer, the shire town of Ottawa county, and of the judicial district of Ottawa, which includes two counties. Before his departure, a banquet was tendered him by the leading men of all parties, who took this opportunity of expressing publicly their pleasure in the just recognition of his great talents, and their sorrow at the loss to the city of so worthy and eminent a man. In November, 1880, he was removed to Three Rivers, chef-lieu of the judicial district of the same name (the most important judicial district of the province after Montreal and Quebec). During his law practice at St. Hyacinthe, Mr. Bourgeois was in partnership with the late Hon. P. Rachaud, provincial treasurer during the Joly administration; and again with the Hon. Honoré Mercier, who was solicitor-general during the same administration, and who is now premier of the province. Mr. Bourgeois always took a prominent part in the educational and municipal affairs of St. Hyacinthe. He was school commissioner for a long time; alderman for several years; president of the Literary Association, and first president of the St. Lawrence and Missisquoi Junction Railway. He also took great interest in politics, supporting the Reform party, and in 1874 was a candidate for the county of Bagot, in the House of Commons, but was defeated by a small majority by J. A. Mousseau, the Conservative nominee. On the 6th of May, 1859, Mr. Bourgeois was married to Mary Frances, daughter of William C. Gilson, of Aylmer, and has had issue eight children, of whom only three, two daughters and a son, Corinne, Adèle, and John F. L., are now living. Judge Bourgeois is in every sense of the word a self-made man, and is an excellent example of what can be accomplished by push, energy, and a determination to succeed. His father was only a day-laborer, and unable to give his son more than an elementary education. But the son, nothing daunted, determined to take a course at the Great Seminary at St. Hyacinthe; and to accomplish this, he went among his friends and solicited their aid. Seeing the pluck and energy of the lad, his appeal was quickly responded to, and the result shows that the confidence of his friends of his younger days was not misplaced, but was, on the contrary, well-merited and worthily disposed.
Boivin, Charles Alphonse, Collector of Inland Revenue, St. Hyacinthe, province of Quebec, was born the 25th of December, 1844, at St. Hyacinthe. His father, Leonard Boivin, was a successful merchant, and who, previous to his demise, in November, 1868, also held the office his son now holds. His mother, Marie Zoe Lagorce, is a descendant of an old French family, who left the old land long years ago and settled in the New France. The subject of this sketch was educated at the Seminary at St. Hyacinthe, taking a classical course with honors. After leaving college in 1863, he entered mercantile life as assistant to his father, and continued in business until the death of his father, January 18th, 1869, when he retired to assume the position he now occupies. It is conceded on every hand, by all who have had business relations with him, that he has filled the office to the satisfaction of all who have had to deal with the government through him. In 1869 he passed his examination as a notary for the province of Quebec. A remarkable fact which must be mentioned is that Mr. Boivin is the only public officer in the Dominion who never took part in politics, nor did he ever exercise the right to vote, yet his leanings are, and always have been, Conservative. He is a Roman Catholic in religion. On January 25th, 1871, he was married to Marie Julie Valois, of Quebec, whose father was a customs officer for many years, and has issue seven children—four boys and three girls.
Hodder, Edward M., M.D.—The late Dr. Hodder was the son of Captain Hodder, R.N., and was born December 30th, 1810, at Sandgate, Kent, England. He entered the navy in 1822, as midshipman under his father, but only took one cruise, leaving the service at the expiration of one year, having a strong desire to study medicine, for which profession he had a preference. Educated as a boy, first at Guernsey Grammar School, afterwards at St. Servans, France, he began his medical studies in London, under the late Mr. Amesbury, very celebrated as a surgeon, with whom he spent five years. At the close of his career as a student, he passed the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He afterwards went to Paris, where he spent two years more in the study of his profession, and subsequently he visited Edinburgh, and there, too, passed a considerable time in seeing the hospital practice of the then famous teachers of that city. He began practice in London, where he remained but two years, and thinking his prospects would be improved by removal to St. Servans, in France, he settled there for a time. His French home being too quiet for his tastes, after remaining a single year, he took it into his head to visit Canada, in 1835, returning to France again in a few months. For the next three years he practised his profession in this French town, when, having still a longing after Canada ever since he visited it, he left, never to return, and henceforth resolved to make his home in Ontario. He settled in the neighborhood of Queenston, in the Niagara district, where he remained, doing a very extensive practice, for five years. In 1843 he removed to Toronto, where he continued to practise up to the time of his death. In 1834 he married Frances Tench, daughter of Captain Tench, H.M. 87th Royal Irish Fusiliers, who survives him. Besides his widow, he leaves a large family of sons and daughters, who mourn the loss of one who, year by year, during a long and most active life was ever unwearying for their comfort and happiness. In 1854 he was elected a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and in 1865 a fellow of the Obstetrical Society of London, and was, at the time of his death, and for some years past, one of its honorary local secretaries. In 1845 he received the degree of C.M. from King’s College, Toronto, and M.D. from Trinity College in 1853. In 1850 he established, in concert with Dr. Bovell, the Upper Canada School of Medicine, which that year became the medical department of Trinity College. For several years, while Trinity College Medical School was in abeyance, Dr. Hodder was a member of the faculty of the School of Medicine. But on the revival of his old school, in 1870, he was, by the unanimous wish of his colleagues, appointed dean of the faculty, which position he held at the time of his death—having been re-appointed in 1877, when the act incorporating the school passed the provincial legislature. From 1852 to 1872 he was the leading member of the acting staff of the Toronto General Hospital, and at decease was senior consulting surgeon to both of these institutions, as well as to several others of like character. Although devoted to his professional work, Dr. Hodder found time in the way of recreation to gratify his continued love for the water. He was mainly instrumental in forming the Royal Canadian Yacht Club, of which he was commodore for many years previous and up to his death, in 1877.
Child, Marcus.—The late Mr. Child, of Coaticook, Quebec province, was one of the early settlers of the Eastern Townships and during his lifetime, took an active interest in public affairs. He was born in West Boylstone, Mass., United States, in the year 1792, and when only nineteen years of age, came to Canada, and took up his abode with his uncle, Captain Levi Bigelow, who was engaged in trade at the place now known as Derby Line. He remained with this uncle until about the time of the breaking out of the war of 1812, when he left him, and commenced business on his own account in Stanstead Plain, and was very successful in trade. He was early appointed postmaster and magistrate, but was deprived of his office of postmaster on the outbreak of the Canadian rebellion of 1837-8, on account of his political views. Previous to 1837 he was elected to represent his county in the Provincial parliament of Quebec, and after the union of the provinces he still continued to sit in the Legislature of Canada. In 1845 he was appointed school inspector for the district of St. Francis. In 1855 he removed his family to Coaticook, where he continued to reside until his death, in March, 1859, leaving many to regret his early demise, but feeling that one who had faithfully performed his duty in this world had gone to his reward in the higher life. In 1819 he was married to Lydia Chadwick, of Worcester, Mass., United States, by whom he had two children, the eldest of whom, wife of Lewis Sleeper, died in June, 1858; and the other, the mother of G. M. Child, in February, 1878.
Methot, Joseph Edouard, Advocate, Three Rivers, province of Quebec, was born in the parish of Ste. Anne de la Pérade, county of Champlain, Quebec, on the 24th May, 1855. He is the son of Joseph Telesphore Methot, a well-known merchant, and Celine Mathe, his wife, a daughter of Olivier Mathe. The subject of this sketch was educated at the Three Rivers Seminary. Having completed his course in that institution, he was admitted to the study of the law in the office of A. Turcotte, the speaker of the Quebec Legislative Council, and was called to the bar in July, 1875. That he will make his mark as one of the foremost men in his profession, is looked upon as a foregone conclusion by his friends. A notable case which brought him into special prominence was the question which was of so much importance to commercial travellers, and which was contested at Three Rivers, as to whether the corporation by-law taxing commercial travellers could be enforced. Mr. Methot so ably conducted the case against the municipal authorities that he gained it for his clients, and at the same time got the objectionable by-law annulled. He is a Conservative in politics, and has been the attorney for the members of that party in almost all the election petitions for the district of Three Rivers since 1881. He served in the 79th battalion from 1873 to 1878. He is a Roman Catholic in religion. He was married on the 12th January, 1881, to Alide, daughter of L. T. Dorias, of St. Grégoire le Grand, Quebec, M.P.P. for the county of Nicolet.
Ross, Hon. James Gibb, Quebec, Senator of the Dominion of Canada, is a merchant in the ancient capital, occupying a prominent position among the commercial men of the city, and wields an influence over several branches of the local trade and industry. Hon. Mr. Ross is eminently a self-made man. He was born, about sixty-eight years ago, in the small village of Carlake, about eighteen miles from the city of Glasgow, and, after receiving such education as the parish school could afford, came, while still young, to Canada, where he entered as a clerk the office of his maternal uncle, the late James Gibb, president of the Quebec Bank, and then doing an extensive wholesale grocery business in the Lower Town of that city. Here Mr. Ross acquired his business training and habits of industry. On the uncle’s death, Mr. Ross continued the business, with his brother, John Ross (deceased in September, 1887), and the partnership was continued down to 1868, when it was dissolved. Long before this, however, Hon. Mr. Ross had begun to turn his attention to other investments for his large and increasing capital. The ship-building industry at Quebec was then in its palmiest days, and in it he became largely interested, advancing large sums of money to the local ship-builders, and the Western timber producers. From ship-building to ship-owning there was but a step, and a number of his vessels, both sail and steam, soon dotted the St. Lawrence. He also purchased large timber limits, built mills, became interested in railways, steamboats, etc., and by this means helped to develop to a large extent the resources of Canada and build up the local industries of the city of his adoption. Quebec owes to him, in a large measure, the successful construction of the Lake St. John and Quebec Central Railway, and few local undertakings can be specified to which he has not given a helping hand, and in which he is not concerned. At present, although a wealthy man, he is still as punctual and hard working as the humblest clerk in his office. He is to be found at his post early and late, and, though he has considerably restricted his shipping interests of recent years, his investments and speculations in other directions continue as extensive as ever. He is president of the Quebec Bank, a large stockholder in other institutions, financial and industrial, and naturally wields a large amount, of local influence. A Conservative from predilection, his life has, nevertheless, been always too busy a one to allow of his taking an active part in politics. However, much against his will, he yielded in 1873 to the solicitations and pressure of a large body of his fellow-citizens, and at the general election of that year for the Canadian House of Commons, he offered himself as a candidate for Quebec Centre against that veteran politician, the late Hon. Joseph Cauchon, then the vigorous editor of Le Journal de Québec, and afterwards lieutenant-governor of Manitoba. The division was largely inhabited by a French-Canadian population, party feeling ran very high at the time, and religious and national prejudices were invoked against Mr. Ross, with the result that, after a very severe and exciting contest, he lost his election. At the general elections of 1878, he again offered for the same division, against Jacques Malouin, who had succeeded to the seat after Mr. Cauchon’s appointment to the lieutenant-governorship of Manitoba, but was again defeated. But in January, 1884, on the death of the Hon. David E. Price, he was called by the government of Sir John A. Macdonald, to the great satisfaction of the citizens of Quebec, to a seat in the Senate for Les Laurentides division. He has always taken a deep interest in the political welfare of Canada.
Nelson, Hugh, Victoria, Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia, was born at Larne, county of Antrim, Ireland, on the 25th May, 1830. He settled in British Columbia in June, 1858, and engaged in mercantile pursuits until 1866, when he became a partner in the lumbering firm of Moody, Dietry & Nelson, at Burrard Inlet. He was vice-president and manager of the Moodyville Saw Mill Company until 1882, when he retired from business. In November, 1870 he was elected to represent New Westminster in the British Columbia legislature, which seat he held until its dissolution in 1871, when the colony entered into confederation with the Dominion of Canada. He was then returned to represent the same constituency in November, 1871, and again at the general election in 1872 by acclamation, when absent from the province. He was a member of the Yale convention, and among the first promoters of confederation in British Columbia. He received a diploma of honor for services rendered in connection with the International Fisheries Exhibition, in London, England, in 1883. He was called to the Senate of Canada on the 12th December, 1879, and remained until the 8th February, 1887, when he was appointed lieutenant-governor of British Columbia. He was married on the 17th September, 1885, to Emily, youngest daughter of the late J. B. Staunton, civil service of Canada.
Pugsley, Hon. William, D.C.L., St. John, Speaker of the House of Assembly of New Brunswick, is of Loyalist stock. One of his paternal ancestors was an Englishman, and was one of the earliest settlers on the Croton river, New York. After the Revolutionary war, John Pugsley, the great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, came to New Brunswick and settled on the Hammond river, in Kings county, but afterwards returned to New York, and subsequently removed to England. His son, Daniel Pugsley, settled in Cardwell, Kings county, N.B. Hon. William Pugsley is a son of William Pugsley, sen., who worked a farm with much success near Sussex, in one of the most fertile districts of New Brunswick. Like so many of our best men, Mr. Pugsley received his education in the common school. Having finished his preliminary studies at Sussex, he entered the University of New Brunswick, at Fredericton, and here he was highly successful. In his junior year he was gold medallist, and he also took several scholarships. About this time the Gilchrist scholarships, founded out of the savings of a wealthy and eccentric Scottish doctor, were thrown open to competition in the provinces of the Dominion. Mr. Pugsley was among those who tried for the coveted distinction, and in 1868 took second place in the list of competitors. He took his degree of B.A. in the same year. Shortly afterwards he began the study of the law, and was called to the bar the 27th June, 1872. He at once secured a large and lucrative practice, and soon after his admission to the bar was appointed reporter and editor of the decisions of the Supreme Court in banco. He held this position for ten years. Mr. Pugsley has always taken a warm interest in the politics of his native province. For some years back, in the local house, the government has been conducted by a virtually coalition cabinet. Mr. Pugsley is an Independent Conservative, and was elected to the House of Assembly in July, 1885, a vacancy having been created by the death of Dr. Vail, M.P.P. In the debates of the house, Dr. Pugsley at once came to the front, and was considered so well versed in parliamentary procedure, that on the 3rd March, 1887, he was elected speaker of the house. In this position his wide knowledge of law as well as his acquaintance with the personnel of the house and his unfailing tact and good judgment, have stood him in good stead. The office of speaker is one which calls for great patience and circumspection, and it is also one which is eagerly sought for by politicians of every degree of ability and popularity. A speaker must be also possessed of great swiftness and sureness of decision, as in the many turns of debate, and the inevitable clashing of opinion and personal jarrings, a delicate adjustment of the rights of members may come up for settlement. Mr. Pugsley has continued his early love of scholastic studies and associations, and holds the degree of D.C.L. of Fredericton University. In religious principles he is a Methodist. He married, on the 6th January, 1872, Fannie, daughter of the late Thomas Parks, of St. John. Though residing at Rothesay, Kings county, he practises his profession in St. John.
Slaven, John Wallace, Druggist, Orillia, Ontario, is a native Canadian, having been born in the county of Prince Edward, Ontario, on the 16th August, 1834. His father, P. Slaven, and mother, Eliza Walsh, both come from the county of Wexford, Ireland. Mr. Slaven received his educational training in the public and grammar schools of his native county. He holds a medical degree from an American medical school, but preferring business, he has never practised his profession. He first commenced the drug business in Wellington, Prince Edward county, in partnership with the late Dr. Archie Campbell, of that place, and in the fall of 1862 removed to Orillia, where he has continued the business with fair success up to the present. Mr. Slaven attended the Military School at Kingston, and in 1866 graduated from that institution. He afterwards became lieutenant and then captain of the 7th company Simcoe Foresters, which position he held for some time. He has served several years in the Municipal council of Orillia, and was deputy reeve of the same for two and a half years. He was elected once by a large majority and twice by acclamation. He was appointed a justice of the peace for the county of Simcoe by the Mowat government about eight years ago. Mr. Slaven is public-spirited, and takes an active part in every thing that tends to advance the town he has chosen as his home. He is a Conservative, and in 1882 was induced to enter the field of politics, and became a candidate of his party for the Ontario legislature, in opposition to Charles Drury, of Oro township, Simcoe, but failed to be elected. He at present is president of the Liberal-Conservative Association of the riding of East Simcoe. He has found some time to travel, and has visited the Pacific coast, the West Indies and many other parts of the North American continent. In religion Mr. Slaven belongs to the Roman Catholic church. He was married to Maggie McDonell, of Barrie, in June, 1867.
Pope, Hon. John Henry, Minister of Railways and Canals for the Dominion of Canada, M.P. for Compton, Quebec province, was born in 1824, and received his educational training in the High School at Compton, P.Q. The earlier period of his life was directed to agricultural pursuits. Mr. Pope was fond of military life, and took a lively interest in the volunteer movement. He commanded the Cookshire Volunteer Cavalry for many years, and retired in 1862, retaining his rank as major. He is president of the International Railway Company of Maine, and also of the Compton Colonization Society. He takes a deep interest in education, and for many years has been a trustee of the St. Francis College, Richmond, P.Q. He is also a director of the Eastern Township Bank. In 1854, at the general election of that year, Mr. Pope offered himself as a candidate for the Legislative Assembly of Canada, for Compton, and was defeated; but in 1857 he succeeded in carrying his election, and sat in this legislature until the union of the provinces under confederation. He was then elected a member of the House of Commons by acclamation, and has been returned ever since by his old friends each time he has appealed for their suffrages. On the 25th October, 1871, Hon. Mr. Pope was sworn in a member of the Privy Council, and made minister of agriculture, and this office he held until the defeat of the Macdonald ministry, on the Pacific scandal question, in November, 1873, when he retired with his leader. On the return of his party to power, on the defeat of the Mackenzie administration, he was, on the 17th October, 1878, reinstated into his old office of minister of agriculture. On the 25th September, 1885, he was made minister of railways and canals, and this office he still retains. During the summer of 1880, Hon. Mr. Pope in company with Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir Charles Tupper, visited England, and took an active part in the negotiations which led to the Pacific railway contract, subsequently ratified by parliament. He is a Liberal-Conservative in politics. The Hon. Mr. Pope is not given to debate, but whatever he has to say, in or out of parliament, he says with a terse vigor and conciseness of language that make a mockery of ornate phrases. He has the disposition to work, an intelligent appreciation of the wants of the country, and a well-studied parliamentary experience of nearly half an average lifetime.
Shorey, Hollis, Wholesale Clothier, Montreal, was born in Barnston, Eastern townships, Quebec province, on the 2nd December, 1823. His father, Samuel E. Shorey, who was of English descent, was a native of the United States, but came to Canada when a lad of eight years of age. On reaching manhood, he married Fanny Jones, of Three Rivers, Quebec province, who was of Welsh descent, and to this couple was born the subject of our sketch. Hollis Shorey was sent to the academy at Hatley, Eastern Townships, where he took a commercial course of education. On leaving school, having reached the age of sixteen years, he entered himself as an apprentice to a local tailor, and having faithfully served the allotted term, he began business on his own account, at Barnston, his capital amounting to a very small sum. Just as he had reached his nineteenth year, his father died, and the responsibility of assisting to bring up a family of eight children was thrust upon him. Mr. Shorey’s first essay at his trade was the making of men’s, boys’ and youths’ clothing for customers who found their own cloth. He then took in a partner, and for four years they worked together amicably, keeping a general store as well as a tailoring establishment, but at the end of this period he made certain discoveries not at all to the credit of his partner, and a dissolution of the partnership ensued. This threw Mr. Shorey again back to his starting-point, but he was not discouraged. A short time after this event he entered into partnership with F. & J. H. Judd, which continued for four years, when he left the place and came to the city of Montreal. This was in 1861. Here he found employment, and for six years travelled for the firms of Macfarlane & Baird and Wm. Stephens & Co. (the now Sir George Stephens being then a member of the latter firm), soliciting orders for ready-made clothing, dry goods, etc. His field of operation was chiefly in the Eastern Townships, and he made many friends during his journeys. Getting thoroughly tired of travel, he resolved to begin business again on his own account, and then was laid, December 1866, the foundation of one of the largest wholesale clothing establishments in the Dominion. After two years he took in as a partner his son-in-law, E. A. Small, to assist him. This partnership lasted for about eighteen years when it was dissolved, and Mr. Shorey then associated with him as partners his two sons, S. O. Shorey and C. L. Shorey, who before this time had been very successful travellers for the old firm. They now employ as outside hands, tailors, etc., 1450 persons, and 150 more in the establishment. The firm, we are told, deals very liberally with their employees, and the most kindly feelings exist between them and their employers. For about fifteen years Mr. Shorey has been a member of the Board of Trade of the city of Montreal, and takes a deep interest in all its proceedings. During the small pox epidemic, in 1885, he was chairman of the citizen committee, which did so much to alleviate the sufferings of those afflicted by the pest, and remove the causes that produced it. Mr. Shorey has travelled a good deal, and found time to visit the continent of Europe, as well as the United States. In religion he is an adherent of the Episcopal church. He has been twice married. First, in 1844, he espoused Fanny Wheeler of Barnston, province of Quebec, who, dying in 1850, left two children, a boy and girl, and since then he has been united to Clara Gilson, of Vermont, who has also borne him a boy and a girl. His four children are all married, and he has now fourteen grand-children.
Tomkins, Rev. John.—The late Rev. Mr. Tomkins, during his lifetime a minister of the Methodist church, was born Nov. 12th, 1797, in the county of Stafford, England. His father, James Tomkins, and also his grandfather and great grandfather were natives of the city of Hereford, and as his parents returned thither shortly after his birth, he was accustomed to speak of that ancient cathedral town, as his native city. His parents were devout members of the Established church, and in that church his early religious training was received. He was naturally serious and thoughtful, and while still a lad was led through the preaching of a devout Anglican clergyman, the Rev. C. Glasscott, to turn his attention earnestly to religious concerns. It was, however, through the preaching of a Wesleyan Methodist minister, the Rev. Wm. Adams, that he found that rest of spirit which he had sought in vain for several years, in attendance upon the ordinances of his own communion. He immediately united with the Wesleyan society, and soon began to exercise his talents as a local preacher. Feeling called to devote himself wholly to the work of the ministry, he abandoned his worldly pursuits, and after due training, sought and obtained ordination in the old Spitalfields Chapel, London, at the hands of that distinguished divine, the Rev. Richard Watson, on the 18th of April, 1827. A few days after he left his native shores forever, to engage in missionary labor, first in Newfoundland and after in Canada. After a tedious voyage of nine weeks, he reached St. John’s on the 22nd of June, 1827. His first appointment was to Hants Harbor, a small fishing station, with less than three hundred inhabitants. Here he labored one year, and was then removed to Bona Vista, and the year following to Trinity, where he spent two years. Two more years were spent at St. John’s and Harbor Grace. During these six years of arduous toil among the scattered fishermen of Newfoundland, he endured many hardships, and on one occasion came near perishing of cold and hunger, having lost his way in a snow storm, while travelling on foot with another missionary, the Rev. Mr. Knight, from one station to another. In June, 1833, he was removed to the city of Quebec, where he remained two years. At the expiration of this time he received his first appointment to the Eastern Townships, where he spent forty-three years of his active ministry and thirteen years in a superannuated relation. His first circuit was the St. Armand, extending from the Richelieu river to Sutton, a distance of about fifty miles. The Rev. John Borland was associated with Mr. Tomkins on this field of labor, which has since been divided into about seven circuits. In the year 1836 the Wesleyan Methodist church had in Lower Canada, including the cities of Montreal, Quebec and Kingston, fourteen circuits, and a membership of about as many hundred. At the time when Mr. Tomkins closed his ministry, there were within the same territory eighty-one circuits, or stations, and the number of members had increased fivefold. From St. Armand Mr. Tomkins was removed to Odelltown, where he spent two years. His subsequent appointments were as follows:—In 1838, he went to Shefford, where he spent three years, in 1841 to Compton, where he remained three years. In 1844 he returned to Odelltown, and spent three years. In 1847 to Dunham, three years, and in 1851, he was moved to Stanstead where he spent four years. In 1854 he was chosen chairman of the Stanstead district, which office he held during the following six years. In 1855 he removed to Clarenceville, and thence, in 1858, to Dunham, for a second term of service. In 1861 he was re-appointed to Shefford, and during the two years of his pastorate there he held the office of Financial Secretary of the district. In the year 1863 he was again appointed to Stanstead, and re-elected to the chairmanship, which he held, with an interruption of a little more than a year, till the time of superannuation. In 1866 Mr. Tomkins removed to Hatley, where he spent three years, and in the summer of 1869 he retired from active work and took up his residence at Stanstead, where he remained till the close of his long and useful life, and where he continued to assist by every means in his power in advancing the interests of his Master’s cause. As a man, Mr. Tomkins was of a mild and equal temperament, of a most affectionate disposition, and of a character marked by singular transparency and simplicity. His judgment was reliable in matters connected with the interests of the church, his conclusions being generally justified by the event. As a preacher, he was clear in exposition, sound in doctrine and happy in expression, often rising into true eloquence as he kindled with his theme. All his ministrations were marked by deep and serious feeling, and he impressed his hearers by being so evidently impressed himself. As a pastor he was at once tender and faithful, and his name and memory are still loved and honored wherever he exercised his ministry. He departed this life September 21st, 1881, in the eighty-fourth year of his age, having been a Methodist preacher for fifty-three years. In February, 1836, he was married to Maria Whitcher, daughter of Dr. Isaac Whitcher, of Stanstead, Quebec province. His son, Edwin F. Tomkins, is at the head of the Cascade Narrow Fabric Company, Coaticook, P.Q., and was the first to introduce into Canada the manufacture of mohair braid, etc.
Unsworth, Joseph Lennon, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, acting superintendent of the Prince Edward Island railway, was born in Liverpool, Great Britain, May 12th, 1840. His father was James Stanley Unsworth, and his mother Mary Hatton, who was a sister of the celebrated music composer, John L. Hatton, of London, England. Mr. Unsworth, senior, was born in Goshen, in the eastern part of the county of Lancashire, of an old-time family. An ancient tradition published in “The Pictorial History of the County of Lancaster,” gives the following legend of the Unsworth family: “One of the most interesting places in this part of the country, at Goshen, about a mile and a half on the south side of Bury, is an old farm-house, the residence in former times of a family of some note, and still occupied by a lineal descendant. The family of Unsworth has possessed this property, according to tradition, ever since the time of the conquest, and there are certainly relics to prove its antiquity. Amongst other curiosities, the house contains a carved oak table, which is a source of some interest as being connected with an old legend. The story is that in olden times there lived near here a fierce and terrible dragon, which resolutely defied the prowess of sundry brave heroes, who would fain have immortalized their names by freeing the country from such a scourge. One, Thomas Unsworth, a warrior of the beforementioned family, more courageous, or more fortunate, than the rest, at last succeeded in the attempt, which he accomplished in a manner that certainly did much credit to his ingenuity. Finding that bullets were of no avail, he inserted his dagger in a petronel, and, rousing the anger of the dragon, shot it under the throat at the moment of raising its head. The table was made after this event, and, it is said, carved with the dagger by which the monster was shot. Round the table are St. George and the dragon, the lion and unicorn, the Derby crest, and the veritable dragon which the aforesaid Thomas Unsworth killed. There is also hung over the table in the old parlour, a painting of the Unsworth arms, which were given them in former times for deeds of honor, surmounted by another carving of the dragon. The crest is a man in black armour, holding a hatchet in his hand, and it is said to be the portrait of the renowned family ancestor, in the armour which he wore during the battle, and in which he was encased at the time he performed the celebrated feat which won him so much fame. Whatever credence may be given to this story (and the present family firmly believe in its truth), it is certain that a portion of land was once granted to one of their ancestors for having freed the country from some dire monster, of whatever kind it might be, and of course the property granted was that said to be the favorite resort of the dragon; nor is it improbable that the large and adjoining township of Unsworth, has originally derived its name from some one of this family. They also possess several very old books, treasured with due ancestral pride, and other relics more or less interesting.” Mr. Unsworth, the subject of our sketch, received his education in Montreal, and at St. Hyacinthe, in the province of Quebec. Shortly after leaving school, in 1855, he entered the service of the Grand Trunk railway company, at Longueuil, as an apprentice, under W. S. McKenzie, and was employed by that company until March, 1872. From May, of the same year, to November, 1874, he was engaged on construction of the Inter-colonial railway between Rivière du Loup and Causapscal; from November, 1874, to November, 1881, he was master mechanic on the same railway at Rivière du Loup, and from November, 1881, to May, 1887, he was mechanical superintendent of the Government railways in Prince Edward Island, and from May, 1887, to the present time (Feb., 1888), in addition to the latter duties, he has been the acting general superintendent of the above government railways. For six years he was lieutenant in the Grand Trunk railway volunteer regiment. He is a member of the Canadian society of civil engineers. Mr. Unsworth, during his busy life, has found time to devote to travelling, having crossed the Atlantic and visited his fatherland. He has also travelled the greater part of Eastern Canada and the United States. In religion he is an adherant of the Episcopal church. He was married June 27th, 1866, to Mary Jane Lomas, daughter of Adam Lomas, woollen manufacturer, of Sherbrooke, P.Q., and sister of Alexander Galt Lomas, mayor of Sherbrooke.
