the city and county of Halifax, was born at Halifax, on the 24th of
November, 1848, and is of English descent. He was educated in his native
city, and has devoted the greater part of his life to journalism. At the
age of sixteen he entered the office of the _Morning Chronicle_, in
Halifax, the leading Liberal paper in Nova Scotia, as a clerk, and
gradually worked through the reportorial and editorial departments to
the position of managing editor, which office he resigned in 1884, when
called upon to fill a high position in the government of his native
province. During these twenty years, he did not confine his writing
exclusively to his own province, but contributed to various journals
abroad. For fourteen years he was connected with the Toronto _Globe_, as
Nova Scotia correspondent. In 1882, at a convention of the Liberal party
held at Halifax, after the resignation of the Thompson government, the
positions of premier and provincial secretary were offered to Mr.
Fielding, but he declined the honor. He, however, entered the
administration of the Hon. W. T. Pipes, on the 22nd of December, of the
same year, without a portfolio, having previously declined the offer of
a seat in it. In May, 1884, he resigned. On the retirement of the Hon.
W. T. Pipes, on the 15th of July following, he was called upon to
reorganize the cabinet, which he succeeded in doing, and became premier
and provincial secretary, on the 28th of July, 1884, and this position
he still holds. He was first returned to the House of Assembly at the
general election held in 1882, re-elected on his accepting office, 20th
of August, 1884, and again at the last general election in 1886. The
Hon. Mr. Fielding is a Liberal in politics, and favors the withdrawal of
the Maritime provinces from the Canadian confederation, and the
formation of a Maritime union. As will be seen, he has for the past five
years played an important part in the politics of his country, and being
yet a comparatively young man, there is yet a brilliant future before
him. In religion, he is attached to the Baptist church. On the 7th of
September, 1876, he was married to Hester, daughter of Thomas A.
Rankine, of St. John, New Brunswick.
* * * * *
=Hetherington, George A.=, M.D., L.M. (Dublin), St. John, New Brunswick,
was born at Johnston, New Brunswick, on the 17th March, 1851. His
father, James Grierson Hetherington, was of English descent, his father
(the grandfather of the subject of our sketch) having been born in
England, and came out to St. John, N.B., about seventy years ago, and
established a merchant tailoring business there, which was one of the
first in that then very young and small city. Mary Jane Clark, his
mother, was a native of New Brunswick, and of U. E. loyalist descent.
George A. Hetherington received the rudiments of his education at the
place of his birth; then he went to the Normal School at St. John, N.B.,
where he took a teacher’s certificate in 1860, and taught school for a
short time. Subsequently, for two years, he attended the Baptist
Seminary at Fredericton, N.B., and then spent a year in the medical
department of the University of Michigan, United States. He then
received an appointment in the Washtenaw Almshouse Hospital and Insane
Asylum, as resident physician, and this office he held for a year,
during which period he took a partial course, after the first year’s
full course, in the same university. He then went to Cincinnati, where
he further prosecuted his studies in medicine and surgery in the General
Hospital and in the Cincinnati College, and graduated M.D., in 1875.
Returning to his native country he successfully practised his profession
for nearly five years, and then went to Great Britain. Here he spent a
short period in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, and then went to Dublin,
where he took the full qualification of Rotunda Hospital for Women
(_Lic.Mid._); also a special course certificate for diseases of women
and children. After this Dr. Hetherington received an appointment in the
same hospital as assistant clinical instructor and clerk, having charge
of an extensive maternity department. At the close of his engagement he
returned to St. John, N.B., in 1882, and began a general practice, and
is now one of the leading practitioners of that city. He is a licentiate
of the Council of Physicians and Surgeons of New Brunswick; and a member
of the British Medical Association. In 1871 he attended the Military
School at Fredericton, N.B., and was the recipient of a second-class
certificate. In 1877 he was appointed coroner for the county of Queens,
and, after removing to St. John, surgeon to the St. John Firemen’s
Mutual Relief Association in 1885. The doctor is also a past chancellor
of the Knights of Pythias; supreme vice-chief ranger of the Independent
Order of Foresters, and past high physician of the same order, and a
member of the brotherhood of Freemasons. He has travelled considerably,
having visited all the important points in the Maritime provinces,
Quebec, Ontario, the Eastern States, New York, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky,
and Great Britain and Ireland. In politics he is a Liberal; and in
religion a Baptist. He was married on 5th September, 1876, to Sybil
McIntyre, of Sussex, New Brunswick.
* * * * *
=Wallace, Joseph James=, Truro, Nova Scotia, Superintendent of the
Halifax and St. John District of the Intercolonial Railway, was born in
Albert county, New Brunswick, on the 20th of April, 1847. His parents
were David and Mary Wallace. Mr. Wallace received his education in the
High School, Hillsboro’, New Brunswick. He entered the service of the
European and North-American Railway Company, on the 25th of May, 1865,
and continued in its service until November, 1872, during which period
he filled the various positions of telegraph operator at Salisbury, New
Brunswick; clerk and telegraph operator in the superintendent’s office,
at St. John, New Brunswick; station master, telegraph operator, and
postmaster, at Salisbury, New Brunswick; assistant accountant in the
superintendent’s office, at St. John, New Brunswick; and in November,
1872, and on the absorption of the above railway by the Intercolonial
Railway Company, he was made auditor of the latter company. This office
he held until May, 1883, when he was appointed to the more important
position of superintendent of the Halifax and St. John district, which
office he holds to-day. Mr. Wallace has shewn by his integrity,
industry, and perseverance, what a young man can do when he once
determines to rise in his profession. In 1870, he joined the Masonic
brotherhood, and is now a past master of his parent lodge. In May 26th,
1868, he was married to Ruth M. Hopper, and the fruit of this union has
been five children, three of whom survive.
* * * * *
=Loranger, Hon. Louis Onesime=, one of the judges of the Superior Court
of the province of Quebec, with place of residence in Montreal, was born
at Ste. Anne d’Yamachiche, on the 10th April, 1837. He is the son of
Joseph Loranger and Marie Louise Dugal, and a brother to the late Hon.
Justice T. J. J. Loranger, commandeur of the Order of Pius IX., who died
in 1885; to the late Rev. C. A. Loranger, and to J. M. Loranger, Queen’s
counsel, now practising at the bar of Montreal. Justice Loranger was
educated at the College of Montreal, where he went through a brilliant
course of classical studies, and was admitted to the bar of the province
of Quebec on the 3rd of May, 1858. He at once entered into partnership
with his two brothers, the late Hon. T. J. J. Loranger, who was then a
member of the Macdonald-Cartier administration, and J. M. Loranger, Q.C.
He continued in active practice of the law until the 5th of August,
1882, when he was appointed to the puisné judgeship of the Superior
Court of Quebec, the position he now holds. In February, 1868, Judge
Loranger was elected an alderman of the city of Montreal, and twice
re-elected by acclamation. In 1874, the citizens of Montreal, wishing to
recognize the important services he had rendered the city, elected him
vice-president of the St. Jean Baptiste Society, and president of the
committee entrusted with the organization of the celebration of the
_Fête Nationale_ of that year. The sister societies had been invited to
co-operate, and the invitation met with a hearty response from all parts
of the American union and the Dominion of Canada, delegates being sent
from every society on the continent, and in some cases societies
themselves coming to Montreal with their full membership. The idea of
the St. Jean Baptiste Society, as founded by the late Ludger Duvernay,
in 1834, had been to form a tie of cohesion among the diverse groups of
French Canadians who were divided among themselves, and bring them all
under one banner, with “Our Religion and Our Language” as motto. Mr.
Duvernay, the first journalist of note among the French, was the first
to understand that if the systematic course of petty persecution which
obtained in his days were not stopped, the French Canadian element would
soon be lost in the flood of British emigration then setting in towards
this fair country. The Briton, with his keen commercial insight and his
eminent qualities as a colonist, had discovered that the land which
Voltaire had described as “a few acres of snow-covered ground” had a
future before it, and he at once resolved to make the country what it is
to-day. The St. Jean Baptiste Society struggled on for several years
with a slight membership and scanty financial resources until 1860, when
a determined effort was made to place it on an efficient footing. Then
with the help of such men as Cartier, Langevin, L. O. David, the
Lorangers, and scores of others who were carried forward by the
enthusiasm and patriotic fire of their leaders, it took gigantic
strides, and to-day it numbers over one hundred thousand members. In
1874, Mr. L. O. Loranger, as a member of the executive committee of the
society, rendered great services. In July, 1875, Judge Loranger
presented himself for the first time to the electorate of the county of
Laval, and was sent to the Legislative Assembly as a supporter of the de
Boucherville administration. An unswerving adherent of the Conservative
party, he was soon recognized as one of its leaders, and considered one
of the strongest debaters in the Assembly. He took a leading part in the
discussion on the Letellier _coup d’état_. He was re-elected three times
consecutively by acclamation in his county. After the defeat of the Joly
administration he was offered the portfolio of attorney-general, which
he accepted (November, 1879), and retained until his elevation to the
bench in 1882. The codification of the Provincial statutes and the
judicial reforms now being completed (1887), were commenced when he was
attorney-general under the Chapleau-Loranger administration. Judge
Loranger is a hard worker, having in the midst of his parliamentary
duties attended to the needs of an extensive _clientèle_, and he was
considered one of the most noted lawyers of the Montreal bar. He is a
fluent and graceful speaker; he is also distinguished for his practical
mind, sound judgment, and impressive, though cautious, disposition. He
married, on the 3rd October, 1867, Marie Rosalie, daughter of the late
Hon. M. Laframboise, founder of _Le National_, who afterwards was
appointed one of the judges of the Superior Court for the province of
Quebec, and Rosalie Dessaulles, a niece of the late Hon. Louis Joseph
Papineau. Mrs. Loranger died in 1883, leaving seven children, three sons
and four daughters.
* * * * *
=Alexander, Rev. Finlow=, M.R.C.S., (England), and L.S.A., sub-Dean of
Christ Church Cathedral, Fredericton, New Brunswick, was born on the
17th April, 1834, at Walkhampton, near Tavistock, Devonshire, England.
