All the morning’s majesty
And mystery of loveliness lay bare
Before him; all the limitless blue sea
Brightening with laughter many a league around.
Wind wrinkled, etc.
But it may be that the genius of Mr. Roberts is nowhere so apparent as
in a short poem of his that we have seen somewhere, entitled, “Off
Pelorus,” the first stanza of which is an exquisite piece of
word-painting, combined with the very soul of song. We quote from
memory—
Crimson swims the sun-set over far Pelorus,
Burning crimson tops its frowning crest of pine;
Purple sleeps the shore, and floats the wave before us,
Eachwhere from the oar-stroke eddying warm like wine.
It is impossible to separate true poetry from its sister, painting, and
here the two walk hand in hand. The rich coloring of the painter, the
subtle thought and music of the poet, and all developed strongly, so as
to come within the immediate grasp of ordinary intelligence. We have not
seen Mr. Roberts’ prose writing, but we are informed that he has written
much that is masterly in thought and style; can do good battle in a
political discussion, and has peculiar and abundant gifts in the field
of criticism. In 1882 he was appointed head-master of York Street
School, Fredericton. In 1883 he accepted the position of editor of _The
Week_, a Toronto weekly, from which he, finding his tastes did not
harmonize with the director’s, retired in four months, when he returned
to New Brunswick, and was there engaged with several literary
undertakings, till his call, in 1885, to the University of King’s
College, Windsor, Nova Scotia, as professor of English and French
literature and political economy. In 1887 he published his most
important work, “In Divers Tones” (Montreal: Dawson Bros.; Boston: D.
Lothrop & Co.), which has been very favorably received. Professor
Roberts is a contributor to most of the notable publications printed in
the English language; among these may be mentioned “Longman’s,” “The
Century,” “Wide Awake,” and “Outing.” Mr. Roberts is a member of the
Church of England, and was married December 29th, 1880, to Mary Isabel
Fenety, daughter of George E. Fenety, Queen’s printer, of Fredericton,
New Brunswick. By this marriage he has three children.
* * * * *
=Chicoyne, Jerome Adolphe=, Advocate, Sherbrooke, was born on the 22nd
August, 1844, at St. Pie, county of Bagot, province of Quebec. His
paternal ancestors came over from France at the time Mr. de Maisonneuve
was recruiting settlers for the colony of Ville-Marie. His name was
Pierre Chicoyne, and his place in France was and is still called
Channay, in the old Province of Anjou. He became proprietor of the fief
Bellevue, in the parish of Verchères, which fief still belongs to his
descendants. Members of the family continue to reside in the same place
and vicinity in France, and intercourse is regularly kept up between
them from both sides of the ocean. A new settlement, started in the
township of Woburn, at the head of Lake Megantic, in the county of
Beauce (where the subject of our sketch felled the first tree on the 8th
December, 1880), is named Channay, as a reminiscence of the place
wherefrom his ancestor came. Mr. Chicoyne was educated at the Seminary
of St. Hyacinthe, and followed the usual course—eight years. He was
admitted to the bar of Lower Canada on the 17th September, 1868, at
Montreal; and after practising at St. Hyacinthe until 1872, was
compelled to quit it in consequence of ill-health. He then became
attached to the department of agriculture of the province of Quebec, as
colonization agent, and has ever since been connected with the
colonization movement in the Eastern Townships. In 1875 he left St.
Hyacinthe with his family, and settled at La Patrie, one of the new
settlements organized by him in his capacity of government agent. In
1880, he started a colonization scheme (under the patronage of both the
Provincial and Federal governments) in France, which resulted in the
influx of considerable French capital and immigrants to these townships.
Some of the results may now be seen in the great progress achieved by
the village of Megantic, in the county of Compton, and in the above
mentioned settlement of Channay. In January, 1886, he took the direction
of _Le Pionnier_, the oldest French paper in the Eastern Townships,
which paper has largely contributed to, and still helps, the settlement
of that comparatively new section of the country. He took part for the
first time in politics during the elections of 1867, in the Conservative
interest, and is still, and has ever been a most devoted and faithful
worker in the Conservative ranks. Mr. Chicoyne has made four trips to
Europe, and has visited England, France, Belgium, Switzerland and Italy,
and while in these countries studied the political economy and social
questions of the age. In religion he is a member of the Roman Catholic
church. On the 7th January, 1868, he was married at St. Hyacinthe, to
Dame Caroline Perreault.
* * * * *
=Elliott, Edward=, Barrister, Perth, Ontario, was born in the township
of Elmsley, county of Lanark, Ontario, on the 29th June, 1884. He is of
Irish descent, his father, John Elliot, and mother, Rebecca Taylor, both
having been born in Ireland. The family came to Canada in 1818, and
shortly afterwards settled in Lanark. The subject of this sketch
received his education at the Grammar School of Perth. In 1863 he began
the study of the law with the late William Oscar Buell, barrister, in
Perth. Mr. Elliott was admitted as a solicitor in Michaelmas term 1868,
and called to the bar in Hilary term 1869. Though devoted to his
profession, he has yet found time to serve his fellow-citizens in
various capacities. For ten years he has been a member of the town
council, during two of which he served as mayor, namely, in 1879 and
1880. He has been for some time a member of the Board of Education of
Perth. In politics, he has taken an active interest, and was a candidate
for parliamentary honors, on the Conservative side, in South Lanark, in
1879, but was defeated by only fifty-three of a majority. Again he
contested the same riding, in 1883, but again suffered defeat; this
time, however, by only twenty-nine of majority. He has resided in Perth
since he commenced the study of the law, and is the senior member of the
firm of Elliott & Rogers, solicitors, etc., doing a good law business.