Shearer, James Traill, Contractor, Montreal, is a specimen of what well-directed energy and perseverance can accomplish. Born at Rosegill, parish of Dunnet, not many miles from far-famed John O’Groat’s, Caithness-shire, Scotland, on the 31st of July, 1822, he received his education in the parish school of Dunnet, and at Castletown, in the same county. Leaving school before he had scarcely entered his teens, he was obliged like many a lad in the far north of Scotland, to begin work early, and was accordingly apprenticed to a carpenter and millwright in the village of Castletown, and with him he faithfully served the alloted term. To perfect himself in his trade, he removed to Wick, and worked for about a year under D. Miller, a builder, who was erecting a church in Putneytown. When he reached his twenty-first year he resolved to try his fortune in Canada, and taking passage in a sailing vessel, on 30th May, 1848, reached Montreal, where he has since resided. Shortly after his arrival he entered the employ of Edward Maxwell, an extensive carpenter and builder, as a general house-joiner and stair-builder, branches of the business at which he was very proficient. After terminating a three years’ engagement with Mr. Maxwell, he went to Quebec city to take charge of the joiner and carpenter work on a new bomb-proof hospital then being built by the British government on Cape Diamond. Finishing the job to the entire satisfaction of the British officers in charge, he returned to Montreal, and began the study of steamboat architecture, especially cabin work, and soon became an adept at the business. Work flowed in upon him, and he found many customers, among others the late John Molson and David Torrance, for whom he fitted up many steamboats for the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers, and he still carries on very extensively this branch of business, along with the manufacture of other kinds of wood-work for house building purposes. Mr. Shearer is the inventor of what is known as the hollow roof, for houses and large public buildings, which is considered the best suited to the climate of Montreal. This roof is of a concave design, and carries the water down the inside of the building, instead of the outside, thereby avoiding the freezing up of pipes. It was used on the Windsor hotel, Montreal, and has since been adopted generally throughout America. He has also been the chief promoter of what is known as the “Shearer scheme,” the object of which is to improve the harbor of Montreal and prevent the flooding of the city, but owing to the strong opposition urged against it by the Grand Trunk authorities, he has had to abandon it for the present. However, it will have to be considered at no distant day. If once adopted it will greatly improve the harbor of Montreal, and prove a source of wealth to the inhabitants. The plans are now in the possession of the Dominion government, and although he has twice applied for an act of incorporation for the “St. Lawrence Bridge and Manufacturing Company,” who are prepared to carry it to completion, he has not yet succeeded in getting this company incorporated. Mr. Shearer a few years ago designed and built for himself a house on Mount Royal, and it is perhaps the best finished house in that city of fine dwellings, all the internal work being of purely Canadian wood. The view from it is most charming, and cannot be surpassed in the Dominion. A visitor can take in at a glance the Chambly hills, Belle Isle, Mount Johnston, the river St. Lawrence for many miles, the Victoria bridge, the Lachine rapids, and the full extent of the beautiful city of Montreal. In politics Mr. Shearer is a Liberal; and in religion one of those who does his own thinking, and has no objection to others doing the same. He was married in Montreal, on the 23rd of June, 1848, to Eliza Graham, and the fruit of the union has been eight children. The two eldest sons are now engaged with their father in business.
Armour, Hon. John Douglas, Cobourg, Judge of the Court of Queen’s Bench, was born in the township of Otonabee, Peterborough county, Ontario, on the 4th May, 1830. He is the youngest son of the late Rev. Samuel Armour, who was for many years rector of Cavan, county of Durham, and was during his lifetime widely and favorably known through that part of Upper Canada. In his boyhood Judge Armour attended the schools in the neighborhood of his home, and on the 27th January, 1843, entered as a student Upper Canada College, Toronto. In 1847 he matriculated at King’s College (now Toronto University), and his career at college was very creditable. He gained the first university-scholarship in classics, and subsequently the Wellington scholarship. He graduated in 1850, carrying off the gold medal in classics. This same year he entered the office of his brother, Robert Armour, and began the study of law, and completed it in the office of the late Hon. P. M. M. VanKoughnet, who afterwards became Chancellor of Upper Canada. He was called to the bar in Michaelmas term, 1853, and removing to Cobourg, began to practise his profession there, forming a partnership with Sidney Smith, who some years afterward became postmaster-general of Canada. This partnership lasted until the 7th November, 1857, when Mr. Armour began to practise alone. He subsequently formed a partnership with H. F. Holland, which lasted between three and four years, when Mr. Armour was raised to the bench, and a dissolution consequently followed. During these years, various public offices were held by Mr. Armour from time to time. On the 28th March, 1858, he was appointed county attorney of the united counties of Northumberland and Durham, and during the following year he held the position of warden of those counties. On the 2nd May, 1861, he was appointed clerk of the peace for the same counties. On the 8th January, 1859, he was elected a member of the Senate of the University of Toronto. On the 26th June, 1867, he was created a Queen’s counsel. In 1871 he was elected a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada, and on the 30th of November, 1877, was appointed puisné judge of the Court of Queen’s Bench, a position he has ever since filled with honor and dignity. Hon. Judge Armour is a man of wide reading, multifarious knowledge, and great shrewdness and common sense. By heredity and tradition he is a Conservative both in religion and politics, but, nevertheless, he is a Liberal in thought and education, and a firm believer in the great future the land of his birth has before her. On the 28th of April, 1855, he married Eliza Church, daughter of the late Freeman S. Church, of Cobourg, by whom he has had eleven children, ten of whom are now living.
Molony, Thomas J., LL.B., Advocate, Quebec, is a prominent member of the Quebec bar, and one of the representative Irishmen of the ancient capital, honored with the confidence of his own element and esteemed by all classes of the community for his abilities as a lawyer, and his sterling integrity as a professional man and a citizen. He was born at Kingston, Ontario, on the 4th July, 1846, and is the youngest son of the late John Molony, and his wife, Catherine O’Connor, of that city. Thus on both sides, he sprang from good old Irish stocks. His father’s family were natives of the County Clare, Ireland. McGeoghegan, the Irish historian, ranks the Molonys among the oldest settlers of the Green Isle, and the county of Clare is the part of it around which the traditions of the family or sept have principally clustered from time immemorial. The old family, too, seem to have retained their territorial influence and social importance in the home of their ancestors down to a comparatively recent date. Up to the celebrated Daniel O’Connell’s time, they appear to have practically controlled the representation of Clare in Parliament, and readers of Irish history will readily recall the name of Sheriff Molony, in connection with the memorable election for that county which resulted in the signal defeat of Vesey Fitzgerald and the English government, and opened the door of the British Parliament to the great Irish Liberator, and to Catholic Emancipation. Burke, in his genealogy of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland, says, pp. 1022-3; speaking of their lineage: —
The Milesian family of Molony is one of great antiquity in the sister island. O’Halloran (Hist. of Ireland, Vol. III, p. 498), says: From Cormac Cas (who was of the line of Heber, eldest son of Milesius) are descended 1st, O’Brien, chief of Thomond . . . . Besides these hereditary officers the following noble families are derived from this great source: O’Dea, . . . O’Mollowney and others, and in his “List of Ancient Irish Territories, and by what Milesian families possessed before and after the invasion of Henry II,” Ceiltannan, (otherwise Kiltanon) is mentioned among the rest as the estate of O’Molony. The Molonys were formerly princes of Clare, where they possessed a large tract of country called the O’Molony’s Lands, as may be seen from the old maps of that county. In Catholic times, three members of the family attained the mitre, as appears from the epitaph on the tomb of John O’Molony, Bishop of Limerick in 1687 (second son of John O’Molony, of Kiltanon), who after the siege of that city, followed King James II. to Paris, where he assisted in the foundation of a university for the education of Irish priests, in the chapel belonging to which he was buried in 1702. The bishop’s nephew, James Molony, of Kiltanon, the first of the family who laid aside the prefix “O,” served first in King James’ army, but subsequently sided with William.
Mr. Molony’s maternal ancestors, the O’Connors, bear a name even still more famous in Irish annals, and though his mother was born in London, the metropolis of England, she was as noted as her husband, our subject’s father, for love of Ireland, and knowledge of and preference for the old Irish tongue, alas! now so rapidly dying out. Our subject was chiefly educated at his birth-place, Kingston. At a suitable age, he began the study of the classics there under the late John O’Donnell, a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, and one of the most accomplished classical scholars that Canada has ever had, as well as one of the most successful teachers of his day. Among the pupils who issued from his school to grace the learned professions may be mentioned Sir John A. Macdonald, the present premier of the Dominion, the late Hon. John Sandfield Macdonald, premier of Ontario, and several others of their most distinguished contemporaries. In 1860 Mr. Molony entered Regiopolis College, Kingston, which was then under the rectorship of the Rev. John O’Brien, afterwards the most Reverend Dr. O’Brien, Roman Catholic Bishop of Kingston, and it is touchingly noteworthy that eighteen years afterwards, when that prelate was suddenly stricken down by the hand of death at Quebec, while on his way back from Europe, Mr. Molony was the one acquaintance in the ancient capital upon whom devolved the sad duty of making the necessary arrangements there for the funeral of his old college rector, and the transportation of his remains on to Kingston. After a full course of philosophy and mathematics, our subject completed his studies at Regiopolis, and having decided on the law as his future profession, in December, 1865, he entered into articles of clerkship at Kingston, with the late Daniel Macarow, barrister, at one time a partner of the well-known James O’Reilly, Q.C., and afterwards county judge. In June following, he left Kingston to study for the legal profession in Lower Canada, and entered for the purpose at the office of M. A. Hearn, Q.C., ex-bâtonnier-general of the Quebec bar, and senior member of the legal firm of Hearn, Jordan & Roche, of Quebec city. At the same time he followed the courses of Laval University, from which he took his degree of Bachelor of Laws on the 4th July, 1879. On the 19th of the same month, he was admitted as a practitioner at the Quebec bar, and on the 12th of September following he married Isabella, daughter of the late John Jordan and Catherine James, of Quebec, by whom he has had issue four children, three of them surviving and all in their teens. For some years after his admission to the bar, Mr. Molony held a provincial government appointment as English Translator to the Queen’s printer’s department, from which he rapidly won success and distinction by his talents, punctuality and devotion to the interests of his clients. At present, his standing at the Quebec bar is among the highest, and few practitioners enjoy a larger share of the respect of the bench and the public. He has been a commissioner for the province of Ontario, at Quebec, since 1874, and for the province of Manitoba, since 1883. Journalism has also successfully occupied our subject’s attention, and his contributions to the local press have been much remarked for their masterly and vigorous dealing with the subjects handled. Having always taken an active interest in municipal matters, he was twice elected by acclamation a member of the Quebec City Council for Montcalm Ward in 1884 and 1886, and rendered himself conspicuously useful to his fellow citizens by his able support of Mayor Langelier’s policy of reform of the civic administration, including the improvement of the city water-works checks. During his connection with the council, he also served on several of its most important committees, was a member of the civic deputation sent some three years ago to Ottawa to press Quebec’s claims to the C.P.R. short line to the seaboard on the favorable consideration of the Federal Government, and, though the youngest member of the council, has been called upon in the absence of the mayor to preside at important meetings, on account of his intimate acquaintance with the rules of debate, and recognized ability in the solution of points of order or knotty questions of procedure. As secretary of the relief committee for the benefit of the sufferers, he further did good service to Quebec and the cause of humanity, after the disastrous conflagration which swept St. John and Montcalm wards almost out of existence in the summer of 1881. On the temperance question, Mr. Molony holds advanced views, and every movement on the subject in Quebec for the last fourteen or more years, has had his earnest advocacy and support. He was long the president of the St. Patrick’s Total Abstinence Society, and at the monster meeting held a few years since in the skating rink, in the interests of the temperance cause, under the joint presidency of Archbishop, now Cardinal, Taschereau, the Anglican Lord Bishop of Quebec, and the local clergy of all denominations, he appeared on the platform with other leading citizens, as the special representative of the Irish Catholic body. As might be expected from the stock from which he has sprung, Mr. Molony has taken a most active and patriotic interest in Irish national matters since his boyhood. For the last twenty years he has acted a leading part in all the Irish national societies and movements at the ancient capital. From 1871 to 1875 he was treasurer of the St. Patrick’s Society, and in 1876 he was chairman of the meeting at which the first branch of the Home Rule League in Quebec was organized. Some years later, he was one of the organizers of the Irish Land League in Quebec, and in 1878 he was elected 1st-Vice-President of the Catholic League, formed at Montreal. Mr. Molony was called upon at the last moment to preside at the monster meeting held on Durham terrace, Quebec, when the French and Irish Catholic population assembled to protest against the Orange processions in Montreal, during Mr. Beaudry’s mayoralty. On this last occasion his remarks and conduct met with general approval, Protestants and Catholics alike joining in praising his tact and moderation under the most trying circumstances, and Hon. H. G. Joly, then Prime Minister of the province, warmly congratulated him on the skill which he had shown in controlling an excited gathering, while upholding the views which it had come together to assert on one of the most burning questions of the hour. Mr. Joly told him personally that he had heard from members of the Local Legislature, who were present, the highest encomiums of his action, adding that in his opinion it was an awful responsibility to assume the management of a crowd of people excited to the highest pitch. Indeed the crowd on the occasion wanted to proceed straight off to wait on Mr. Joly, but to give time to their excitement to cool down, Mr. Molony, as chairman, wisely insisted on their only sending a delegation to represent their views to the premier, and finally carried his point, when they peaceably dispersed. A fervent Roman Catholic, and a member of the St. Patrick’s congregation of Quebec, he was elected a trustee of their beautiful and historic church in 1876, and thrice afterwards, making twelve years of office in succession, but, at the last triennial elections, he refused to serve any longer, deeming it unfair to other prominent members of the congregation that one set of hands should continually monopolize the honors. During his trusteeship of St. Patrick’s, it was his good fortune also to be chosen to present the address of the Irish Catholics of Quebec, to their distinguished countryman, His Excellency the Papal Ablegate, the late lamented Bishop Conroy. Although a Liberal in his political principles, Mr. Molony never took part in politics, except to record his vote for parliamentary candidates on personal grounds, until 1883, when he interfered actively for the first time. Since then he has rendered good service to the Liberal cause in the district of Quebec, the Irish Catholic vote there, which had previously gone almost always Conservative, being won over to it largely by his vigorous advocacy on the hustings and in the press, as well as by his personal influence, and this result being made evident by the Liberal triumphs of the last few years in Quebec west, Levis, Megantic, Dorchester, Montmorency and Portneuf counties. Mr. Molony is a passed cadet of the Kingston Military School, and holds a commission as ensign in the Quebec Reserve Militia. His travels have been confined so far to Canada and the United States. Though educated at an English college, he has since acquired a thorough knowledge of, and is a ready and fluent writer and speaker of, the French language. Firmly attached to his own religious tenets, he has always evinced the highest respect for the convictions and rights of his fellow citizens of every other creed. A young man still, he has already attained an enviable position in the section of the Dominion which he has made his home, and the future probably holds in store for him a career of still greater distinction and public and private usefulness.
Haythorne, Hon. Robert Poore, Senator, Marshfield, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, was born at Clifton, Bristol, England, in the year 1815. He is a son of John Haythorne, a wool merchant of Bristol, and who was an alderman, and four times mayor of that ancient city. He was likewise a justice of the peace for Gloucestershire, in which county his residence, “Hill House” was situated. R. P. Haythorne’s grandfather, Joseph, was likewise a Bristolian, and was a banker and glass manufacturer. John Haythorne married Mary Curtis, of “Mardyke House,” Hotwells, Bristol, who became the mother of our distinguished Canadian senator. R. P. Haythorne was educated at private schools in his native place. His early life was spent at his father’s residence, but later on he devoted several years to travelling, visiting the Island of Madeira, the South of Spain, Portugal, France, Switzerland, and Italy. In 1842 he emigrated to Prince Edward Island, having, in connection with an elder brother, (subsequently the Hon. Edward C. Haythorne, a nominated member of the Legislative Council), acquired a tract of 10,000 acres of land in that colony. This land was partly wilderness, partly let to tenants for 999 years, and partly occupied by squatters. For many years the brothers devoted themselves to agricultural pursuits, and to the settlement of their estate; but the brother referred to dying in 1859, R. P. Haythorne revisited England in 1860. Returning in the following year, he married Elizabeth R., eldest daughter of Thomas Scott, of Belfast, Ireland, then of Falconwood, Prince Edward Island. Two sons were born of this marriage, one in 1862, and another in the following year, both of whom survive. Mr. Haythorne became a widower in 1866, his wife dying at Liverpool, England. About this period the free land and tenant league agitation prevailed in Prince Edward Island. Mr. Haythorne and his tenants, however, settled their differences by mutual agreement, which was faithfully carried out, the tenants becoming freeholders, by paying a sum about equivalent to $2 per acre by instalments. In 1867 Mr. Haythorne, being invited by his former tenants, became a candidate for the second electoral district of Queen’s county (Legislative Council), and was returned to that chamber by a respectable majority. Not many weeks later, the local Conservative Government led by the Hon. J. C. Pope resigned, and was succeeded by a Liberal Government led by the Hon. G. Coles, the present Judge Hensley being Attorney-General, Messrs. Haythorne, Alexander Laird, Peter Sinclair, Callbeck Howlan, and A. A. Macdonald, the present Lieut.-Governor of Prince Edward Island were members of the Executive Council. The policy of this government was the further abrogation of the leasehold tenure, by purchase on voluntary agreement if practicable, otherwise by decision of a court to be established for the purpose of deciding the sum to be paid for expropriation. Mr. Coles’ health failing, he resigned, and was succeeded by Mr. Hensley, the policy of the Government remaining unchanged as regards the land tenures. Much attention was also paid to the improvement of the highways, and the extension of steam navigation to the outports of the colony. About the year 1868, Mr. Hensley accepted a seat on the bench, and Mr. Haythorne succeeded him as Premier and President of the Executive Council. The land policy of the Government was much obstructed by the Colonial Office, the Secretary of State, the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos refusing to listen to the demands of the Executive for a compulsory expropriation law, which he condemned as “a direct interference with private property.” For the present, therefore, the efforts of Mr. Haythorne and his colleagues were limited to the purchase of such estates as could be acquired by voluntary agreement, and during the Liberals’ tenure of office some progress was made; the estates of the Hon. J. C. Pope, the Hon. T. H. Haviland, and some others being purchased by Government, and that of the Rev. James Montgomery by private agreement between the proprietor and the tenants. In the following year Lord Granville having become Secretary of State for the Colonies, Mr. Haythorne’s council again approached the Colonial Office with renewed demands for a measure of expropriation. Meantime the land owners, native and absentee—some of the latter being persons of much influence—opposed the efforts of the Government. What has now come to be recognized as the “unearned increment of value,” the Island Government claimed as the heritage of the men and women who had landed boldly in the wilderness, cleared away the forests, built houses, cities, school-houses, and churches, made roads and wharves, and caused “the wilderness to blossom as the rose.” Lord Granville proved less obdurate than his predecessors. He would not sanction an expropriation bill, but seeing the urgency of another great question in the near future, he softened his refusal in words something like these: “Having regard to the evident uncertainty, whether the colony of Prince Edward Island will or will not soon unite with the Dominion of Canada, I am not prepared to enter on the consideration of the land question, with which if such union were to ensue the Imperial Government would probably cease to concern itself; the land question therefore, should in my opinion be left as far as possible for the decision of those who under the altered circumstances of the colony would have to carry into execution any measures connected with it.”—Granville, 13th March, 1869. This despatch was generally interpreted in Prince Edward Island to mean that the land question would be settled in exchange for Confederation. Thus for the present the land question rested, to be again resuscitated on the occasion of the introduction of “a Tenants’ Compensation Bill for Ireland,” a measure nearly identical with one introduced years before, during a former administration of Hon. Mr. Coles, and passed through the Island Legislature, but vetoed at the Colonial Office. During these years the fishery question had caused some trouble. The American fishing vessels had been admitted to the British-American waters on payment of tonnage license dues, but in 1868 Canada declined to continue the system, resolving to exclude the Americans, who had recently terminated the reciprocity treaty. Meantime, in the island, the Americans were admitted to their usual privileges, as regards frequenting the harbours, transhipping cargoes, and obtaining supplies. But the attention of the Imperial Government being called thereto, the Admiral on the Halifax station (Wellesley), and the officers commanding the smaller vessels of his squadron, were ordered to put a stop to the “alleged illegal practices.” These orders gave rise to long correspondence between the officers of Her Majesty’s ships, notably Captain E. Hardinge, of the frigate Valorous, and the Island Executive. The former interfered with the island and colonial coasters on very trifling grounds, and prevented the American fishing vessels from transhipping their cargoes and renewing their outfits on the island ports, causing much discontent amongst shipowners and the numerous class of traders interested. (Vide L. C. Journals, 1871.) In consequence, a minute of council for the information of the Secretary of State was drawn up, September 2nd, 1870, protesting against such interference with “our best customers the Americans, who transhipped cargoes in our ports—renewing their supplies of salt, barrels, provisions, and general outfit in our markets.” This memorial was “drawn up,” the Secretary of State, Lord Kimberley, observes, “with much ability and moderation,” and his Lordship authorized the Lieut.-Governor Robinson (now Sir William Robinson, South Australia), “to suspend the restrictions the local Government felt called upon to impose.” This was the last public act of Mr. Haythorne’s first administration. Shortly afterwards finding his supporters in the House of Assembly in a minority, caused by the secession of the two Catholic members of his government, he resigned, and was succeeded by a coalition Government led by the Hon. J. C. Pope, the two Catholic members of the late Government accepting seats in the Executive. During the late Liberal Administrations the island had been visited by Prince Arthur, by Lord and Lady Lisgar, and a Canadian deputation, including Sir L. Tilley, Sir Geo. E. Cartier, and Sir E. Kenny; the object of this “descent” being to attract the Islanders into Confederation by an offer of “better terms.” These, however, were declined, 90 out of 100 Islanders at that juncture being opposed to Confederation. An informal Congressional deputation, of which the well-known General B. Butler was a member, also visited the island, their object being to ascertain whether any approach to reciprocity could be made. This visit, though it was without results, indicated a kindly disposition on both sides. It obtained for the Executive of the Island a snub from the Secretary of State, the Lieutenant-Governor (Dundas), having taken short leave to visit Halifax at this period. During the later months of 1870, through 1871, and till April, 1873, Mr. Haythorne was in Opposition. This was the period of the development and adoption of the railroad policy, which by the financial embarrassment it caused, ultimately drew the island into Confederation. Mr. Pope’s Government being supported by considerable majorities, carried his railway bill for the construction of a trunk line connecting Charlottetown with Summerside and Alberton on the west, and with Georgetown on the east, and providing for future extensions to Souris and Tignish. Soon, however, after the rising of the legislature, Mr. Pope’s majority began to fade away, and in 1872, being defeated in the Assembly, and again on an appeal to the people, he resigned, and Mr. Haythorne being again called on to form an Administration, succeeded, and carried the law relating to the railway extensions into effect. In the latter part of the year 1872, and the commencement of 1873, the financial and other difficulties which his Government encountered were almost overpowering. The trunk line was under rapid construction, and interest on debentures began to accrue half yearly at a rapidly increasing rate. Large drafts on the local treasury were also required in payment of rights of way, and land damages, which added to the ordinary expenditure seemed beyond the power of the island to meet by increased taxation. The Government therefore, re-opened communication with the Dominion Government, then led by Sir John Macdonald, with a view to ascertain the terms on which the island would be admitted to Confederation. Being invited to send a deputation to Ottawa, Mr. Haythorne and his colleague in the Executive, the Hon. David Laird, were chosen to perform this duty. They arrived in the capital a few days before the meeting of Parliament, in February, 1873, Lord Dufferin being Governor-General. The delegates were put in communication chiefly with Sir L. Tilley, and negotiated terms which seemed highly advantageous to the island. These comprised six seats in the Commons, the taking over and operating of the Island railway by the Dominion, the assumption of the island debt, the providing of a sum of $800,000 for the acquisition of proprietary lands, and the vesting of the same in local legislature. Continuous steam communication summer and winter with the mainland was also guaranteed. Before signing these preliminaries which the delegates undertook to introduce to their respective branches of the legislature, the House of Assembly was dissolved, and writs forthwith issued for the election of a new parliament. The following telegram from Lord Dufferin to Gov. Robinson, P.E.I., 12th March, 1873, may be quoted: “The delegates from your Government have left Ottawa, having succeeded in effecting a provisional arrangement. I congratulate you on P.E.I. having obtained such liberal terms. My ministers are of opinion, in which I fully concur, that no additional concessions would have any chance of being accepted by the Parliament of Canada.—Dufferin.” Though the new terms were very generally approved, the policy of the Opposition led by Mr. Pope prevailed. It was to send another deputation to Ottawa, and demand further concessions. And it succeeded, proving more attractive to the majority of electors. Mr. Haythorne finding his government in a minority resigned, and Mr. Pope resumed office. On the assembling of the new parliament, Messrs. J. C. Pope, T. H. Haviland, and G. W. Howlan were sent to Ottawa, and after some delay, secured some further concessions, which were finally adopted in addition to the so-called Haythorne-Laird terms, and being ratified, the island entered Confederation on July 1st, 1873. The following autumn Mr. Haythorne was summoned to the Senate, and took his seat during the short session of that year, when the Pacific Railway scandal led to the resignation of Sir John Macdonald’s Government, and the advent of Mr. Mackenzie and his friends to power. In the Senate Mr. Haythorne has been a pronounced freetrader, and a supporter of the general policy of the Liberal party. He dissented, however, from so much of their election law as went to substitute (temporarily) the franchise of the Legislative Council of Prince Edward Island, for the manhood suffrage which had long existed there, and supported an amendment moved by Senator Haviland, which provided for the continuance of the existing franchise in that province, until registration courts should be established. This amendment being carried in the Senate, it was agreed to by the Commons. He supported the Scott Act, though somewhat doubtful respecting the fitness of some of its clauses. He has steadily opposed all attempts to circumscribe its operation, or diminish its efficacy. During the session of 1885, he avowed a change of opinion, as to its principles and policy. This contention being briefly: (1st) That the Canada Temperance Act, 1878, is practically inoperative against the drunkard; while it abridges the natural liberty of sober consumers of fermented liquors; (2nd) That the optional theory is unsound, because where most needed in a community addicted to intemperance, it receives least support, and would be generally carried where least needed; and because it is the duty of Government to propose to Parliament such measures as are necessary to obviate a national tendency to intemperance; (3rd) Prohibition tends to produce smuggling, illicit trading, and sale of pernicious spirits, and experience proves that perjury sometimes results on the prosecution of offenders.
Gingras, Hon. Jean Elie, ex-Member of the Legislative Council of the Province of Quebec, is one of the oldest and best known citizens of Quebec city, where he was born on the 5th of June, in the year 1804, of humble but respectable French Canadian parents, then residing in the shipping quarter of the city known as Diamond Harbor, which extends along the river front beneath the citadel. The educational advantages he enjoyed in his youth were limited, as he had to face the stern necessities of life at an age when other lads, more fortunately situated, are still considered in their teens. Put to learn the trade of the ship carpenter, he worked for a number of years in the ship-yard of the late Mr. Black, the builder of the Royal William, the first steam vessel that successfully crossed the Atlantic, and eventually became his foreman. He afterwards engaged in the ship-building business on his own account. This was in the palmy days of that great industry in Quebec, and Mr. Gingras, by dint of skill, energy and enterprise, rapidly worked himself into the front rank of those engaged in it, employing a large amount of labor, and acquiring considerable wealth and influence in the community. During this stage of his long and useful life, his fellow-citizens marked their appreciation of his worth by electing him a member of the city corporation, and the government of the day by appointing him a member of the Quebec Trinity House. A Conservative in politics, he was also nominated by his party in 1864 to contest the seat for the Stadacona division in the Legislative Council with the then mayor of Quebec city, A. Tourangeau, who afterwards became M.P. for Quebec East, and is now city postmaster. This was before confederation, when the Legislative Council of Canada was elective. After a severe contest, Mr. Gingras was returned at the head of the poll, and represented the Stadacona division in the Council from 1864 until the union, when he was appointed by the Crown a member of the Legislative Council of the province of Quebec for life. During the decline of wooden ship-building at Quebec, Mr. Gingras lost heavily, and finally retired from business with a remnant of his once large fortune. He continued, however, to hold his seat in the Legislative Council of the province until the close of 1887, when, on attaining his eighty-fourth year of age, he resigned it and was succeeded by Hon. G. Bresse, the great boot and shoe manufacturer of Quebec East. Notwithstanding his advanced age, Mr. Gingras is still hale and hearty, and few men enjoy a larger share of public respect. He was thrice married. His last wife, as were her predecessors, being a Quebec lady, whom he married in 1887. Like the vast majority of his fellow-countrymen, he is a Roman Catholic.