He is a son of the late Rev. Daniel Alexander, M.A., vicar of Bickleigh,
near Plymouth, England. The Rev. F. Alexander received his educational
training at Mount Pleasant House Academy, Milbay Road, Plymouth, and
subsequently at Marlborough College, in Wiltshire. After leaving school,
in 1850, he entered on the study of medicine at the Middlesex Hospital,
London; and in 1855 received the diploma of the Royal College of
Surgeons, adding in 1857 that also of the Society of Apothecaries,
Blackfriars Bridge, London. After visiting the East, in the employ, as a
surgeon, of the Peninsular and Oriental Company, Mr. Alexander, in 1860,
came to Canada, and engaged for three years in the practice of his
profession, at Gore’s Landing, Ontario. In 1863 he married Anna Cecille,
daughter of Thomas S. Gore, of Gore Mount, county Antrim, Ireland; and
determining on taking holy orders, removed to Cobourg, Ontario, where he
pursued the studies necessary to that end, under the direction of the
Venerable Archdeacon Bethune, afterwards Bishop of Toronto. In February,
1866, Mr. Alexander was admitted to the diaconate by the Right Rev.
Bishop Strachan; and in May, 1867 was ordained to the priesthood. He was
appointed in the first place to the curacy of Port Hope, Ontario, in
1866; and in the following year was transferred, on the death of the
rector, the Rev. Jonathan Shortt, D.D., to the curacy of Guelph,
Ontario. This appointment he held until the resignation of the rector,
the Venerable Archdeacon Palmer, in 1875. In the autumn of that year the
offer was made to him by the bishop of the diocese of Fredericton, New
Brunswick, now Metropolitan of Canada, of the position of sub-dean in
his cathedral; this office he accepted and still (1887) retains.
* * * * *
=Ross, Hon. David Alexander=, Q.C., Barrister, “Westfield,” St. Foye
Road, Quebec city, member of the Legislative Council of the province of
Quebec, was born at Quebec, on the 12th March, 1819. His father was the
late John Ross, who for many years filled the position of joint
prothonotary of the King’s Bench, at Quebec. His mother, Margaret Ross,
was a native of Prince Edward Island. His paternal grandfather, John
Ross, who was born in Tain, Ross-shire, Scotland, with a number of other
Highlanders, formed themselves into a volunteer company to fight during
the French war only, and having been attached to the 78th Highland
regiment, were among the brave men who in the pitchy darkness of the
early morn of the 13th September, 1759, climbed, with the immortal
Wolfe, the cliffs near Cape Diamond, Quebec, and won for Great Britain,
on the Plains of Abraham, one of the finest possessions of the British
Crown. Mr. Ross was severely wounded in the engagement; and after the
conquest he became a citizen of Quebec, and commanded a company of
militia in 1776, when Montgomery and Arnold attempted to retake Quebec,
and did good service for the Crown. The Hon. Mr. Ross received a
classical education in the school taught by the late Dr. Daniel Wilkie,
and at the Seminary of Quebec, and then followed a course of civil and
Roman law at the University of Laval. He is conversant with both
languages. He adopted law as a profession; was called to the bar of
Lower Canada in 1848, and appointed a Queen’s counsel in 1873. Being
fully imbued with the spirit of his ancestors, he entered the Military
College, and obtained a first-class certificate for company and
battalion drill; and during the first Fenian invasion raised a company
of fifty men, fully equipped, and ready to march to the frontier when
called upon. He is now a lieutenant-colonel in the militia. He entered
political life in 1878, and was returned to the Quebec legislature, at
the general election of that year, for the county of Quebec, and sat for
that constituency until the general election of 1881, when he withdrew
from politics for a time. On the 8th March, 1878, he was sworn in a
member of the Executive Council, and became attorney-general in the Joly
administration, and held office until the 30th of October, 1879, when he
resigned with his colleagues. In 1887 he was called to the Legislative
Council of his native province, and was appointed a member of the Hon.
Mr. Mercier’s cabinet, without a portfolio. The Hon. Mr. Ross is a
director of the Lake St. John Railway. For several years he was
president of the St. Andrew’s Society; of the Quebec Literary and
Historical Society; of the Quebec Auxiliary Bible Society; and has been
twice elected _bâtonnier_ (president) of the Quebec bar. He has made
himself very familiar with the Dominion of Canada, and has found time
from his numerous duties to visit the United States of America, England,
Scotland, France, Italy, Spain, Gibraltar, Sicily and Egypt, and upwards
of fifty cities and towns. In politics Mr. Ross is a Liberal; and in
religion an adherent of the Presbyterian church. He was married in
March, 1872, to Harriet Ann Valentine, widow of the late James Gibb, in
his lifetime one of the leading merchants of Quebec.
* * * * *
=Ingram, Andrew B.=, St. Thomas, M.P.P. for West Elgin, was born on 23rd
April, 1851, at Strabane, county of Wentworth, Ontario, and is the
second son of Thomas and Mary Ann Ingram, of that place. His paternal
grandfather, Andrew Ingram, was a native of the county Tyrone, Ireland,
and served his country for nineteen years under Lord Wellington,
participating in the Peninsular campaign, as well as Quatre Bras and
Waterloo. The subject of our sketch received a common school education
at Morristown, Ontario, and his early youth was passed in agricultural
pursuits. Becoming dissatisfied with a rural life, he bade adieu to the
farm and proceeded to London, where his uncle, who was a resident of
that city, prevailed upon him to learn a trade. Having selected that of
a collarmaker, he served the usual apprenticeship, and in 1870 was duly
accredited a journeyman. For some years he labored at the occupation of
his choice. In August, 1879, he connected himself with the Canada
Southern Railway, commencing at the foot of the ladder as brakeman, and
by strict attention to the duties of that position, soon won the
confidence of the officials, and was promoted to a conductorship. A
place was then offered to him on the Wisconsin Central in a similar
capacity, which he accepted, but owing to unforeseen circumstances, he
resigned and returned to St. Thomas, when he entered the employ of the
Grand Trunk Company, and faithfully performed the duties assigned him
for about three years, when he was elected standard-bearer by the
Conservatives of West Elgin, on the 15th July, 1886. When it came to the
knowledge of his employers that he had been selected to contest West
Elgin, they notified him to decline the honor or leave the service.
After consulting his friends, he decided on the latter course, and
entered into active politics. When the general elections were held on
the 28th December, 1886, he was declared elected to represent West Elgin
in the Ontario legislature, and has since served in the capacity of
representative. Mr. Ingram took an active part in the formation of the
St. Thomas Feather Bone Company, in which he is a stockholder, and which
promises to become one of the leading enterprises in the city of his
adoption. He joined Forest City lodge, I.O.O.F., London, on the 21st
August, 1871, and remained an active worker in the same until the 5th
November, 1877, when he took his withdrawal card. In 1881 he joined the
Brakemen’s Benevolent Association of Canada and the United States,
served as president one term, and was elected grand vice-president at a
convention held in Brockville in March, 1882. On the 25th June, 1885, he
joined Local Assembly Knights of Labor, St. Thomas; and in July of the
same year attached himself to Headlight Assembly, No. 4,069. He served
as master workman of the same for two terms; and was elected a member of
District Assembly, No. 138, in which he holds the position of
statistician. He was a delegate to the General Assembly convened at
Richmond, Va., U.S., on 8th October, 1886. He originated the St. Thomas
Trades and Labor Council in January, 1886, and was elected its first
vice-president for the first term, president for the second term, and
now fills the position of honorary president. He is also a member of the
Independent Order of Foresters. Mr. Ingram has taken an active part in
provincial, federal and municipal politics since confederation, in the
counties of Wellington, Perth, Huron, Essex, and Elgin, and been a hard
worker in various Conservative associations. He held a position of trust
under the Clarke administration in Manitoba, and was one of the
sheriff’s _posse_ who arrested Andrew Nault and others for complicity in
the murder of Thomas Scott. Although returned to parliament as a
Liberal-Conservative, Mr. Ingram has ever in view and will support any
measure brought forward that will advance the true interests of the
toiling masses, who in him have an able and conscientious advocate, and
who from actual experience is conversant with the disadvantages under
which they labor. In religious matters he is an adherent of the
Episcopal church. And to sum him up in a few words, is an able, honest
man, who commands the respect of the community which he so ably
represents. In 1882 he married Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Allen
McIntyre, of Aberfoyle, whose great grandfather was the Earl of Home, a
Scottish nobleman.
* * * * *
=McGee, Hon. Thomas D’Arcy=, B.C.L., M.R.I.A., was born on the 13th of
April, 1825, at Carlingford, Ireland. His father, James McGee, was in
the coast-guard service, and his mother was Dorcas Catharine Morgan, a
daughter of a Dublin bookseller, who had been imprisoned and financially
ruined by his participation in the conspiracy of 1798. Both on his
father’s and his mother’s side he was descended from families remarkable
for their devotion to the cause of Ireland. When he was eight years of
age his family removed to Wexford, and shortly afterwards he suffered a
heavy blow in the death of his mother. Of his father he was wont to
speak as an honest, upright, religious man; but his mother he loved to
describe as a woman of extraordinary elevation of mind, an enthusiastic
lover of her country, its music, its legends, and its wealth of ancient
lore. Herself a good musician and a fine singer, it was to the songs of
her ancient race she rocked her children’s cradle, and from her dear
voice her favorite son, the subject of our sketch, drank in his music.
His passionate and inextinguishable love for the land of his birth, her
story and her song, may be traced to the same source. He attended a day
school in Wexford, obtaining there the only formal education he ever
received. But the boyish years of the future statesman and historian
were not passed in mean or frivolous pursuits. His love for poetry and
for old-world lore grew with his growth, and by the age of seventeen he
had read all that had come within his reach relating to the history of
his own and other lands. He was a little over seventeen, and seeing
little prospect of advancement at home, he, with one of his sisters,
emigrated to America. After a short visit to his aunt in Providence,
Rhode Island, he arrived in Boston, just at the time the “repeal
movement” was in full strength amongst the Irish population of that
city, warmly aided by some of the prominent public men of America of
that day. He arrived in Boston in June, 1842, and on the 4th July he
addressed the people. The eloquence of the boy-orator enchained the
multitudes who heard him then, as the more finished speeches of his
later years were wont “the applause of list’ning senates to command.” A
day or two later he was offered and accepted a situation on the _Boston
Pilot_, and became chief editor two years later. It was a critical
period in the history of the Irish race in America; they were proscribed
and persecuted on American soil, disgraceful riots occurring in
Philadelphia, which resulted in the sacking and burning of two Catholic
churches. With all the might of his eloquence, young McGee advocated the
cause of his countrymen and coreligionists against the hostile party,
the “Native Americans,” as they were called. This outburst of fanaticism
soon subsided, but the popularity which the young Irish editor gained
during the struggle continued to grow and flourish until O’Connell
himself referred to his splendid editorials as the “inspired writings of
a young exiled Irish boy in America.” He was invited by the proprietor
of the Dublin _Freeman’s Journal_, the leading Irish paper, to become
its editor. So at the age of twenty he took his place in the front rank
of the Irish press. But the _Freeman_ was too moderate in its tone, so
he accepted an offer from his friend, Charles Gavin Duffy, to assist him
in editing _The Nation_, in conjunction with Thomas Davis, John
Mitchell, and Thomas Devin Reilly. In such hands _The Nation_ became the
organ of the “Young Ireland” party. The immediate result was the
secession of the war party from the ranks of the National or Old Ireland
party led by O’Connell. But the end came, and a sad end it was. The
great “Liberator” died, while on foreign travel, a broken-hearted man.