In 1882 Mr. Elliott was called to the bar of Manitoba. In 1880 he joined
the True Britons’ lodge, No. 14, A. F. and A. M., and has taken an
interest in the order ever since. He has travelled through the United
States, and the greater part of Canada. In politics, he is a
Liberal-Conservative; and in religion, is a member of the Church of
England. He has held the office of warden, and is also a lay delegate to
the Diocesan Synod. He was married on the 5th July, 1870, to Harriet,
youngest daughter of the late John Rudd, merchant, Perth, and has a
family of four girls.
* * * * *
=La Rue, Thomas George=, Quebec, Notary Public and Collector of Inland
Revenue for the Dominion of Canada, in the division of Quebec, is
descended from one of the most ancient French families in New France,
represented by Jean de La Rue, who settled at Quebec in 1636, and
married Jaqueline Pin, in 1663, one of the first pupils of the Ursuline
nuns of Quebec. Thomas George La Rue was born at St. Jean, Orleans
Island, on the 21st December, 1834, and is the second son of Nazaire La
Rue, who was a lieutenant-colonel in the militia, and a notary public.
His mother was Adelaide Roy. He was educated at the Laval University,
and was admitted to practice his profession on the 4th February, 1856.
Mr. La Rue is noted for the lively interest he, in common with the late
Dr. Hubert La Rue, and his brother, a professor at the Laval University,
has taken in agricultural pursuits in the province of Quebec. In 1867 he
published, in the _Evénement_ newspaper, several essays, under the title
of “Causeries Agricoles,” bearing on the experiments he had made on his
farm on the Island of Orleans, and these were, in 1872, collected and
issued in book shape by the _Journal d’Agriculture de St. Hyacinthe_,
and distributed all over the province. He was a member of the Notarial
Board for the province of Quebec, from 1862 to 1879, and was elected
vice-president of it in 1876. In 1869, jointly with the Hon. Louis
Archambault and Emery Papineau, his colleagues, he prepared the
constitution which governs the Board of Notaries for the province of
Quebec. For twenty-five years he was an active worker in the ranks of
the Liberal party, and in 1862 acquired by purchase, assisted by the
Hon. Ulric J. Tessier, now a judge in the Court of Appeal; Francis
Evanturel, ex-minister of agriculture; the late G. Joly, seignior of
Lotbinière, father of the present Hon. H. G. Joly; and J. G. Barthe,
barrister, the journal known as _Le Canadien_. And this newspaper
originated in its columns such a fierce opposition to the government of
the day—the Cartier-McDonald—on the Militia Bill, that it compelled it
to resign and give way for the formation of the McDonald-Sicotte
administration. Mr. La Rue was mainly instrumental in securing for the
Liberal party the parliamentary division of Quebec East, which, ever
since the warmly-contested election of the Hon. Senator Pantaléon
Peltier, in 1871, has remained until this day, a fortress to the party.
In 1872 he came forward on the Liberal ticket, in the county of
Montmorency, but was beaten at the polls by the late Jean Langlois, Q.C.
In 1874 the McKenzie administration entrusted him, as a notary, with the
settlement of the claims arising from seignorial dues in the province of
Quebec. In 1878, Mr. La Rue finally withdrew from politics, and accepted
the important appointment of collector of inland revenue for the
division of Quebec, the duties of which he has continued to fill ever
since. In 1857, he was married to Helen Marie Louise, eldest daughter of
the late Pierre Guénette, a merchant in Quebec city.
* * * * *
=Baynes, William Craig=, B.A., was born in Quebec in 1809. He was
educated in England for the service of the East India Company, but on
the death of his father gave up the appointment, and later entered
Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took the degree of B.A. in 1836. In
1839 he was summoned to receive his M.A., but had scruples of conscience
as to taking the oath of conformity, and the higher honor was refused.
Mr. Baynes came of a military family. His father saw service in Africa,
where he assisted in the capture of the Cape in 1795, and in India, and
was adjutant-general of the army in Canada and colonel of the Glengarry
Fencibles in the war of 1812. Three of his sons also entered the army.
Mr. Baynes married in 1841, and in 1843 returned to Canada, and settled
in the neighborhood of Kingsey, where his father had purchased land.
Here he carried on farming for twelve years, giving it up in 1856, when
he received the secretaryship of the Royal Institution for the
Advancement of Learning (McGill College, Montreal), which post he held
continuously until his death, which took place on Sunday, 9th October,
1887. He leaves four sons. He was for many years the leading member of
the Plymouth Brethren in Montreal, and generally conducted their
services.
* * * * *
=Strachan, John=, LL.D., D.D., Bishop of Toronto.—The late Bishop
Strachan was born at Aberdeen, Scotland, on the 12th of April, 1778, and
received his early education at the Grammar School of that city, and
finished his term at King’s College in 1796, when he got his Master’s
degree. His father was a poor man, straitened in circumstances; yet,
with the characteristic ambition of a Scotchman, he had determined that
his son should be well equipped for future conflict with the world. He
was only nineteen years of age when he was declared the successful
candidate for the parochial schoolmastership of Kettle. There were
nearly one hundred and fifty pupils in this school, among them Sir David
Wilkie, the artist, and Commodore Robert Barclay, doomed to misfortune
on Lake Erie, from no fault of his own. He remained at Kettle three
years, when an invitation to Canada came to change the current of his
life. It was towards the close of the eighteenth century that some
liberal friends of education anxiously contemplating the establishment
of a high school and university, bethought themselves of applying to
Scotland for a teacher to whom they could confide the training of their
sons, and, amongst those, the most directly interested was the Hon.