Weldon, Richard Chapman, B.A., Ph.D., Halifax, Nova Scotia, M.P. for Albert County, New Brunswick, is a native of Sussex, N.B., where he was born on the 19th January, 1849. He is the grandson of Andrew Weldon, a native of Yorkshire, England, who emigrated and settled in Westmoreland county, N.B., about a hundred years ago. The greater part of the province was then a wilderness, and Andrew Weldon was one of its foremost pioneers. Dr. Weldon’s paternal grandmother was Sarah Black, sister of Rev. William Black, the founder of Methodism in the maritime provinces. The late Rev. Dr. Matthew Richie wrote an interesting biography of the Rev. Mr. Black, and a centenary memorial hall at Mount Allison College, N.B., marks the esteem in which his name is held by the church which he labored to establish, and will long keep his memory green. The cause, under his zealous advocacy, made great headway, until now, the Methodist church is one of the largest and most progressive in the maritime provinces. Dr. Weldon received his earlier education at the Superior School, in Upper Sussex. He matriculated at Mount Allison and took the degree of B.A. after a very successful course. After leaving Sackville he went to Yale College, in the United States, and after prosecuting his studies there with great zeal for two years took the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The success of his post-graduate course was so great as to tempt him to enjoy the advantages of European travel and study. Having decided that his vocation lay in the department of international law, he went to the famous University of Heidelberg, which two years since celebrated its tercentenary, and there worked hard at its chosen subject of study. Heidelberg enrols about thirteen hundred students, from all parts of the world. The situation of the university, under the old schloss (in ruins since the middle of the last century, when it was the seat of government of the old palatinate), and over-looking the valley of the beautiful Neckar flowing swiftly by amid it opulent vineyards, is one of the prettiest in the whole world. Many of the ablest jurists, statisticians and publicists in Germany have received their training in Heidelberg. After enjoying the pleasure of visiting some of the greatest resorts in the old world, Dr. Weldon returned home, and in 1875 accepted the position of a professor at Mount Allison College. He held this office until 1883. As a professor at his Alma Mater he was careful and painstaking, and earned the reputation of being the ablest man in the college. He continued his studies in law and was called to the bar of his native province, but never practised. About 1882 the princely donations of George Munro, the New York publisher, to Dalhousie College, Halifax, gave a great impetus to that seat of learning, and it was resolved to establish a chair of constitutional law. In casting about for a man to fill it, no better name was suggested than that of Dr. Weldon. This was a rare honor, coming as it did from a neighboring, and, in some respects, a rival college. Of this law school there are two professors and six lecturers, the latter being selected from among the ablest practitioners at the bar of Nova Scotia. Dr. Weldon is dean of the school, and delivers lectures in constitutional law and history, conflict of laws and international law. There are about fifty students, coming from all parts of the maritime provinces. The school possesses a fairly equipped and serviceable law library. To this library Dr. Weldon is one of the largest donors, having contributed $500. Having passed the required examinations, Dr. Weldon was, on the 9th December, 1884, admitted to the bar of Nova Scotia. His lectures are very popular, and he is held in high esteem by the students and the faculty of Dalhousie at large. Although he had resided at times long out of his native province, Dr. Weldon never ceased to feel a warm interest in her affairs as well as in the larger political movements in the Dominion. His sympathies lay with the Conservatives. Previous to the general election of 1887 he was nominated by the Conservatives of Albert county. He at once entered into the canvass and conducted a series of public meetings, in which he made a favorable impression. The opposition candidate was a very strong man, Mr. Alexander Rogers. The vote stood: Weldon, 1,047; Rogers, 923. Dr. Weldon signalized his entrance into the Commons by seconding the Address. He had carefully studied the fishery question in its larger bearings, and won applause by saying that if the sixty million people of the United States insisted upon their contentions, five millions on this side of the border would stand by their rights. Dr. Weldon is a man of modest bearing, and is always listened to with respect by the house. He is connected with the Methodists; his wife, whom he married in 1877, being Marie, eldest daughter of Rev. G. W. Tuttle, at that time stationed in the Stellarton—Pictou county, N.S.—circuit.
McNicoll, David, Montreal, General Passenger Agent, for the territory east of Port Arthur of the Canadian Pacific Railway, is still a young man, though his position is one of large responsibilities. He was born in the seaport town of Arbroath, in Forfarshire, Scotland, in April, 1852, and was only just beginning his fourteenth year when, in August, 1866, he entered the railway service as clerk in the goods manager’s office of the North British Railway. In that position he remained until 1873, when he removed to England and obtained a similar berth in the Midland Railway of that country. When he was in his twenty-first year he was induced to come to Canada, where his previous experience proved of service in procuring him employment in the same business. He became associated with railway enterprise in the Dominion in the year 1874. His first introduction to it was in the capacity of billing clerk on the Northern Railway, at Meaford and Collingwood. Before the close of his first year on Canadian railways, he was promoted to be chief clerk in the office of the general manager of the Toronto, Grey and Bruce Railway, at Toronto. He remained in that position until 1881, when he became the general freight and passenger agent of the same railway, and general traffic agent of the Owen Sound steamship line, trading on the upper lakes. In 1883 he received the appointment of general passenger agent of the Credit Valley, Toronto, Grey and Bruce, and Ontario and Quebec railways, and when these lines were amalgamated with the Canadian Pacific Railway, and operated as the Ontario division of the same, he retained his position as general passenger agent at Toronto until the spring of 1885, when his office was removed to Montreal. He then received the appointment of general passenger agent of all the lines of the Canadian Pacific Railway east of Port Arthur, which position he now holds. Mr. McNicoll is well known in Toronto and Montreal, and enjoys the confidence and esteem both of his superiors and colleagues and of the travelling public.
Ellis, Wm. Hodgson, B.A., M.B., L.R.C.P., Toronto, is a native of Derbyshire, England, where he was born on the 23rd of November, 1845. His father, Dr. John Eimeo Ellis, was an English physician of some note, and his grandfather, the Rev. William Ellis, was the famed missionary to Madagascar, at the beginning of the century, and well known by his admirable work dealing with missionary labor on the large and interesting island in the Indian ocean, which lately came under the protection of France. When he was in his fourteenth year, young Ellis came to Canada, and in 1863 he matriculated at University College, Toronto, and four years afterwards took his B.A. degree. During his university career, he was a diligent and successful student, particularly distinguishing himself in science, for the study of which he had an inherited taste, and a great natural aptitude. While an undergraduate, he became a member of the University Rifle corps, of which he was afterwards made captain; and in June, 1866, was with the “Queen’s Own,” at the historic field of Ridgeway, where the university corps took a memorable part in the engagement with the invading Fenians. On taking his arts degree, Mr. Ellis devoted himself to the study of medicine, and in one course won his M.B. degree, at the Toronto School of Medicine; after which he proceeded to London, England, there to complete his professional studies. These he pursued at St. Thomas’ Hospital, where he soon obtained the degree of Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians, London. He now returned to Canada, and in 1871 was appointed Professor of Chemistry in Trinity Medical School, and lecturer of chemistry in Trinity College, Toronto. Five years later he was appointed by the Ontario government instructor in chemistry in the Provincial College of Technology, now the School of Practical Science, in affiliation with Toronto University. When the college was removed to the Queen’s Park and attached to the university, Dr. Ellis resigned his professorship in Trinity College, and assumed his present position, the Professorship of Applied Chemistry, and was at the same time appointed by the Dominion government Public Analyst for the Inland Revenue, district of Toronto. To these important positions the learned professor brings great natural and acquired powers, an alert, widely stored, and comprehensive mind, and, though still young, a large experience, and the fruits of wide study and research. He is moreover an interesting lecturer and a successful instructor; and his genial manner, no less than his high attainments, wins for him the regard and confidence of all with whom he comes in contact. Dr. Ellis is an active member of the Canadian Institute, and for two years was its president. He is also a Fellow of the Chemical Society of London, England, and a Fellow of the Society of Public Analysts of Great Britain. Dr. Ellis married in 1875, Ellen Maud, daughter of Charles Mickle, of the city of Guelph, by whom he has had two children. He is a member of the Anglican church.
Robitaille, Louis Adolphe, Quebec, is a well-known and much respected citizen of the ancient capital. He is a brother of Hon. Theodore Robitaille, fourth lieutenant-governor of the province of Quebec, and now a senator of the Dominion, and, like him, was born at the family residence at Varennes, P.Q. His father, who was a notary, was descended from one of the oldest French families in Lower Canada, and figured very prominently among the patriots during the insurrection of 1837-38, even to the extent of suffering imprisonment for his political opinions until after the pacification of the province. On the maternal side our subject claims descent from the Monjeaus and the Brodeurs, two more of the good old Lower Canadian families. He was educated at the Ste. Therese, St. Hyacinthe, and Montreal Seminaries. He was offered and accepted an appointment in the Crown Lands department of Canada sometime about 1855. Before confederation, Mr. Robitaille was promoted and placed in charge of the Woods and Forests branch of Canada, and in this position he was continued until confederation, when he became superintendent of Woods and Forests for the province of Quebec. He afterwards left this branch of the service for an appointment in the Railway department of Quebec province, which position he held until shortly after the transfer of the North Shore Railway, and was then superannuated. Though retired from the government service, Mr. Robitaille is still in active employment as secretary-treasurer of the Baie des Chaleurs Railway. He is a brother-in-law of Mr. Riopel, M.P. for Bonaventure. Having been a public officer from early life, serving under different administrations, Mr. Robitaille has never taken an active part in politics.
Caron, Hon. Sir Joseph Philippe Rene Adolphe, B.C.L., K.C.M.G., Q.C., Ottawa, Minister of Militia, M.P. for Quebec county, was born in the city of Quebec in 1843. He is the eldest surviving son of the late Hon. R. E. Caron, lieutenant-governor of the province of Quebec. The Caron family is ancient, and many members of it from time to time held distinguished places in the state. Sir Adolphe was educated at the Seminary of Quebec, at Laval University, and at the University of McGill, in Montreal. In 1865, he graduated from the last mentioned institution, taking with him the degree of B.C.L. Mr. Caron had as preceptors in the offices wherein he studied his profession, very distinguished lawyers. At first he studied with L. G. Baillairgé, Q.C., and subsequently with the Hon. (now Sir) John Rose, bart. In 1865, he was called to the bar of Lower Canada, and in May, 1879, was appointed a Queen’s counsellor. He is the only remaining member of the widely known firm of Andrews, Caron & Andrews, Quebec city, Mr. Andrews, sr., having died a few years ago, and Mr. Andrews, jr., was appointed to a justiceship. The firm is now re-organized and known as Caron, Pentland & Stuart. Besides his attention to law, he has formed prominent connections in other directions. He has been a director of the Stadacona Bank, and was vice-president of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec in 1867. But above all other interests, he found himself attracted to public life, and first sought parliamentary honors in 1872, at Bellechase, but failed to secure his election. In March, 1873, he was more successful, having been then returned to represent the county of Quebec in the House of Commons at Ottawa, and has sat in the House of Commons ever since, and has been twice elected by acclamation. He always showed himself to be an industrious and practical member of the house, and those who observed him closely had no difficulty in predicting that sooner or later he must obtain a substantial recognition of his abilities. Sir John A. Macdonald always keeps his eyes about him for talent, and Mr. Caron was long under his scrutiny. A very great friend and warm admirer of Sir John A. Macdonald declares, however, that the premier does not want to have near him any ability, or brilliancy that could ever be likely to cast his own in the shade. Nevertheless, we are pretty certain that he is shrewd enough to seek to gather about him the best brains that he can lay hold of, and, as a rule, he has always succeeded in doing this. He perceived that the subject of our sketch would not alone make a good minister, but that he would likewise make a popular one, and Mr. Caron was sworn in a member of the Privy Council, 9th November, 1880, and appointed minister of militia. To some men, indeed to most men, come that one opportunity, at some period or another in their lives; that one opportunity arose for the Hon. Mr. Caron, minister of militia, in 1885. We need not, so close to the event which furnished the opportunity, dwell at length upon it here. Like a thunderbolt upon our ears came the tidings that several policemen and civilians had fallen before a body of armed rebels in the North-West. It was the winter of the year, the theatre of revolt was far away; it could not be reached by railroad, but almost interminable stretches of wilderness lay before whomsoever should go there to re-assert the majesty of the law. A weak or incapable minister of militia would have been at his wit’s end in the face of a problem, grave as this, thrust upon him for immediate settlement. But Hon. Mr. Caron was not dismayed; he did not hesitate at all, but promptly and firmly grappled with the difficulty. Looking back upon it now, it naturally gives us ground for the heartiest approbation to think of the celerity with which troops were placed at different points in the territories, in the face of long and difficult marching, and at an inclement season. It is perhaps doubtful if there is to be found in the history of ordinary wars a record showing more promptness of design and action than this uprising put in the way of our militia department to display. It is a fact that the decision and speed of our movements elicited the highest approbation from disinterested military spectators. His Excellency, the governor-general, who is a gentleman of very superior judgment, recognized the efficiency of the minister in this time of peril, and had no hesitation in communicating the fact to the Imperial government, and recommending that he should obtain recognition from the Crown. That recognition came, and there was no room to doubt that the minister of militia well deserved to become Sir Adolphe Caron. Of late it has come to be the custom in certain quarters to sneer at distinctions like the knighthood, and to declare that they have been conferred at random; but in the selection of Sir Adolphe for such an honor, no reasonable man can make this criticism. In politics Sir Adolphe is a Liberal-Conservative, and in religion a Roman Catholic. In 1867, he married Alice, only daughter of the late Hon. François Baby, who represented Stadacona division in the Legislative Council for many years.
Edgar, William, General Passenger Agent, Grand Trunk Railway, Montreal, was born at Birkenhead, on the Mersey, opposite Liverpool, on the 14th of June, 1841. When quite young he came to Canada, and on the 13th of October, 1856, entered the stationery department of the Great Western railway as a clerk. During the twelve years following, he filled various capacities in connection with the same important line, being at different times, clerk of the stores department, clerk of the audit department and chief clerk to the general ticket agent. In discharging his duties, he was always able to give satisfaction to his employers, and never failed to command the respect of those with whom he came in contact. In July, 1869, he was appointed passenger agent for the western division of the Great Western, being stationed at Detroit, a post which he held until the succeeding January, when he became general ticket agent on the same road and on the Michigan Central. In that position he remained until November, 1875, when he was offered and accepted the office of general passenger agent on the Great Western line. In November, 1882, another change in his career took place, as he was then appointed assistant-general passenger agent of the Grand Trunk Railway which included the Great Western system. His new functions necessitated his removal to Toronto, where he made many friends during his stay of some twenty months. In July, 1884, Mr. Edgar was further promoted to the important position which he now holds, that of general passenger agent of the Grand Trunk, with headquarters at Montreal. He enjoys the esteem of many friends, both among his colleagues and in the community at large.
Perley, William Dell, Wolseley, N.W.T., M.P. for East Assiniboia, was born at Gladstone, Sunbury County, New Brunswick, 6th February, 1838. Among his ancestors were the pioneers of America as well as the pioneers of New Brunswick. On his father’s side the family traces its descent back to Allan Perley, who emigrated from Wales to Massachusetts in 1630. When the Revolutionary war broke out a number of members of the family remained true to the British cause, and being expelled with the other Loyalists, settled in New Brunswick. The father of the subject of this sketch was Hon. W. E. Perley, of Sunbury, a prominent man in the politics of New Brunswick in ante-Confederation times. He was educated in the best school of the province, concluding his collegiate course at the Baptist Seminary at Sackville. In 1860 Mr. Perley married Phebe Augusta Slipp, of Hampstead, N.B. Being a man of public spirit and unusual energy, he early became prominent in public affairs. His first training as a legislator he received in the municipal council of his native county, to which he was elected for seven consecutive years, this fact alone being sufficient proof of the esteem in which he was held by those among whom he had spent his life. The opportunities afforded to men of energy and capital in the Canadian North-West has had great attraction for Mr. Perley from the earliest public announcements of the great resources of that country. Going to the North-West in 1882 he became from the first a leading citizen of what is now Assiniboia district. He was a member of the first municipal council of Wolseley, and was elected chairman of that body. In this capacity he had most to do with completing the municipal organization. He became a member of the North-West council in September, 1885, and was appointed one of the delegates from the North-West Territories to confer with the Government of the Dominion, in relation to important questions affecting the North-West which were then pending. In 1887, Mr. Perley resigned his place in the North-West council to contest the newly established riding of East Assiniboia for the House of Commons. The elections in the North-West were of absorbing interest owing to the close results of the elections for the Eastern Provinces, and they were fought with keenness throughout. Mr. Perley succeeded in carrying his district, as also did the other Conservative candidates. Though but a short time in the House, Mr. Perley has already taken a respectable place and has shown himself to be possessed of qualities which would win him distinction in any legislative body. He speaks seldom, but has already made it plain that he possesses independence of spirit which is unfortunately too rare in Canadian politics. He is an active promoter of a number of great public enterprises, such as railways and others, and has, even in his short career in parliament, won important advantages for his constituents in hastening the construction of the North-West Central Railway, a most important enterprise, and in various other ways.
Stephenson, Major James, Superintendent of the Grand Trunk Railway, Montreal, was born in England in the very year and month in which our Gracious Queen ascended the throne, June, 1837, and in a place renowned in history for its association with a line of English kings, the ancient town of Lancaster. It is the capital of the important county which comprises those great centres of trade and industry, Liverpool and Manchester. But Mr. Stephenson was not destined to spend more than his early years on the banks of the Lune. Early in life he was induced to come to Canada, where the railway movement initiated by the enterprise of British capitalists, seemed to hold out prospects of success to energetic young men. It was not, however, in the railway, but in the telegraphic service that he began his career. In 1855 he obtained a situation in the British American Telegraph Company, and in the following year, on the amalgamation of that company with the Montreal Telegraph Company, he was offered a position on the Grand Trunk, and severed his connection with his former employers. It was at the Don Station, Toronto, that, in September, 1856, he made his début in the new calling which was henceforth to be the business of his life. Two months later an event occurred, which may be regarded as the starting-point of a new era for Canada—the great Grand Trunk celebration at Montreal, inaugurating the completion of the connecting link between Montreal and Toronto. To have been a railway man at that date, makes good his title to the ranks of veteran. The first duties that were entrusted to Mr. Stephenson were those of ticket clerk and operator, but in 1858, he succeeded to the agency of the station. It was the first of many steps forward. In 1860, he was appointed train-despatcher; in 1862, divisional telegraph superintendent and agent at Belleville; in 1864, assistant superintendent; and in June, 1881, general passenger agent. But the promotion of Mr. Stephenson did not stop here, for in July, 1884, the Company recognizing his great ability, he was promoted, to the satisfaction of his colleagues and the public, to the responsible position which he still holds. Mr. Stephenson is a true Briton, and was not the man to look on inactive, when in 1866—a year which not a few of our people have had cause to remember—Canada was the victim of unprovoked attack from the Fenian element of the United States. He buckled on his armour with thousands of other brave men to meet and repel the invader. He was quickly raised to the rank of captain, and in March, 1867, had earned his majority. In October, 1871, he retired, retaining his rank. His certificates of qualification are dated 2nd class, March, 1867; 1st class, May, 1867. He married in September, 1866, Agnes Frances, eldest daughter of the late Captain Richard Arnold, of Toronto. In private life Major Stephenson is much respected and has many friends.
Masson, James, Q.C., Barrister, Owen Sound, Ontario, M.P. for North Grey, was born on the 17th February, 1847, in Seymour township, Northumberland county, Ontario. He is the eldest son of Thomas W. S. Masson, of Seymour, and grandson of Captain Thomas Masson, R.N., St. Andrews, Scotland. James Masson, the subject of this sketch, received his educational training in the public school of his native place and at the Grammar School, Belleville, and having selected law as a profession, he entered the office of W. H. Penton, Belleville, where he completed his legal studies. He was called to the bar of Ontario, Michaelmas term, 1871, and removing to Owen Sound, commenced the practice of his profession shortly afterwards, and has succeeded in building up a good business. He occupied the position of Master in Chancery at Owen Sound from 1873 to December, 1885; and in October, 1885, he was created a Queen’s counsel. In 1873 Mr. Masson first began to take an interest in politics, and at the general election of 1887 he was chosen to serve in the House of Commons at Ottawa as the representative of North Grey. He is a Liberal-Conservative in politics, and was for many years previous to this an advocate and supporter of the national policy. He served with the 15th battalion of volunteers at Prescott in 1866. He married in July, 1873, Jessie, fourth daughter of the Rev. D. Morrison, of Knox Church, Owen Sound.
Mills, John Burpee, M.P., of Annapolis, N.S., was born at Granville Ferry, in Annapolis county, 24th July, 1850. Granville Ferry is very prettily situated, being on the opposite side of the Annapolis river, about three miles from Annapolis Royal, the seat of so many historic associations. The country about there is occupied by many comfortable-looking, square-built, old English houses, built by military people in the days when Annapolis was a garrison town and the capital of Nova Scotia. There is a fine field for writers of imaginative literature in the early and even the later story of Annapolis. Of a pleasant afternoon in September there is no pleasanter drive to be enjoyed than that along the road from Bridgetown to Granville Ferry, on the right bank of the Annapolis river, when the tide is in. All along the highway is a succession of orchards of apples and plums. On the low meadows beside the river, stacks of hay stand on roughly made frameworks. The breeze comes down from the north mountain and sweeps through orchard and meadow. Mr. Mills belongs to a Baptist family and received his college education at Acadia College, Wolfeville, N.S., the headquarters of Baptist educational forces in the maritime provinces, which was founded and long sustained by the self-denying labors of “Father” Manning, Rev. Theodore Harding, the venerable and accomplished Dr. Crawley—who is still living near the seat of his life-long labors—Rev. Dr. Cramp, the historian of the Baptist denomination, and other able scholars and business men. Mr. Mills completed a successful course in May, 1871, when he took his bachelor’s degree, graduating with honors. He took an active interest in field sports whilst pursuing his studies with assiduity, and was for some terms captain of the college cricket eleven. In those days Acadia boasted a good cricket team, and in contests with elevens of neighboring towns, scored numerous victories. Continuing his love of Alma Mater after striking out in active life, in 1877 he presented himself again at old Acadia, and was honored with the degree of M.A. He has long been a member of the alumni of Acadia College. But before this he attended the law school of Harvard for one year, and completed his studies in law in Nova Scotia. He was called to the bar on 20th July, 1875. Immediately upon entering into business, he obtained a large practice which he still holds, being at the head of the firm of Mills & Gillies. They do a large business in conveyancing and real estate transactions. Mr. Mills’ father, John Mills, of Granville Ferry, is a merchant and shipbuilder, and the subject of this sketch is also largely interested in shipping. He has for some years taken a great interest in politics, and two years previous to the last Dominion general election, was nominated as candidate of the Conservative party in Annapolis county. He at once entered upon the canvass, and for a year previous to the election devoted much of his time to political work. His opponent was Colonel W. H. Ray, a man widely known and popular in the county, and then representing it at Ottawa. Parties are pretty evenly matched in Annapolis, and a candidate’s work is never easy there. Mr. Mills canvassed the county thoroughly, visiting every section of it, and seeing the leading men everywhere. In the May election for the local house in 1886, one Liberal, Attorney-General Longley, and one Conservative, Frank Andrews, were returned by very narrow majorities. The question of Repeal had decided the local contest in favor of the Liberals, and it was not known how far the same cry might prevail in the Dominion election. Mr. Mills secured 1758 votes, against 1730 polled by Col. Ray. He took his seat in the House of Commons last winter as a supporter of the government. As yet he has not taken a leading part in the debates, but with experience, may be expected to give a good account of himself in the political arena. At Ottawa it is only the men of many fights as a rule that are expected often to address the House. The principal part of every debate is by mutual consent relegated to the acknowledged leaders on either side, and younger and less practical statesmen have opportunities of studying the moves in the play of the principals. While devoting so much of his time to law and politics, Mr. Mills has taken an interest in most of the business enterprises of his native town, and is a director in several local corporations. A large part of the apple crop of the Annapolis valley is exported from Annapolis Royal. There is a direct line of steamers plying between the town, Portland, Me., and Boston. The town has suffered much from the ravages of fire, otherwise it would be one of the largest and most flourishing towns in the province, its natural resources and advantages being so great, and public-spirited citizens having at various times expended large sums of money in many business and industrial enterprises. Mr. Mills was a member of the municipal council from 1882 to 1887. He married, 23rd Oct., 1878, Bessie, daughter of A. W. Corbett, of Annapolis.
Roy, Rouer Joseph, Q.C., Barrister, Montreal, was born on the 7th January, 1821, in Montreal, province of Quebec. His father was Joseph Roy, who represented the city of Montreal in the Quebec legislature, before 1837. On the occasion of his death, which occurred in 1856, the Hon. Joseph Papineau thus spoke of him:—“The one we have lost has left us none but noble examples to imitate, and not one act or one word that requires to be excused.” His mother, Miss Lusignan, belonged to a family of Italian origin, which was allied to the noble house of the Rouer de Villeroy of France. Mr. Roy, the subject of our sketch, was educated at the Montreal College, where he took a full classical course, under Messire Baile, completing his studies in 1838. He then began the study of law under the Hon. M. O’Sullivan, formerly solicitor-general for Lower Canada, and afterwards chief justice of Quebec. On Mr. Sullivan being elevated to the bench as chief justice in 1840, Mr. Roy continued his studies under the Hon. Andrew Stuart, also one of the solicitor-generals of the province, and completed them some eighteen months before he became of age. He was called to the bar of Quebec in February, 1842. After a brilliant career as a barrister and leading attorney, he was, in 1862, appointed joint city attorney for the city of Montreal, and acted in that capacity up to the year 1876, when he became the sole legal adviser of the city, which position he still holds. In 1856 he was unanimously elected by his brother barristers syndic of the bar of Quebec, which position he held for four years. He was appointed Queen’s counsel in 1864, and since 1864 he has been president of the library committee of the bar. In 1887 he was elected bâtonnier of the bar of Quebec. He was appointed by the Fabrique, in 1870, churchwarden of the parish of Notre Dame. This is an honor conferred upon a very limited and selected number of persons, Mr. Roy being only the second member of the profession who has held this honorable position. He is a linguist of no mean ability, is a thorough Latin and Italian scholar, is well versed in Greek lore, and is familiar with the English language, as well as his native French. He was a captain of the Voltigeurs in 1849, shortly after the burning of the parliament buildings in Montreal. During his career as a practising barrister, he had the important case of Grant vs. Beaudry, arising out of the Orange troubles of 1878, which was carried to the Supreme Court and there decided in favor of his client. He has been intrusted with several cases before Her Majesty’s Privy Council in England, notably the St. James street case, which was the cause of much excitement at the time, also the case of Castonguay and LeClere, and more particularly the case of Lachevrotiere dit Chavigny and the city of Montreal. This case arose out of a dispute with regard to one of the principal squares of the city. Mr. Roy was married on the 22nd of January, 1857, to Corinne Beaudry, daughter of the Hon. Jean Beaudry, who, for many years was a member of the Legislative Council of Canada, and mayor of the city of Montreal. Mr. Roy has a family of eight children, seven daughters and a son, who to-day ranks among the rising civil engineers of Canada.