Famine had stricken the land, and the “Young Irelanders” were ripe for
rebellion. McGee was one of those deputed to rouse the people to action,
and after the delivery of a speech at Roundwood he was arrested, but
soon after obtained his release. Nothing daunted by his first mishap, he
agreed to go to Scotland, for the purpose of enlisting the sympathy of
the Irish in the manufacturing towns, and obtaining their co-operation
in the contemplated insurrection. He was in Scotland when the news
reached him that the “rising” had been attempted in Ireland, and had
signally failed—that some of the leaders had been arrested, and a
reward offered for the apprehension of himself, and others who had
effected their escape. He had been married less than a year before, and
a fair young wife anxiously awaited his return. He succeeded in crossing
in safety to Ireland, and in the far north was sheltered by Dr. Maginn,
the bishop of Derry. Here he was visited by his wife, as he would not
leave Ireland without seeing and bidding her farewell. He left Ireland
in the disguise of a priest, and landed in Philadelphia on the 10th
October, 1848, and on the 26th day of the same month appeared the first
number of his New York _Nation_. Feeling sore at the utter failure of
his party in Ireland, Mr. McGee threw the blame of the failure on the
priesthood, which brought him in conflict with Bishop Hughes, who
defended the Irish clergy, and as a consequence the New York _Nation_
never recovered the effect of this controversy. In 1850 he removed to
Boston, and commenced the publication of the _American Celt_. During the
first two years of the _Celt’s_ existence, it was characterized by
nearly the same revolutionary ardor, but there came a time when the
great strong mind of its editor began to soar above the clouds of
passion and prejudice into the region of eternal truth. He began to see
that the best way of raising his countrymen was not by impracticable
utopian schemes of revolution, but by teaching them the best of their
possibilities, to cultivate among them the acts of peace, and to raise
themselves, by the ways of peaceful industry and enlightenment to the
level of their more prosperous sister island. Some years after Mr. McGee
transferred his publication office to Buffalo. Besides his editorial
duties, he delivered lectures throughout the cities of the United States
and Canada to crowded audiences. At a convention of leading Irishmen,
convened in Buffalo by Mr. McGee, for the purpose of considering the
subject of colonization on the broad prairies for his countrymen,
instead of herding together in “tenement houses,” he was strongly urged
by Canadian delegates to take up his abode in Montreal. After some
negotiation on the subject, he sold out his interest in the _American
Celt_, and removed with his family to Montreal, where he at once
commenced the publication of a journal called _The New Era_. Before the
end of his first year in Montreal he was elected as one of three members
for Montreal, although his election had been warmly contested. It was
not long before he began to make his mark in the legislative halls of
his new country, and before the close of his first session, the Irish
member for Montreal was recognized as one of the most popular men in
Canada. Yet, at times, his early connection with the revolutionary party
was made the subject of biting sarcasm. On one of these occasions, when
being twitted with having been a “rebel” in former years, he replied:
“It is true, I was a rebel in Ireland in 1848. I rebelled against the
mis-government of my country by Russell and his school. I rebelled
because I saw my countrymen starving before my eyes, while my country
had her trade and commerce stolen from her. I rebelled against the
Church establishment in Ireland; and there is not a liberal man in the
community who would not have done as I did, if he were placed in my
position, and followed the dictates of humanity.” About the year 1865 he
was presented by his friends in Montreal and other cities with a
handsome residence in one of the best localities in that city, as a mark
of their esteem. In 1862 he accepted the office of president of the
Executive Council, and also filled the office of provincial secretary.
It was during this active time that he completed his “History of
Ireland,” in two 12mo volumes. In 1865 Mr. McGee visited his native
land, and while staying with his father in Wexford delivered a speech in
that city on the condition of the Irish in America, which gave offence
to his countrymen in the United States, as he took pains to show that a
larger proportion of them became more demoralised and degraded in that
country than in Canada. In 1867 he was sent to Paris by the Canadian
Government as one of the commissioners from Canada to the great
Exposition held in Paris. From there he went to Rome as one of a
deputation from the Irish inhabitants of Montreal, on a question
concerning the affairs of St. Patrick’s congregation in that city. In
London he met, by previous appointment, some of his colleagues in the
Canadian Cabinet, who had gone to England to lay before the imperial
government the plan of the proposed union of the British provinces. In
the important deliberation which followed he took a leading part. He was
then minister of agriculture and emigration, which office he continued
to hold up to the time when, in the summer of 1867, the confederation
was at last effected. But with all his great and well deserved
popularity, and the high position he had attained amongst the statesmen
of the Dominion, he had made for himself bitter enemies by his open and
consistent opposition to the Fenian movement, in which he saw no
prospect of permanent good for Ireland. But it was in regard to Canada
and their avowed intention of invading that country that he most
severely denounced them. He rightly considered that it was a grievous
wrong to invade a peaceful country like Canada, only nominally dependent
on Great Britain, and where so many thousands of Irishmen were living
happily and contentedly under just and equitable laws of the people’s
own making. At the general election of 1867 he secured his seat, but
only after a severe struggle, the Fenian element of his countrymen doing
all in their power to secure his defeat. The victory, however, cost him
dear, for the evil passions of the basest and most degraded of his
countrymen had been excited against him, and he was thenceforth a doomed
man. On the very night preceding his cruel murder he delivered one of
the noblest speeches ever heard within the walls of a Canadian
parliament on the subject of cementing the lately formed union of the
provinces by bonds of mutual kindness and good-will. He had reached the
door of his temporary home, when a lurking assassin stole from his place
of concealment, and coming close behind, shot him through the head,
causing instantaneous death. This was on the morning of April 7th, 1868.
His body was removed to Montreal, where a public funeral was held, the
streets along the procession being lined by regiments of the British
army. St. Patrick’s Church, in which his obsequies were solemnised, was
crowded with Protestants and other leading citizens to mourn over the
great loss the country sustained by his death. McGee had outgrown long
before his death the antipathy that many had to him on his arrival in
Montreal. With the Montreal Caledonian Society especially he was a great
favorite, and his orations at their concerts were the special feature of
the evening. At their annual celebration of “Hallowe’en,” when it is
customary to read prize poems on that old Scotch festival, of forty-six
poems sent in competition on the Hallowe’en following his death,
_thirty-seven_ contained some touching allusion to that sad event. From
one of the poems to which prizes were awarded, we quote the following
stanzas:—
Ah! wad that he was here the nicht,
Whase tongue was like a faerie lute!
But vain the wish: McGee! thy might
Lies low in death—thy voice is mute.
He’s gane, the noblest o’ us a’—
Aboon a’ care o’ warldly fame;
An’ wha se proud as he to ca’
Our Canada his hame?
The gentle maple weeps an’ waves
Aboon our patriot-statesman’s heed;
But if we prize the licht he gave,
We’ll bury feuds of race and creed.
For this he wrocht, for this he died;
An’ for the luve we bear his name,
Let’s live as brithers, side by side,
In Canada, our hame.
* * * * *
=Dunnet, Thomas=, Hat and Fur Manufacturer, Toronto, was born in the
Royal burgh of Wick, Caithness-shire, Scotland, on the 21st April, 1847.
His parents were William Dunnet and Janet Black, both natives of
Caithness; and Mr. Dunnet carried on the saddling business for many
years in Wick. He died about twelve years ago, and his widow is now a
resident of Portobello, near Edinburgh. Young Dunnet received his
education at the Free Church School in Wick, where he graduated. He then
for a number of years acted as one of the teachers in the same school,
and subsequently removed to the city of Aberdeen. Here he remained for
about nine months as organization master in Charlotte street school.
Feeling dissatisfied with the prospects in his native country, he
determined to leave for America, and reached Kingston in Canada, in
1866. In the Limestone City he found employment as a teacher, and for
about eighteen months he taught young Canada in Barriefield school. A
more lucrative situation offering as purser on board a steamer plying
between Kingston and Cape Vincent, Mr. Dunnet bade farewell to the
scholastic profession, and since then has devoted his attention to
mercantile pursuits. He began business in Toronto as “Briggs & Dunnet,”
in 1880, and six years afterwards Mr. Briggs retired, leaving Mr. Dunnet
sole partner. Since then the business has steadily increased, so much so
that in February, 1887, he took into partnership Malcolm McPherson, and
these two are now the members forming the firm of Dunnet, McPherson &
Co., hat and fur manufacturers, Front street, Toronto. Mr. Dunnet is in
politics a staunch Reformer, and in religion may be classed among the
Liberal-Christians. He was married in June, 1875, to Jessie McCammon,
daughter of Robert McCammon, of Kingston, Ontario.
* * * * *
=Doutre, Joseph=, Q.C., Montreal.—The late Mr. Doutre was born at
Beauharnois, in 1825, educated at Montreal College, and admitted to the
bar in 1847. The history of his life is that of the struggles of his
countrymen for civil and religious liberty, and is therefore of more
than personal interest. His ancestors were from the old province of
Roussillon, in the department of Pyrenées-Orientales. His grandfather
came from the immediate neighborhood of Perpignan, and had hardly
arrived in Canada when the country passed under the dominion of England.