Richard Cartwright, grandfather of the present Sir Richard Cartwright, a
man of enterprise and far-sighted views. Mr. Strachan having been
engaged for the purpose, towards the end of 1799 he sailed from
Greenock, by way of New York, and arrived in Kingston on the last day of
the year. His first experience of Upper Canada took the form of
disappointment. Governor Simcoe, with that statesmanlike prescience that
characterised him, had from the first made the establishment of a
university his first and chief desideratum. But unfortunately the first
governor had been removed before his patriotic scheme was carried into
effect, and just when Mr. Strachan arrived at Kingston there seemed to
be no prospect that either the university or grammar school system would
be attempted for the present. Mr. Cartwright recognised the trying
position of the young teacher, and generously set himself to work on his
behalf. He had four sons himself, and his friends could add to the
number of pupils, and so provide the young Scot with an honorable and
fairly remunerative living until the plans of the government were
matured. Mr. Strachan was a Presbyterian, but his father was an
Episcopal non-juror—a champion of the lost cause of the Stuarts, and
his earliest recollections of church services were those he attended
with his father at Aberdeen, presided over by Bishop Skinner.
Subsequently he habitually accompanied his widowed mother to the Relief
Church, of which she was a member. He was only a Presbyterian by
accident. When he arrived at Kingston, and was thrown in contact with
the Rev. Dr. Stuart, who, although an Anglican, was the son of a
Presbyterian, he was naturally attracted to the church of his father, so
that when Mr. Cartwright and Dr. Stuart advised him to study divinity,
the change was easily made, and the result was that the future bishop
received deacon’s orders in 1803. The bishop of Niagara, who was
afterwards one of his pupils at Toronto, has given a graphic description
of Mr. Strachan’s methods, and of his remarkable success as a teacher.
His great care was to interest the boys in their studies, and to draw
out their latent capabilities by attractive means. To him education
meant what its etymology implies, not cramming, but development. Perhaps
no instructor could boast of a larger number of pupils who obtained
eminence in after life. Chief Justice Robinson, and his brother, the
Hon. W. B. Robinson, Chief Justices Macaulay and McLean, Judge Jonas
Jones, Dean Bethune, of Montreal, and his brother, Bishop Strachan’s
successor in the See of Toronto, the Hon. H. J. and G. S. Boulton, Col.
Vankoughnet, father of the chancellor, Donald Æneas Macdonell, and
others, sat at the feet of the ex-dominie of Kettle. Dr. Strachan
removed to York, at the insistance of General Brock, and, in 1812,
became rector of York. For the first time he now entered the political
sphere, by taking the initiative in forming a loyal and patriotic
society. The times were out of joint; war was imminent, and with
characteristic vigor the new rector came to the fore. There was a strong
heart beating beneath the ecclesiastical vestments, and he had an
opportunity soon of showing his mettle. When the long expected shock of
war came on, there never was a busier or more useful man than Dr.
Strachan. It has been remarked that when York was taken, he was “priest,
soldier, and diplomatist,” all in one. At the capture of York, he was
incessantly active. After the explosion by which General Pike was killed
at the old fort, the Americans threatened vengeance upon the defenceless
town which had been evacuated by General Sheaffe and his forces. The
rector, however, was equal to the occasion; and, as a contemporary
writer puts it, “by his great firmness of character, saved the town of
York in 1813 from sharing the same fate as the town of Niagara met with
some months afterwards.” The sturdy clergyman at once visited General
Dearborn, and threatened that if he carried out his threat of sacking
the town, Buffalo, Lewiston, Sackett’s Harbor, and Oswego, should be
destroyed as soon as troops arrived from England. His earnestness and
determination moved the American, and he spared the little Yorkers from
any systematic burning and plunder. But all the danger was not over;
marauding parties wandered about the town seeking for plunder, and not
unfrequently were confronted by the sturdy little rector. On one
occasion two American soldiers visited the house of Colonel Givens, who
was an officer in the retreating army. The inmates were absolutely
helpless, and the marauders made off with the family plate. Dr. Strachan
at once went after them, and demanded back the stolen property. Under
the circumstances this was a singularly courageous thing to do, and
apparently a hopeless one. But the rector was a man of unwavering
resolution, and managed at last, without any other weapon than that
which nature had placed in his mouth, to secure the return of the goods
to their rightful owner. The pluck and bravery displayed by him
throughout that trying time showed sufficiently the real “grit” of the
man, and the boldness and strength of will shewn then, characterized his
life. In resolution and determined perseverance, he was every inch a
Scot. In 1818 began Dr. Strachan’s public life in the ordinary sense of
the term; for he was then nominated an executive councillor and took his
seat in the Legislative Council. He remained a member of the government
until 1836, and of the Upper House up to the union of the provinces in
1841. About the time of Dr. Strachan’s appointment as councillor, began
the politico-ecclesiastical conflict which was only brought to a close
within the memory of the existing generation. By the Imperial Act of
1774, which conceded to the Gallican clergy the right to collect tithes,
provision was made for the support of “a Protestant clergy;” and in
1791, one-seventh of the lands was set apart for that purpose in Upper
Canada under the name of Clergy Reserves. In 1819, the Presbyterians of
Niagara petitioned the lieutenant-governor, Sir Peregrine Maitland, for
a grant of £100 for the support of a Scottish Church minister, and
boldly hinted that the grant should come from the funds arising from the
Clergy Reserves. This memorial was forwarded in due course to Earl
Bathurst, the colonial secretary, who replied that the reserves were
intended for the established churches of England and Scotland, and not
for “denominations” referred to by the governor. This despatch at once