Weeks, Otto Swartz, Halifax, Nova Scotia, M.P.P. for the county of Guysborough, is a native of Nova Scotia. His father was the Rev. Otto Weeks, a clergyman of the Church of England, who entered King’s College, Windsor, in the year 1820, and graduated B.A. in 1824, taking his degree of M.A. in 1827. The family is of New England extraction. Mr. Weeks received his early education in Halifax and studied law with A. James, judge in equity for Nova Scotia. His talents attracted the attention of the late Hon. Joseph Howe, who took a great interest in his progress. Mr. Weeks began life as a newspaper reporter, and it being one of his duties to report the speeches in the House of Assembly during the palmy days of provincial eloquence and statesmanship, when giants like the late Hon. J. W. Johnston, George R. Young, William Young, late Chief Justice of Nova Scotia, James B. Uniacke, Joseph Howe, Herbert Huntingdon, and many others strove for the honors, limited enough, which the province had to offer, he early acquired a style of colloquial and forensic speaking which materially aided him in later life. He was admitted to the bar, 28th November, 1853, began practice at Brooklin, Hants county, but shortly removed to Windsor, the shire town and seat of the courts and public offices. Here he built up an extensive practice, his partner for some years being his cousin, John W. Ouseley, at present clerk of the House of Assembly. His business extended over the counties of Hants, Kings and Annapolis, and he became leader of the midland circuit, having for opponents at the bar, among others, John C. Hall, Hiram Blanchard, Hon. John W. Ritchie, ex-equity judge, and Hon. James McDonald, Chief Justice of Nova Scotia. His wife is Miss Ruggles, a sister of T. W. Ruggles, barrister, of Bridgetown, Annapolis county, N.S. Mr. Weeks has always been identified with the Liberal party, and in December, 1874, was invited to fill the office of attorney-general in the government of which Hon. P. Carteret Hill, D.C.L., was premier. He at once took the field in the constituency of Guysborough, and having for an opponent Captain Hadley, a well-known local politician, was elected by a narrow majority in 1875. After this victory, Hon. P. C. Hill, Mr. Weeks, and others, made a tour of the western counties holding public meetings in Windsor and Bridgetown. Mr. Weeks brought great strength to the government, especially in the debates in the house, where his most formidable antagonist was Douglas B. Woodworth, ex M.P. for King’s county, Nova Scotia. He held the office of attorney-general for one year when he resigned it, but still kept his seat in the house, and maintained his reputation as a keen and incisive debater. At the general election in 1878 Mr. Weeks again contested Guysborough but was defeated, there being a third Liberal candidate, D. C. Fraser, of New Glasgow, N.S., in the field. After assuming the duties of the attorney-generalship, Mr. Weeks relinquished his practice in Windsor, and removed to Halifax where he has since resided. At the general election of 1882 and 1886 he was elected for Guysborough. In former years he occasionally came before the public as a lecturer on literary topics, and always with marked success. Among his lyceum efforts delivered in Windsor may be mentioned those on Music and on the modern English poets. He excels as a reciter of poetry, and has a keen appreciation of the beauties of English literature. Although a great admirer of Hon. Joseph Howe, when that gentleman engaged in the famous campaign of 1869, after accepting a seat in the cabinet of Sir John A. Macdonald, Mr. Weeks took the stump against him and met him on many platforms in the county. As a lawyer he possesses the most wide-spread reputation of any man in the province, having great influence with juries. His manner is very deliberate, but gives added force to the pungency of his repartees, in making which he has no equal in Nova Scotia. He has not been prominently connected with any of the social movements of the time, although he took some degree of interest, in its early days, of the volunteer movement. His whole attention has been absorbed in the struggles of politics and the practice of his profession. A bill which passed the house whilst he was a member of the Hill government gave rise to the somewhat celebrated Great Seal Case of 1877. The point was raised by J. Norman Ritchie, now one of the judges of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia, as to whether the local legislature could interfere with the precedence which his letters patent as Queen counsel appointed by the Canadian Government. This question was decided, after being argued with great ability by the full benches of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia and of Canada, in favor of Mr. Ritchie’s precedence.
Purcell, Patrick, M.P. for Glengarry, was born in Glengarry, Ont., May 1st, 1833. He unites in himself the best qualities of the two great branches of the Celtic race, his father having been a native of Kilkenny, Ireland, while his mother was from the Western Highlands of Scotland, a native of Argyleshire. He had but slight educational advantages in his youth, and, though quick of perception and remarkable from an early age for great shrewdness, was not of a temperament to be much improved by the merely literary methods of the schools. Had he been privileged in his younger days to attend some institutions such as the great technical colleges of today, in which not the memory only but the perceptive faculties and manual abilities are trained and developed, he would undoubtedly have made even a greater mark in life than he has done. But in the great technical school of life in which he had to make his own way from an early age, Mr. Purcell secured a training which has brought him out as one of Canada’s most remarkable citizens. When but 19 years of age Mr. Purcell married Isabella McDonald, daughter of Angus McDonald, a Glengarry farmer. Beginning life as a laborer, he worked his way rapidly forward until he began to take small contracts on his own account on some of the works on which he was employed. While still a young man he was the sole contractor on some important government works such as great capitalists band together to undertake. In this respect he is a worthy son of Glengarry. It is hard to say what America, and especially Canada, would have done to carry on its remarkable industrial development had they not had such shrewd, hard-working, responsible men as the great contractors who have come out of Glengarry. Dozens of names could be mentioned, and many will suggest themselves to the mind of the reader who is at all acquainted with the history of great public works in America. But among them all, none has shown more remarkable qualities as a business man or earned more signal success than Patrick Purcell. Among the great works which he has constructed are St. Peter’s Canal, Nova Scotia; section 21 of the Intercolonial Railway; 250 miles of the Canadian Pacific Railway west of Port Arthur (this last a work of greater difficulty under the circumstances probably than any section of railway of equal length in the world), and many others both in Canada and the United States. In the last general election he was elected to the Commons in the Liberal interest for his native county of Glengarry after a hard contest, his opponent being the sitting member, Mr. Donald McMaster, also a native of the county. The seat has been contested, and at this writing the case is still pending before the Supreme Court. Mr. Purcell is not only a shrewd business man, but a man of broad and generous sympathies. He uses his great wealth to help his friends, loaning money at nominal interest in a way to win the gratitude of many men who but for him would find it impossible to get a good start in life. He also gives large sums for charitable and benevolent purposes. In religion Mr. Purcell is a Roman Catholic.
Nantel, Guillaume Alphonse, St. Jerome, Quebec, M.P.P. for Terrebonne, Editor of La Press and Le Nord newspapers, was born in November, 1852, at St. Jerome, in the county of Terrebonne, Quebec province. His father, Guillaume Nantel, was in his lifetime a lieutenant in the militia, and although he came from St. Eustache, was a thorough loyalist. He died in February, 1857, leaving a family of nine children. His mother, Adelaide Desjardiner, was born in Ste. Therese, Terrebonne county. One of his brothers, the Rev. A. Nantel, has been superior of the Ste. Therese Seminary for about fifteen years, and in 1883 established a fine college in that place. Another brother, P. Nantel, is a school inspector, and his youngest brother, Bruno Nantel, has been for a long time a law partner of the Hon. M. Taillon, and is now practising at St. Jerome. He is the rising barrister for the county of Terrebonne. Young Nantel, the subject of our sketch, received his education at the college of Ste. Therese, and was a very successful student, having carried off several first-class prizes. In 1873 he obtained a second class certificate at the Montreal military school, and in 1881 he was made first lieutenant in the eighth company of the 65th battalion. He takes a deep interest, with Father Labelle, in colonization, and is greatly interested in the settlement of the northern townships of the Ottawa valley. He is a director of the Montreal and Western Railway Company, which proposes to build a railroad—already largely subsidized by the government—from St. Jerome to Nominingue Lake, in the county of Ottawa, and from Nominingue Lake up to Torrierdeninque Lake, which line when built will cross the most fertile belt, in which is found the finest timber and minerals in Ottawa and Pontiac counties. Is also interested in the “Le Grande Nord” railway from St. Jerome to St. Julienne, in Montcalm county. Mr. Nantel was called to the bar of Quebec province on the 10th July, 1875, and practised his profession alone in Montreal, up to January, 1877, when he joined in partnership the Hon. M. J. A. Ouimet, M.P., and now Speaker of the House of Commons. This partnership having been dissolved, he again practised alone for a year, when, in 1881 he left Montreal, and joining his brother, B. Nantel, in St. Jerome, successfully carried on business in that place till the 1st of May, 1886. In April of that year, Mr. Nantel, along with C. Marchand, purchased Le Nord, a local and colonization newspaper, but his partner having given up his connection with the paper the following December, he has himself since then conducted it. In November, he and Mr. Wintele bought out La Press, one of the leading French papers. In 1882, at the general election of that year, he was elected a member of the Quebec legislature for the county of Terrebonne, beating his opponent, E. A. Poivier, by a majority of seven hundred and fifty-three votes. Mr. Nantel is a strong Conservative in politics, and contends that Canadians should govern Canada, and each province be permitted to stand by itself, that we must have a national policy, such as shall foster our own trade and commerce, agriculture, etc., so as to make our country independent of all outsiders. He strongly advocates in his papers the building of railways, the opening up of mines, the advancement of agriculture, the creation of factories, industrial learning, manual training in our seminaries of learning, and everything else possible that can make the people more learned and prosperous. In 1884, while a member of the Quebec legislature, Mr. Nantel was one of the commissioners appointed to investigate the charges preferred against Hon. Mr. Mercier and the late Judge Mousseau. In religion he is a Roman Catholic, but favors the most liberal tolerance to all other sects. He thinks there is room enough in Canada for people professing all the different creeds of Christendom, and also for men of all nationalities, and would be only too happy to see the indigent and down-trodden people of Europe make their home with us, and become partakers with us in all the liberty and independence we possess. He was opposed to the execution of Riel.
Macdonald, Right Hon. Sir John Alexander, K.C.M.G., D.C.L., LL.D., Premier of Canada, was born in Glasgow, on the 11th January, 1815. He came to Canada in 1820 with his parents, who first settled near Kingston, but after a few years removed to a farm on the Bay of Quinté. Meanwhile the future premier of Canada was left at Kingston, the grammar school of which he attended until he was about fifteen years of age, when he began the study of law. When he had reached his twenty-first year he was called to the bar. He has been described by a writer in The Week as a lively youth, a good scholar, and a voluminous reader; but his talents were not considered extraordinary and he owed his election as member for Kingston, thirteen years after his call to the bar, more to his personal popularity than to his abilities. In a democratic country a good memory for faces and names, a frank and cordial manner of speech, a willingness to say yes rather than no, are wonderful aids to an aspirant in public life. Add readiness of speech in public, and self-confidence, and they will outweigh, for a time at least, the soundest judgment, the most extensive knowledge, and the warmest patriotism. It is not wonderful, therefore, that Mr. Macdonald’s popular address should have brought him early into the political field. In 1841 (says the writer from whom we have already quoted), Canada was granted a constitution, as the Liberals understood it, a transcript of that of Britain—the Governor in place of the Queen, bound to accept the legislation voted by the people’s representatives, and to receive advisers of whom they approved. Sir Charles Bagot accepted this view of the constitution, but when Sir Charles Metcalfe became governor there came a change of tactics. Responsible government was a new idea in colonial politics, and to very many unwelcome. Metcalfe was an honest, and in some ways, an able man; but he had served in India, and could not accept readily the notion that a dependency of the empire could be at once free and loyal. He refused to make an appointment asked by his ministers; they resigned; he called in others and appealed to the people. In Upper Canada he was sustained by an enormous majority; in Lower Canada he was defeated as decisively; his ministers had only a small majority, varying from two to eight. Lord Metcalfe, who was in ill health gave up the contest and his office. Lord Elgin succeeded him; another election was held, and the friends of responsible government returned to power, supported by a large majority in the House of Assembly. In this contest Mr. Macdonald was a loyal supporter of Lord Metcalfe, and took office in his government first as receiver-general and afterwards as commissioner of crown lands. It is improbable that a politician so shrewd as he could have been sanguine of preventing the introduction of responsible government into Canada for any length of time. But he was then, and is now, in spite of many concessions to popular feeling, a Conservative of the British type, on the side of the classes, distrusting the masses, and resolved at whatever cost to maintain inviolate the supremacy of the Crown. In this fact is to be found the key to his policy during his forty-three years of public life. Fond of power, eager for success, indifferent as to the means of obtaining it, he has throughout been true to his flag. The ministry formed by Messrs. Baldwin and Lafontaine, under Lord Elgin, did not remain long in power. It was assailed by the Conservatives for proposing to pay losses incurred by residents of Lower Canada during the rebellion, a measure not called for by the country at large, but pressed upon the government by Mr. Lafontaine, a man of great ability and strength of will. Mr. Macdonald opposed the bill temperately, and was not believed to have given countenance to the violent proceedings which followed its passage. Nor did he take an active part in the crusade against the financial policy of the government which the Conservatives undertook after the removal of the executive and parliament to Toronto. In that movement the Conservatives were aided, and Messrs. Baldwin and Lafontaine ultimately coerced into resignation, by the “original Clear Grits,” under the leadership of Hon. Malcolm Cameron and Hon. W. H. Merritt. Mr. Baldwin was the most venerable figure in our political history, pure, honorable, high-minded, and during the struggle for responsible government rendered incalculable service to his party and cause. But he was a Whig rather than a Radical, a High Churchman, and therefore opposed to the secularisation of the clergy reserves, and incapable of stooping to the arts of the politician. He retired with Mr. Lafontaine, and Mr. Hincks became premier. During his brief reign George Brown commenced his agitation for representation by population, the secularisation of the clergy reserves, and against the further extension of the Separate School system in Upper Canada, and at the election of 1854 John A. Macdonald took an active part in inducing Conservative candidates to accept the secularisation plank of Mr. Brown’s platform, receiving in return the support of the powerful section of Reformers who went into opposition to Mr. Hincks on that and other questions. The result was the defeat of the government and the return of the Conservatives to office under the leadership of Sir Allan MacNab and Mr. Morin, Mr. Macdonald taking the office of attorney-general west, and practically the leadership of the Legislative Assembly being infinitely superior to his nominal chief in all that constitutes an effective parliamentarian. Mr. Macdonald then became, for the first time, an influential legislator, in the prime of life and fullest measure of his intellectual power. Mr. Macdonald took care in commuting the claims of existing clerical incumbents that great liberality should be shown. Simultaneously with this measure—the price in fact paid to the French Canadians for permitting the secularisation of the reserves—a bill was passed to abolish the seignorial tenure in Lower Canada, and emancipate the habitants from their feudal dues. Hitherto Mr. Macdonald had been opposed to French Canadians as a class, and he now appeared as their ally. He himself had no fancy for reform or change, and rightly judged that the French would prefer conservatism to liberalism. The alliance thus formed was not broken till the execution of Riel, and the effects of that deed of justice are not likely to be lasting. It must not be inferred, however, that Sir John has placed himself under the control of the French. He has helped to build their railways in liberal fashion, but has resisted successfully many demands besides the pardon of Riel. They would gladly have had a land endowment for the Catholic church in Manitoba and aid to send French emigrants thither, but he yielded neither. At critical moments they have forced concessions from him, but he has always made a stout fight, and the money demanded has generally been spent in the development of the resources of the province. Very early in his career as minister, Mr. Macdonald was met by a demand for further subsidies to the Grand Trunk Railway, and he gave them freely. His warmest admirer will not say that he is an economist even now, when old age might have been expected to bring carefulness. But in youth he was lavish both in his own expenditure and that of the country. His best defence as to the latter is that the country has advanced under his care; that though the public debt is large, there is a great deal to show for it. The inception of the great public works of the country, however, did not come from him. The Grand Trunk was commenced by the late Sir Francis Hincks, the annexation of the North-West was pressed upon parliament by the late Hon. George Brown, and the Canadian Pacific was begun, and large sums spent upon it, by Hon. Alexander Mackenzie. But Sir John carried all these to completion, and may fairly claim renown on their account. He cannot be said to have a creative mind, but in dexterity, perseverance, and courage in carrying through important measures he stands unrivalled among Canadian statesmen, and few elsewhere can be held to have surpassed him. Sir John was singularly favored by circumstances in the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Mr. Mackenzie helped him by the construction of the line from Pembina and Port Arthur to Winnipeg. Sir John made a fiasco with Sir Hugh Allan in 1871, and the latter was no longer available as a contractor in 1878. But it happened that three Canadians had lately acquired great fortunes in railway enterprises, and were able and willing to enter upon new efforts. But for these circumstances Sir John might have been compelled to build the Canadian Pacific with public loans, by very slow degrees. With the aid of these capitalists he had but to guarantee an issue of government debentures to secure immediate construction of the road from the Atlantic to the Pacific. His policy was assailed, and not without reason, because the difficulties were great and the means of overcoming them not obvious to the public. But the result has justified Sir John’s audacity, and there are few who now question the wisdom of his policy. The road may not pay a large return to its shareholders at once, but it will do its work as a colonising agent, and ultimately must be a triumphant financial success, as well as of advantage to the great territory through which it takes its course. It is a triumph of Canadian enterprise, energy, and liberality, and has directed to the Dominion admiring eyes in every quarter of the globe. Sir John’s extraordinary capacity for conciliating contending factions and individuals has carried the confederated provinces through twenty years of their union. Difficult questions are now coming to the front, and the wonder is not that they should now appear, but that they should have been delayed so long. The British-American Act is a bundle of compromises put together to bring the provinces together, and not meant to be permanent. If Sir John should live to assist in revising its terms it will be a happy augury of success. At his age he cannot be expected to be fully in accord with the spirit of the rising generation, but his address, his personal influence, his vast knowledge, have always been of eminent service to the State. In the settlement of difficulties at various periods with the United States his influence has been used wholly for good. This was manifested particularly in the Washington treaty of 1871. His ambition and jealousy of rivals have sometimes led him astray, but when he is called away his errors will be forgotten; it will be said of him even by his political opponents that he was the greatest politician in Canada, the one who spent most of his time and strength in her service, and did more than any other to forward her material progress. “For forty years,” (says another writer), “a representative of the people in parliament, for thirty years the trusted and beloved leader of the great Conservative party, and for twenty-five years the premier of the Dominion of Canada, the career of Sir John A. Macdonald, is in one respect at least unique in the history of parliamentary institutions.” When the Parliamentary deadlock occurred in 1864, in consequence of the bitter antagonisms that had sprung up between our Canadian politicians, he joined with leading men of both parties in bringing about, in 1867, the confederation of the British North American provinces, which had the effect at the time of smoothing over many difficulties; and, in 1878, when the Mackenzie government fell, he was successful in inaugurating what is known as the National Policy, which has been instrumental in developing the industries of the country, and in no little degree in maintaining his hold of power. In the success of these public measures, Sir John owes much to his astuteness and dexterity, as well as to his personal magnetism and phenomenal influence over the great body of the electorate. Quite recently, it has been said that the premier himself has come under an influence which has hitherto been new to him, that of religion, and that some Ottawa revivalists, in his old age, have brought about in his case a change of heart. This is a matter too sacred for the biographer to touch, and must be left to him whom alone it concerns. Though he has never been known as what is called a religious man, and however lax have been his political ethics, no enemy has ever charged him with being personally corrupt. His own words in 1873, when defending himself from charges arising out of the Pacific Railway scandal, may be accepted and reechoed, that “there does not exist in Canada a man who has given more of his time, more of his heart, more of his wealth, or more of his intellect and powers, such as they may be, for the good of this Dominion of Canada.”
Weller, Charles Alexander, Peterborough. Judge of the County Court, Local Judge of the High Court Of Justice, and Local Master of the Supreme Court of Judicature, was born at Toronto, on the 29th March, 1830, and took up his abode in Cobourg in 1838, with his parents, William Weller and Mercy Wilcox Weller, now both deceased. Judge Weller received his education at the Cobourg Seminary (now Victoria College), and at Upper Canada College, Toronto. Having determined to adopt the profession of law, he studied with Boulton & Cockburn, and Hector & Weller, barristers, in Toronto. In 1852 he was admitted as an attorney, and the following year was called to the bar of Upper Canada. Having removed to Peterborough in 1852, he began the practice of his profession and soon succeeded in building up a good business. In February, 1857, he received the appointments of county crown attorney and clerk of the peace for Peterborough; and in March, 1875, that of master in chancery for the same place. In March, 1886, Mr. Weller was created judge of the County Court, retaining the master’s office. Since that period he has won golden opinions for himself as a just and upright judge, and one who takes a deep interest in all that pertains to the building up of the town in which he has so long resided, and the welfare of his fellow citizens. On the 20th October, 1852, he was married to Martha, eldest daughter of the late Dr. Gilchrist, of Colborne. The fruit of the union was two children, a son and daughter, Henry Boucher, late of Millbrook, barrister, deceased; and Eliza, who is married to H. B. Dean, barrister, Lindsay, and son of Judge Dean.
Belanger, Louis-Charles, Advocate, Sherbrooke, Quebec province, was born on 19th May, 1840, at Rapide Plat, province of Quebec (Flat Rapids), on the Yamaska river, about seven miles below the city of St. Hyacinthe, in the parish of Ste. Rosalie, county Bagot. He is the eldest son of Charles Belanger, farmer and master blacksmith, and Angélique Renault-Blanchard. The subject of our sketch, Mr. Belanger, has six brothers and six sisters, all living, ten of whom are in the province of Quebec, and two in Worcester, Mass. The last named two brothers edit Le Courrier de Worcester, a leading French newspaper in New England. One of his brothers, Louis-Arthur, is the managing editor of Le Progrès de l’Est, a lively newspaper published at Sherbrooke, and the only bi-weekly paper in the Eastern Townships. His paternal grandfather, Paul Belanger, came from Beauce, and was one of the pioneer settlers in the St. Hyacinthe district. The late Louis Renault-Blanchard, his maternal grandfather, sat in the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada, before 1841. This gentleman took an active part in the troubles of 1837-’38, and was forced to take refuge in the United States, along with one of his sons, the late L. P. R. Blanchard, C.E. and P.L.S. Mr. Belanger studied at St. Hyacinthe College from 1853 until 1860, when he removed to Sherbrooke, and spent two years as professor in the old Commercial French College of those days, and in this town he has resided ever since. He began the study of law in 1862, with the late William-Locker Felton, Q.C., who sat in parliament for Richmond and Wolfe, during the years 1854-’58, and took an active part in the separate school bill then before the house,—his wife being a Roman Catholic and one of the most accomplished women of her time—and was admitted to the bar of Quebec province, in October, 1866. On the 13th October, 1866, he entered into partnership with H. C. Cabana, now joint prothonotary of the Superior Court for the district of St. Francis, as advocates, etc., and with him established the Pionnier de Sherbrooke newspaper, being the first French newspaper published in the Eastern Townships. In July, 1874, the partnership was dissolved, and Mr. Belanger practised law alone for a while. In the autumn of that year, he and his brother, L. A. Belanger, purchased the Sherbrooke News and started the Progrès, both of which they published until May, 1878, when they sold their establishment to a company by which the Pionnier has been published ever since. In 1882, he started the Progrès de l’Est, which he handed to his brother now with him, and to which he is an active contributor. He was a member of the 53rd battalion from 1882 until 1885, as active captain of No. 4 company, composed chiefly of French Canadians. From 1881 until 1883, he occupied a seat in the council, and was president of the St. Jean Baptiste Society in 1874, at the time of the National Convention at Montreal, and also in 1884, when the great celebration took place in the same city. Was one of the organizers of the St. Joseph Society, a Workingmen’s Mutual Benefit Society, in 1874. He has also been a school commissioner ever since 1865. In August, 1874, he was made honorary member of the St. Patrick’s Society, of Sherbrooke and vicinity. In 1876, he contested Richmond and Wolfe with Lieutenant-Colonel Hanning for the House of Commons, secured a majority of 114 in Wolfe, but was defeated by a larger majority against him in Richmond. Again, in February 1887, he contested the seat in Sherbrooke with R. N. Hall, the sitting member. There had been no contested election in that constituency for the Commons up till this time, since 1867, but after a most gallant fight, he was defeated. He had conducted the Crown business (French cases), ever since 1878, and he is now the sole Crown Prosecutor for the district of St. Francis, since February, 1887. In religion, he is a Roman Catholic, but well-known for his liberal views in religious and educational matters. In politics, he is an independent Conservative, but separated from the present government on account of the North-West troubles. On October 23rd, 1865, whilst studying law, he married Margaret Henrietta Bradshaw Unsworth, daughter of the late James Unsworth, who came from England to this country about the year 1852, and was engaged on the editorial staff of the Montreal Gazette for a while, after which he removed to St. Hyacinthe, where he held the office of agent for the Grand Trunk Railway Company, and died of cholera in 1854. Mr. Unsworth left four sons, one of whom, Joseph, is superintendent of the government railway on Prince Edward Island. His widow, still living in Sherbrooke, is the sister of the well-known English composer, John Hatton, who died a couple of years ago, in London. Mr. Belanger has only one child, a daughter, having lost two in their infancy. Mr. Belanger’s motto is “Live and let live!” He stands up for equal rights to all men, and is a thorough Canadian. In 1867, Mr. Belanger’s father and family removed from Ste. Rosalie to Cookshire, county of Compton, where he purchased a large farm, now carried on by Mr. Belanger and his youngest brother. His father died two years ago, much regretted by a large circle of friends.
Berryman, John, M.D., M.P.P., of St. John, N.B., is of Irish extraction, his father, John Berryman, being a native of Antrim, who emigrated to St. John, and married Miss Wade, a lady of U. E. Loyalist parentage. Dr. Berryman was born in St. John, 9th December, 1828, and received his early education at the grammar school in that city. After leaving school he began life as a clerk in a flour store in St. John, then in a hardware shop, and for a half year in a flouring mill owned by his father. In 1848 he visited the West India Islands of Trinidad, Jamaica, and Cuba; Santa Fe De Bogata and Rio Hacha in New Granada. In 1849 he built, in St. John, a steam meal mill for grinding corn, and ran it until the fall of 1851, when he sold out and left for the Cape of Good Hope, and subsequently Australia, where he resided for five years, and carried on business as a miner, merchant, truckman, builder, and carpenter. Having early manifested a strong bent for the profession of medicine, after his return from Australia he entered upon a careful course of studies, at first in St. John and afterwards at the University of Edinburgh, where he assisted, in his professional labors, Professor Sir J. Y. Simpson, and resided in his house for two years. It is part of the course of a good student to engage in actual work either in the city of Edinburgh or at the university. In this way a medical student acquires in the rough duties of a city physician a practical knowledge of the minutiæ of his arduous employment, which must afterwards be of great service to him, especially when, as so often happens, he elects his field of labor in some remote country town, or on the outskirts of civilization, where books are not to be had, and consultations with other physicians are necessarily few and far between. Students at Edinburgh frequently attend to outside patients, furnish statistics of mortality to the official registrars, and deliver lectures on professional subjects. It so happened that Dr. Berryman’s fate cast him very soon into a field of work which tested his practical knowledge and his natural resources to the utmost. The war of the United States rebellion broke out in 1861, and the demand for men and scientific skill of all kinds, but particularly for skilled physicians, became enormous. Dr. Berryman went to the front and tendered his services, which, being accepted, found a large field. He was appointed by Surgeon-General Hammond a member of an examining board in connection with Professors Stillie, DeCosta, Weir, Mitchel, and Gross, of Philadelphia, and Dr. Smith, an army surgeon, to decide what disposition should be made of the three thousand soldiers under treatment in the hospital. He saw many thrilling scenes in the field of battle and in the crowded war hospital. In the rough exigencies of army life, and amid the countless horrible cases which war engendered, he had an ample field for his abilities, and at the same time had opportunities of perfecting himself as a surgeon in most difficult and delicate surgical operations. The training so acquired has been of inestimable value to him in his subsequent career in St. John and elsewhere. After the war was over he settled down in his native city and speedily worked up an extensive and lucrative practice. There was a great demand for the services of an army doctor. He took an interest in the volunteer movement, and served as surgeon of the garrison artillery of St. John from 18th April, 1864, to September, 1875. He was also surgeon of police from 1863 to 1875. Besides these appointments and the calls of his large city practice, he has frequently been sent for to attend severe cases of disease in other parts of New Brunswick and also Nova Scotia. Dr. Berryman first came before the public in the role of a candidate at the general election held on the 26th of April, in 1886. He and his colleague, John V. Ellis, were elected to represent the city of St. John in the House of Assembly, the vote standing, Ellis, 1673; Berryman 1611; defeating E. McLeod, 1500; and R. F. Quigley, 1220. Dr. Berryman is a Liberal and will, no doubt, before long give a good account of himself on the floor of parliament. His large practical experience of men and manners gives him a great advantage in politics. In 1850 he was made a Mason in Hibernia Lodge, St. John. He married, on the 16th March, 1864, Mary A., daughter of G. S. Brodie, of London, England.