In 1844, at the age of eighteen, his first work, a romance of five
hundred pages, entitled “Les Fiancés de 1812” (The Betrothed of 1812),
was published. He was an early adherent of the Institut Canadien, and
ever since the warm friend of that institution, which obtained its
charter under his presidency. As soon as _L’Avenir_ newspaper had taken
a fair start, in 1848, Mr. Doutre became one of its contributors. He was
a liberal contributor to the press, and most of the journals of the
province have at times published contributions from him. In 1848 he
published “Le Frère et la Sœur,” which was afterwards republished in
Paris. In 1851 he was the author of the laureate essay paid for by the
late Hon. Mr. de Boucherville, on “The Best Means of Spending Time in
the Interests of the Family and the Country.” In 1852 was published “Le
Sauvage du Canada.” To these should be added a series of biographical
essays on the most prominent political men of that date, which appeared
in _L’Avenir_. As one of the secretaries of the association formed in
1849 for the colonisation of the townships, he was instrumental in
starting the first settlements of Roxton and its vicinity. In 1853 Mr.
Doutre took the direction of the great struggle for the abolition of the
feudal tenure, and by means of meetings held throughout the country, and
diligence and care in the preparation of practical measures, the
agitation came to a crisis at the general election of 1854, when the
parliament, filled with moderate abolitionists, passed a law which did
away with this mediæval system of land tenure, to the mutual
satisfaction both of the seigneurs and tenants. Another campaign began
immediately after, for making the legislative council elective, instead
of being nominated by the Crown, and a law was passed to this effect in
1856, at which time Mr. Doutre was requested to stand as candidate for
the division of Salaberry, but he was defeated. In 1858 there commenced,
in a decided manner on the part of the Roman Catholic bishop of
Montreal, the long looming work of destruction against everything which
gave manifestation of life in the minds of educated Catholics. Mr.
Doutre stood foremost in the hand-to-hand battle which followed, and the
victory was a painful one, being achieved in the face of the
conscientious opposition of many friends. In 1861 he accepted, under
party pressure, the candidature of Laprairie, which resulted in another
defeat. This election, however, had the good effect of drawing attention
to the evil system of two days polling, as it was evident that his first
day’s majority had been upset by large sums of money being brought into
play upon the second day. This is the last time we find the subject of
our remarks in the arena of politics. He subsequently devoted himself
entirely to his profession. In 1863 he became Queen’s counsel. In 1866
he delivered a lecture before the Institut Canadien, on “The Charters of
Canada,” a remarkably concise and complete synopsis of the political
constitution of the country under the French government. In the same
year he was entrusted with the defence of Lamirande, the French banking
defaulter, whose extradition was sought for before our courts. After the
kidnapping of the man, when he was about to be released, he followed up
the demand for his restoration to the jurisdiction of our courts,
through the Foreign Office, in London, to a point when the British and
French governments were very seriously out of harmony, when Lamirande
solved the difficulty by surrendering all claims to further
negotiations. In 1869, the refusal of the Roman Catholic authorities to
bury Guibord, because he was a member of the Institut Canadien, brought
Mr. Doutre face to face with the necessity of choosing between a direct
contest with the authorities of his church or renouncing his right to
belong to a literary society, which implied the right of any personal
liberty of action. His choice in this matter entailed political
ostracism, and imposed upon him the most arduous task of following the
case in question from court to court, through all the degrees of
jurisdiction in Canada, in order to obtain the burial of Guibord, and of
continuing the same in England, where he went to argue before the Privy
Council, not only without fee, but at daily expense, finally winning the
case; and Guibord was buried in Côte des Neiges Cemetery by order of the
Queen’s mandate. The Institut Canadien handed over its valuable library
of eight thousand volumes to the Frazer Institute, and is now open
gratuitously to the public. Mr. Doutre died on the 3rd of February,
1886, and was buried, at his own request, in Mount Royal Cemetery
(Protestant), his remains being followed to the grave by the leading
citizens of all denominations and nationalities.
* * * * *
=Thorne, William Henry=, Hardware Merchant, St. John, New Brunswick, was
born on the 12th September, 1844, in St. John, N.B. His father, Edward
L. Thorne, came from Granville, Nova Scotia, settled in St. John, in
1814, and was for many years one of the leading business men of that
city. The members of the Thorne family who first settled in Granville,
N.S., were of the old loyalist stock who left New York on the close of
the revolutionary war and came over to the Maritime provinces. The
mother of the subject of our sketch was Susan Scovil, and her parents
settled in New Brunswick about the same time as the Thornes did in Nova
Scotia, and belonged to the same body of loyalists who refused to sever
their allegiance with the mother country. W. H. Thorne was educated at
the Grammar School in St. John, and afterwards adopted the mercantile
profession. He had several years’ experience as clerk with the firm of
J. & F. Burpee & Co.; and commenced the hardware and metal business on
his own account, in 1867. In 1873 he admitted R. O. Scovil as a partner.
This gentleman having died in 1884, Mr. Thorne continued the business,
taking into partnership, in 1885, two young men who had been in his
employ for several years—namely, Arthur T. Thorne and T. Carlton Lee,
and who are still members of the firm, and actively engaged in the
business, under the style of W. H. Thorne & Co. The business of this
firm has steadily grown until it is now amongst the largest in the
Maritime provinces. The stock kept by it is the largest and best
selected of its kind in the province, and their travellers may be daily
met with in Quebec, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Nova
Scotia. Mr. Thorne, the head of the firm, takes a deep interest in
everything that tends to advance the interests of his native city. He is
a vice-president of the Board of Trade, and is connected with several
other useful institutions. He is a progressive man, and may be classed
among the Liberals; and in religious matters he is an adherent of the
Episcopal church.
* * * * *
=Creelman, Hon. Samuel=, Round Bank, Upper Stewiacke, member of the
Legislative Council of Nova Scotia, was born at Upper Stewiacke,
Colchester county, Nova Scotia, 19th November, 1808. He is a son of
William and Hannah (Tupper) Creelman, his father being the grandson of
Samuel Creelman, who with his family emigrated from Newton Limavady,
county of Londonderry, Ireland, in 1760. After residing for a time in
Lunenburg and Halifax, he settled in Amherst, and at the time of the
taking the census in 1872, was possessed of the largest stock of cattle
owned in the township. Thence he removed to the locality now known as
Princeport, Truro. His eldest son, Samuel, was one of the original
grantees of the Upper Stewiacke grant, where he settled with his family
in 1784, and where he died in 1834, aged 84 years. He became the
possessor of sufficient land to furnish each of his six sons with a good
sized farm on the river. Hannah Tupper, the mother of the subject of
this sketch, was the great granddaughter of the late David Archibald,
the eldest of the four Archibald brothers who emigrated to Truro from
Londonderry, Ireland, by the way of New Hampshire, U.S. He was the first
representative for Truro in the House of Assembly of Nova Scotia, and
the first justice of the peace appointed in Truro. His name also stood
at the head of the first list of Presbyterian elders in the Truro
congregation. Her grandfathers, Colonel Robert Archibald and Eliakim
Tupper, and Samuel Tupper, her father, all held the office of justice of
the peace, and of elders in the Presbyterian Church. The Hon. Mr.
Creelman received a common school education in Stewiacke, and studied
for one winter under the late James Ross, D.D., Dalhousie College, at
West River. He resided with his father and labored on the farm until of
age, when, owing to delicacy of health, he spent a winter, as above
stated, and in the spring followed teaching for a time, when he then
engaged in trade, in which he was moderately successful. After his
marriage he engaged in agricultural pursuits, which he has since
followed. In 1842 he was appointed a justice of the peace, and a trustee
of Truro Academy. Shortly after entering political life, he was elected
in 1847 to represent the county of Colchester in the Legislative
Assembly of Nova Scotia and represented this constituency until 1851,
when he was chosen for South Colchester, and from that year until 1855
he represented it, when he was defeated at the polls. He was financial
secretary of the government from 1851 to 1856; and was appointed a
member of the Legislative Council in 1860. He was leader of the
opposition in the Assembly until the resignation of the Hill
administration in 1878, when he accepted the portfolio of commissioner
of public works and mines in the Thompson administration that followed.
This office he held until the fall of the administration, which took
place in 1882. At this time the Hon. Mr. Creelman was in London,
England, as a delegate on behalf of his government, whose object was the
carrying out an arrangement with a syndicate for consolidating the
railways of Nova Scotia. The new government recalled him and appointed
another delegate in his place, but shortly afterwards the scheme was
abandoned. He was reappointed to the Legislative Council, in 1867. Hon.
Mr. Creelman has been very active in promoting all measures for the
advancement of education and temperance. He introduced the bill for the
establishment of a Provincial Normal School; and was the chairman of the
commission appointed by the government for the erection of the first
Normal School building in Truro, in 1854. When financial secretary he
supported the bill for the prohibition of the sale of intoxicating
liquors, which was carried through the House of Assembly, but defeated
in the Legislative Council. Here we may say that the Hon. Mr. Creelman
is the oldest member of the Nova Scotia legislature, and that the Hon.
Judge Henry is the only one now living (besides himself) who held a seat
in it when he first entered it. He is a large shareholder in the
Hopewell Woollen Mills Company, and was formerly the principal
shareholder in the Mulgrave Woollen Company, Upper Stewiacke. In 1830 he
joined a Temperance society, and has been a total abstainer ever since,
and an earnest and efficient worker in the cause. In 1849 he became a
Son of Temperance, and in 1868 was elected grand worthy patriarch of the
Grand Division of Nova Scotia. He has been president of the Nova Scotia
Alliance, and is a vice-president at present and a member of the
National Division of the Sons of Temperance of North America, having
been initiated in that body in 1871. In 1878 he occupied the position of
president of the Sunday-school Convention for the Maritime Provinces,
held at Truro. He is a life member of the Nova Scotia Bible Society, and
a member of the Young Men’s Christian Association, Halifax. He has also
been a member of the Historical Society of Halifax for some years past.
In 1882 he visited London, Liverpool, and several cities in England;
Edinburgh and Glasgow, in Scotland; Paris, in France; and Belfast,
Newton Limavady and Derry, in Ireland. He and his father were both
elected elders in the Presbyterian church in 1851. On several occasions
Mr. Creelman has been sent as a delegate to the General Assembly of that
church, and attended its meetings at Montreal, Ottawa, and Halifax; and
he has also attended meetings of the Synod of the Maritime provinces in
connection with the same religious body. He has been a Sabbath school
teacher for over fifty years. Previous to confederation Hon. Mr.