aroused Dr. Strachan, who in 1823 forwarded a memorial protesting
against the attempt to distribute funds intended for the Anglican
church. His somewhat narrow creed, political no less than
ecclesiastical, to be rightly understood, must be viewed from his own
standpoint, and it may be readily condoned when one contemplates his
vigor and patriotic impulse. The law officers of the Crown decided that
the Clergy Reserves were not intended exclusively for the Anglican
church. As there were two established churches, each equipped with “a
Protestant clergy,” they were of opinion that the Church of Scotland had
an equal right with the sister communion to a share in the land
endowment. They went still further and vindicated the claims of other
Protestant denominations. No sooner was this conceded by parliament than
the entire ground was cut from beneath the feet of those who advocated a
monopoly in state support for religion. Before the Union of 1841, no
less than sixteen measures which had passed the Legislative Assembly for
the secularization of the Reserves were rejected by the Legislative
Council. It was only after a bitter struggle, lasting over more than
thirty years, it was finally set at rest by the Act of 1854. During the
whole period Dr. Strachan was faithful to his principles, and could
brook no compromise. In 1836 he resigned his place as executive
councillor, and in 1839 became the first bishop of Toronto. The
following year he ceased to be a member of the Legislative Council, and
abstained thenceforth from taking any part in public affairs, save in
that department which may be termed church politics. The other subject
of intense interest with him was the Provincial University. Twenty-eight
years elapsed before any attempt was made to carry out the project of
Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe. In 1827 a Royal charter was granted in favor
of King’s College. It was to be essentially an Anglican university. In
the four faculties, all the professors were to be “members of the
Established United Church of England and Ireland,” and were required “to
severally sign and subscribe the Thirty-nine articles.” The only liberal
provision in it was an exemption from any religious test on the part of
students and graduates in faculties other than that of divinity. King’s
College was not opened until 1843, and in 1850 all that made it valuable
in the bishop’s eyes were eliminated. All that was distinctly Anglican
disappeared. The faculty of divinity was abolished and, as far as
education was concerned, “all semblance of connection between church and
state,” proclaimed afterwards in the preamble to the Clergy Reserve Act,
was done away. The venerable bishop was equal to the emergency, and
started on a mission to Britain to raise funds, and in little more than
six months he returned with the first fruits,—some sixteen thousand
pounds sterling. In the spring of 1857 the corner stone of Trinity
College was laid, and in the beginning of the following year the
building was so far completed as to be fit for occupation. The Royal
charter was secured in 1853. Thus, by the inextinguishable ardor and
energy of one zealous prelate was the purpose of his life at last
secured. In other directions, the memorable prelate certainly effected
work of unquestionable value. So soon as the severance between church
and state had been formally proclaimed, his administrative and
legislative tact was employed in placing the Anglican church upon a
sound governmental basis. To him the laity of that communion owe it that
they are represented in the synods of the church as substantially as
with the Presbyterians. The bishop’s later years were spent in efforts
to extend the usefulness of the church to which he was so ardently
attached, and during the evening of his long and eventful life he was
universally respected by men of all creeds and political parties. He had
lived in the province and been a conspicuous actor in its affairs from
the days of Governor Simcoe to the opening year of confederation, and
died on the 2nd of November, 1867, in the eighty-ninth year of his age,
manful, energetic and courageous to the last. The last tribute of
respect was paid to Bishop Strachan by the attendance at his funeral of
the two universities, with whose early fortunes his name was
indissolubly associated. The national societies, the clergy of all
churches, Protestant and Catholic, all the civic dignitaries and
institutions, were fully represented on the occasion, and it was not
without significance that the troops, regular and other, lined the
streets, and that the strains of martial music were heard at the burial
of one who was first a churchman of the military type, and next a
patriotic citizen.
* * * * *
=Wallbridge, Hon. Lewis=, Chief Justice of Manitoba, born in Belleville,
Ontario, 27th November, 1816, and died at Winnipeg, on the 20th October,
1887, was a grandson of Elijah Wallbridge, a United Empire loyalist, who
settled in Canada shortly after the American war of independence. His
father was a lumber merchant of Belleville. The family emigrated from
Dorsetshire, England, on account of having taken part in the Duke of
Monmouth’s rebellion against King James. Mr. Wallbridge received his
education under the late Dr. Benjamin Workman in Montreal, and at Upper
Canada College, Toronto. He studied law in Robert Baldwin’s office,
Toronto; was called to the bar in 1839, and created a Queen’s counsel in
1856. In 1858 he was elected to the parliament of Canada, subsequently
becoming solicitor-general, and a member of the Macdonald-Dorion
government. In 1863, whilst holding the office of solicitor-general, he
was elected speaker of the House of Commons, which position he occupied
for a little more than four years, and presided over the debate on
confederation at Quebec. After retiring from political life he practised
law in Belleville, and on the death, in 1882, of Hon. E. B. Wood, chief
justice of Manitoba, was appointed to succeed him. Hon. Mr. Wallbridge
was one of the last survivors of a long line of prominent Canadian
politicians whose records as such are, for the most part, now known only
in history. It is almost fifty years since he first began the practice
of his profession, and almost the lifetime of a generation since he
first entered parliament. He was a moderate Reformer in politics. He was
of a kindly genial disposition, and had many personal friends. He was
buried at Belleville, Ontario.