Jaffray, Robert, Toronto, is a Scotchman by birth, having been born at Bannockburn, Scotland, in 1832. He is the second son of William Jaffray and Margaret Heugh. His father carried on farming near the celebrated battlefield where King Robert Bruce defeated the English army of invasion led by King Edward, and gave Scotland her freedom. Here Robert passed his early days, and when only twelve years of age, his father dying, he was thrown on his own resources. After attending school at Stirling, until he was about fifteen years of age, he entered the service, as an apprentice, of J. R. Dymock, grocer and wine merchant, Edinburgh, Scotland, where he remained for five years. At the expiration of this time, he sailed for Canada, and arrived in Toronto in the fall of 1852. Here he joined his brother-in-law, John B. Smith, grocer and wine merchant, and was appointed as his manager. The establishment was situated on the site now occupied by Jaffray & Ryan, corner of Yonge and Louisa streets, then the most northern shop on Yonge street. Three years later Mr. Jaffray became a partner in his brother-in-law’s business, and the new firm traded under the name of Smith and Jaffray. In 1858 a disastrous fire swept away Mr. Smith’s lumber yard and sash and door factory on Niagara street, by which a great loss was sustained, and shortly after this event, Mr. Smith retired from the firm, leaving Mr. Jaffray to carry on the business alone. Being possessed of great energy and perseverance, he soon succeeded in building up a lucrative trade, and such was his success that in 1883 he was able to retire with a competency, handing the business over to his brother, George Jaffray, and James Ryan, who now carry it on. During Mr. Jaffray’s residence in Toronto he has been, outside his own business connected with many successful enterprises. He was appointed by the Hon. Alexander Mackenzie, one of the directors of the Northern Railway Company, in which capacity he served three years looking after the country’s interests, the government of Canada having advanced a large sum of money to that corporation at various times. From information furnished by Mr. Jaffray, a royal commission was appointed by the government to look into the affairs of the “Northern,” which resulted in a satisfactory settlement of the then existing claims. He was afterwards chosen a director of the Midland Railway Company, of which board he is at present an efficient member. In 1874 he took an active part in organizing the Toronto House Building Society (now the Land Security Company), of which he is vice-president. He is president of the Toronto Real Estate Investment Company; and is also a director of the Toronto Trust Company, director of the Globe Printing Company, director of the Sovereign Insurance Company, director of the North America Life Insurance Company, director of the Peterborough Real Estate Investment Company, director of the Central Canada Land Investment Company, director of the Ontario and Sault Ste. Marie Railway Company, director of the Imperial Bank, and director of the Homewood Retreat or Private Asylum for Inebriates and Insane at Guelph. He is a member of the Caledonian and St. Andrew’s societies. In politics, Mr. Jaffray has identified himself with the Reform party, and although often solicited to accept nominations for civic and parliamentary honors, he has invariably declined. Immediately after the exciting political campaign of 1879, one of the most daring attempts was made to kidnap several of the leading men of the Reform party, ostensibly with the object of, extorting from them a large ransom. Among those marked for this object were the late Hon. George Brown, Hon. Oliver Mowat, and the subject of this sketch. Through a chain of circumstances, Mr. Jaffray was drawn into the snare, and taken from his residence at a late hour at night under pretence of arrest, he giving himself up to his captors on their producing a document purporting to be signed by Judge Wilson, acting for the minister of justice at Ottawa, directing him to be immediately brought to the judge’s residence for examination relative to certain charges of a grave character. Mr. Jaffray went with his captors, having no suspicion of foul play; but instead of being taken to Judge Wilson’s home, he was driven to a lonely spot on the east side of the Don and Danforth road, where, it afterwards appeared, his captors intended to imprison him in a cave they had previously prepared for his reception. The place was afterwards discovered by two detectives while they were searching in the neighborhood. It was dug out of the hill on a farm owned by Mr. Playter, and was capable of accommodating several persons. Mr. Jaffray, on alighting from the carriage, in the neighborhood of the cave, and finding himself the victim of a dastardly plot against his personal liberty, struggled with his captors and managed to get out of their clutches. He then succeeded in awakening the inmates of a house in the neighborhood, when his abductors made their escape. The officers of the law at once made great efforts to discover the perpetrators of the outrage, and suspicion having fallen on two brothers—Thomas and Ross Dale, they were arrested and tried for the crime. Thomas was found guilty, and sentenced by Judge Burton to two years in the county jail, Ross Dale being discharged. Thus ended one of the boldest plots to deprive several leading citizens of their liberty ever known in the province of Ontario. In 1860, he married Sarah, youngest daughter of John Bugg, by whom he has two sons and two daughters.
Jamieson, Philip, Clothier and Outfitter, Toronto, is a native of Scotland, having been born in Edinburgh, on the 31st July, 1850. His father, Hugh Jamieson, carried on the tailoring business in “Auld Reekie,” and his mother, Elizabeth Marshall, was born near Musselburgh. Young Jamieson received his education in Bell’s School in his native city, and after receiving a fair commercial education, was apprenticed to a jeweller. Here he served seven years, and at the end of his term was considered a first-class workman. After working a short time at his trade in Edinburgh he left for Canada, and reached Toronto in March, 1873. He brought with him a stock of ready-made clothing, and shortly afterwards opened a store on Queen street west. Business succeeding, he opened a branch store, further west on the same street. At this time he had a partner named Spain, and they traded under the name of Spain and Jamieson. This partnership continued about two years, when Mr. Jamieson elected to carry on the business alone, and from this time may be dated the success of his business, now grown to large dimensions. He shortly afterwards secured the large premises he now occupies on the corner of Yonge and Queen streets, and further extended his operations by opening branch establishments on Queen street west, and in the city of Hamilton. And Mr. Jamieson has now the largest retail clothing and outfitting establishment in the Dominion of Canada. He employs eight salesmen in his retail shop, five cutters, and over one hundred and fifty operative tailors. In politics, Mr. Jamieson, like the majority of the intelligent Scotch in Canada, is a hard-working and enthusiastic Reformer, and does not hesitate when the occasion calls for it to spend both time and money for party purposes. In religion he is an adherent of the Presbyterian church. On the 11th of March, 1873, he was married to Dorcas Wilson Menzies, daughter of William Menzies, of Edinburgh, and has a family of six children, four girls and two boys.
Schiller, Charles Edward, Montreal.—The late Mr. Schiller was a descendant of an old family which originally came from Hamburg, and was related to the great poet of that name. His grandfather, Augustus Schiller, was the first of the family to arrive in Canada, having come in the capacity of surgeon to one of the Hessian regiments in 1778. His father, Benjamin Schiller, served with great distinction and valor in the Voltigeurs Canadien at the battle of Chateauguay, under Colonel de Salaberry, and was promoted from lieutenant to captain on the field of battle for bravery in carrying his captain when wounded to the ambulance under a heavy fire. Charles Edward Schiller was born on the 17th September, 1819, at Rivière du Loup (en haut), and was educated at Benjamin Workman’s Academy, Montreal. He entered the court house in 1835, where he soon became chief clerk, and in 1847 was appointed deputy clerk of the crown and peace. He assisted at the famous trial of Jalbert, who was accused of the murder of Lieutenant Weir at St. Denis, during the rebellion of 1837. He also took a prominent part as officer of the court in the trial of the St. Alban’s raiders, in 1864, as well as in the trial of the Fenians after the invasion of 1866. Mr. Schiller was appointed joint clerk of the peace with Mr. Carter. On Mr. Carter’s leaving the office, Mr. Schiller was appointed clerk of the crown, and acted as such for a number of years. At the advent of the Joly government, at Quebec, in 1880, Mr. Brehaut, the then acting police magistrate, was appointed jointly with Mr. Schiller, as clerk of the crown. On the sudden death of Mr. Brehaut in 1882, the present clerk of the crown, L. W. Sicotte, was named Mr. Schiller’s partner. Mr. Schiller was, without doubt, the person who possessed the largest criminal experience in the Dominion, having had cognizance of the most important trials that took place since 1853. He was an excessively hard worker, and the only holidays he took during his term of office of fifty years, was one month when he went to New Orleans. Holidays and Sundays, from morning to night, he continued his labors. His time was so much taken up during the week in giving information and advice to gentlemen of the bar, that the routine work naturally fell behind, but when the new week began, the work of the past one was always completed. The employés in the offices of the clerk of the crown always found a true and kind friend in him, and when the supplies were refused by the Legislative Council in 1880 to the Joly government, Mr. Schiller paid the salaries of the clerks of the police court and of his own office out of his private means. The late Judge Ramsay, as well as Justice Johnson and Justice Aylwin, were warm personal friends of the deceased, and placed unbounded confidence in his experience. Judge Ramsay frequently consulted Mr. Schiller in criminal matters, and every crown officer who prosecuted for the crown, always found him willing to supply them with any information. In his entire public career, Mr. Schiller won the confidence and esteem of all with whom he dealt, and counted as his friends many of the most influential public men of the day. Always a staunch Conservative, he was a special protégé of the late Sir George Cartier, who had great confidence in him, and of the Hon. Mr. Chapleau. Mr. Schiller at one time took an active part in the local militia, and held the rank of captain. He nearly lost his life in the Gavazzi riots in 1853, having been in the midst of the firing by the troops. He leaves one sister, married to M. P. Guy, Montreal’s oldest notary. He died 25th April, 1887, after fifty-two years of consistent attendance to his active duties.
Ouellette, Rev. J. R., President of St. Hyacinthe College, Quebec province, was born at Sandwich, Ontario, on the 26th of December, 1830. He received his education in the college he now so ably presides over. Father Ouellette was ordained a priest at Paris, on the 20th of December, 1856, and in 1857 was appointed assistant at St. Mary’s Church, Toronto, under the Rev. John Walsh, now bishop of London, Ontario. Shortly after his settlement in St. Mary’s, he was transferred to St. Michael’s Cathedral, in the same city, as assistant, and later on was appointed rector. Two years afterwards, in 1859, he resigned his position in St. Michael’s Cathedral, and joined the teaching staff of St. Hyacinthe College. In 1882, on the retirement of the Rev. Joseph Sabin Raymond, who had been president of the college for a great number of years, he was chosen to fill the vacancy, and has since successfully conducted this popular institute of learning. He is one of the titular canons of the cathedral chapter of St. Hyacinthe.
Grant, Henry Hugh, Collector of Inland Revenue, Halifax, Nova Scotia, was born at Newport, Hants county, N.S., on the 15th April, 1839. His parents were John Nutting Grant and Margaret McCallum. Captain John Grant, grandfather of John N., first came to America with his regiment, the 42nd Highlanders, or “Black Watch.” He married in New York, and having retired from the army, he settled in Brooklyn, N.Y. He afterwards served, under Sir William Johnston, in some provincial corps raised in New York for operations against the Indians, and saw some hard service in Western New York, as well as in Ohio, where he distinguished himself in a number of engagements with the famous chief, Pontiac. His wife’s family favoring the rebels at the breaking out of the American revolution, induced him to leave for the West Indies, where, however, his loyalty and sense of duty did not allow him to remain. He soon returned and finding his regiment in New York ready to receive him, he joined again as captain, and with it fought at the battle of Long Island, when Washington was defeated, in 1776. At the conclusion of the war he removed to Nova Scotia, his property in Brooklyn having been confiscated. On his arrival there the Crown granted him a tract of land in Kempt, Hants county, and the part of this property on which he resided he named “Loyal Hill,” and here he remained until his death. Margaret McCallum was the granddaughter of Jean Baptiste Moreau, who came out to Halifax as chaplain and secretary to Lord Cornwallis. He was the first Episcopal clergyman to land in Halifax, and his son, Cornwallis Moreau, was the first male child born there after its settlement. Mr. Moreau was a relative of Napoleon’s celebrated general of that name. He was a convert from the Roman Catholic faith, having been educated for and taken priests’ orders in that church in France, Mr. Grant, the subject of our sketch, received his academic education in the Collegiate School at Wolfville, N.S. He afterwards spent some years as clerk in mercantile establishments, first in Windsor, N.S., and afterwards in New York. He returned from New York in 1871, and engaged in shipbuilding and mining enterprises, at the old homestead, Loyal Hill. In October, 1879, he was appointed to the civil service as exciseman, and served in the Toronto division until September, 1880, when, after passing a first-class examination, he was removed to Halifax, and promoted to the collectorship in October, 1882. He served several years in the 7th regiment of militia in the county of Hants, and holds a captain’s commission dated October 10th, 1867. Mr. Grant was appointed United States consular agent at Kempt in April, 1873, but resigned the office, on his removal from there, in 1877. He was made a master Mason, in Walsford Lodge, No. 924, Windsor, N.S., in 1866, and has ever since taken a deep interest in the order. He is a Conservative in politics, and in religion leans towards the Episcopal church. Mr. Grant was married at Newport, Hants county, on January 25th, 1872, to Georgie, daughter of George Allison. The fruit of this union has been five children, only two of whom are living, viz., Marion Allison, aged 13, and Frank Parker, aged 8.
Webster, Walter Chester, Hardware Merchant, Coaticook, Quebec province, was born in Hatley, P.Q., on the 27th November, 1841. His father, Oscar F. Webster, was a farmer. His mother, Eliza Watson, was a native of Antrim, Ireland. Mr. Webster received a sound commercial education at Hatley Academy. Before settling down to business he devoted some time to travel, and spent about three years in California. On his return to Canada, he turned his attention to farming, which he successfully prosecuted for eight years, and then adopted a mercantile life. In 1876 he opened a hardware and crockery store in Coaticook, and through close attention to business he has succeeded to his entire satisfaction. In 1873 Mr. Webster was appointed a justice of the peace by the Joly government, and for a number of years he has been a member of the municipal council of Coaticook, and also that of the township of Barnston. He was one of the original promoters of the Coaticook Knitting Company; and holds a considerable amount of this company’s stock. He is also a director of the Stanstead and Compton Agricultural Society. Mr. Webster takes a deep interest in the Independent Order of Oddfellows, and is an active member of this benevolent organization. Recently he was offered the position of mayor of the town by his fellow citizens, but owing to the pressure of business he was forced to decline the proffered honor. But, nevertheless, though refusing to take office, it is not to be presumed he lacks public spirit. There is no man in the community that does more to promote the prosperity of the place of his adoption than he does. He is always to be found amongst its workers, and is often consulted by both political parties when anything is on the tapis for the promotion of the interests of either town or county. In politics, Mr. Webster is a Liberal, and in religion, a member of the Episcopal church. He was married, on the 20th September, 1865, to Adella A. Kennedy, second daughter of Washington Kennedy, of Hatley, and to them have been born six girls and one boy, a very promising youth of eighteen years, and named after his grandfather.
Papineau, Hon. Louis Joseph, was born in Montreal, 7th October, 1786. He was the son of Joseph Papineau, a well-known notary of his day, and one of the principal promoters of the constitution of 1791, and a member of the first parliament after the conquest. Louis Joseph was educated chiefly at the seminary of Quebec, and having studied law was admitted to the bar of Lower Canada in 1811. So brilliant were his prospects and his talents even before this that in 1809, and while still a student, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly for the county of Kent, now Chambly, and in 1815 was appointed speaker of the house. This office Mr. Papineau held, with only two years’ intermission during his mission to England as delegate of the Assembly in 1822-’23, for the long period of twenty years, or until the year 1837, the year of the unfortunate troubles, when he threw himself heartily into what he considered the right and lawful course of action to gain that which the present generation enjoys, through his and his confrères’ endeavors then,—Responsible Government—and all the liberties of the British Constitution which had so long been denied in practice. In 1820, when Lord Dalhousie became governor, he appointed Mr. Papineau to a seat in the Executive Council, but this post was soon declined by him, when he found it a vain honor without the influence the council should have had on the determination of the governor. In 1822, the union of Upper and Lower Canada having been upon the tapis, and the subject being distasteful to many, Louis Papineau and John Neilson went to England, and were successful in getting the union postponed for the next two years. In 1827, unfortunate difficulties arose between the governor and Mr. Papineau, and to such a height did they reach that the former refused to acknowledge Mr. Papineau as speaker, though duly elected to that high office by a large majority of the Assembly. The Assembly triumphed, and Lord Dalhousie resigned his office as governor, after having dissolved the Assembly. He was succeeded by Sir James Kempt, who, after the next election, duly accepted Mr. Papineau as the speaker again appointed, and giving him, perhaps, one of the greatest triumphs ever achieved by any person in the political arena of any country. Political troubles grew worse as years rolled on, and in 1836 they culminated in the events of that and the next two years, which for the time threw Canada into a state of turmoil and anxiety, now happily all passed away, leaving only the fruits so bravely and indomitably sought for, constitutional government and unbiased representation. The so-called leaders of the disturbance having had rewards for apprehension placed on their heads, Mr. Papineau, as one, fled to the United States, where he resided from 1837 to 1839. He then removed to Paris, France, where he lived till 1847, when the issue of the amnesty proclamation enabled him to return to his native land. He again entered parliament, and was continued there until 1854, when he retired into private life, and for the next seventeen years enjoyed the calm of a green and sturdy old age, the love of books and horticulture, and the personal esteem of those who best knew his character. His death took place on Saturday, the 23rd September, 1871, at his residence at MonteBello, at the patriarchal age of eighty-five. His son, Louis Joseph Amédée Papineau, is the present joint-prothonotary of Montreal.
Greenwood, Stansfield, Manager of the Coaticook Cotton Company, Coaticook, Quebec province, was born in Lancashire, England, on the 28th of June, 1853. His father, Edward Greenwood, was a manager of a large cotton mill in Lancashire, His mother was Mary Chadwick, a descendant of the celebrated Sir Joshua Chadwick, of Lancashire. Mr. Greenwood, the subject of our sketch, was educated at Longholme Normal School, receiving an elementary education. After leaving school he entered the cotton mill in which his father was manager, and there learned all the details of the business. At the age of twenty-two, he came to Canada, and took charge of one of the departments of the Valleyfield Cotton Mills, which position he filled for six years. After that period he entered into a partnership with Wallace Bros., and started the Chambly Cotton Company at Chambly Canton, P.Q. This partnership lasted a year, when it was turned into a limited liability company. After another term of two years he retired from that company and took entire charge of the works of the Coaticook Cotton Company. Their mill, under the skilful management of Mr. Greenwood, has paid a good dividend, and still continues to do so. Mr. Greenwood is a Liberal of the Gladstone style, and in religion a Methodist. He was married on the 12th August, 1874, to Mary Ann Bury, daughter of John Bury, of Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, and the fruit of the union has been three sons and a daughter.
Smith, Rev. James Cowie, M.A., B.D., Pastor of St. Andrew’s Church, Guelph, province of Ontario, was born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, on the 17th January, 1834. His father, James Smith, followed the calling of a farmer. His mother was named Jane Cowie. The future divine received his elementary education at Smith’s Classical Academy, at Fordyce, Scotland, and on coming to Canada entered Queen’s University, Kingston, where he graduated, taking the degrees of B.A. in 1862, M.A. in 1864 (holding the first place in the university examinations), and B.D. in 1880. He was licensed to preach the gospel by the presbytery of Kingston, and was inducted into the pastorate of Cumberland and Buckingham Presbyterian congregations, July 11th, 1864. During this pastorate, he discharged the duties of local superintendent of schools, in the township of Cumberland, and acted as chairman of the Grammar School board. He was translated, in 1868, to St. Andrew’s Church, Belleville, where he remained some years, acting as inspector of schools in the town, in addition to his ministerial duties. About this time, having met the requirements for county school inspector, he was officially declared eligible for such a position by the chief superintendent of education of Ontario. Having been called to the vacant pastorate of St. Paul’s Church, Hamilton, Rev. Mr. Smith was translated thither about 1872, when he was again called to succeed the Rev. Dr. Hogg, deceased, in his pastorate charge, St. Andrew’s Church, Guelph. At different times Rev. Mr. Smith has served, in the capacity of stated clerk, successively in the presbyteries of Ottawa and Kingston; and while pastor in St. Paul’s Church, Hamilton, was appointed moderator of the Synod of Hamilton and London. For several years he has also been chosen to, and still holds at present, the responsible position of member of university council, Queen’s University, Kingston. He was at one time called to St. Andrew’s Church, Peterborough, and twice to St. Andrew’s Church, St. John, New Brunswick, both of which invitations he declined. Rev. Mr. Smith is very popular among his congregation, and takes a deep interest in all matters calculated to improve the social and spiritual condition of the people among whom his lot has been cast. He is in full harmony with the doctrines of his church, and can always be depended on to defend its standards. He was married, June 21st, 1866, to Emily Georgina, third daughter of the late Captain Archibald Petrie, R.N., of Cumberland, Ontario.
Carling, Hon. John, London, Ontario, Minister of Agriculture of the Dominion, M.P. for the City of London, Ontario, is the youngest son of Thomas Carling, a native of Yorkshire, England, who came to Canada in 1818, and settled in the county of Middlesex the following year. The future minister of state was born in the township of London, on the 23rd of January, 1828, and received his education in the public school of his native city. While quite young he became a member of the brewing firm of Carling & Co., London, and was an active member of it for a number of years. He took part in nearly all public matters, and was for several years a director of the Great Western Railway Company; the London, Huron & Bruce Railway Company; the London & Port Stanley Railway Company, and was also chairman of the Board of Water Commissioners of the city of London. In 1857 Mr. Carling aspired to parliamentary honors, on the Conservative side, and was returned by a considerable majority over the Liberal candidate, Elijah Leonard, and continued to represent London in the Legislative Assembly of Canada continuously down to the time of confederation. In 1862 Mr. Carling made his first appearance as a cabinet minister, having been appointed receiver-general that year. At the general election, after the consummation of confederation, Mr. Carling was elected to the House of Commons, and was likewise returned as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. In the Ontario Assembly he was appointed minister of agriculture and public works, under the Sandfield-Macdonald administration, and this portfolio he retained till 1871, when fortune went against the administration, and it was forced to resign. In 1878 Hon. Mr. Carling was again returned to parliament, and took his seat in the House of Commons, at Ottawa, but he did not hold a portfolio in the new cabinet. However, in 1882, he was made postmaster-general, and this office he held until the 25th September, 1885, when he became minister of agriculture, and he has held this office ever since. At the general election of 1887 he was re-elected to the House of Commons, after a lively contest with Charles S. S. Hyman, a local Liberal, his majority over his opponent being thirty-nine votes. Hon. Mr. Carling is not a demonstrative member, but the same clear-headedness and calm judgment that had served him so well in his important successful business affairs has stood him in good stead as a parliamentary representative. He has proved himself a capable minister of the crown, and although he seldom makes a speech in the House of Commons, yet when he does he always speaks to the point. In politics Hon. Mr. Carling is a Liberal-Conservative, and in religion he belongs to the Methodist church. He is married to Hannah, eldest daughter of the late Henry Dalton of London, Ontario.
Smith, Arthur Lapthorn, B.A., M.D., Montreal, member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, fellow of the Obstetrical Society of London, lecturer on diseases of women in the medical faculty of Bishop’s College, Montreal, consulting physician to the Montreal Dispensary, is the second son of William Smith, deputy minister of marine, Ottawa, and was born on the 6th June, 1855, at St. John, New Brunswick, where his father was at that time comptroller of customs. His mother was Jane Busby, a granddaughter of the late Colonel Bayard, of Nova Scotia, at one time on the staff of the Duke of Kent. He received his early education at private schools, and from tutors in St. John and Chatham, New Brunswick, and in Melrose and Galashiels, in Scotland. He then entered the classical course at the University of Ottawa, where, after four years’ study, he graduated as B.A. in 1872. He then began his medical studies at Laval University, Quebec. At the end of his second year he took the degree of B.M., and at the end of his fourth year he obtained the degree of M.D., and the Sewell prize in 1876. He then proceeded to London, and studied during two winter sessions at Guy’s and the London hospitals, after which he passed the examinations of the Royal College of Surgeons. He spent two summers in Paris and Vienna. During six months of his stay in London, he held the position of resident clinical assistant at the East London Children’s Hospital. On his return to Canada, in 1878, he began practice in Montreal, where he has ever since remained. Shortly after his arrival he was appointed assistant demonstrator of anatomy in Bishop’s College Medical School, and attending physician to the Montreal Dispensary. He was also elected a member of the Medico-Chirurgical Society, in whose proceedings he has always taken an active part. He was for some time treasurer of this society. He soon became demonstrator of anatomy, and two years later he was appointed professor of botany, and held this position for two years, when he was given the chair of medical jurisprudence. In 1887 he was appointed lecturer on the diseases of women in the same university. He has always taken great interest in temperance matters, and was twice elected president of the Band of Hope, and for three years he was president of the Young Men’s Association of St. Andrew’s Church, of which he is now the youngest elder. He has long been a Mason, and has held the position of secretary of Royal Albert Lodge for several years. He has also reached the eighteenth degree in the ancient and accepted Scottish rite. He has been surgeon of the 6th Regiment of Cavalry for the past eight years, and has regularly camped out with his regiment when it was necessary to do so. Although he has a large practice as a specialist for diseases of women, he still finds time to contribute numerous articles to the medical journals, to deliver an occasional lecture on popular science before the Young Men’s Association, as well as to take an active interest in everything that concerns the welfare of his adopted city. As an instance of his energy, we may mention that, having heard of a new application of electricity to the treatment of hitherto incurable diseases of women, he immediately started for Paris, and remained with the inventor, Dr. Apostoli, until he had become thoroughly acquainted with all its details, and he subsequently published a translation of Dr. Apostoli’s latest work on this subject. Dr. Smith’s amiable manner and sympathetic nature has won for him the affection and esteem of his pupils and patients, especially among the poor. In politics, he is an ardent supporter of the policy of the Conservative party, which he considers will be the means of ultimately building up, in the north-west part of this continent, a great and wealthy nation. In 1884 he was married to Jessie Victoria, third daughter of Alexander Buntin, of Montreal, by whom he has had a son and a daughter.
Boak, Hon. Robert, Halifax, N.S., President of the Legislative Council of Nova Scotia, was born in Leith, Scotland, on the 19th of September, 1822. His father was Robert Boak, of Shields, in the county of Durham, England, who, on his retirement from the army, became an officer in her Majesty’s Customs, in Halifax in 1839, and retained that position until he was superannuated. His son, Robert Boak, the subject of our sketch, came to Halifax in 1831, and in 1847 became a member of the firm of John Esson & Co., wholesale grocers. In 1854 he retired from that firm, and formed the firm of Esson, Boak & Co., and engaged in the West India trade. In 1864 this latter firm was dissolved, and he then continued business in his own name, and under the firm style of Robert Boak & Son, until 1875, when he retired from business. Mr. Boak was president of the Nova Scotia Repeal League in 1869; became a member of the Legislative Council in 1872, and president of that body in 1878; and a member of the government, being treasurer of the province from December, 1877, to October, 1878. At present he is president of the Acadia Fire Insurance Company; vice-president of the Union Bank, and the Nova Scotia Sugar Refinery; also a director of the Gas Light Company. He has always been a Liberal in politics, and has done yeoman service for that party in the maritime provinces during the last decade.
Normand, Telesphore Euzebe, Contractor, Three Rivers, Quebec, was born on the 18th August, 1833, at Quebec city. His father, Edward Normand, was a well-known contractor of that city, and was the leading contractor of his time, having built the St. Maurice bridge in 1832, and again in 1841; also Montmorency, Chaudière and other bridges, as well as the greater part of the wharves at Quebec. His mother was Louise Martin, of Quebec. He was educated at Nicolet College; stood high in his class, and exhibited considerable promise as a student. On leaving the college, he went to Three Rivers, in 1851, and has resided there since then. He began life as a notary clerk under V. Guillet, with whom he was engaged from 1853 to 1858; and concurrently with this he was engaged in the office of the St. Maurice public works. In 1858 he set up for himself as a public notary, but in 1871 abandoned the legal profession for the purpose of following his father’s business. From 1861 to 1865 he was city councillor and school board commissioner at Three Rivers. He was elected mayor in 1873, defeating Mr. Bureau in the contest, after which he was elected by acclamation each year for the three following years, when he resigned. During the time he was mayor he was the means of consolidating the city debt, and carried out other important matters. He was captain of the city volunteers from 1863 to 1865. In politics he is a Conservative, and has given valuable assistance to his party. In 1871 he contested the seat for Champlain, but was defeated, by Senator Trudel, by forty-eight votes. As a contractor he stands in the foremost rank, and has a deservedly high reputation for first-class work. He was the contractor for the bridge over the St. Maurice, which is considered one of the most skilful pieces of workmanship—so far as wood bridges are concerned—in the province, if not indeed in the Dominion. The bridge in question is built in two sections, one of which is 1,400 feet, and the other 700 feet in length. The whole structure is built of the best material obtainable, and is a most excellent specimen of first-class work. Mr. Normand has constructed many other public works, such as wharves, piers, booms and railways, at Three Rivers, Quebec and Crane Island. Among other projects he carried out was that of the system of water-works which the city of Three Rivers possesses—a system which is inferior to none in the Dominion. Not only is Mr. Normand entitled to great credit for the energetic manner in which he pushed the work to completion, but also, what was even more needful, for obtaining the money wherewith to carry on the work—which he did by securing subscriptions in Quebec and England. He is held in the highest regard by the community, and is deservedly popular with all classes, not only in Three Rivers, but in Quebec city, where he is well-known. He was married in October, 1856, to Alphonsine, daughter of Joseph Giroux, one of the wealthiest and most prominent merchants in Three Rivers, who died in 1856, universally regretted. By this marriage there have been born nine children, five of whom survive.