Creelman worked in union with the Liberal party, having for his
associates Hon. Messrs. Howe, the Youngs, Archibald, Uniacke, etc., but
since then he has become a Liberal-Conservative. Owing to the
infirmities of age, especially defective hearing, he is now unable to
take the very active part in the legislature and in other public bodies
which he previously did. Round Bank, the farm on which he now resides,
is within a mile of his birth place. When in government offices his
residence was in Halifax. On the 11th February, 1834, he married
Elizabeth Elliot Ellis, who still survives. She is the eldest daughter
of the late John Ellis, whose father emigrated from the North of Ireland
nearly 100 years ago. Her mother was the daughter of the late James
Dechman, of Halifax, who came from Scotland many years ago.
* * * * *
=Hind, Professor Henry Youle=, M.A., Windsor, Nova Scotia, was born in
Nottingham, England, on the 1st of June, 1823, and came to Canada in
1846. The family, on the paternal side, came originally from the county
of Cumberland, England, where some of the old stock still remain on
lands which have been in the family for several centuries. On the
mother’s side (who was a Miss Youle), they came from Scotland, a portion
of the Youle family having settled in Newark, Nottinghamshire, in 1680.
Until the age of fourteen years, Henry was educated as a private pupil,
jointly with his cousin, J. R. Hind, now the astronomer, by the Rev. W.
Butler, head master of the Nottinghamshire Grammar School, then he was
sent to Leipsic to the Handel Schule, where he remained two years. After
two years further study in England, under the Rev. W. Butler, he went to
Cambridge, where he resided several terms, but did not graduate, going
to France for further proficiency in the French language. In 1846 he
returned to England, and soon after sailed for America. In 1848 he was
appointed mathematical master and lecturer in chemistry of the
Provincial Normal School, Toronto, where he remained about five years,
or until he accepted the chair of chemistry and geology, in the
University of Trinity College, Toronto, and this chair he filled for
thirteen years. In 1857, while still a professor in Trinity College, he
was named by the Canadian government as geologist to the first Red River
expedition. In 1858 he was placed in command of the Assiniboine and
Saskatchewan exploring expedition. In 1860 the Imperial government
published his reports on these expeditions; and in these blue books we
find the first map of the now celebrated “fertile belt” of the
North-West, as described and delineated by Professor Hind. In 1861,
assisted by the Canadian government, he explored a portion of the
interior of the Labrador peninsula, reaching, by Moisie river, the
sources of the rivers which flow from the great Labrador plateau to
Hudson Bay, the north-east Atlantic, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. In
his account of these explorations, published by Longmans, in 1863,
Professor Hind first describes the then known extent and character of
the Canadian fisheries. In 1864 he resigned his professorship in Trinity
College to undertake a preliminary geological survey of New Brunswick,
for the government of that province. Up to this date the literary work
accomplished by the subject of this notice is as follows:—“The Canadian
Journal;” a repertory of Industry, Science and Art. Edited 1852-1855.
Three vols., quarto. Toronto: Maclear & Co. “Prize Report on the
Improvement and Preservation of Toronto Harbor, 1854.” Published
separately, also in “Canadian Journal” for 1855, with maps and plans.
“Prize Essay on the Insects and Diseases injurious to the Wheat Crops,”
pp. 139. Toronto: Lovell & Gibson, 1857. “Narrative of the Canadian Red
River Exploring Expedition of 1857, and of the Assiniboine and
Saskatchewan Exploring Expedition of 1858.” Two vols., with maps, wood
cuts, and chromoxylographs. London: Longmans, 1860. “The Journal of the
Board of Arts and Manufactures for Upper Canada.” Vols. I., II., III.
Edited 1861-1863. Toronto: W. C. Chewitt & Co. “The British American
Magazine.” Vols. I. and II. Edited 1863. Toronto: Rollo & Adam.
“Explorations in the Interior of the Labrador Peninsula.” Two vols.,
with maps, wood cuts and chromo-lithographs. London: Longmans, 1863.
“Eighty Years’ Progress of British North America.” Articles—“Physical
Features of Canada;” “The North-West Territory,” &c., &c. Toronto, 1863.
In 1866, his family growing up, Professor Hind purchased a property near
Windsor, Nova Scotia, to facilitate the education of his sons, first at
the Collegiate School, then at King’s College, the oldest Protestant
chartered institution of learning in the provinces. In the years 1869,
1870, and 1871, under the instructions of the government of the Province
of Nova Scotia, he conducted geological explorations to a considerable
extent of the gold districts of that province. These are hereafter
enumerated. In 1876 professional engagements led him to the mineral
field of the north-eastern part of the Island of Newfoundland, and
thence on the Atlantic coast of Labrador, nearly as far north as the
town of Nain, or about 350 miles north of the Straits of Belle Isle. On
this voyage of exploration Professor Hind discovered and mapped an
extensive series of cod banks stretching for several hundred miles
north-west of Belle Isle, and about twenty or thirty miles from the
coast line. These are described in a paper addressed to the Hon. F. B.
T. Carter, attorney-general of Newfoundland. This paper is also
published in Part II., page 68, of the work on the Canadian fisheries,
hereafter referred to. At the close of 1876 the Newfoundland government
secured the services of Professor Hind for the year 1877 to examine and
report on the newly-discovered cod banks, as far as Hudson’s Straits,
but just as the Professor was starting from St. John’s, in May, 1877, on
his northern exploration, a telegram from the government at Ottawa to
the Newfoundland authorities was received which urged the necessity of
his presence at the city of Halifax to assist in the scientific portion
of the Canadian case in the fisheries contention then about to open. He
was consequently compelled to relinquish his scientific investigations,
and proceed forthwith to Ottawa. From Ottawa he went to Halifax, and
remained there during the continuance of the arbitration. At its close,
all the documents and records of proceedings on both sides were placed
in his hands for analysis and indexing. The Analytical Index forms a
quarto volume of sixty closely printed pages, and supplies the guide to
the answers submitted during the examination of witnesses to a vast
amount of matter connected with the six months fisheries inquiry at
Halifax, Nova Scotia. In 1878 Professor Hind prepared for the Paris
Exhibition a series of charts illustrating the movements of fish in the
North Atlantic waters during summer and winter, together with the spring
and fall spawning grounds of the herring, the coastal movements of the
cod, the seasonal movements of the halibut, the summer and winter
migrations and movements of the harp seal, &c. For this novel series the
jury of “Class XVI.” awarded the professor a gold medal and a diploma.
The present whereabouts of these fish charts is not known. They
disappeared after the Paris exhibition, not having been returned to the
author. The following are his further publications since 1863:—“Reports
on the Waverley Gold District,” with geological maps and sections, 1869.
Halifax, N.S.: Charles Annand. “Report on the Sherbrooke Gold District,
together with a paper on the Gneisses of Nova Scotia,” with maps, 1870.
Halifax, N.S.: Charles Annand. “Report on the Mount Uniacke, Oldham and
Renfrew Gold Mining Districts,” with plans and sections, 1872. Halifax,
N.S.: Charles Annand. “Notes on the Northern Labrador Fishing Ground.”
Blue book. St. John’s, Newfoundland, 1876. Also page 68, Part II., of
“The effect of the Fishery clauses of the Treaty of Washington on the
Fisheries and Fishermen of British North America.” Halifax, N.S.:
Charles Annand. “On the Influence of Anchor Ice in relation to Fish
Offal and the Newfoundland Fisheries.” Parts I. and II. Official papers.
St. John’s, Newfoundland, 1877. “The effect of the Fishery Clauses of
the Treaty of Washington on the Fisheries and Fishermen of British North
America.” Parts I. and II., imperial oct. With maps, sections, and
diagrams. Part I., pp. 169; Part II., pp. 74. Halifax: Charles Annand,
1877. This work has been exhaustively and very favorably reviewed by Dr.
Carpenter of the London University. See _Nature_, June 13th and 27th,
1878. This enumeration does not include various papers published in the
journals of the Royal Geographical Society, London, of the Geological
Society, the Society of Arts, and the Statistical Society, London,
England. Professor Hind was married at York Mills, near Toronto, on
February 7th, 1850, to Katharine, the second daughter of the late
Lieutenant-Colonel Duncan Cameron, C.B., of the 79th Highlanders, who
commanded the light companies of the Highland Brigade during the passage
of the Nive and the Nivelle in the Peninsula campaign, and was wounded
at Quatre Bras on the eve of Waterloo. Two of Professor Hind’s sons are
clergymen of the Church of England; one, the Rev. Duncan Henry Hind, is
rector of Sandwich, Province of Ontario; the other, the Rev. Kenneth
Cameron Hind, M.A., is rector of Newport, near Windsor, Province of Nova
Scotia.
* * * * *
=Knowles, Charles Williams=, Publisher, Windsor, Nova Scotia, was born
in Newport, Nova Scotia, on July 3rd, 1849, and came with his family to
Windsor when he was about five years of age, and here he has resided
ever since. His father, Charles W. Knowles, who died at Windsor on the
15th of December, 1886, at the advanced age of eighty-one years, was one
of the oldest inhabitants of Hants county, widely known in the district,
and universally respected as an industrious, honest man, and a good
citizen. His mother, Eliza Bacon, died in 1854. The Knowles family came
originally from England, and are closely associated with the early
history of Hants county. The founder of it was Captain Henry Knowles, a
merchant, great grandfather of Charles Williams Knowles, the subject of
our sketch. In 1756 he, with others, came from Newport, Rhode Island,
and took up their abode at a place in Hants county, Nova Scotia, and
bestowed on it the name of their old residence, and it is known by the
name of Newport to the present day. There is a tradition in the family
that the vessel in which the worthy captain came, in sailing up the St.