* * * * *
=Brodie, Robert=, Merchant, Quebec, was born in Montreal on the 11th
May, 1835. His parents, Charles Brodie and Elizabeth Kerr, emigrated
from Innerleithen, Peeblesshire, Scotland, in 1831, and settled in
Montreal. Robert, the subject of our sketch, received a common school
education in his native city, and in 1850, when but a lad of fifteen
years of age, entered the dry goods establishment of Henry Morgan & Co.,
the then leading retail store in Montreal, and continued in this
business until 1855, when he removed to Quebec city. Here he entered the
employment of his brother, Charles Brodie, who was at that time carrying
on an extensive flour and provision business. In 1859 Charles Brodie
died, when Robert, with his brother William, succeeded to the business,
and continued to carry it on on a more extensive scale, under the firm
name of W. & R. Brodie. In 1868, Thomas Brodie, another brother, was
admitted a partner, the firm name remaining unchanged. The operations of
the firm then further extended, and the three brothers are now doing the
largest business in their line in the ancient capital. Besides an
extensive local trade, they send to the Provinces of New Brunswick and
Nova Scotia annually large quantities of flour and provisions. Outside
of business hours, Mr. Brodie has taken an active part in whatever
movement happened to be on foot calculated to improve the social
condition of the people among whom he resided. He has been a total
abstainer all his life, and was one of the first to join the Rechabites,
when this temperance order was first introduced into Canada. When it was
superseded by the order of the Sons of Temperance at a later date, he
joined the new order, and for many years was one of its most active
members. He is one of those who firmly believe in the doctrine that the
liquor traffic must be ultimately suppressed by law. Apart from social
reform, he has also been connected with most of the local enterprises
originated in Quebec city during the past fifteen or twenty years,
either as an assistant or promoter. He is a shareholder in the Quebec
Steamship Company; the Quebec and Levis Ferry Company; the Quebec Fire
Insurance Company; the Quebec Bank, etc. He, with others, originated the
Quebec Worsted Company and is one of its directors. Mr. Brodie has been
a member of the Protestant Board of School Commissioners for a number of
years. This board is composed of six members—three being appointed by
the city council and three by the local government, and he is the
appointee of the city council. He has not had time to extend his travels
beyond Canada, but he has visited nearly every point of interest in the
Dominion. In religion, he is a Presbyterian. For a number of years he
has been an elder in Chalmer’s Church, and was a commissioner from the
presbytery of Quebec to the general assembly held in Winnipeg, Manitoba,
in June, 1887. He has always been a Liberal in politics, and gives a
generous support to the Liberal party. In 1865 he was married to Jane,
daughter of David Blair, of Lotbinière, Province of Quebec, who
emigrated from Scotland in 1831.
* * * * *
=Rourke, James=, Manufacturer, St. Martin’s, New Brunswick, was born at
Musquash, St. John county, N.B., on the 27th of June, 1838. His father
was William Henry Rourke, a descendant of O’Rourke, one of the kings of
Ireland. His mother, Phœbe Ann Cronk, born in Digby, Nova Scotia, came
of a Lancaster, England, family. Mr. Rourke received his education in
the schools of his native parish. He removed from Musquash in 1858, to
Hopewell, Albert county, N.B., and in 1863 left Albert county and took
up his permanent abode at St. Martin’s, where he now resides. Early in
life he devoted himself to business pursuits, and is now extensively
engaged in the manufacture and shipping of lumber at St. Martin’s. He is
connected with the St. Martin’s Manufacturing Company; the Upham Railway
Company; the North-Eastern Railway Company, and the Bell Telephone
Company. He takes an interest in military affairs, and is captain of the
St. Martin’s Rifles Company of Volunteers. He is a past master of the
Masonic brotherhood, and is also a member of the order of Oddfellows. In
politics he is a Liberal-Conservative, and is vice-president of St.
Martin’s Liberal-Conservative Club. At the last general election he was
nominated for a seat in the New Brunswick legislature for St. John city
and county, but failed to carry his election, although he received a
large vote. He was a member of the municipal council of St. John city
and county from 1876 to 1886, but on his being appointed a valuator he
resigned. However, he was again elected in 1887 to a seat in the
council, as representative of his parish. He is an adherent of the
Episcopal church. On the 16th March, 1871, he was married to Charlotte
Wishart, daughter of Captain B. Wishart, a native of Scotland.
* * * * *
=Ure, Rev. Robert=, D.D., Minister of the Presbyterian Church, Goderich,
Ontario, though a long resident of Canada,—having come to the country
in 1842—is a Scotchman by birth. He was born in the parish of Shotts,
Lanarkshire, on the 23rd January, 1823. His father, John Ure, was an
iron founder in Dumbarton, Scotland, and, like many other enterprising
men of his day, helped to develop the iron industries of his native
country, and are now held in grateful remembrance by the toiling
thousands in the south-west of Scotland. His mother was Barbara Dalziel.
The Ure family, from which the subject of our sketch is descended, came
originally from France, being Huguenots, and settled in Scotland. Robert
received his primary education in his native parish, and when only
nineteen years of age emigrated to Canada, and settled in Hamilton,
Ontario. Having resolved to devote himself to the ministry, he for a
time studied privately with the late Rev. Alexander Gale, M.A.,
Presbyterian minister, and then, in 1845, entered Knox College, Toronto,
and completed his theological course in 1850. The same year he received
a call to the Presbyterian Church in Streetsville, where he remained for
twelve years. In 1862 he removed to Goderich, and here he has since
labored with great acceptance, and is greatly beloved by his flock. Dr.