Duhamel, Most Rev. Joseph Thomas, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Ottawa, is a native of Quebec province, having been born at Contrecœur, Quebec, on the 6th November, 1841. His parents were François Duhamel and Marie Joseph Audet-Lapointe, both of whom were born in Quebec province, but died in Ontario. The future archbishop’s father was a farmer, and having removed to Ottawa, sent his son to the college there, where he was educated under the direction of the Oblate Fathers, receiving a thorough classical education. On the completion of his studies, he decided to consecrate his life entirely to God, and accordingly entered the Ottawa Seminary, where, in prosecuting his theological studies, he evinced wonderful powers of mind. He was ordained sub-deacon, on the 21st June, 1863; deacon, 2nd November of the same year, and on the 19th December he was ordained priest. He was then appointed to the vicarage of Buckingham, county of Ottawa, where he proved himself to be possessed of many noble virtues and rare administrative qualities. On the 10th November, 1864, he went to St. Eugene, in the township of East Hawkesbury, county of Prescott, to reside as parish priest. At that time the parish of St. Eugene was one of the poorest in the diocese, and hence the young priest found it hard to carry on his work, especially as he had the difficult task before him of completing a church which was left unfinished by his predecessor. He found many obstacles to surmount, but by dint of persistent and energetic endeavors, and the exercise of his great abilities, he succeeded, and completed what is now, without doubt, one of the finest churches in the diocese, costing upwards of $25,000. Education, previously neglected in this parish, found in him an ardent friend and promoter, and at the present time there are many institutions in St. Eugene which owe their existence to him, and will long remain as monuments of his zeal. And the parishioners, too, by all of whom he was deeply beloved, will not forget their priest and guide, who for ten years went in and out among them. Father Duhamel accompanied his Grace Bishop Guigues to Rome at the time of the Œcumenical Council, but, receiving word of the serious illness of his mother, whom he loved tenderly, he was forced to leave the Eternal City and return to Canada a couple of weeks after his arrival there. Unhappily, he did not reach St. Eugene in time to see his mother alive, she having expired a few days previous to his arrival. Bishop Guigues continued to honor Father Duhamel, and in many ways gave him unmistakable marks of his confidence and esteem. In the month of October, 1873, Father Duhamel accompanied Bishop Guigues as a theologian to the reunion of bishops at Quebec, where the young priest’s talents and acquirements were generally acknowledged. After the death of his beloved friend, Bishop J. E. Guigues, the first bishop of Ottawa, he was chosen as his successor, on the 1st September, 1874, and on the 28th of the following month he was consecrated as the second bishop of Ottawa. Many persons were surprised that such a young man—he being then only thirty-two years of age—should have been selected to fill such an important office in the church; but those who had known Father Duhamel for years felt that his Holiness Pope Pius IX. had made a wise choice, and, moreover, that the records of the church would testify that even younger men than this father had been promoted to high positions. Mgr. Laval was only thirty-five years of age when he was called to occupy the episcopal seat at Quebec, Mgr. de Pontbriand was only thirty-two, and Mgr. Plessis only thirty-seven when consecrated, and Mgr. Tache was scarcely twenty-seven when he was appointed to succeed Mgr. Provencher, who was himself only about thirty-three when made a bishop. His lordship Bishop Duhamel, is a gentleman of pleasing manners, and easy of access, and possessed of great energy and tact. He speaks with ease and fluency, and while his sermons denote deep thought, they are not wanting in graceful form and style. His store of knowledge is of the purest and most substantial kind, and he speaks the French and English languages with ease. He takes a great interest in the cause of education, and gives every encouragement to the Catholic educational establishments in the city of Ottawa and his diocese at large, and in his pastoral letters often calls the attention of the clergy and the parents to the importance of the secular and religious training of children. In 1875 he wrote: “The future of the country and of religion depends entirely, it may be said, on the good or bad education which youth shall receive. Parents are strictly bound to give their children a truly Catholic education. This obligation is founded on the law of God. We do not hesitate to add, very beloved brethren, that parents are obliged to fully comply with this duty to establish, encourage and support Catholic schools, and to have the children attend them.” (Tenth pastoral letter.) In September, 1878, he thus wrote to the clergy of the diocese: “Another scholastical year has just commenced, numerous pupils are rapidly filling the houses of higher education and elementary schools. Everywhere those who are devoted to the instruction of youth rival one another in zeal and ardor to secure the success of the great work that occupies them. These efforts should undoubtedly be seconded by the pastors of souls, since it is their duty to continue the mission instituted by our Divine Master, when he said, ‘Go, teach all nations.’ You will, then, judge it right, beloved co-operators, if I invite you to give this year, again, and always, your whole attention and most constant care to the cause of education. Remind parents of the strict obligation for each one to instruct his children or have them instructed according to his condition and the means Providence has given him. Frequently visit the schools of your parish.” Archbishop Duhamel having made known to Pope Leo XIII. all that the Rev. J. H. Tabaret, O.M.J., had done for education during the many years he had been superior of the College of Ottawa, his holiness granted this great instructor of youth the title, honors, and privileges of doctor of divinity, as a well-merited reward, which was also given to several of the professors. To give further encouragement to education, Archbishop Duhamel presents every year to the College of Ottawa, to the Literary Institute of the Grey Nuns, and to the educational establishment of the sisters of the Congregation de Notre Dame, silver medals to be awarded to merit, and otherwise he spares neither trouble or expense in providing for them all possible means of attaining a good education. Under his lordship’s care, the system of teaching has been considerably improved, as may be seen by the present high standing of the philosophy class in the University of Ottawa, directed by the Oblate Fathers. One of his first acts was to order that no young man should be permitted to begin his ecclesiastical studies before he had followed a regular collegiate classical course, including two years of philosophy, and then that, before he could be ordained priest, he should during four years (three years previously required) study dogmatical and moral theology, holy scriptures, canon law and ecclesiastical history. Shortly after his consecration, Bishop Duhamel, with the assistance of his clergy, had a magnificent monument erected in the interior of the cathedral at Ottawa to the memory of the lamented Right Rev. J. E. Guigues, his predecessor. In the autumn of 1878, Bishop Duhamel went to Europe, and on visiting Rome was kindly received by the new Pope, and among the favors bestowed by his Holiness was that of raising the Cathedral of Ottawa to the dignity of minor basilica. In 1882, his lordship spent some months in Rome, in order to have the diocese divided by the Holy See. He was successful; the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda having admitted that the division asked for was required for the good of souls and the progress of religion, the Pope erected the vicariate apostolic of Pontiac, with the Right Rev. N. Z. Lorrain as first bishop. During his stay in the eternal city his Holiness was pleased to honor Bishop Duhamel with the titles of Assistant to the Pontifical Throne, Roman Count, etc. On May 8th, 1886, his lordship was made first archbishop of Ottawa, and on the 10th of May, 1887, was made metropolitan of the ecclesiastical province of Ottawa. Archbishop Duhamel takes a great interest in the material as well as the spiritual progress and advancement of the parishes and missions in his diocese, and when paying his pastoral visit never fails to stimulate the generosity of his flock to build churches to replace the wood chapels built years ago, and in this he has been very successful. Since the year 1874 he has dedicated ten new substantial stone churches, of which the smallest is one hundred feet long; and during the same period he has formed thirty-three new missions, nearly all of which have large and commodious churches. Twenty of these missions have become parishes with residing pastors, which brings the number of regular parishes to about eighty. During his administration the Cathedral of Ottawa has been entirely renewed inside, and now presents a neat, rich and beautiful appearance, and may be numbered among the best cathedrals in Canada. His grace has always taken a special interest in the charitable institutions of the diocese, which number he has increased by four, and which now comprise four hospitals, three asylums for the orphans and aged people, two for fallen women, and one foundling hospital. To enable these institutions to perform their good work, the archbishop has ordered that each institution be patronized by a few parishes and missions, i.e., that the nuns to whose care these institutions are entrusted will be permitted to take up in these missions yearly collections from house to house. His grace has also established a monastery of the Sisterhood of the Precious Blood, whose aim is contemplative life.
Woodward, James Robertson, B.A., General Manager of the Quebec Central Railway, Sherbrooke, was born at Sherbrooke, on the 1st July, 1846. His father, Albert G. Woodward, came from New Hampshire, United States, to Canada in 1837, and is now coroner for the district of St. Francis. His mother is a daughter of Major Longee of Compton. Mr. Woodward, the subject of our sketch, was educated at Lennoxville, and is a B.A. of Bishop’s College University. Some time after leaving school he joined in a partnership with E. C. Brown, and began business as contractor. In 1869, the firm built and equipped sections of the Quebec Central Railway, and afterwards part of the Waterloo and Magog Railway. They also built railways in Brazil and Buenos Ayres in South America. In 1881, Mr. Woodward became the general manager of the Quebec Central Railway, and this office he still holds. For three years he held the position of secretary-treasurer for the county council of Sherbrooke; and for the same length of time was a member of the city council of Sherbrooke. He is a director of the Eastern Township’s Agricultural Association, and at various times he held the same position in other public bodies. In politics he is a Conservative, and at present chairman of the Liberal-Conservative Association of the district comprising the counties of Sherbrooke, Stanstead, Richmond and Wolfe, and Compton. He is a public spirited gentleman, and is highly respected by his fellow citizens. In religion he is an adherent of the Episcopal church. He is unmarried.
Hall, Robert Newton, B.A., LL.D., Q.C., Member of Parliament for Sherbrooke, P.Q., was born at Laprairie, 26th July, 1836. He is the son of Rev. R. V. Hall, English church clergyman. He received the principal part of his scholastic training in the University of Burlington, Vt., from which he has his degree of B.A., graduating in 1857. On returning home he entered upon the study of law, and in 1861 was called to the bar of Lower Canada. A year later he married Lena, daughter of the late A. W. Kendrick, of Compton, Quebec. In his practice of the law, he has all his life been exceedingly successful, and has long been recognized as a leading member of his profession. He held the honorable office of bâtonnier of St. Francis section of the bar from 1877 to 1881, and in 1878 became bâtonnier of the bar of the whole province. He has long been dean of the faculty of law in Bishop’s College, Lennoxville, from which college also he holds his doctor’s degree. All his life, Mr. Hall has been a leader of the public enterprises of his native province, his name being regarded as a tower of strength to any organization with which he becomes identified. He not only has the character of a man of spotless honor, but his public spirit, his great business ability, and his capacity for hard work, are guarantees of the success of anything to which he puts his hand. He was one of the chief promoters of the Eastern Townships Agricultural Association, and became the first president of that society when it entered upon active work. The railway development of his own section of the country has occupied a great deal of his attention. He is a director of the Quebec Central Railway a most important road; and president of the Massawippi Railway, a local line of great advantage to the district. When the first scheme for building the Canadian Pacific Railway was arranged, he was appointed one of the government directors on the general board, this appointment being a flattering recognition of the prominent part he had taken in railway affairs. When Judge Brooks, who for a long time represented Sherbrooke in the House of Commons, was appointed to his present position, the nomination of the Conservative party for the seat was offered to Mr. Hall, and when he accepted it, so complete was the confidence of all classes in his judgment and honor, that he was elected by acclamation. In the general election of 1887 Mr. Hall was opposed for the reason that the policy of both parties was to allow no elections by acclamation. But there was no serious expectation of defeating him, and his second return was received without surprise. In the house, Mr. Hall has the reputation of a careful and painstaking representative. He makes remarkably few speeches, considering the ability he displays when he does address the house, and the attention and respect with which he is listened to by both sides. Outside of the cabinet, he is by all odds the most prominent and influential representative of the Eastern Townships’ constituencies.
Raymond, Rev. Joseph Sabin, Vicar-General of the Diocese of St. Hyacinthe, Quebec province, was born at St. Hyacinthe, on the 13th March, 1810. He received his classical education in St. Hyacinthe College, and belonged to the first class that graduated from this institution. At the early age of seventeen, he began teaching, and continued as a teacher in the same college to the last day of his life. He was ordained priest in 1832. In 1847 he was elected president of St. Hyacinthe College, and occupied this position, except during an interval of six years, till 1883. Rev. Mr. Raymond, named vicar-general in 1852, was twice administrator of the diocese, during the absence of the bishop in Rome, and attended the five first Provincial Councils of Quebec, in the capacity of theologian to the bishop of St. Hyacinthe. He contributed largely to the foundation of the Order of Contemplative Religious of the Precious Blood in St. Hyacinthe. In 1874 he was named domestic prelate to his Holiness Pope Pius IX., and terminated a long and useful life in St. Hyacinthe, on Sunday, 3rd July, 1887, whilst robing to say mass. He was considered as one of the foremost men in the literary field of Quebec; he was a prolific and brilliant writer, and devoted his varied acquirements to the education of youth and devotional works. He was extensively read, especially in history and literature. His works, if collected, would form quite an important collection.
Montagu, Walter H., M.D., M.P. for Haldimand, Dunnville, Ontario, was born in Adelaide township, county of Middlesex, Ontario, on the 21st day of November, 1858, and is therefore, as we write, under thirty years of age, and one of the youngest members of the House of Commons. He is the youngest of the six sons of Joseph Montagu, an intelligent farmer, who was one of the most highly-respected residents of the county of Middlesex. His mother was a daughter of John Humphries, who came to Canada in 1832, and settled in Adelaide. Dr. Montagu was only five years old when his father died, when on a visit to friends in the United States, and has had, in great measure, to carve out his own career. He has, like many who have risen to eminence, had to educate himself, and this he began while engaged as an errand boy in a country store. He qualified for a teacher’s certificate in August, 1874. As a teacher he was employed successfully at various points, after which he entered Woodstock College, to devote himself to university studies. In 1882 he graduated in medicine in Ontario, and, desiring to pursue this profession, he then proceeded to Edinburgh. Here, later in the same year, he passed the examinations of the Royal College of Physicians, and received the diploma of the college. He then returned to Canada, and began the practice of his profession at Dunnville, county of Monck, where he now resides. A few months after settling at Dunnville he reluctantly accepted the nomination of the Liberal-Conservative Convention of Monck, to contest the riding in an election then pending for the Local Legislature. Though only a few days in the field he polled an immense vote, his own village giving him the largest Conservative majority it had ever given to its parliamentary representative. In 1886 he was again asked to run, but refused. In February of the following year he was placed in nomination for the House of Commons, as the representative of the county of Monck, but this he also declined, though a unanimous nomination by the party was offered him. At this time no candidate could be found to come out against Mr. Colter, the Reform member for Haldimand, who three months previously had been returned for the county by 126 of a majority over his opponent, Mr. W. Hamilton Merritt, a large property owner in the constituency, who had had the hearty support of the leading men of the Conservative party in the district. A new election was now to be held, and still no one dared to come out against the opposition candidate until the day before nomination. At almost the twelfth hour Dr. Montagu, at the urgent solicitation of his friends, Senator McCallum and Colin G. Snider, president of the Haldimand Conservative Association, stepped into the breach, and after a spirited campaign carried the county, but only by a majority of one, on a recount of ballots before the county judge. Dr. Montagu took his seat in the House of Commons, and by his qualities of head and heart gained the respect of both parties in parliament. His first and only speech during the session was called forth by an attack made upon the manner of his election. Brief and comparatively unimportant as it was, the speaker commanded the closest attention of the house. A protest, however, was entered against his return; and after three days’ trial of the petition, Dr. Montagu agreed with his opponent to hold a new election. This came on in November, 1887, and was watched with the keenest interest by the whole country, for until the preceding February Haldimand had never before in her history returned a Conservative, and that return, it was alleged, was not a proper one. The contest was fought, on the Reform side, by Mr. Colter, assisted by M. Laurier, Sir Richard Cartwright, Messrs. Charlton and Patterson, Hon. Jacob Baxter, and a dozen other prominent Reformers. Dr. Montagu, representing the Conservatives, fought alone and almost single-handed; and though the most desperate means were employed to defeat him, he succeeded in carrying the county by seventeen of a majority. In the contest, Dr. Montagu’s public addresses attracted immense audiences, the people turning out everywhere in great numbers to hear him. Another recount was demanded, the result being that the majority was reduced to twelve. A protest was then entered against him, and tried in January before Justice Street. During five days’ trial the petitioners utterly failed in their charges, and not a single stain attached itself to the representative. In the present (1888) session, he had the honor paid him by the Dominion administration of being called to move the address to the throne. This he did with great credit to himself and with much gratification to his party. Dr. Montagu is a supporter of Sir John A. Macdonald, but at the same time he holds liberal views upon public questions, and brings a broad and comprehensive mind to their consideration and discussion. He is thoroughly Canadian in his aims and aspirations, and has an earnest and enthusiastic faith in the future of the country. His wife is Angie, daughter of Elias Furry, reeve of South Cayuga, Ontario.
Willets, Rev. Charles E., M.A., (Corpus Christi, Cantab.), D.C.L. (King’s, Windsor), Windsor, Nova Scotia, is a native of Northamptonshire, England, where he was born about forty years ago. He received his early education at Corpus Christi College, in the University of Cambridge, where he graduated in 1872. He took holy orders and was ordained in the same year by the Right Reverend George Augustus Selwyn, bishop of Lichfield. After his ordination, he accepted the position of curate of Gaily-cum-Hatherton, in Staffordshire, which office he held for one year. In 1873 he came to Canada, and was appointed to the position of sub-rector of Bishop’s Collegiate School, at Lennoxville, Quebec. Here he remained for three years, teaching and fulfilling his other duties with great success. The honorary degree of M.A. was conferred upon him by Bishop’s College in 1874. He next removed to the Collegiate School, Windsor, N.S., the position of headmaster of which happened to fall vacant in June, 1876. This school was the original seed of King’s College, which is the oldest degree-conferring university in British America. The school was started in 1788, a scheme for its establishment being warmly urged by the Right Rev. Dr. Charles Inglis of New York, first bishop of Nova Scotia, and also by his son, John Inglis, who solicited aid for it in England. A royal charter was obtained in 1802. A large number of the sons of the wealthiest class in the maritime provinces were educated in it during the first years of its history. Among distinguished men who received their early training in the school, or King’s College, may be mentioned Chief Justice Neville and Robert Parker, master of the rolls of New Brunswick; Judge W. B. Bliss; Judge Haliburton (“Sam Slick”); General Sir John Inglis, son of the second bishop of Nova Scotia, and a man who made his mark in the defence of Lucknow; the late Archdeacon McCawley; Archdeacon Gilpin of Halifax; administrator of the diocese of Nova Scotia; R. G. Haliburton; Rev. Dr. Hill, formerly rector of St. Paul’s, Halifax, and the late Rev. Dr. J. M. Hensley. Among head masters of the collegiate school were Rev. William Grey, Rev. Dr. Blackman, Dr. Salt, Rev. W. C. King, Rev. George B. Dodwell, M.A. (Cantab.), and Rev. John Butler. The original school building was of freestone, which was erected with great care under the supervision of Bishop Charles Inglis, but was unfortunately burnt down, 20th September, 1871. For two years the school was carried on at Martock House, near Windsor. A new handsome wooden building was erected on the original site in 1877, and Rev. Dr. Willets has continued in charge of the school ever since. The school has prospered under his management, and now accommodates upwards of forty boarders and a number of day scholars. There are two assistant masters, Mr. Richardson, formerly of King Edward VI. School, Retford, England, a distinguished linguist and chess-player, and Mr. Fullerton, B.A., of King’s College, also special instructors in drill and gymnastics and penmanship. Boys are prepared for matriculation in all of the provincial colleges and for the civil service examinations, Ottawa. The school possesses one of the handsomest sites in Nova Scotia, just below King’s College, and looking over the king’s meadow towards the south mountain. The honorary degree of D.C.L. was conferred upon Dr. Willets by King’s College in 1882. He was also elected a governor of King’s College in 1885.
Matheson, David, Superintendent of the Savings Bank Branch of the Post Office department, Ottawa, is a Scotchman by birth, he having been born in the parish of Canisbay, near John O’Groat’s, Caithness-shire, on the 25th October, 1840, and emigrated to Canada in 1861. Mr. Matheson joined the civil service in 1863, and was appointed private secretary to the postmaster-general. In 1868 he, with another officer, was appointed to organize the Post Office Savings Bank, and specially designed the plan of accounts which has made the Canadian system of savings banks a credit to our own country, and a model that other countries have been pleased to adopt. Mr. Matheson, in recognition of his services, was appointed, in 1881, assistant superintendent of the Savings Bank Branch of the Post Office department, and in February, 1888, he was made superintendent.
Cardin, Louis Pierre Paul, Sorel, Quebec province, M.P.P. for the county of Richelieu, is of a hardy, honest, and industrious stock, his father being a well-to-do yeoman of Isle Madame, adjoining the north-eastern corner of the Island of Montreal. He is still in the prime of life, having been born on the 21st May, 1841, a year important in Canadian annals for the consummation of the union which preceded the system of confederation. He was educated at the College of L’Assomption, an institution which has given to Canada a large number of men distinguished in the church, the legal and medical professions, and the ranks of commerce and industry. Mr. Cardin selected the honorable calling of a notary, in which he was destined to make his way to the front in a comparatively brief time. He was fortunate in being associated, during his early professional career, with a worthy gentleman of Sorel, the late Mr. Precourst, from whose office he was admitted to practise in October, 1868. He still remained with his esteemed employer, until his death, in 1872, when he succeeded to his large and profitable business. Laborious, obliging and conscientious, Mr. Cardin won the confidence and respect of all who had dealings with him in his professional capacity, or intercourse with him in private life. His ability and public spirit made his services in high demand in municipal and educational affairs. It was natural, also, that he should take a deep interest in all that concerned the agricultural progress of his country, and he soon found ample occupation for his leisure hours. He has been successively secretary of the council for Sorel, secretary of the Dissentient School Board, secretary of the Agricultural Society, president of the St. Jean Baptiste Society, secretary of the municipality of Sainte Victoire, and has filled various other offices of trust with entire satisfaction to the public. To him also was due the organization of the first militia company of Sorel, and in order to qualify himself for military command, he obtained certificate of the first and second class, which enabled him to take, if necessary, any commission up to and including that of lieutenant-colonel. Courteous, benevolent, grave and affable, Mr. Cardin is a man whose character invites confidence and wins esteem. His appearance is also in his favor. Of middle height, he has impressive features, a large forehead and animated eyes, while his long beard of silky texture, gives him an air of distinction. As a speaker, he is at once fluent and choice in his language, uniting calmness with earnestness, and can wither with scorn or melt with pathos, as the occasion demands. In politics Mr. Cardin is more Conservative than Liberal, but was not an active partizan until November, 1885, when he joined the National party. In September, 1886, he was selected by the convention of Richelieu as the candidate of his party in that county and was victorious in the election which followed. Since then he has acquitted himself entirely to the satisfaction of his supporters, giving a conscientious but independent support to the Hon. M. Mercier. He has been indefatigable in his efforts to improve the condition of Sorel, and to ensure the county of Richelieu its fair share of attention from the government.
LaRocque, Right Rev. Charles, was born at Chambly, November 15th, 1809. He received his education at the Seminary of St. Hyacinthe, where, in 1828, he commenced studying theology, after completing his classical course. From 1828 to 1831 he filled with great distinction and efficiency a professor’s chair in the same seminary; and after one year exclusively spent in the study of theology, was ordained priest on the 29th of July, 1832. From 1832 to 1866 he is seen displaying his sacerdotal zeal as vicar in the parishes of St. Roch de l’Achigan and Berthier, as curé in the parishes of St. Pie de Bagot, Ste. Marguerite de Blainville, and St. John Dorchester, which he ruled during the long period of twenty-two years. There he founded several educational institutions, and built a magnificent church, of which the St. John parishioners may well feel proud. On the 20th March, 1866, he was elected bishop of St. Hyacinthe; on the 29th July he was consecrated, and the 31st of the same month he took possession of the see. The chief work of his career as bishop, a work for which he is rightly considered the greatest benefactor of the diocese of St. Hyacinthe, was the restoring of the finances. The heavy debt which weighed upon the bishopric was completely paid off through his wise and prudent financing. He died July 15th, 1875, aged sixty-five years, deeply regretted, and, according to his own expressed will, was buried in the vault of the Church of the Hotel Dieu at St. Hyacinthe.
Prince, Right Rev. John C., The late Bishop Prince of St. Hyacinthe, was born at St. Gregory, in the district of Three Rivers, on the 13th of February, 1804. After a brilliant course of classical studies in the College of Nicolet, he taught literature in the same college, and also in the College of St. Hyacinthe. Whilst thus engaged, from 1822 till 1826, he also pursued a complete course of theology, and fitted himself for the sacred order of priesthood, to which dignity he was raised in 1826. From 1826 to 1830 he was director of St. James Grand Seminary at Montreal; from 1830 to 1840, director of the seminary at St. Hyacinthe, and from whence he was called to Montreal by Right Rev. Bishop Bourget, to share with him the burden of the administration of his vast and important diocese. He was appointed canon of the Cathedral of Montreal on January 21st, 1841. On July 5th, 1844, he was appointed coadjutor to the bishop of Montreal and bishop of Martyropolis, and on July 25th, 1845, was consecrated. In 1851 he was deputed by the bishops of the Ecclesiastical Province of Quebec to carry to Rome the decrees of the first Council of Quebec. On the 8th June, 1852, whilst in Rome, he was appointed by Pope Pius IX. bishop of the newly erected see of St. Hyacinthe, of which he took possession on the 3rd of November of the same year. In 1841 he founded a review, the Mélanges Religieuse, and remained its chief editor for ten years. He also founded a convent of the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre-Dame, in Kingston. Having ruled the diocese of St. Hyacinthe with remarkable zeal and prudence for eight years, during which he established the Sisters of the Presentation of Mary for the education of young ladies; the Gray Nuns’ Hospital; established twenty parishes, and built the present magnificent episcopal residence in St. Hyacinthe. He died on the 5th of May, 1860, aged fifty-six years. His remains now repose in the vault of the cathedral.