Croix river with the tide, grounded on the flats opposite an island,
which afterwards came into his possession, and is now called Knowles’
Island; and the farm Captain Henry Knowles owned, with this island, is
still in the possession of the Knowles family, its present owner being
W. H. Knowles, municipal councillor for Avondale. The captain was a
widower, and had on board with him an infant son, named Jonathan. There
was also on board his vessel, as a passenger, a Miss Williams, said to
have been a near relative of the celebrated Roger Williams, the founder
of Providence, Rhode Island. The captain and Miss Williams were both
members of the Baptist denomination, which at that time was being
cruelly persecuted in some of the New England states, and were in search
of a place where they could worship God in accordance with their
religious convictions. They naturally felt a deep interest in each
other, and a mutual affection sprang up between them, which subsequently
ended in marriage, and the fruit of the union was three sons, Nathan,
Henry, and William, and two daughters, William becoming the grandfather
of the subject of our sketch. The bodies of the brave captain and his
devoted wife, and those of all the older members of his family, have for
long years been mouldering to dust in their graves in the burying-ground
on the old homestead property. Jonathan and his family are buried in
Rawdon. Upon his tombstone there is the following rather quaint
inscription: “Here rests the body of Jonathan Knowles, who gradually
sank into the arms of death, falling asleep in the Redeemer, November
9th, 1821, in the 65th year of his age.” Branches of the Knowles family
are resident in Rawdon, in Hants county, in Yarmouth county, and in New
Brunswick, in the city of St. John, and in a village called by their
name, Knowlesville. Charles received his education in the public schools
in Windsor, and when about eighteen years of age became connected with
journalism, and managed the _Saturday Mail_, a weekly local paper, then
owned by M. A. Buckley. After a few years Mr. Knowles succeeded in
purchasing this property, and having thrown more life into it, made it
one of the best weekly papers in Nova Scotia. In 1883 he sold out the
_Mail_, and for three years subsequently engaged in other pursuits; but
in 1886 he again embarked in journalism, having purchased the Windsor
_Tribune_, the paper he is now publishing. He has also an interest in
the book and stationery business in Halifax; and elsewhere, and is the
patentee of a valuable invention in connection with the manufacture of
paper, which is used extensively in Great Britain. Mr. Knowles has
proved himself an active and enterprising citizen, being a member of the
town council of Windsor, and is also closely identified with various
public and private undertakings. He was married in 1871, to Lydia
Lockhart, of Falmouth, and has a family of five children.
* * * * *
=Woodland, Rev. Jas. Barnaby=, Pastor of “The Temple” Baptist church,
Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, was born at Wallace, Nova Scotia, on the 13th of
August, 1840. He is a son of the late Richard Woodland, who came from
Ireland to America with his wife, Annie Coulter, shortly after their
marriage. The grandfather of the subject of this sketch was an officer
in the Home Guards during the Irish rebellion, and, on account of his
loyalty to the Crown, suffered much in property and estate. Rev. Mr.
Woodland was educated for the ministry at the Baptist Institutions at
Wolfville, but failing health compelled him to retire before he
completed the course. Being shut out from study, he started the
_Maritime Sentinel_, a weekly newspaper, which he successfully conducted
for several years, first at Oxford, and afterwards at Amherst, N.S.
During this time he was twice nominated and several times solicited to
become a candidate to represent the interests of Cumberland county in
both the Local and Dominion parliaments, but always having in view a
return to the ministry, he invariably declined. After quietly pursuing
literary work and studies for some years, and regaining vigour, he sold
out his newspaper, and re-entered the ministry. His first pastorate was
in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island, where he was ordained in 1878, and
laboured for about seven years. He then removed to Yarmouth, Nova
Scotia, and accepted the pastorate of “The Temple,” one of the three
Baptist churches in that city, which position he occupies at the present
time. He held, during the period previous to his ordination to the
ministry, several positions of trust indicative of public confidence.
For years he acted as justice of the peace in the towns where he
resided, and for four or five years was grand provincial secretary of
the old order of British Templars. He was one of the committee who
drafted the original constitution of the Dominion Alliance, and assisted
to institute it at Montreal years ago, and has continued ever since to
be a prominent advocate of temperance and prohibition, whose assistance
in temperance campaign work is widely sought for over the Maritime
provinces. He was for a long time one of the active leaders in the
Independent Order of Good Templars, and resigned the office of grand
chief in 1886. For several years he has been a member of the Baptist
Home Mission Board, and is at present vice-president of that
institution. He is a master Mason, and at the present time senior warden
of Hiram lodge, No. 12, at Yarmouth, N.S. On the 28th of December, 1865,
Rev. Mr. Woodland was united in marriage to Marie Julia Livingstone,
eldest daughter of Angus Livingstone, a native of Scotland, and a
relative of the late Dr. Livingstone, the African explorer.
* * * * *
=Drummond, Andrew Thomas=, B.A., LL.B., was born on the 18th of July,
1844, at Kingston, Ontario. His father, Andrew Drummond, was a native of
Edinburgh, Scotland, being born there in 1811. He received a university
education, and intended adopting the profession of writer to the Signet,
but in 1833, he was invited to remove to Canada by his uncle, Robert
Drummond, who was then executing extensive works on the Rideau Canal. A
few months after his arrival in Canada, his uncle died from the Asiatic
cholera of 1834, and he was then compelled to close up his uncle’s
business. After accomplishing this, he entered the service of the
Commercial Bank of Canada, at Kingston, and has occupied a prominent
position in that and the Bank of Montreal, as manager in a number of the
cities of Canada, for a period of fifty years. He retired in 1885, on a
well earned competence, and is this year (1887) still in the enjoyment,
at the age of seventy-six, of every faculty, having just completed, with
his wife, a three months trip across the continent. In 1838, he married
Margaret Sinclair, an adopted daughter and niece of the father of the
Hon. O. Mowat. Miss Sinclair was born at Peterhead, Scotland, in 1816,
where her father was a Custom-house officer, but he dying when she was a
child, it fell to her lot to be provided for in Canada. Although
seventy, she is still hale and healthy, and both, with their nine
children still form a family unbroken by a death. Andrew Thomas
Drummond, the subject of this sketch, was their third child, and when a
few months old he removed to Bytown (now Ottawa), where his father was
appointed manager of the Commercial Bank. Here he received his
elementary education, and, at the age of nine, when his father was
appointed manager of the Bank of Montreal at Kingston, he was sent to
Queen’s College school, and began the study of Latin. In 1857, when he
was scarce thirteen, he entered Queen’s College, after passing a
successful entrance examination, and is believed to have been the
youngest student to enter the college before, and perhaps since. He was
always noted as extremely studious, and at the age of sixteen had taken
his degree of B.A. at the university. During his university studies
which he still continued, he developed a strong desire for the
acquisition of a knowledge of geology and botany, and was a large
collector of specimens, which in later years he presented to the
college. In 1868, he received his degree of LL.B., and on leaving his
college life, he decided upon the profession of a barrister. With this
in view he entered the law office of Sir Alexander Campbell, at
Kingston, and in 1866, passed his examination for barrister with much
credit at Toronto. He practised in London, Ontario, with Mr. Abbott, and
later on originated the law firm of Campbell & Drummond, at Ottawa.
About 1869, an opportunity opened in Montreal for his engaging in
commercial pursuits, and he removed thither, where he has since been
largely interested in this line, much of it being in the development of
the North-West. In this class of business he has been very successful,
as he leans rather to the side of cautiousness than otherwise. He is a
director in the Manitoba and North-Western Railway; a director in the
Montreal and Western Land Company; trustee of Queen’s University, at
Kingston; trustee of Trafalgar Institute, Montreal; and one of the
editors of the _Record of Science_. He is author of the following
articles:—In “Canadian Monthly,” “Imperial and Colonial Confederation,
Our Public Indebtedness.” In “Canadian Naturalist,” “Observations on
Canadian Geographical Botany;” “Catalogue of Canadian Lichens;”
“Distribution of Plants in Canada, in some of its relations to Physical
and Past Geological Conditions;” “Statistical Features of the Flora of
Canada;” “Introduced and Spreading Plants of Canada;” “Botanical and
Geological Notes.” In Montreal Horticultural Society’s Reports,
“Canadian Timber Trees;” “Forestry in Canada.” In “Magazine of Science,”
“Note on Canadian Forests.” In British Association Reports,
“Distribution of Canadian Forest Trees in its relations to Climate.” In
“Handbook for Canada,” published for British Association meeting, the
article on “Forestry and Lower St. Lawrence Flora.” In “Record of
Science,” “Our North-West Prairies, their Origin and Forests,” “The
Distribution and Climatic Relations of British North American Plants;”
“Affinities of the Tendrils in the Virginian Creeper.” In 1881, he
married Florence Wonham, the eldest daughter of a well-known Montreal
wholesale merchant, and has a family of two children.
* * * * *
=Hewson, Charles Wentworth Upham=, M.D., L.R.C.P., and L.M. (Edinburgh),
Amherst, Nova Scotia, was born in Jolicure, New Brunswick, on the 28th
February, 1844. His parents were William A. Hewson and Elizabeth
Chandler. He received his education at the Sackville, Mount Allison, and
St. Joseph colleges, New Brunswick, and adopted medicine as a
profession. He began his practice in River Herbert, in Nova Scotia, and
for eleven years carried it on very successfully. Then, in 1883, he went
to Scotland, and for some time attended the Royal Infirmary of
Edinburgh, where he took the degrees of L.R.C.P. and L.M. On his return
he settled in Amherst, Nova Scotia, in May, 1884, where he has since
enjoyed a lucrative practice. Dr. Hewson is coroner for the county of
Cumberland. Some years ago he joined the Masonic fraternity, and takes
an active interest in this ancient order of brotherhood. In politics the
doctor is a Liberal, and in religion is an adherent of the Presbyterian
church. He was married on the 29th of December, 1874, to Mary E.
Hapgood, a native of Calais, Maine. The fruit of this marriage has been
four children, only two of whom survive, namely, Florence R. and Charles
E.