Ure’s scholastic attainments are of a high order, and in recognition of
this, Queen’s College, Kingston, conferred upon him the degree of Doctor
of Divinity in May, 1876. For two years he lectured in Knox College,
Toronto, on apologetics, still attending to his pastoral duties, but in
consequence of ill-health he had to give up this lectureship. During the
years 1879-80 he gave lectures on homiletics in Queen’s College,
Kingston, and when the Knox College Alumni Association was formed, the
doctor was chosen its first president. Dr. Ure took a conspicuous part
in bringing about the union of the Presbyterian churches in Canada;
first with the United Presbyterian Church, and secondly with that
connected with the Kirk of Scotland. During the negotiations for the
former union he was convenor of one committee, and the late Rev. Dr.
William Taylor, of Montreal, of the other. When the scheme had been
consummated, Dr. Taylor, being the senior, was honored by being chosen
first moderator of the General Assembly of the united churches, and Dr.
Ure had a similar honor conferred upon him by being its second moderator
after the union. In the subject of education the doctor takes the
deepest interest, and for a long period he served as grammar school
trustee. He has a large parish, with two country stations attached, and
has the advantage of an assistant. He is an eloquent preacher, and his
sermons are noted for their earnestness and originality. He has been
twice married. He was married to his first wife, Margaret Gale, sister
of the late Rev. Alexander Gale, M.A., first Presbyterian minister of
Hamilton. This estimable lady died in December, 1869. His present wife
is Mary Fraser, widow of the late Sheriff Macdonald, of Goderich.
* * * * *
=Taché, Eugene Etienne=, Quebec, Assistant Commissioner of Crown Lands
for the Province of Quebec, Provincial Land Surveyor for Upper and Lower
Canada, and Architect, was born at St. Thomas, Montmagny county, on the
24th of October, 1836. His father was the Hon. Sir Etienne Paschal
Taché, one of the fathers of confederation, and his mother, Sophie
Morency. Mr. Taché, the subject of our sketch, was educated at the
Seminary of Quebec, and at the Upper Canada College, Toronto. In 1862 he
held a captain’s commission in the Chasseurs Canadiens in Quebec, and
after his temporary removal to Ottawa, held for a time the position of
lieutenant in the Civil Service Rifle Corps. He is also a captain in the
sedentary militia of Quebec. In 1869 he received the appointment of
assistant commissioner of Crown Lands for the province of Quebec, and
this position he occupies now. As a surveyor, he has had considerable
experience. For eighteen months, while studying this branch of his
profession under Walter Shanley, C.E., he was engaged on the survey of
the Ottawa Ship Canal. As an architect, too, he has done a good deal,
having acted in this capacity in the erection of the Quebec
parliamentary buildings, and the Quebec drill hall. He was also the
designer of the handsome façades on the new court house, in Quebec. In
the midst of his various duties he has devoted some time to travel, and
in 1867 visited Britain, France, and Italy. He is the author of “Maps of
the Province of Quebec,” of which he issued two editions, the first in
1870, and the second in 1880. In religion, Mr. Taché is a Roman
Catholic. He has been twice married; first, in July, 1859, to O.
Eleonore Bender, who died without issue; second, to Clara J. Duchesnay,
daughter of the late Hon. Antoine Juchereau Duchesnay, senator. Five
children have been born of this union.
* * * * *
=Adams, Aaron A.=, Coaticook, province of Quebec.—Mr. Adams, who was
born at Henniker, New Hampshire, United States, on the 2nd September,
1806, and died at Coaticook, on the 13th of August, 1887, at the ripe
age of eighty-one years, came to Canada when only sixteen years of age,
and made his home in the Eastern Townships. He went into trade in 1832,
at Georgeville, then an important place, and removed to Barnston in
1837, where he continued to trade with the late M. W. Copp, and others
until 1853. Then he took up his abode in Coaticook, then a straggling
village of about a dozen houses. He traded here for some years in
company with John Thornton, and was subsequently largely interested in
mining operations, at the time it was very active in the townships. Of
late years Mr. Adams’ private business was principally confined to
farming. For the past fifty years scarcely any public enterprise,
affecting the interests of this part of the townships, has been carried
through without Mr. Adams’ active and cordial support. He was for many
years a leader in municipal matters, and in perfecting Coaticook’s
present municipal organization. He was a member of the first district
council, and under the new order a member of Barnston Council, of which
he was mayor for several years, and at different times warden of the
county. He was a member of the first council of Coaticook and mayor,
which office he held for several years of this first council, elected
twenty-three years ago, only one member, A. K. Fox, now survives. Mr.