Blake, Hon. Edward, P.C., Q.C., Toronto, M.P. for West Durham, Ontario, is by birth a Canadian, but by race an Irishman. His father, the Hon. William Hume Blake, was a Blake of Galway, and the son of a rector of the Church of England in Ireland, Rev. Dominick Edward Blake of Kiltegan. On the mother’s side he is descended from William Hume of Wicklow, a representative of that county in parliament, who lost his life as a loyalist in the Irish rising of 1798. “The descendant of an Irishman myself,” Mr. Blake said in a notable speech upon a motion made in the House of Commons, in 1882, for an address to the Queen on the subject of Irish affairs, “my grandfather on the father’s side a rector of the church to which I have referred, and sleeping in his parish churchyard, and my ancestor on my mother’s side slain in conflict with insurgents; while it might have been my misfortune, had I been born and bred in the old land, to adopt, from prejudice, views very different from those I have expressed this night; yet, it being my good fortune to have been born and bred in the free air of Canada; and to have learned those better, those wiser, those more Christian and just notions which here prevail upon the subject of civil and religious liberty, class legislation and home rule itself, I have always entertained, ever since I have had an opportunity of thinking on this subject, the sentiments to which I have given utterance this evening. I believe that these are the sentiments native to our own sense of freedom and justice, and that we wish to deal on this subject, as the hon. gentleman said who moved it, in that spirit which says, ‘Do unto others as you would they should do unto you.’” Mr. Blake’s pride of ancestry, so often evinced in references to his father, may have led him, in the extract quoted, to attach too great weight to the influence of environment upon his character and opinions. Speaking on a recent occasion, he said: “I have always discouraged and discountenanced, so far as I could, any appeal to considerations of race or creed. My earnest desire has ever been that we should mingle, irrespective of our origins, irrespective of our creeds, as Canadian brethren, as Canadian fellow citizens, whether we be English or French, Scotch, Irish or German, whether we be Protestant, Catholic or Jew, sinking all these distinctions in the political arena, and uniting and dividing, not upon questions of origin, not upon questions of religion, but rather upon honest differences of opinion with reference to the current politics of the country.” It is doubtful if, under any circumstances or conditions, a man constituted as Mr. Blake is, with a mind of large grasp and sensitive to jealousy of his honor, could be ought else than the fair and liberal man he is known to be. But, whatever views may have been held on state or church affairs by his more remote ancestors, no one who knows the story of the life of William Hume Blake can have reason to suspect that the son was subject to prejudiced or narrowing influences. The elder Blake was a man of strong but well matured convictions, and he uttered his thoughts with a clearness and force which rarely, if ever, allowed of his being understood in a double sense. He was also a man of tender and generous sympathies, and by the members of his own family his memory is greatly and deservedly revered. Indeed it may be said that Edward Blake never strikes a merciless blow—and he has the skill and power to strike a tremendous blow—excepting in the case of one who may speak offensively, rudely or disrespectfully of his father. It ought not to be a matter of surprise, perhaps, that politicians who came into collision with the father in the stirring political times of forty years ago should retain some of the feelings of those times; but the few who have revived the old issues with a display of the old temper, in the presence of the son, are not likely to reflect on the consequence to themselves with any degree of pleasure. One of these occasions will be readily recalled by frequenters of the House of Commons of thirteen or fourteen years ago, when the house was kept at a white heat throughout a whole night’s sitting. But when he has himself been the object of attack the disposition to strike back has been carefully curbed. “Whatever I am,” he said, in one of that remarkable series of speeches delivered in the election campaign of 1886-7, “I stick by my friends, and that, too, even after they have left me.” And, referring in particular to two gentlemen whom he had befriended, who afterwards changed their views and attacked him very bitterly and with great frequency, he said: “I have never replied to them or retorted on them. I have preferred to remember the old times when we worked together. I have preferred to remember, too, that they were my fellow-countrymen, and I have borne in silence their unjust attacks rather than retaliate. I have chosen to recollect their acts of friendship and co-operation rather than those of hostility and animosity. I have hoped that the day might come when they, or, if not they, at any rate my fellow-countrymen of their race and creed, would do me justice, and I wished to put no obstacle whatever in the way of a reconciliation, in which I have nothing to withdraw, nothing to apologise for, nothing to excuse.”—Edward Blake was born in the woods of Middlesex in 1833, a year after his father and mother had left Ireland. After two or three years’ experience of pioneer life the family removed to Toronto, and the father began preparation for the profession of law, upon which he entered in 1838, and in which he acquired great distinction—for eleven years as a practising barrister, and afterwards for thirteen years as chancellor or chief justice of the Court of Equity. Edward’s education was looked after by his father and by private tutors until he was old enough to enter Upper Canada College, and in that school he was prepared for Toronto University. In the last year of his course there (1854), his father was appointed chancellor of the university, and had the gratification in that capacity of conferring the B.A. degree upon his gifted son, who took first-class honors in classics and was winner of a silver medal. This, however, was not with Edward Blake as it has been with many graduates the closing event of his connection with the university. He proceeded to the Master’s degree in 1858, and in 1873 he was elected chancellor by the graduates for a term of three years, an honor which has now been bestowed on him five times in succession. Some of Mr. Blake’s best speeches have been delivered in his capacity as chancellor of the university. At the close of his university career he commenced the study of the law, and in 1856 he began practice in the Equity court. He worked hard, and, although there were a number of excellent lawyers in the Chancery court at that time, he attained the foremost place amongst them in less than ten years. He was created a Q.C. in 1864, was elected a bencher of the Law Society in 1871, and was appointed treasurer of the society upon the death of the Hon. John Hilyard Cameron, in 1879. The offer of the chancellorship of the province by Sir John Macdonald in 1869, and the offer of the chief justiceship of the Supreme Court of the Dominion by Mr. Mackenzie in 1875, were both declined.—Mr. Blake entered upon parliamentary life in the confederation year, in a dual capacity, as member for West Durham in the House of Commons, and member for South Bruce in the Ontario legislature. In both bodies he ranked high as a debater from the first; and although political subjects were new to him in a sense, he speedily gained such familiarity with them that the leadership of the party became his by right of pre-eminence. In the Ontario legislature, where Mr. McKellar was leader during the first session, the place was forced upon Mr. Blake (Mr. McKellar himself being the most urgent of the Liberals in pressing for the change), but in the Commons he resolutely refused to hold any position excepting in the ranks. The premier of Ontario was an astute politician, and had many good qualities as a public man; he was also an old Liberal and had a respectable following of his party, although a majority of his supporters both in the house and in the country were Conservatives. Mr. Blake had a difficult task in hand, as leader of the Opposition, against a veteran politician like John Sandfield Macdonald; but his forces were always marshalled with consummate skill, and by the discussion of affairs and the formulating of a well defined policy, in the line of the historic principles of the Liberal party, the electors had clear issues placed before them when the appeal was made in 1871, at the close of the first parliamentary term after confederation. The actual result was in doubt until the new legislature met in December, and a motion of want of confidence in the government was keenly and brilliantly debated. But the Liberals prevailed in the end; Mr. Blake was called upon to form a government, and in the first session effect was given to the principles which had won for the party the confidence of the people. From that time until now the same principles have been maintained by the Liberals of Ontario, with such expansion and development as circumstances have shown to be desirable; and, measured by all the results, it may confidently be affirmed that no other portion of America has in the same period been governed so wisely or well. Owing to the abolition of dual representation in 1872, both in the Provincial legislature and in the Dominion parliament, Mr. Blake resigned the premiership so that he might occupy the larger sphere at Ottawa, and upon his advice the office of first minister of the province was committed to the Hon. Oliver Mowat. Mr. Blake was re-elected to the Commons by acclamation for West Durham, and was also returned for South Bruce, at the general election in 1872; he sat in the house, however, as representative of the latter constituency. The part he took in the overthrow of the Macdonald government in 1873, both in the country and the house, secured for him the highest position yet attained by a political leader and orator in Canada. His career since that event, in office and out of it, is so well-known that space need not be taken up with the recounting of it. It has been largely the political history of the country, for on every important question his voice has been heard, uttering the sentiments of his party. He accepted the leadership in 1880, much against his own will, and in discharging the duties of that office throughout the whole time he held it he acted up to the full measure of his conviction, that no abilities are too good to be given, and no effort too great to be spent, for Canada.—Mr. Blake is not only the foremost of Canadian parliamentary orators, but, had his lot been cast in the larger sphere of Imperial or Republican politics, he would without doubt have attained a place in the front rank of those great orators who have shed lustre on the Anglo-Saxon race and helped to immortalize the English tongue. When he was comparatively young in public life, a well-known Canadian writer, who was by his previous experience exceptionally well qualified to compare him with the greatest of English contemporary orators, thus recorded the results of such a comparison after hearing Mr. Blake for the first time, shortly after the writer’s arrival in Canada.—“The present writer has often seen in the British House of Commons a debate degenerate into a squabble, in which small passions and petty aims made the moral atmosphere foul and fetid. Then Mr. Gladstone has risen up, and immediately one felt raised into a high moral plane, with a wider horizon and more pleasing intellectual prospect; the mere tone of his voice—firm, sincere, truthful in its ring—acting as a spell to lay the evil spirits which up to that time had it all their own way. Precisely a similar effect was produced by Mr. Blake. Here was a sincere man who ‘dared not lie,’ who had principles to maintain, who was not a prey to anxiety lest he might lose place and power, who was not driven like a leaf in the fall wind by his own passions. His intellectual and moral superiority was crushingly apparent. . . . Mr. Blake as an orator is something of the same style as Lord Selborne (Sir Roundell Palmer), with a dash of Sir J. D. Coleridge’s honeyed satire and Mr. Gladstone’s earnestness of purpose.” A distinguished Canadian judge in a conversation with the writer of this sketch gave an opinion of Mr. Blake’s rank among the great English orators of the day; and, as it has never been published before, it is perhaps worth quoting in the same connection. When the eminent American statesman, Mr. Evarts, was in Toronto a few years ago he was publicly welcomed by the Law Society of Ontario at Osgoode Hall, and by members of the senate and faculty of Toronto University, Mr. Blake being the principal officer to receive and welcome him on both occasions. The late Chief Justice Moss, who was also present, was afterwards asked how in his opinion Mr. Blake compared as a speaker with Mr. Evarts, and his reply was that, so far as could be judged by the opportunities afforded at these gatherings the Canadian was unmistakably the superior of the American. He added that he had been in the habit for a number of years of spending his holidays in England; that while there he had met and heard many of the leading statesmen and lawyers of that country; and his firm conviction was that in Mr. Blake, Canada possessed a man who was intellectually and oratorically the equal of any one of them and the superior of almost all. Perhaps no two English-speaking public men of this generation have been so frequently compared with each other in their style of oratory as Mr. Blake and his great English prototype, Mr. Gladstone. It may be thought that the resemblance said to exist between them is more fanciful than real; that such comparisons have their origin in the pride—patriotic or partisan—which Canadians feel in those of their countrymen who have attained distinction; that Sir John Macdonald, for example, has often been said to bear a close likeness to Mr. Gladstone’s old antagonist, Earl Beaconsfield. In the case, however, of the two great Conservative chieftains the likeness was supposed to be less discernible in their oratory than in their personal appearance, and in the methods they pursued as party leaders. But the more closely we study the speeches and the public life of the two great Liberal leaders the more clearly will it be seen that the resemblance between them has a far more substantial foundation than any mere Canadian pride in a distinguished son of Canada, although Canadians were well pleased to think that, side by side with some of Britain’s greatest men, before a critical and cultured Edinburgh audience a few years ago, Canada saw “her bairn respected like the lave.” Wherein, then, does the resemblance consist, if such resemblance there be? Does it lie in the similarity of their methods as rhetoricians, or in qualities less superficial and less minutely definable? The writer above quoted describes in a single phrase the strong underlying points of resemblance between the Englishman and the Canadian. The true secret of their power as orators lies in their intellectual and moral superiority. Perhaps it lies even more in the moral element than in the intellectual, though the fibres of mind and character are so closely interwoven in the texture of their speeches that it is difficult to decide in which quality lies their greatest strength. True it is that the gifts and graces of rhetoric have been bountifully bestowed upon both. Some of these they hold in common, and in others each has been specially endowed. But to say that the possession of these merely rhetorical accomplishments is what makes each the greatest living orator of his country is to assign a wholly inadequate cause for so large an effect. The fact that intellectually they are giants, and that morally they are believed to be sincere, high-minded, sans peur et sans reproche, is what largely gives them their power as orators. Mr. Blake’s firm and comprehensive grasp of any subject with which he grapples, the almost phenomenal way in which he masters and then marshals all its facts, are qualities in which we doubt if he is excelled by any living statesman. Not merely are the broad outlines drawn with a strong hand, but, when necessary for his purpose, the minutest details are filled in with the fidelity of a photograph. In fact so thoroughly does he exhaust the details of his subject in some of his more elaborate parliamentary speeches that the effect is to mar the whole performance, viewed simply as an oratorical effect. Perhaps no one knows this better than Mr. Blake himself, and the fact that he is thus content to risk his reputation as an orator from the same high sense of duty which has kept him in uncongenial public life for many years, against his personal wishes and to the serious impairment of his health and income, should be sufficient to secure him the indulgence of the severest critic, for it is a failing which surely leans to virtue’s side. His manner in speaking is earnest and forcible, such a manner as befits an orator who seeks to convince his hearers through the medium of their reason, and he never indulges in ad captandum appeals. His sentences, like his whole treatment of his subject, though they may be somewhat involved, are always thoroughly in hand; he never loses himself in a maze, seldom hesitates for the right word, and always appears to have the whole plan of his speech before his mind’s eye. His language unites the copiousness and variety of the accomplished scholar with the clear cut precision of the lawyer; and the wealth of illustration with which he adorns his best speeches, drawn as it is from every conceivable source in life and literature, would in itself be regarded as wonderful if it were not associated with intellectual powers which are all on an equally high plane. He is perhaps at his best in the rôle of satirist, and herein he displays qualities in which he far excels the great English statesman to whom it is no derogation to compare him. Earnest and argumentative like Mr. Gladstone he habitually is, but when engaged in thrust and parry with an opponent, wit and humor lend their aid, and often with such merciless effect that they defeat the speaker’s purpose by creating sympathy for his antagonist. The best specimen of Mr. Blake’s style of oratory will be found in his shorter extemporaneous speeches in parliament. In many of his longer speeches his best qualities as an orator have been suppressed by too much elaborateness of preparation. Able as they are as examples of clear consecutive reasoning, they partake too much of the character of essays; wanting spontaneity, they lack the fire and vim of his shorter speeches. As an illustration of this view, take the short speech in which Mr. Blake replied to the leader of the government in 1882, on the motion for the second reading of the Redistribution Bill—better known as the Gerrymander Bill. All the leading features of that measure were seized and a complete criticism of them pronounced in the course of a twenty minutes’ speech, with such telling force that no one on the ministerial side dared offer a reply. It was as perfect a criticism of a large subject as the far more elaborate speech on the bill in committee of the whole a few days later, saving in matters of detail, and the verdict of those who listened to both speeches doubtless was that the shorter one was by large odds weightier and more convincing than the longer and heavier one. There was material enough in the latter for half-a-dozen first-class speeches, but it erred in leaving nothing for any other member to say. Another of Mr. Blake’s speeches which showed his skill in stating and discussing subjects tersely and vigorously is his speech at London in January, 1886, in which he dealt with the execution of Riel and presented a general review of the political situation. Such massing of facts and arraying of reasons, conjoined with such judicial fairness in balancing the weights of evidence, are rarely to be met with in the records of political eloquence. “Though the skies be dark,” he said in closing that speech, “yet trust we in the Supreme goodness. We believe our cause is just and true. We believe that truth and justice shall in God’s good time prevail. It may be soon; it may be late. His ways are not our ways, and His unfathomable purposes we may not gauge. But this we know, that in our efforts we are in the line of duty. We hope, indeed, to make our cause prevail. But, win or lose to-day, we know that we shall receive for the faithful discharge of duty an exceeding great reward—the only reward which is worth attaining, the only reward which is sure to last.”—Mr. Blake’s thorough honesty of purpose is one of his most conspicuous qualities. Many proofs of this quality might be given from his speeches, but one will suffice. In closing his speech on the execution of Riel, in the House of Commons in March, 1886, he said: “I know the atmosphere of prejudice and passion which surrounds this case. I know how difficult it will be for years to come to penetrate that dense atmosphere. I know how many people of my own race and of my own creed entertain sentiments and feelings hostile to the conclusion to which I have been driven. I know that many whom I esteem and in whose judgment I have confidence, after examination of this case, have been unable to reach my own conclusion. I blame no one. Each has the right and duty to judge for himself. But cries have been raised on both sides which are potent, most potent in preventing the public from coming to a just conclusion; yet we must not by any such cries be deterred from doing our duty. I have been threatened more than once by hon. gentlemen opposite during this debate with political annihilation in consequence of the attitude of the Liberal party which they projected on this question; and I so far agree with them as to admit that the vote I am about to give is an inexpedient vote, and that, if politics were a game, I should be making a false move. I should be glad to be able to reach a conclusion different from that which is said by hon. gentlemen opposite to be likely to weaken my influence and imperil my position. But it can be said of none of us, least of all of the humble individual who now addresses you, that his continued possession of a share of public confidence, of the lead of a party, or of a seat in parliament, is essential or even highly important to the public interest; while for all of us what is needful is not that we should retain, but that we should deserve the public confidence; not that we should keep, but that while we do keep we should honestly use our seats in parliament. To act otherwise would be to grasp at the shadow and to lose the substance; propter vitam vivendi perdere causas. We may be wrong; we must be true. We should be ready to close, but resolved to keep unstained our public careers. I am unable honestly to differ from the view that it is deeply to be regretted that this execution should have been allowed to take place, and therefore in favor of that view I must record my vote.” This view of the exalted duties of a representative of the people must commend itself to every man who esteems truth, honor and country; and it is the knowledge of the holding of this and like views by Mr. Blake, not less than his intellectual qualities, which secures for him the esteem of the best men of all classes. “We are all proud of Edward Blake,” Principal Grant of Queen’s University exclaimed when presenting him to address a Queen’s convocation a few years ago. “Mr. Blake is a distinguished man, a credit to any country from his ability and eloquence and devotion to public matters,” Sir John Macdonald said when referring to his absence from the house and country at the opening of the 1888 session of parliament.—Many speeches delivered in the House of Commons and out of it during the last twenty years attest Mr. Blake’s ability and eloquence, but one extract will serve for illustration. It is taken from the report of a speech delivered at Lindsay in 1887, on the administration of the North-West. After sketching the principal events leading up to the Half-breed rebellion down to the summer of 1884, he said: “The time, if ever there was a time, for conditions of non-alienation passed away; the state of things changed, the discontent grew, the demand became fixed and formulated for like treatment as the Half-breeds of Manitoba, and its concession in this form was pressed on the government by everyone in the North-West, including the council. But all in vain! The government was deaf; the government was blind; the government was dumb; indeed for all they did in this matter the government might as well have been dead! Nay, better! for had they been dead I do not believe another baker’s dozen of Tories could have been found to succeed them who could have been as deaf, and dumb, and blind, and dead as they; and Canada might have been saved the blow, the dreadful blow, which they caused, if they did not actually inflict upon their country! At length, in June, 1884, after five years of total, of absolute inaction in this pressing matter, occurred an event so-marked that it might have made the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak, the blind to see, nay, might almost have waked the dead,—for then it happened that these poor people, despairing at last of reaching otherwise the ears of their rulers at Ottawa, sent a deputation on foot to tramp the prairies, cross the rivers and penetrate the forests, seven hundred long miles into Montana, to find and to counsel with their old chief and leader, Louis Riel. They reached him; they invited his help; he agreed to return in their company, to lead his people in an agitation for the rights which they had so long asked in vain; he returned on this demand, on this errand, in those relations to his kinsmen; and he was triumphantly and enthusiastically received by a large assembly of the Half-breeds on the banks of the Saskatchewan; and all these ominous and portentous facts were known to the government! Now what at this juncture was the relation of Louis Riel to the disturbed populations of the North-West? That is a most important question to be answered when you are measuring the situation and awarding its due responsibility to the government. For I ask you, having asked that question, to decide, as I believe you will unhesitatingly decide, I ask not you Liberals only, but the most compassionate, the most faithful Tory, the blindest, the most party-ridden Tory here, to decide,—even if he can find, what I cannot find, in the loving kindness of his nature, in the softness of his heart, some, I will not say justification, I will not say excuse, but some palliation for that five long years of inaction,—yet I ask you all, with absolute confidence, to agree with me that for the inaction after June, 1884, there is, under heaven, no palliation whatever. What was the relation of Riel to those amongst whom he came? I will not give you my own comparisons; I will give you those of the first minister himself, used in reply to me in parliament. He said that Riel was the El Mahdi of the Metis! The El Mahdi—you know him—the Arabian priest, and prophet, and usurping chief, who excited in the breasts of the wild tribes of the desert such a convinced belief in his supernatural powers, such a devoted and fanatic affection to his person, such a desperate fidelity to his cause, that at his bidding, ill-armed and undisciplined as they were, they flung their naked bodies in ferocious fight against the better drilled and more numerous forces of their lawful sovereign, the Khedive; nay, they hurled those naked bodies once and again against the serried ranks of the British battalions; and boldly encountered at once all the old British valor, and all the modern dreadful appliances of war; and the sands of Africa were wet with brave English blood, and English wives and mothers wept bitter tears for the deeds done under these influences by the wild followers of El Mahdi. He said that Riel was the La Rochejacquelin of the Metis! La Rochejacquelin, the young French noble who, when all France almost beside had submitted to the republic, raised again the white flag of the legitimate monarchy, roused the peaceful peasantry of remote La Vendée, led them in successful attack against strong places held by the forces of the republic, and by virtue of the spirit he infused, the confidence they reposed, the affection and fealty they bore towards their feudal chief, kept at bay for a while the great enemies of the state. He said he was the Charles Stuart, the Pretender, the leader of the lost cause of the Half-breeds! ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie, the king of the Hieland hearts,’ who, after the lowlands of Scotland, after all England, after all Ireland had submitted to the new rule, yet raised the clans; marched into Edinburgh; held court at Holyrood; made a descent on England itself; and, when pressed back into the north, fought with his irregular and ill-equipped liegemen in unequal, but obstinate and glorious, and sometimes successful conflict with the disciplined troops of the new dynasty! The Stuart, who found and proved for the hundredth time the stern valor and the enthusiastic love of his Highland followers; who found and proved it, not only in the fleeting hour of victory, but in the dark season of distress; when, with broken fortunes and a lost cause, with thirty thousand pounds offered for his head, and death assigned as the penalty for his harborer, he was safely guarded, and loved, and cherished, and sheltered by his clansmen in the caves and glens and bothies of the Highlands, as safe as if he had been in command in the centre of a British square! Yes! They scorned the base reward; they contemned the dreadful penalty; they kept him safe, and at length helped him to escape to other climes, to wait for the better days that never came. Such were the men to whom the first minister compared Riel, in his relation to the Metis. And, such being his relation, I ask you was not his coming an ominous and portentous event? He came, with all that power and influence over that ill-educated, half-civilized, impulsive, yet proud and sensitive people, living their lonely lives in that far land; he came amongst them at their request; he who had led the Half-breeds of the east in ’69, and had achieved for them a treaty and the recognition of their rights; he came to lead his kinsmen of the west in the path by which they were, as they hoped, to obtain their rights as well! Had the government been diligent before, they should have been roused by this to further zeal. But he came after five years of absolute lethargy on the part of the government, when they knew that they had not been diligent, and when, therefore, they had a double duty to repair, in the time God gave them still, the consequences of their sloth. Surely, surely such a coming should have made the deaf to hear, the blind to see, the dumb to speak; surely it might almost have waked the dead!” This extract will compare with the best effort of any modern parliamentary or platform speaker, and the whole speech is probably the best specimen of moving eloquence ever uttered by a public man in America.—The heavy and prolonged strain of the election campaign of 1886-7 had a serious effect on Mr. Blake’s health, and resulted in a nervous collapse which made a holding of the position of leader of a parliamentary party no longer possible to one of his sense of duty. He accordingly resigned the leadership of the Liberals in the session of 1887, to the sincere regret of his followers in the house and, it may be said, to the regret of the whole country besides.
Morison, Lewis Francis, Advocate, St. Hyacinthe, was born in that city, on the 30th January, 1842. His father, Donald George Morison, was born at Sorel, P.Q., and was many years a notary. His grandfather, Allan Morison, was born on Lewis Island, west coast of Scotland, and came to Canada about 1770, settling in the district of Montreal. Mr. Morison’s mother was Marie A. Rosalie Papineau, daughter of the Hon. D. B. Papineau, and niece of the late Hon. Louis Joseph Papineau. Mr. Morison, the subject of our sketch, was educated at the College of St. Hyacinthe, and studied law with the late Hon. M. Laframboise and the Hon. Auguste C. Papineau, now on the bench of the Superior Court of the province of Quebec. He was admitted to the bar on the 2nd of February, 1863, and has been in practice at St. Hyacinthe since that date. He does business in all the courts, civil and criminal, and has a remunerative practice. Mr. Morison served two years as councilman in the municipality of the city of St. Hyacinthe, and in January, 1880, was elected, without opposition, mayor, which office he held for two years. Being a native of the city, and having grown with it, he naturally takes a pride in witnessing its progress. Mr. Morison is president of the Granite Mill Company, which he started in 1882, and which now turns out the finest quality of knitting in Canada, and employs about six hundred hands. He was also one of the original promoters, and is now a director, of the St. Hyacinthe, Manufacturing Company. This concern only manufactures fine flannel, which is in great demand, and is kept running full time all the year. He constructed the first macadamized road in this section of the county. The first section of five miles of this road connected St. Hyacinthe with quarries, lime-kilns, and sand pits, greatly helping building operations, and created a new source of wealth for its citizens. He is also proprietor of two of the toll bridges built at St. Hyacinthe across the Yamaska river, and has a large interest in the third one. These bridges are built under private charters, and give more easy access to the city. Mr. Morison is what may be called a live citizen, and he loses no opportunity to advance the prosperity of his native place. In politics, he is a Liberal, and in religion, a member of the Roman Catholic church. He is a close student, and growing in reputation as a lawyer who will add to the prestige of the profession of which he is such a good representative.
Fulton, Dr. John, Toronto. The late Dr. Fulton was born in the township of Southwold, Elgin county, Ontario, on the 12th February, 1837, and died at Toronto on the 15th June, 1887. The illness which ended his useful life was the result of a severe cold, taken in the course of ordinary professional duties. His father was a highly respectable farmer of Irish origin. His mother’s family had originally come from Scotland, and their son John very early showed all the quickness of the one race and the shrewdness and perseverance of the other. He began his early education when very young, and continued for several years at school, always one of the best behaved and most advanced of the scholars. He continued at home on the farm till he was eighteen years of age, when his health, never robust, although as a rule good, was such as to warrant him in seeking a less laborious and more congenial occupation. He became a school teacher, having obtained successively several certificates, and was, as usual, not very long before reaching the highest grade. As a teacher he was, wherever he taught, most successful—seeing clearly himself every point he desired to teach others, he had the somewhat rare but invaluable power of making it clear and simple to every pupil—a power which characterized him all through life in his subsequent career as a prominent professor of various branches of medical science. He began his medical studies under the supervision of Dr. J. H. Wilson, of St. Thomas, a highly respected medical man, still engaged actively in his profession. From the moment of his entrance on his professional studies he was characterized by unremitting zeal—never being idle, doing as much work in the way of study in a week as would take most young men a month to master. In due course he entered the medical school so long and so successfully carried on by by the late Dr. Rolph; and here he at once ranked as one of the best men of his year. He was ever most ambitious, and was not content with matriculating as usual in medicine alone, but also matriculated in arts at the University of Toronto, taking a high position in this examination. After completing his course he graduated at Victoria University, of which at that time Dr. Rolph’s school was the medical department. He also went up for his examination and graduated in medicine at the University of Toronto. He had hardly taken his degree in Canada, when he went to New York and spent some time attending, with his customary regularity, Bellevue Hospital, in that city, and very shortly left for England, where he spent all the time at his disposal in the hospital wards and at his studies. He successfully went up before the Royal College of Physicians of London, and the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and obtained the license of the one and the membership of the other. He then visited Paris and Berlin for a brief space, and as usual was found following the great masters of these capitals around the hospitals, never losing sight of his great aim—the increasing of his already large store of professional knowledge. Shortly after his return to Canada he was married, January, 1864, to Isabella Campbell, of Yarmouth, Ontario, whose premature decease, in October, 1884, all but crushed his heart, and who was deservedly loved and respected by all who knew her. Dr. Fulton settled in Fingal, Ontario, for the practice of his profession, and had not been there long before he was tendered by the late Dr. Rolph and accepted the professorship in anatomy, in the medical school of which he had so recently been a distinguished student. His duties as a professor were begun with enthusiasm, and as a medical teacher he was a success from the very first. Not content, as most men of his early age would have been, with the high position he had already reached, he attended University College classes in arts, with the intention of graduating in arts at the provincial university. This intention, owing to constantly increasing duties, he had most reluctantly to abandon; for he greatly disliked to give up any plan on which he had deliberately set his heart. In addition to his professional and professorial duties, in 1867 he began and shortly completed his work on “Physiology,” which was for years highly prized by successive classes of students, as giving a clear and succinct epitome of that subject in the briefest possible compass, and which he subsequently re-wrote and enlarged for a second edition. In 1869-70 he lectured on physiology and botany with the same acceptance as had characterized his lectures on anatomy. In 1870 he busied himself, in addition to other duties, in writing a work on Materia Medica which, however, from stress of other labors, was never completed. This year he sent in his resignation of his chair in the college, owing to difficulties which had arisen, and in consequence of which Drs. Rolph, Geikie, and Fulton resigned together. Dr. Fulton consented, however, on being requested to do so, to withdraw his letter of resignation. In August, 1870, he bought from its then proprietor the Dominion Medical Journal, which had been carried on for a short time, and into which Dr. Fulton at once infused life and vigor. He changed its name to the Canada Lancet, under which title it appeared for the first time in September, 1870, and under Dr. Fulton’s indefatigable editorship has been continued ever since; the Lancet having in that time risen from having hardly any influence and a very small circulation, to the position it now holds, of being the most influential and widely-circulated medical journal in the Dominion of Canada, a change effected by its proprietor’s amazing and continuous industry, aided by his great business tact. In March, 1871, Dr. Fulton finally resigned his chair in Victoria College Medical School, and was offered and accepted the professorship of physiology in Trinity Medical College. This he continued to hold, and to discharge its duties with distinguished ability and satisfaction to all concerned, until a few years ago, when he succeeded his colleague, Dr. Bethune, on that gentleman retiring from the chair of surgery. This chair he filled ably and well till his death, and in connection with it, he was also one of the surgeons to the Toronto General Hospital, which institution has in his death sustained a severe loss. As an editor of a medical journal, Dr. Fulton was earnest, painstaking, and thorough in an unusual degree. The same, too, may be said of him as a medical teacher, and indeed in every other relation in life where he had duties to perform. He was for nearly twenty years before his death a member of Knox Church, Toronto, and one of the trustees of that church. Here his advice and clear-headedness will be much missed. His memory will be long cherished, and his example it is to be hoped will be followed by not a few of our young medical men. For as Dr. Fulton made himself what he was, by his persevering efforts, for he was essentially a self-made man, they too, by doing and working as he did, may come to occupy the highest positions in public and professional influence and respect. He left behind him a son and three daughters.
Binney, Right Rev. Hibbert, D.D., Bishop of Nova Scotia. The late Bishop Binney was born at Sydney, Cape Breton, on the 12th August, 1819. His father, the Rev. Hibbert Binney, D.C.L., was for some time rector of Sydney, and afterwards removing to England, he became rector of Newbury, Bucks. The future bishop was educated at King’s College, London, and in due time proceeded to Worcester College, Oxford. He took his degree of B.A. in 1842, and was elected fellow of his college, holding for some years in addition the position of tutor and bursar. His career at Oxford was a highly honorable one, he having taken a first-class in mathematical honors, and a second-class in classical honors, thus very nearly attaining the very high distinction of a double first. On the bishopric of Nova Scotia becoming vacant by the death of Dr. John Inglis, third occupant of that see, the Rev. Mr. Binney was appointed by the Crown, at the unusually early age of thirty-one. It is said that while the question of the appointment was engaging the attention of the crown officers, there being several names mentioned for the vacant see, the Hon. Joseph Howe, then in London, was consulted as to the probable wishes of the diocese, when he at once said: “Give it to the Nova Scotian”—which decided the matter. Mr. Binney received the degree of D.D. from his alma mater, and was consecrated in Lambeth Chapel, March 25th, 1851. On his arrival in Nova Scotia, he found things not as satisfactory as he desired; but he set to work with characteristic vigor, and in a few years had more than doubled the number of clergy and stations occupied by the Church of England. His greatest efforts were directed towards the establishment of a synod or legislative body of clergy and laity, which he finally accomplished in the face of much opposition, and the wisdom of his action has been since amply justified. As visitor of King’s College, the Church University at Windsor, he ever took a deep interest in its welfare, giving ungrudging attention to all meetings of the board of governors of which he was president. The difficulties of his arduous post became in his later years too great for even his iron frame and will, and after gradually failing for a few months, he died quite suddenly in New York, where he had gone for medical advice, on April 30, 1887, in the thirty-seventh year of his episcopal, and the sixty-eighth of his age. The bishop was a very strong-minded man, his views were high church, and during his long episcopate he had moulded most of his clergy to his own ideas. He married in 1854, Mary, daughter of the Hon. William B. Bliss, judge of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia, by whom he had two sons and three daughters.