* * * * *
=Allison, Charles=, Inspector of Weights and Measures, Yarmouth, Nova
Scotia, was born at Kentville, Kings county, Nova Scotia, on the 22nd of
September, 1821. His father was Samuel Leonard Allison, prothonotary of
Kings county, who was grandson of Joseph Allison, who emigrated from
Newton Limavady, a town on Lough Foyle, near Londonderry, Ireland, and
settled in Horton, Kings county, Nova Scotia, in 1774. Joseph Allison,
the great grandfather of the subject of our sketch, had four sons,
namely: John, William, James and Joseph, and all the old stock of the
Allisons in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are descended from them. Many
of this family have attained marked prominence, as witness: David
Allison, LL.D., is the present Superintendent of Education of Nova
Scotia; Charles Allison, the founder of Mount Allison University; Henry
Allison, ex-M.P., and others that will occur to Maritime province
readers. Of Joseph’s sons, Israel (deceased), was sheriff of Colchester,
for some years; Jonathan (deceased), who was one of Halifax’s most
successful business men; Edward (deceased), who removed to St. John, New
Brunswick, and entered mercantile life. The latter gentleman was the
father of Dr. Allison, and J. C. Allison, C.E., of St. John. Two other
sons of Joseph, Henry and Joseph, died at an early age. Charles
Allison’s mother was Sophia Barss, of Liverpool. Deacon Samuel Barss,
the founder of the Barss family, was of English origin, settling in
Connecticut, where he married a daughter of the celebrated John Alden, a
contemporary and friend of Miles Standish. In the latter part of the
last century, the family emigrated to Nova Scotia, and settled in
Annapolis. Joseph Barss settled in Liverpool, and was the founder of the
Queen’s county branch of the Barss family. At one time, while away with
his vessel, he was captured by a French privateer and taken to France,
where he was kept prisoner until exchanged. Charles Allison was first
sent to the school at Kentville, in his native county, and afterwards
attended for a time the academy at Liverpool, in Queens county, and
picked up such an education as could be procured in these institutions
in those early days. On leaving school he was sent to Halifax, where he
became a clerk in a dry goods store, and served four years in this
place. He then left Halifax, and joining his father and the rest of the
family at Kentville, they shortly afterwards removed to Kempt, in Queens
county, and bought a farm with some improvements. Here Mr. Allison
resided for forty years. He took an active interest in military affairs,
and in 1864, when the provincial militia was organized, he was appointed
lieutenant-colonel of the 3rd Queens county regiment, and retired a few
years ago, retaining his rank. He has held a number of public offices
during his active life time. In 1858, he was appointed a justice of the
peace; and in 1863, he entered the field of politics, was elected to a
seat in the Provincial Legislature, for Queens county, and was one of
the number who helped to carry the free school bill in 1866, and the
following year the act for the confederation of the provinces. On the
dissolution of the House of Assembly, and the formation of the new
government, Mr. Allison was chosen commissioner of Mines and Works. In
September, 1867, an appeal was made to the country, with the result that
the whole “Union party” were defeated, Mr. Allison being among the
number, with the exception of Sir Charles Tupper, in Cumberland, and
Hon. Hiram Blanchard, the attorney-general, in Inverness. Mr. Allison
has once since presented himself for legislative favours, but was
defeated; he nevertheless continues to take an interest in all the
measures that come up in the local and Dominion parliaments. In
politics, he is a Liberal-Conservative, and in religion an adherent of
the Baptist church. He was married at Caledonia, Queens county, on the
19th July, 1847, to Lavinia Freeman, whose grandfather, Simeon Freeman,
of English Puritan descent, was the first male child born in Queens
county. The fruit of this union has been nine children, seven of whom
are living,—two boys, Henry and Charles Edward, and five daughters,
four of whom are married, one a resident of Liverpool, Nova Scotia, and
three residing with their husbands in Boston.
* * * * *
=Lyman, Frederick Styles=, B.A., B.C.L., Barrister, Montreal, was born
in that city on the 6th of January, 1844. He is a son of Henry Lyman,
senior partner of the firm of Lyman, Sons & Co., of Montreal, and Lyman
Brothers & Co., of Toronto, president of the Citizens’ Insurance
Company, and one of the directors of the Canada Shipping Company, etc.
The Lymans came originally from Kent, in England, and were among the
early settlers of Massachusetts, where a number of them still reside.
Frederick received his primary education at the High School and McGill
University, Montreal, and then went to England, and studied at St.
John’s College, Cambridge, where he took the degree of B.A., in 1867. On
his return to Montreal he received the degree of B.C.L. from McGill
University. He selected law as a profession, and after having passed a
creditable examination, travelled for a year in Europe, visiting the
chief cities of Britain and the continent with great pleasure and profit
to himself. On his return he entered into a law partnership with John
Dunlop, under the style of Dunlop & Lyman, as advocates and solicitors,
commissioners for Ontario and Nova Scotia, etc., and has proved himself
a successful legal practitioner. Mr. Lyman, in politics, is a Liberal;
and in religion, is an adherent of the Church of England. He was married
on the 15th August, 1871, to Louisa Lyman, and has a family of two
children.
* * * * *
=Robertson, Andrew=, Chairman of the Board of Harbor Commissioners,
Montreal, is a Scotchman by birth, having been born in Paisley, in
Scotland, on the 18th June, 1827. He is the eldest and only son of the
late Alexander Robertson, of Paisley, by his first wife, Grant Stuart
Macdonald. Mr. Robertson received his education at the Paisley Grammar
School, going through the usual curriculum of English, Latin and Greek.
Shortly after leaving school, like the majority of Scotch boys, he
learned a trade, that of weaving. He went, in 1840, to Glasgow to push
his fortune. Here he served for four years in a dry goods store, and
then took a position in a manufacturer’s establishment. In this new
position he worked hard, and having gained the confidence of his
employers, he was four years afterwards, in 1848, admitted a partner in
the business. A few years later on, his health having given way, he was
admonished by his medical adviser to leave Glasgow, and try the effects
of either the climate of Australia or Canada on his enfeebled
constitution. He decided on the latter country, and along with his wife
and two sons came to Montreal in 1853. Shortly after his arrival he went
into the dry goods business, and soon became one of the leading men in
the trade, as senior partner in the firm of Robertsons, Linton and Co.,
of that city. Business having succeeded, Mr. Robertson was enabled to
retire from it in 1885, and he is now enjoying other and perhaps more
congenial pursuits. Being a public spirited gentleman, he never shirked
his responsibilities as a citizen. In 1868 and 1869 he accepted the
position of president of St. Andrew’s Society of Montreal; in 1876 he
was president of the Dominion Board of Trade; in 1876 and 1877 he was
president of the Montreal Board of Trade; was the first president of the
Dominion Travellers’ Association; has been the president of the Royal
Canadian Insurance Company since 1876; and president of the Bell
Telephone Company of Canada since its organization in 1880. In 1872 Mr.
Robertson became one of the governors of the Montreal General Hospital,
and since that period has filled the offices of treasurer,
vice-president, and is now president. In 1879 he was elected chairman of
the Board of Harbor Commissioners for Montreal, and he has occupied this
position ever since. He has also taken an interest in military affairs,
and in 1861, during the _Trent_ excitement, he was first lieutenant and
quartermaster of the Montreal Light Infantry Company. Mr. Robertson is
an adherent of the Presbyterian church; and as for politics, we think he
would rather act the part of the Good Samaritan than indulge in
political discussions. He was married on the 19th April, 1850, to Agnes,
youngest daughter of the late Alexander Bow, of Glasgow, and has had a
family of four sons and six daughters, two of the latter are dead.
* * * * *
=Rosebrugh, John Wellington=, M.D., Hamilton, Ontario, President of the
Ontario Medical Association, 1887, and member of the Council of the
College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. This distinguished
medical gentleman was born near Galt, in the county of Waterloo,
Ontario, on the 5th November, 1828. His father was the late Thomas
Rosebrugh, of Dumfries, who, when a lad of sixteen, took up his gun,
went to the frontier, and fought for his young country at the battles of
Lundy’s Lane and Queenston Heights. His grandfather was a U. E.
loyalist. Dr. Rosebrugh received his early education at the schools of
his neighborhood, the Galt High School and Victoria College. In 1850 he
commenced the study of medicine under the Hon. Dr. Rolph, Dr. Joseph
Workman, and others, afterwards called the Toronto School of Medicine;
and later on the Medical department of the University of Victoria
College. At the end of two years he passed his examination, and received
his licence to practice from the Medical Board of Canada in 1852. He
then went on to New York, attended an additional course of lectures at
the University of New York city, from which institution he received the
degree of doctor of medicine, in 1853. During his sojourn in New York,
he faithfully followed up all the great advantages derivable from the
lectures and clinics, and witnessed a large number of surgical
operations in the hospitals of that city. Having a natural inclination
for surgery, he cultivated his bent in that direction, and thus laid the
foundation for his great success in after life. His career is an
excellent example of what can be gained by one who sets before himself a
high ideal of life, and the steadfast purpose and determination to rise
to a useful and exalted position in his profession. Only force of
character, unusual energy, and strenuous devotion to his high purpose
could win such signal success as he has attained without the
adventitious aids of an artificial society, professorships, or hospital
appointments. Success is always a relative term, and is used
appropriately only when employed to describe conditions in which effort
guided by intelligence and skill to definite purpose accomplishes its
aims. If this be true, then no physician in Canada to-day has a stronger
claim to this distinction than the subject of this sketch, for his
effort and perseverance have placed him in the front rank of his
profession. He is a licentiate of the Canada Medical Board, 1852; M.D.,
University of New York city, 1853; M.D., University Victoria College,
1855; member of the Council of the College of Physicians and Surgeons,
Ontario; member of the Ontario Medical Association; member of the Canada
Medical Association; member of the British Medical Association; member
of the International Medical Congress; honorary member of the American
Medical Association; fellow of the British Gynecological Society;
corresponding member of the Boston Gynecological Society, etc. It will
thus be seen that he has already reached a higher degree of prominence
in the medical profession of the country than has been the fortune of
but few disciples of Æsculapius to enjoy. His success as a physician and
surgeon is the fruit of hard work, persevering research and natural
adaptability to his chosen profession. His cheerful presence is a
blessing to any sick chamber, and his mild and gentle manners bring
cheer and comfort to the suffering and desponding ones, while his quiet
though earnest assurances of recovery infuse hope and joy into the
desponding heart. He always had a _penchant_ for surgery, and, besides
his hospital practice during the time the railways were being
constructed about Hamilton and Dundas, had quite a large experience in
surgical operations, so that before he took up his specialty, he had the
reputation of being an excellent general surgeon. His practice, however,
during the last few years has gradually drifted more and more into
gynecology and abdominal surgery. His great skill and wonderful success
as an ovariotomist and abdominal surgeon, soon attracted the attention
of his medical brethren, and they sent him the difficult cases which
they did not wish to undertake themselves. In order to improve his
knowledge as an abdominal surgeon, he has made frequent visits to the
United States, Great Britain, and the continent of Europe. In this way
he became practically acquainted with the methods of the most celebrated
abdominal surgeons in the world, including Sir Spencer Wells, Thomas
Keith, Lawson Tait, Granville Bantock, Knowsly Thornton, Carl Schrœder,
and A. Martin. Dr. Rosebrugh commenced the practice of his profession in
the town of Dundas, where he resided for a period of three years, and
then accepted a partnership with Dr. Billings, of Hamilton. This
co-partnership at the end of three years was dissolved by mutual
consent, and Dr. Rosebrugh since that time has practised by himself.