Adams was an active promoter of the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railway,
now operated by the Grand Trunk and connecting Montreal and Portland. He
was also actively engaged in the Massawippi Valley road, now operated by
the Passumpsic Company. The establishment of the Eastern Townships’ Bank
was actively promoted by him. He was one of the first directors, and
from 1880 to 1885 was vice-president of the institution. He was also for
many years a director of the S. and S. Mutual Insurance Company. All
local enterprises received active and substantial support from him. He
was, from its foundation, a director of the flourishing industry, the
Coaticook Knitting Company, of which he was vice-president at the time
of his death. In religion, Mr. Adams was a Methodist, and most zealous
and consistent in his belief and practice; he joined this church at an
early age, and for many years was a class leader and Sunday school
teacher in its service. Few men led a more active and useful life, and
his death was greatly regretted by his numerous friends. He left a
widow, two daughters, and two sons, namely: Mrs. Pomroy, of Compton;
Mrs. Baker, of Haverhill, Mass.; A. F. Adams, of Coaticook; and George
E. Adams, of Boston, United States.
* * * * *
=Cimon, Hon. Marie Honorius Ernest=, Fraserville, Rivière du Loup (_en
bas_), a Puisne Judge of the Superior Court for the province of Quebec,
was born at Murray Bay, province of Quebec, on the 30th March, 1848. He
is a son of Cléophe Cimon, notary public of Murray Bay, who represented
Charlevoix county in the Canadian Assembly from 1858 to 1861. His
mother, Marie Caroline Langlois, was a sister of the late Jean Langlois,
Q.C., a distinguished member of the bar of Quebec, who represented, for
several years, the county of Montmorency in the House of Commons.
Cléophe Cimon, the father of our sketch, was born at Murray Bay, January
30th, 1822, from the marriage of Hubert Cimon, by Angèle Simard _dit_
Lombrette. Hubert Cimon, his grandfather, was born at l’Isle-Verte,
province of Quebec, April 22nd, 1789, from the marriage of Jean Baptiste
Cimon, by Marie Angélique Salomée Miville _dit_ Dechéne, and died in Bay
St. Paul, county of Charlevoix, August 27th, 1854. Jean Baptiste Cimon,
his great-grandfather, was born July 20th, 1751, at Rivière Ouelle,
province of Quebec, from the marriage of Jean François Cimon, by Marie
Dorothée Gagnon. This Jean François Cimon (whose name was then written
Simon) was his first ancestor who came alone from France to settle in
Canada, about the year 1744, leaving his father, Joseph Simon, with
Jeanne Lefeuvre, his mother, in the parish of St. Pée, Evêché de
Coutance, province de Rouen, en Normandie, France, where they were
living. Judge Cimon was educated at Ste. Anne de Lapocatière’s College,
Seminary of Quebec, and Laval University, where he became a licentiate
of law (LL.L.) in June, 1871. He was called to the bar of Lower Canada
on the 12th July, 1871, and took up his residence in Chicoutimi
(Saguenay), where he practised from July 16th, 1871, to July, 1882. He
acted as Crown prosecutor in Chicoutimi from 1873 to 1882, and from 1871
to 1882 his services were retained in all the important cases brought
before the courts of that district. He sat in the House of Commons for
the united counties of Chicoutimi and Saguenay from 1874 to 1882 as a
Conservative member. For eleven years he was an active promoter of all
the public enterprises in the Saguenay and Lake St. John country; and to
his efforts and energy are due the telegraphic line to Chicoutimi, the
Marine Hospital, the deepening of the river Saguenay. Members of the
then House of Commons well remember how strongly he advocated the
Federal subsidy, granted in the session of 1882 to the Quebec and Lake
St. John Railway, and the other important public works obtained by his
influence for the Chicoutimi and Saguenay counties. He was mayor of the
town of Chicoutimi from 1881 to 1882, and also president of the St. Jean
Baptiste Society of Chicoutimi. He was appointed a Queen’s counsel in
January, 1882, and elevated to the Bench on the 20th July, 1882, with
residence at Perce, Gaspé county; but soon afterwards, in June, 1883,
was transferred to Joliette, province of Quebec. He received the
commission of revising officer for the county of Joliette in October,
1885, and resigned this situation in May, 1886. He resided in Joliette
for three years; but since April, 1886, he has administered justice in
the district of Kamouraska. The Hon. Mr. Cimon was the recipient of
congratulatory addresses, when appointed a judge, from the citizens of
Chicoutimi, the bar of Perce, and from the bar of Joliette and
l’Assomption on his arrival. He also received a farewell and
complimentary address on leaving Joliette, soon followed by a welcome
address from the bar of Kamouraska. In religion, he is a Roman Catholic,
as his ancestors were. He married, January 27, 1880, Marie Delphine,
only daughter of the late Pierre Antoine Doucet, judge of the Sessions
of the Peace, Quebec, by Marie Thérèse Delphine, eldest daughter of the
late Hon. Judge Bruneau, of the Superior Court, her godfather, and niece
and goddaughter of Olivette Doucet, the wife of the well-known
historian, Robert Christie, of Quebec, who for over thirty years
represented the county of Gaspé in the old Canadian Assembly.
* * * * *
=de Cazes, Paul=, Secretary of the Department of Public Instruction of
the Province of Quebec, was born in Britanny, France, on the 17th June,
1841, and came to Canada in February, 1858. He is the son of Charles de
Cazes, who arrived in Canada in 1855, and settled in the Eastern
Townships, where he purchased considerable property near Danville. This
gentleman was elected member for the counties of Richmond and Wolfe in
1861, and died in 1867, being the only Frenchman by birth who has been a
member of the Canadian parliament. Paul de Cazes studied at Paris at
_L’Institution Loriol_, a preparatory or training school for the navy,
and at the Polytechnic School. He obtained a certificate from the
Military School at Quebec in 1865. He edited _Le Messager de Joliette_,
and _Le Courier de St. Hyacinthe_ for some time. He also owned and
edited _La Nation_, published at St. Hyacinthe; and was for five years a
contributor to _Le Monde_, of Paris. He was admitted to the bar of
Quebec in October, 1869, and practised law from that date until 1874 at
St. Hyacinthe, in partnership with the Hon. H. Mercier, the present
premier of the province of Quebec. In January, 1874, he was sent to
Paris as agent for the Dominion, took part in the Paris Exposition of
1878, and was recalled in April, 1879. He was appointed an officer of
the department of Public Instruction in April, 1880, and secretary of
the same department in April, 1886. He was appointed a member of the
Geographical Society of France in 1875, and member of the Royal Society
of Canada at its formation. He was vice-president of the first section
of the said Society from May, 1884, to May, 1886, and president of the
same from May, 1886, to May, 1887, and he is a member of several other
learned societies. He is the author of “Notes sur le Canada,” of which
four editions have been printed, and of several essays and studies,
published at various times in France and Canada. The papers contributed
by him to the Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada are the
following:—“Deux Points d’Histoire”; “La Frontière Nord de la Province
de Quebec”; “La Langue que nous parlons.” In religion he is a member of
the Roman Catholic church. He married, on the 3rd November, 1869,
Hermine St. Denis, sister-in-law of the Hon. H. Mercier, premier of the
province of Quebec.