Tooke, Benjamin, Manufacturer, Montreal, was born in Montreal, on the 12th November, 1848. His father, Thomas Tooke, was a well-known citizen, and for forty years occupied a responsible position in the Bank of Montreal. Benjamin, the subject of our sketch, was educated at the High School of his native city, and secured a classical and commercial education. Shortly after leaving school he entered the establishment of Gault Brothers, wholesale dry goods merchants, as a junior clerk, and gradually worked his way up until he became the confidential clerk and had the fixing of the prices of all the goods coming into the establishment. After a period of ten years with Gault Brothers, he found himself master of all the details of business, and otherwise fully equipped to face the world of commerce. Therefore, in 1871, he severed his connection with the above firm, and commenced the manufacture of shirts and collars, conducting his operations under the name of the Mount Royal Manufacturing Company. Business prospered, and in 1873 had grown to such an extent, that he found himself unable to attend to all its details, and took in as a working partner Leslie Skelton. In the fall of 1878, Mr. Skelton having retired from the firm, Mr. Tooke entered into a partnership with his brother, R. J. Tooke, who up to this time had been carrying on a retail trade in gentlemen’s furnishing goods. This partnership lasted for four years,—R. J. Tooke retiring to take up his old trade,—and since then he has conducted his business alone. In 1884, finding his already extensive premises in Montreal too cramped for his steadily increasing business, he selected a building site in St. Laurent, a few miles from the city, erected a factory sixty-five feet by forty feet, three stories high, and put into it the most improved machinery. This factory has proved a great success, produces excellent goods, and finds employment for about eight hundred and fifty hands. Mr. Tooke is highly respected by his numerous workpeople, and the utmost harmony and good feeling pervades his establishment. In politics he is a Conservative, and in religion belongs to the Episcopal church. On the 5th December, 1872, he was married to Elizabeth Eastty, daughter of W. E. Eastty, of London, England.
Scott, Captain Peter Astle, R.N., Commander of the Squadron employed for the Protection of the Fisheries, and Chairman of the Board of Examiners of Masters and Mates of Canada, was born on the 25th of February, 1816, at Gillingham, Kent, England. His father, James Scott, a paymaster in the Royal navy, was born in Virginia, and left it with his father, a captain of the Royal army during the Revolution. Captain Scott received his education at the Rochester and Chatham Classical and Mathematical School, at Rochester, county of Kent. He joined the navy as a volunteer of the first class, on board the Basilisk cutter, ten guns, at the Nore, on the 14th of February, 1829; removed to the Prince Regent, 120 guns, in August, 1830, spent part of his time in the Channel with the flag of Rear Admiral Sir William Parker, and also on the Scout, eighteen guns, in the North Sea. He then joined the Thunderer, eighty-four guns, and passed his examination for lieutenant, 1st September, 1835. While returning to England in November of that year in a merchantman, she capsized while crossing the Bay of Biscay, but righting again, her crew were fortunate enough to get her safely into Bristol with the loss of bulwarks, boats, and a few spars. He next joined the Asia, eighty-four guns, in 1836, and proceeded to the Mediterranean, and after serving a short time in the Blazer steam vessel, returned to England in the Barham, fifty guns, and was paid off at Sheerness in January, 1839. In April, 1839, he joined the Terror, under Captain F. R. M. Crozier, her consort, the Erebus, being under the charge of Captain James Clark Ross. After spending a winter at Desolation Island (Kerguelans Land), these vessels reached Hobartown, Van Diemen’s Land, in August, 1840. It being necessary to have magnetic observations taken at that place in connection with those established by the various foreign governments all over the world, an observatory was erected at the expense of the Admiralty, and Lieutenant Jos. Kay was placed in charge, Captain Scott being first assistant, and placed under the orders of Sir John Franklin, who was then lieutenant-governor of Tasmania. Captain Scott, having some knowledge of naval architecture, built a yacht for the lieutenant-governor, of about 180 tons, and two gunboats of about 100 tons each, for the defence of the colony. He was relieved at the observatory by Lieutenant Smith in the autumn of 1844, and returned to England in May, 1845, only a few days too late to join the Erebus, of the Arctic expedition, as second lieutenant, under the command of his old friend, Sir John Franklin. In August, 1845, he was appointed to the Columbia steam vessel, Captain W. Owen, who was then surveying the Bay of Fundy. In 1848 the Columbia was paid off at Chatham, Kent, England. Captain Scott then joined the coast guard for six months, and in May, 1849, was reappointed to the Columbia, under Commander Shortland, R.N., as assistant surveyor, to continue the North American survey. In 1857 the Columbia was condemned and sold out of the service, and the survey was continued in hired vessels. In January, 1862, Mr. Scott was promoted to the rank of commander, and in 1865, on Captain Shortland retiring from the command, he assumed the charge of the survey, and returned to England in May, 1866. In September of that year he retired with the rank of captain, and in April, 1869, having been invited to return to Canada, he took command of the Dominion steamship Druid, then employed protecting the fisheries. In the spring of 1870, he removed to the government steamship, Lady Head, and took charge of the vessels employed in the fisheries protection service. In 1871, in addition to the above duties, he was appointed chairman of the Board of Examiners of Masters and Mates for Canada, which office he still holds. In November, 1879, Captain Scott was directed to proceed to England, to bring out the corvette Charybdis, of about 2,000 tons, to be employed as a training ship. As the vessel could not be got ready until late in the winter, Captain Scott concluded to lay her up and return for her in the following spring. In May, 1880, he sailed her across the Atlantic, and moored her in St. John, in July of the same year. In February, 1886, on the United States government giving notice that the fishery clauses of the Treaty of Washington had terminated, Canada fitted out a small squadron to protect her fisheries; and Captain Scott again assumed the command, embarking on the government steamer Lansdowne, with two guns and thirty-three men. In August he took command of the government steamer Acadia, with one gun and thirty-three men, and is still in the service of the Canadian government. In March, 1847, he married M. A. Hobbs, daughter of George Hobbs, a merchant in Eastport, Maine, United States.
La Rocque, Rev. Paul S., St. Hyacinthe, Canon and Rector of St. Hyacinthe Cathedral, Doctor of Theology and Canon Law, was born at St. Marie de Monnoir, province of Quebec, on the 28th October, 1846. His father was Albert La Rocque, and mother, Genevieve Daigneault. His brother, the Rev. Charles La Rocque, is chaplain of the Good Shepherd Convent, at Montreal; and the Right Rev. Joseph La Rocque, and the Right Rev. Charles La Rocque, the first and second bishops of St. Hyacinthe, were his cousins. The Rev. Father La Rocque received his education at St. Theresa and St. Hyacinthe Colleges. He was ordained a priest on the 9th May, 1869, and from that time until 1880, was a missionary in Florida, United States. Without any official connection during his stay at Key West he acted as chaplain to the United States troops stationed there. He then returned to St. Hyacinthe, and the following year, 1881, he went to Rome, and pursued his studies in the Gregorian and the Appolinaire Universities. He remained in the Eternal City for two years and a half, and then made a tour of the principal cities of Europe. He also travelled to the Holy Land, and visited Jerusalem, Nazareth, etc. This journey was undertaken with the view of gaining all the information possible with regard to Bible history, and to put him in a position to communicate the most accurate information to his flock, with regard to that far-off country. As a linguist, Rev. Canon La Rocque has few, if any, equals in Canada, being able to speak five different languages. He is a great favorite with his parishioners, takes a deep interest in their material and spiritual affairs, and is very kind and attentive to the sick and needy. The degree of doctor of theology and canon law was conferred upon him at Rome.
Bowell, Hon. Mackenzie, Minister of Customs of the Dominion of Canada, M.P. for North Hastings, Ontario, was born at Rickinghall, Suffolk, England, on the 27th December, 1823, and when about ten years of age accompanied his parents to Canada. Mr. Bowell, in early youth, exhibited much courage and enterprise, and one is not surprised to see what he has achieved when looking back at his career. He had a quick eye for business, and was seldom astray in judging what sort of enterprise was profitable, and what had better be avoided. He had also a military enthusiasm, and assisted in 1857, in raising and organizing a rifle company of sixty-five men, in what was known at that time as class B, to which no assistance was given by the government, beyond furnishing the rifles. He served on the frontier in the winter of 1864-5, during the American rebellion, and again during the Fenian troubles of 1866. He entered a printing office as an apprentice in 1834, and during his whole life up to the time when heavy political responsibilities fell upon his shoulders, he was connected with the newspaper press of Canada. He was editor and proprietor of the Belleville Daily and Weekly Intelligencer newspaper for a number of years, and at one time president of the Dominion Editors and Reporters’ Association. In education he has taken considerable interest, as is evidenced by the fact that he held for eleven years the chairmanship of the Board of School Trustees, of Belleville. He has always been a prominent Orangeman, and was for eight years grand master of the Provincial Orange Grand Lodge of Ontario East, which position he resigned, when in 1870 he was elected most worshipful grand master and sovereign of the Orange Association of British America. This office he continued to hold until he resigned in June, 1878. He was likewise president of the Triennial Council of Orangeism of the world, having been elected to that position at the council held in Derry, Ireland, in 1876. From Mr. Bowell’s connection with important public enterprises is gathered his connection with industrial and commercial movements. He was, for many years, president of the West Hastings Agricultural Society, and vice-president of the Agricultural and Arts Association of Ontario; president of the Hastings Mutual Fire Insurance Company, the Farren Manufacturing Company, and the Dominion Safe-Gas Company, and president of the Belleville and North Hastings Railway; and was captain of No. 1 company of the 15th battalion while on service during the Fenian troubles, and subsequently major in the 49th battalion of Volunteer Rifles. In 1863 Mr. Bowell contested the north riding of the county of Hastings for parliamentary honors, as the nominee of the Conservative convention, but refusing to join in the cries against the incorporation of Roman Catholic institutions, and what was then termed French domination, which were made test questions at the time, he was defeated. In 1867 he again presented himself to the electors of North Hastings, and having stated his views with that calm reasonableness which has always characterized his utterances, he was elected. He entered parliament therefore at confederation, but took no very prominent part in the debates of the house for the first two or three years. His first success in parliament was in his criticism of a measure introduced by the late Sir George E. Cartier, then minister of militia, for the purpose of reorganizing the militia force of Canada. Upon this occasion his practical experience and knowledge of the requirements of the volunteer force had its effect upon the house, and he succeeded in helping to defeat the government upon the details of the bill three times during one sitting of the house. Being an independent thinker, he was not always in accord with the leaders of his party, having voted against them upon many important measures, notably the Nova Scotia better terms resolutions, and upon the motion for the ratification of the Washington treaty. He was re-elected in 1872, and, consequently, in parliament, when the Macdonald government fell, and the Hon. Alexander Mackenzie succeeded to power. It was in opposition that Mr. Bowell took a leading part, not only in the business of the house, but upon the most important committees. He inaugurated and conducted the proceedings in the House of Commons which resulted in his moving the motion for the expulsion of Louis David Riel, member elect for Provencher, Manitoba, for the part he, Riel, had taken in ordering the shooting of Scott, a prisoner of his during the revolt in Manitoba in 1879. He also took an active part in bringing before the house the question of the violation of the provisions of the Independence of Parliament Act, by its speaker, and by a number of its members. The motion which he made upon this question, though defeated, led subsequently to the resignation of Mr. Speaker Anglin, one member of the cabinet, and four members of the house. He did not make many speeches, but whenever he spoke, the members always listened to him, for he had gained the reputation of being a man who had, first, something to say, and, second, a reasonable and a satisfactory way of saying it. He has been successful at every election since. On the 19th of October, 1878, upon the resumption of power by the Conservative party, Mr. Bowell was called to the Privy Council, and sworn in minister of customs, and that office he still holds. The member for North Hastings is level-headed, and possessed of a sound judgment. It is pleasing sometimes to sit in the gallery of the House of Commons and watch him answer questions or reply to allegations waged against the administration of his department. Under no circumstances, nor by any pressure or irritation, can he be moved to haste or ill-temper; but he sits there, disregarding feeling, and doing what he considers to be his duty as a minister of the Crown. Mr. Bowell married in 1847; Harriet Louise, eldest daughter of the late Jacob G. Moore, of Belleville, by whom he has nine children, five of whom are living.
Ritchie, Hon. Robert J., Solicitor-General of the Province of New Brunswick, M.P.P. for the county of St. John, was born in St. John, and educated in the city of his birth. Having studied and adopted law as a profession, he was called to the bar on the 16th of October, 1867. Since then he has worked up an extensive and prosperous practice. He has for many years taken a great interest in politics, and was first nominated for a seat in the House of Assembly just previous to the general election in 1878. He won his seat, and at once took a prominent part in the debates in the house. Having offered again in 1882, he was a second time successful. Again, at the general election on 26th April, 1886, he scored a great victory, standing second among the fortunate candidates. The vote was, Hon. D. McLellan, 2943; R. J. Ritchie, 2570; W. A. Quintin, 2531; A. A. Stockton, 2531; defeating James Rourke, 2188; J. A. Chesley, 1834; G. G. Gilbert, 1645; John Connor, 1468; A. T. Armstrong, 1823. In Nova Scotia, since confederation, the legal affairs of the local administration have been attended to by the attorney-general exclusively; but in New Brunswick they still keep up the office of solicitor-general as well. The talented premier, Hon. A. G. Blair, took the position of attorney-general when he formed his cabinet on the 3rd March, 1883, and another lawyer of excellent standing being wanted to complete the personnel of the cabinet, the gentleman who forms the subject of this sketch was fitly selected as the best man for the position of solicitor-general. His appointment to the executive council necessitated his again going to the country and he was re-elected by acclamation. As a member of the government, he has taken an active part in all the measures which have been presented to the house, and has well sustained his prominent position. In addition to his duties, as an active and leading politician, Hon. Mr. Ritchie is connected with several of the local corporations of St. John, and his influence is felt in social and professional circles. Although, having suffered great losses by fire, the people of St. John have a spirit of business enterprise which has risen superior to their reverses. The shipping and lumbering business through which the money of her merchants was chiefly accumulated have languished of late years, and no compensating trade has sprung up to take their place. But the manufacturing activity of the inhabitants has proved successful, and the population of the city has not declined. The yield of the fisheries, as elsewhere down in the maritime provinces during the summer of 1887, was enormous. If St. John is favored by the Canadian Pacific Railway Company as regards making it a winter port, the outlook for the city’s future is good. The bar of St. John is rich in forensic talent. The head-quarters of the legal fraternity centres in Ritchie’s and Palmer’s blocks. The nearness of the lawyers’ quarters to one another enables the members of the bar to obtain counsel and intercommunication which is very advantageous and helpful. When the whirligig of politics brings the Liberals into power again in Dominion affairs there is probably no man in the opposition camp whose prospects of succeeding to a position on the bench are better than those of Hon. R. J. Ritchie. His talents peculiarly fit him for the position of one of Her Majesty’s judges.
McLelan, Hon. Archibald Woodbury, Postmaster-General for the Dominion of Canada, M.P. for Colchester, Nova Scotia, was born at Londonderry, N.S., on the 24th December, 1824. He is descended from a family that emigrated from Londonderry, Ireland, during the last century, and settled in the province of Nova Scotia. His father, the late G. W. McLelan, during his lifetime sat for a long period of years in the Nova Scotia legislature. The future postmaster-general received his primary education in the schools of his native parish, and finished his classical course at Mount Allison Wesleyan Academy. In early life, he engaged in a mercantile line of life, and continued in it for a considerable term, but in later years became an extensive ship-builder and ship-owner. He began to take an interest in politics when comparatively a young man, and represented Colchester in the Legislative Assembly of Nova Scotia from 1858 to 1863; then North Colchester in the same legislature from the latter year up to confederation; and Colchester, in the House of Commons, at Ottawa, until called to the Senate of Canada on the 21st June, 1869. In 1881, he resigned his seat in the Senate, and on an appeal to his old friends in Colchester, they returned him again as their representative in the House of Commons. On his return to Ottawa, he was sworn in a member of the Privy Council, and made president of the council on the 20th May of the same year. On the 10th July, 1882, he was appointed minister of marine and fisheries; on the 10th December, 1885, minister of finance; and on the 27th January, 1887, postmaster-general, the office he now so ably fills. Hon. Mr. McLelan is a director of the Cobequid Marine Insurance Company. In 1869 he was appointed one of the commissioners for the construction of the Intercolonial Railway; and in 1883, was a commissioner from Canada to the Intercolonial Fisheries Exhibition held in London. As a recognition of his valuable services on this occasion, he was presented with a diploma of honor. He is a Conservative in politics. In 1854 he was married to Caroline Metzler, of Halifax.
Reesor, Hon. David, Rosedale, Toronto, Senator of the Dominion of Canada, is a descendant of a German family. His great-grandfather, Christian Reesor, who was a Mennonite minister, emigrated from Mannheim to Pennsylvania about 1737, having under his charge a small colony, and settled in Lancaster county, where some of the family still reside. The original homestead, a splendid farm of three hundred acres, is still in their possession. The first settlement of this family in the township of Markham took place as early in its history as 1801, when Christian Reesor, the grandfather of the senator, his father, Abraham Reesor, together with three uncles, located in that section of the country. Here David Reesor was born on the 18th January, 1823. His, mother Anna Dettiwiler, was also from Lancaster county, Pennsylvania. She died in Markham in 1857, her husband having died in 1832. The early education of Senator Reesor was obtained in the common school of the township, but previous to his being put to any work he received three years private tuition from a competent instructor, which helped him considerably. His father’s farm was the first stage on which he enacted his part in the drama of life; then he became a merchant and manufacturer, and continued business in these lines for five years. In 1856 he published the first copy of the Markham Economist, a journal of strong Reform proclivities, which he edited and conducted with considerable skill for several years, and sold the business out about 1868. He has been a magistrate since 1848, a notary public since 1862, and for a long time was secretary and treasurer of the Markham Agricultural Society. When the counties of York, Ontario and Peel were united in 1850, he became a member of the county council and served several years, being warden in 1860. His career as a school trustee will not soon be forgotten, as it was chiefly through his exertions that Markham secured a grammar school. He has long been connected with the militia, and has held the rank of lieutenant-colonel of the reserve since 1866. He was appointed returning officer for the East Riding of York, July, 1854. In the more extensive region of politics Senator Reesor has not been less true to his principles, or less active as a general advocate of measures that tend to the public good, than when in the limited sphere of township councillor he supported and directed local improvements. He represented King’s division in the Legislative Council of Canada from 1860 until the confederation of the provinces, when he was called to the Senate by royal proclamation, October 23, 1867. At the time when the confederation scheme was under discussion in the Legislative Council, he moved a resolution, which, had it been passed, would have made the office of senator elective; but it was defeated on a division. He is a Liberal in politics. Senator Reesor is a member of the Methodist church, and every good cause obtains from him a hearty and willing support. He was for many years president of the Markham Bible Society. In February, 1848, he married Emily, eldest daughter of Daniel McDougall, of St. Marys, Ontario, and sister of Hon. William McDougall, C.B. They have five children, four daughters and one son, two of the former being married. Marion Augusta, the eldest daughter, is the wife of Dr. Colburn, of Oshawa, and Jessie Adelaide, the wife of John Holmes, of Toronto.
Read, Rev. Philip Chesshyre, M.A., Professor of Classics, Bishop’s College, Lennoxville, Quebec province, was born on the 4th March, 1850, at Woodend, Hyde, Cheshire, England. His father, Rev. Alexander Read, B.A., late scholar of Trinity College, Dublin, was a descendant of an old Scotch family from Ayrshire, who settled in North of Ireland, in 1600. His mother, Anne Whiteway, is descended from a Devonshire family from Kingsteignton and Whiteway, and was a daughter of Philip Whiteway, J.P., of Runcorn, Cheshire, and Anne Chesshyre, of Rock Savage, his wife. Professor Read received his education in Manchester Grammar School from 1861 to 1867—being captain of the school in 1866. He then attended Lincoln College, Oxford, where he secured a brilliant record, and in 1872 was assistant lecturer in the college. In 1873 he was ordained by his lordship the Bishop of Salisbury. In 1872 he was appointed assistant master at Marlborough College; in 1874, secretary of the Church Council and examiner of schools under government in Barbadoes; in 1876, head master of the school at Newton, Lancashire; in 1877, rector of Bishop’s College, Lennoxville; in 1882, professor of Classics and Philosophy in Bishop’s College, Lennoxville; and in 1887 examiner to the Medical Board of the province of Quebec. In early life Professor Read began to take an interest in the volunteer movement, and was sub-lieutenant in the Oxford Rifle Volunteers. He is now captain of the school corps at Lennoxville. In 1886 and 1888 he occupied the position of chaplain in the Independent Order of Foresters. He has travelled a good deal, and found time to visit the West Indies, Spain, and several other foreign countries. In religion the professor belongs to the Episcopal church, and holds moderately broad views. On the 28th June, 1879, he was united in marriage to Helen Rosina, daughter of John W. McCallum, of Quebec, and Annie S. Brown, of Halifax, his wife. Mrs. Read is a lineal descendant of an old Scotch manufacturer who settled in Quebec shortly after the conquest of Canada. The fruit of the above union has been two promising children, Alexander Cuthbert Read, and Philip Austin Ottley Read.
Sterling, Alexander Addison, Fredericton, N.B., High Sheriff of the county of York, New Brunswick, was born on the 22nd of August, 1838, at St. Marys, York county. He is the third son of George Henly Sterling, and his wife Susan Elizabeth McLean, and grandson of Captain John Sterling and Captain Archibald McLean, who were both loyalists and served in the war of the American revolution, but eventually settled in New Brunswick. He was brought up on his father’s farm at St. Marys, and commenced his education at the local school, finishing his course of study at the Fredericton Grammar School. He has been engaged in farming and mercantile pursuits all his life, commencing his commercial career as clerk in a store at Fredericton, in 1852, where he remained until 1856. In 1857 he removed to Toronto, Ontario, being employed by Paterson & Sons, hardware merchants of that city. Relinquishing this position in 1858, he returned to New Brunswick, and commenced farming at Maugerville, Sunbury county, in partnership with his brother, the late George A. Sterling (who was elected a member of the Provincial legislature for the county of Sunbury, at the general election of 1882, but who died in October, 1883.) From 1864 to 1867 he represented the parish of Maugerville in the municipal council of the county of Sunbury, but during the latter year he removed to Fredericton, where he opened a general store, which was carried on for fifteen years, and in the year 1883 this was merged into a wholesale flour business, in which trade he is now successfully employed. He was married on the 12th of August, 1869, to Sarah Haws, daughter of John Haws, ship-builder, of Portland, St. John, N.B., and there have been six children issue of this marriage. Living in the cathedral city of his province he is a staunch member of the Episcopal church. He has been an energetic worker in the educational, parochial and municipal affairs, having been appointed a member of the Board of School Trustees for the city of Fredericton, in 1875, and also high sheriff for the county of York, in 1883, both of which offices he now holds. For a number of years he was connected with the temperance movement, and was an active member of the Order of the Sons of Temperance, and held the office of grand worthy patriarch for the province of New Brunswick, in 1876.
Torey, Edgar J., formerly Principal of the Hants County Academy at Windsor, N.S., is a native of Guysborough, N.S., where he was born about twenty-seven years ago. He attended the grammar school in his native town and studied with such diligence that at a very early age he passed the examination held under the Council of Public Instruction for grade B, or first-class male teacher’s diploma. He began to teach at the age of fifteen, and has since, with intervals of study, pursued that employment. He has taught in Amherst town, Hantsport, Hants Co., and in various other important schools in the province. Feeling the need of a thorough classical education, Mr. Torey availed himself of the advantages offered to gentlemen in the teaching profession by Dalhousie College, Halifax, N.S. He, like many other teachers, taught during the summer months and attended lectures in Dalhousie during the winter term, lasting from November to April. Pursuing this course for some years with success he took his degree of B.A. in 1882. He then took charge of the Victoria County Academy for one year, at the end of which period he resigned the principalship to accept a similar position in Guysborough, and won the encomiums of all with whom he came into contact, for careful and thorough teaching. In October, in the year 1884, the position of Principal in the Hants County Academy at Windsor, worth $850 a year, falling vacant, Mr. Torey applied for the situation and was selected from among a number of other applicants. The public schools were established in Windsor in the autumn of 1866, and now number eight departments. The position of Principal has been held by such educationists as S. S. Fisk; James Forrest, M.A.; J. L. Brown; Dr. Emdon Fritz; John F. Godfrey, B.A., and H. Elliott. The schools are thoroughly graded from the primary department and kindergarten up to the academy, which draws a special government allowance. A three years’ course is followed in the academy, embracing the classics and French, physics and the higher mathematics, and chemistry. The Principal, in addition to his labors in these branches and in preparing students for the matriculation examinations at the various provincial colleges, has a great deal of work to do in preparing and discussing questions for examination in the grading of all the schools. He also has a general supervision of the schools. The school is periodically visited by the county inspector, C. W. Roscoe, an experienced teacher, and also by Dr. David Allison, superintendent of education. Mr. Torey conducted the school with much success, and has fitted several students for college. After holding the position of Principal for three years he decided to adopt the profession of medicine as a permanent employment. His pupils heard of his approaching resignation with regret, and presented him with a valuable and handsome gold-headed cane, accompanied with an address. He resigned his position in October, 1887, and repaired to the University of New York, in the medical department of which he is preparing himself for his life work in the healing profession. He has the advantage of studying in one of the best equipped medical colleges in America, and one from which have graduated some of our best provincial medicos. He is pursuing his studies with great success and is very popular among his fellow-students.
Blackadar, Hugh William, Postmaster of the City of Halifax, Nova Scotia, was born at Halifax, March 4th, 1843. He is son of Hugh William Blackadar, proprietor and publisher of the Acadian Recorder, and Sophia Coleman. Educated under George Munro (now millionaire publisher of New York), then rector of the Free Church Academy, Halifax. He early in life took an active part in the conduct of the Acadian Recorder, and on the death of his father, June 13th, 1863, assumed the management of that journal, which he enlarged from a weekly to a tri-weekly, and subsequently to a daily. In 1864 Mr. Blackadar joined the volunteers, and subsequently held the rank of lieutenant in the third brigade Halifax artillery. He is a member of the Halifax Yacht Club. He was elected an alderman for Ward 4 in 1867, and was re-elected in 1870, serving altogether six years. Represented the city of Halifax as co-delegate with Mayor Stephen Tobin at the railroad convention held at Portland, Me., in 1868, and was one of the secretaries of the convention. In 1869 he was made magistrate for the city and county of Halifax; was a member of the Halifax Board of School Commissioners for five years from the reconstruction of that body in 1868; was appointed Queen’s printer of the province in 1869, and held that position under the Vail-Annand and Hill administrations till 1875. He was appointed postmaster of the city of Halifax Nov. 5th, 1874, by the Dominion government, which office he now holds. In religion he belongs to the Baptist denomination. He married, May 29th, 1866, Rachel Saxton, of Halifax.
Plumb, Hon. Josiah Burr, Speaker of the Senate of Canada. The country lost, by the sudden death of Senator Plumb, at Niagara, on the 12th of March, 1888, a gentleman possessed of excellent qualities as a man and as a politician. He was born on the 25th March, 1816, at East Haven, Connecticut, United States, where his father, an Episcopal clergyman, had charge of a parish. In 1845 he came to Canada, married a daughter of the late Samuel Street, and took up his residence at Niagara. For many years he lived in retirement, ample means rendering it unnecessary that he should take part in business, and it was not until 1874 that he turned his attention actively to politics. At that time Sir John Macdonald was passing through he darkest period of his political career, and it was more out of a chivalrous regard for the fallen leader than from any desire to achieve honors for himself that Mr. Plumb threw himself into the fight. In parliament and on the platform he was a most effective worker. He never for a moment spared himself, nor did he despair of success, though the outlook for his party and his leader up to the very day of the election in 1878 was never very bright. After that victory it was thought the indefatigable member for Niagara would receive for his services some recognition; but at that time this was not to be. Mr. Plumb continued to serve as a follower, and even consented in 1882 to the extinction, under the Redistribution Act, of the borough for which he sat. Having thus been legislated out of Niagara, he ran at the general election in the same year for North Wellington in the Conservative interest; but owing in part to the late hour at which he accepted the candidature, and in part to the personal popularity of his opponent, he suffered defeat. In the following year he was called to the Senate. As a senator he certainly made his mark. He brought to his task in that body a ripe parliamentary experience, a well-stored mind, and great fluency of speech. So highly appreciated was he by the ministerialists in the Senate and by the government that on the occasion of the withdrawal of Sir Alexander Campbell from the government, and pending the selection of a successor, he was asked to take charge of government measures in that chamber. The duty imposed upon him, it is hardly necessary to say, was performed most acceptably. Mr. Plumb’s elevation to the speakership of the Senate took place immediately after the general election of 1887. His wide information, dignified bearing, and fine social qualities made him a model president of the Upper House. Yet he has departed, as he might well have wished to do, full of years and honors. [For a more extended record of Mr. Plumb’s career, see the first series of this work.]