While residing in Dundas he was appointed coroner for the county of
Wentworth, and after removing to Hamilton he was appointed coroner for
the city, and, associated with the late Hon. H. B. Bull, he presided
with noted ability and dignity at the celebrated inquest concerning the
Desjardins Bridge accident, where about sixty persons were killed and a
large number wounded. In 1858 he was appointed president of the
Mechanics’ Institute, at that time and for some years subsequently a
flourishing institution of the city. In the year 1860 he was elected a
member of the city council, and immediately gave his particular
attention to the reorganization of the city hospital system, which was
at that time more a hole-and-corner concern, or a house of refuge, than
a hospital. At first he met with a formidable opposition to all efforts
at reform, but his personal popularity and influence gradually won over
a majority of the friends of the old _régime_, and towards the end of
his second year in the council he carried his by-law of reform. This
by-law was so perfect in all its details that it stands to-day at the
end of a quarter of a century, with scarcely an alteration. After
carrying through his scheme, he remained in the council another year as
chairman of the hospital committee, in order to get the new by-law into
good working order. In educational matters he has always taken a deep
interest, and for a number of years was a member of the Grammar and
Public School Board. He was also one of the promoters, and is still a
director of the Ladies’ College. He has always taken a lively interest
and an active part in the great temperance movement, and is a liberal
supporter of that cause. He was born and brought up in the Methodist
Church, and has never left its fold. He was one of the promoters of the
Centenary Church, and has held the office of trustee and steward from
the time that church was erected. Dr. Rosebrugh is an active and
enterprising member of the medical profession, determined from the
beginning to keep fully abreast with the literature and knowledge of the
times, taking the best medical journals and purchasing the newest books.
He was one of the first elected under the new by-law as attending
physician to the hospital, which he held as long as he wished, and was
then chosen one of the consulting physicians. During the time of his
service he was for some years chairman of the staff. He was one of the
active founders of the Hamilton Medical and Surgical Society, which is
still in a flourishing condition, and was president of the same. To him
more than any one else belongs the honor of the formation of the Ontario
Medical Association, as he was the first to urge the medical journals to
write the matter up; and he attended the preliminary meeting in Toronto
for the purpose of drafting the by-laws for the management of the same.
This growing and flourishing association has now been in existence about
seven years, and this year chose Dr. Rosebrugh president for 1887-8.
* * * * *
=Lewis, William James=, M.D., Hillsborough, M.P.P. for Albert county,
New Brunswick, was born in 1830, in Hillsborough, N.B. He is the eldest
son of the Hon. John Lewis, member of the Legislative Council of New
Brunswick, and Lavinia Lewis. His father’s ancestors emigrated from
Wales about 1750, and settled in New York. Being United Empire
loyalists, they left the United States at the close of the revolutionary
war in 1783, and took up their abode in Moncton, New Brunswick, where a
good many of their descendants are still to be found. His mother’s
ancestors came from Londonderry, Ireland, over a hundred years ago and
settled in the Maritime provinces. Mr. Lewis was first educated in the
common schools of the parish where he was born, and afterwards at
Sackville Academy, Westmoreland county, New Brunswick. Having chosen the
medical profession, he went over to Scotland and studied medicine at the
Glasgow University, where he graduated with honors in 1855, and also at
the College of Surgeons in Edinburgh in May of the same year. On his
return to Hillsborough he began the practice of his profession, and has
continued there ever since, having built up a lucrative business. For
the last twenty-five years he has held the position of coroner for
Albert county. In 1878 he entered political life, and was at the general
election of that year returned as a member of the House of Assembly of
New Brunswick; re-elected at the general election of 1882, and again at
the general election of 1886. In 1882 he was sworn in a member of the
Executive Council, and took office without a portfolio in the
Harrington-Landry administration, but resigned with his colleagues in
February, 1883. In politics, Dr. Lewis is a Liberal-Conservative; and in
religion, following in the footsteps of his parents, his sympathies are
with the Baptist church. He has been twice married; first, in 1877, to
Melissa, daughter of Richard E. Steever, postmaster of Hillsborough. She
died in October, 1882, without issue. He was again married in August,
1885, to Catharine Duffy, daughter of the late John Duffy, of
Hillsborough, N.B., and has issue a daughter.
* * * * *
=Daly, Thomas Mayne=, M.P., Barrister, Brandon, Manitoba, was born on
the 16th August, 1852, at Stratford, Ontario. He is the second son of
the late Thomas Mayne Daly, by his wife Helen McLaren Ferguson, a native
of Crieff, Perthshire, Scotland, who came to Canada in 1844 with her
father, the late Peter Ferguson, of Stratford, architect. He is a
grandson of the late Lieut.-Colonel I. C. W. Daly, who settled in
Stratford in 1832, and who was for many years after agent of the Canada
Company, and also of the Bank of Upper Canada in Stratford. He was a
member of the first council of the district of Huron in 1842, and he was
also the first mayor of Stratford (1858). He died on the 1st April,
1878, in the eighty-third year of his age, being at the time of his
death the oldest militia officer, magistrate and coroner in the whole of
the country formerly comprising the old Huron district, and now
comprising the counties of Huron, Perth and Bruce. The history of the
last half century of his life is very intimately connected with the
history of the old “Huron Tract.” Thomas Mayne Daly, the father of the
subject of our sketch, was born at Hamilton, Ontario, in 1827, and died
at Stratford 5th March, 1885. He was educated at Upper Canada College,
Toronto. He entered public life in 1848, being elected in that year as a
district councillor from Downie, in the Huron district. In 1850 he was
elected first reeve of North East Hope, and was mayor of Stratford
during the years 1869, and 1876-77 and ’78. He was the first
representative sent to the Legislative Assembly of Canada from the
county of Perth after its organization as a separate county in 1854. He
was again elected in 1857, over the Hon. Wm. McDougall. He was defeated
at the general election, 1861, by the Hon. M. H. Foley, but that
gentleman having been also elected for South Waterloo, he resigned his
seat for Perth, and at the election which followed Mr. Daly was returned
in opposition to the late Robert Macfarlane, who, however, defeated him
at the next general election. At the first election after confederation,
the county being then divided into two ridings, Mr. Daly unsuccessfully
opposed James Redford for North Perth; but at the general election in
1872 he defeated Mr. Redford, and was government “whip” during the
celebrated “Pacific Scandal” session at Ottawa, and the mover of the
adjournment of the debate the night previous to the resignation of the
Macdonald-Cartier administration. Mr. Daly in 1874 was elected for North
Perth to the Ontario legislature, and sat out the term of the second
parliament. Having been defeated for the local legislature at the
general provincial elections of 1875, he was tendered the Conservative
nomination for North Perth at the general Dominion election in 1878, but
declined for private reasons, and then retired from public life. Thomas
Mayne Daly, the subject of our sketch, received his education at the
Upper Canada College in Toronto. Having adopted law as a profession he
was admitted to the Ontario bar in Michaelmas term, 1876, and began
practice in the city of Stratford, Ontario, on 10th January, 1877, and
continued until May, 1881, when he removed to Manitoba, and took up his
residence in Brandon in that province, on the 18th July, 1881. Here he
has resided ever since, and is now the senior member of the firm of Daly
& Coldwell, barristers, etc. Mr. Daly was among the pioneer settlers of
Brandon; and was the returning officer at the first general election
held in the district for the local legislature in October, 1881, and was
also returning officer for the first municipal election in the county of
Brandon in December of the same year. In 1882 he was elected the first
mayor of the city of Brandon; and was re-elected to the same office in
1884. He was chairman of the Western Judicial District Board of
Manitoba, 1884. He is a bencher of the Law Society of Manitoba, and a
member of the Protestant Board of Education of that province. He was
president of the first Conservative Association formed in Brandon in
July, 1882; is now vice-president for Selkirk of the Conservative Union
of Manitoba, and president of the Liberal-Conservative Association of
the county of Brandon. During Mr. Daly’s residence in Ontario he took an
active part in public affairs, and was for several years quartermaster
of the 28th Perth battalion of militia, and retired from the service in
1881 with the rank of captain. He occupied the office of president of
the Young Men’s Conservative Association, which was formed in Stratford
in 1878, and during the years 1880-81 he held a seat in the town council
of Stratford; and was a member of, and subsequently became the chairman
of, the school board of that place. In politics Mr. Daly is a
Liberal-Conservative, and in religion an adherent of the Church of
England. He was married on the 4th of June, 1879, at Stratford, Ontario,
to Margaret Annabella, eldest daughter of P. R. Jarvis.
* * * * *
=Borden, Frederick William=, B.A., M.D., M.P., Canning, Nova Scotia, was
born on the 14th May, 1847, at Canard, Kings county, N.S. His father,
Jonathan Borden, M.D. (whose great grandfather, Samuel Borden, was one
of the original grantees of the township of Cornwallis, in the reign of
King George III., A.D. 1764), practised medicine at Canard for thirty
years. Maria Frances Brown, his mother, was a descendant on the maternal
side from the family of Major Dennison, one of the agents from
Connecticut who in May, 1759, visited the districts of Grand Pré and
Canard, in Kings county, from which the Acadians had been expatriated,
with a view to re-settling the said districts with a colony from that
state. Her brother, Dr. E. L. Brown, sat in the legislature of Nova
Scotia from 1847 till 1859, and from 1863 till 1871, having been
defeated in 1859 by another brother, J. L. Brown, who held the seat
until 1863. Both parents are dead. Mr. Borden graduated in arts at the
University of King’s College, Windsor, N.S., in June, 1866, and at
Harvard University in medicine in July, 1868. He was a member of King’s
College University Rifle Corps; was appointed assistant surgeon of the
68th battalion active militia 22nd October, 1869, surgeon on the 22nd
October, 1879, and principal medical officer of the brigade camp at
Aldershot in September, 1887. Dr. Borden has been agent of the Bank of
Nova Scotia at Canning since September, 1882. He was elected to
represent Kings county in the House of Commons at Ottawa in February,
1874; and re-elected in September, 1875. He was an unsuccessful
candidate in June, 1882, but was again elected in February, 1887, by a
majority of 448 votes. The doctor has practised his profession
(medicine) continuously at Canning since September, 1869, whither he had
removed from Canard (the old homestead), about four miles distant. He
married, first, Julia Maude Clarke, on 1st October, 1873. She died April
2nd, 1880. He married again, on June 12th, 1884, Bessie Blanche Clarke,
daughter of John H. Clarke, of Canning, N.S. Her mother’s maiden name
was Elizabeth Tupper, and she was a daughter of Augustus Tupper, who
contested Kings county several times unsuccessfully for a seat in the
Nova Scotian Assembly, and who was an uncle of Sir Charles Tupper.
* * * * *