* * * * *
=Ratcliffe, Rev. John Hepburn=, Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church,
St. Catharines, Ontario, was born in the township of East Whitby, county
of Ontario, province of Ontario, on the 15th November, 1849. His
parents, John Ratcliffe and Margaret Hepburn, were both born in
Lanarkshire, Scotland, emigrated to Canada in the year 1833, and were
among the pioneers of East Whitby. They belonged to that branch of the
Presbyterian church known as the United Presbyterian church, which in
1861 united with the Free church, and formed the Canada Presbyterian
church. At the age of fourteen, Hepburn Ratcliffe, their second son, the
subject of our sketch, left the farm to engage in mercantile pursuits,
but in the course of a few years was led to devote his life to the
ministry of the Word. He entered Knox College in the autumn of 1869, and
pursued his studies, first under the Rev. George Paxton Young, now the
learned professor of metaphysics and ethics in Toronto University, and
afterwards in the divinity classes, graduating in the spring of 1876. In
October of the same year he was called to the pastoral charge of
Ancaster and Alberton, and was ordained and inducted by the Presbytery
of Hamilton on the 1st November. Here he continued to labor until May,
1883, when he became pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, St.
Catharines, where he is now laboring, and is very much respected by his
people. He was married on the 11th January, 1887, to Margaret Fletcher,
of Toronto.
* * * * *
=Saint-Cyr, Dominique Napoleon Deshayes=, Conservator of the Museum of
National Instruction, Quebec, was born on the 4th of August, 1826, in
the parish of St. Jean Baptiste de Nicolet, district of Three Rivers,
province of Quebec. His father, Jean Baptiste Deshayes Saint-Cyr, was an
honest farmer, and his mother, Josephte Lefebvre Descôteaux. They were
both descended from old French families, having numerous representatives
all over the province, and more particularly in the district of Three
Rivers. After undergoing a successful course of classical studies at the
College of Nicolet, Mr. Saint-Cyr proceeded to Sherbrooke, Quebec, at
that time settled almost entirely by people of English descent, for the
purpose of mastering a knowledge of the English language, teaching
French meanwhile at the Lennoxville Grammar School from 1846 to 1848. He
then founded the first French Catholic school ever established in
Sherbrooke, teaching until 1850. (This school still exists in the town
of Sherbrooke, in the same building in which it was started.) In August,
1850, he removed to St. Anne de la Pérade, and lived in that beautiful
village until 1876, devoting twenty-six years of his life to the noble
work of educating the youth of the country. In 1851, he received his
diploma as model school teacher, and in 1859 that of academy teacher. In
1855, he was elected secretary-treasurer of the municipal council of
Ste. Anne, and filled the duties of that office until 1863. During that
period, the handsome bridge, 1,400 feet long, which crosses the river
Ste. Anne, was built, and the same structure is still standing. In 1867
he was admitted a notary public. He attended the Quebec Military School
in 1863, and received a first class certificate, and went into camp at
Laprairie in 1864. In 1875 the subject of our sketch was induced to
enter public life, and was elected to the Legislative Assembly for the
county of Champlain by a majority of 122, at the general election which
took place on the 7th July of that year. The constituents of his county
elected him once more to represent them in the Assembly at the general
elections held on the 1st May, 1878, by the handsome majority of 566.
The favorite study of Mr. Saint-Cyr had been natural history, and, to
have more freedom, he resolved, in 1881, to abandon public life, and to
devote his time to the formation of a museum of specimens of natural
history of the province of Quebec, with the result of forming the museum
of public instruction, which is composed of large collections of plants,
insects, fossils, minerals, etc., and for which he was awarded at the
last provincial exhibition eleven diplomas, four medals, and two first
prizes in cash, and this he considered sufficient reward for his
untiring efforts. His appointment as conservator of the Museum of Public
Instruction was confirmed by order-in-council on the 6th of April, 1886.
In 1882, Mr. Saint-Cyr started on a scientific expedition to the
Labrador coast and the islands, returning on the 20th September of the
same year. He brought back with him a large number of plants, insects,
shells (living and fossil), minerals, etc., to enrich his embryo museum.
He made another voyage to the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 1885, a report of
which was published by order of the Legislative Assembly in April, 1886.
A second edition of the same work, ordered, at the last session of
parliament, to be printed, was issued in November, 1887. He also wrote
for several years in _Le Naturaliste Canadien_ on Canadian zoology, etc.
At the present time he devotes all his energies to the enlargement and
management of the museum entrusted to his care. On the 12th September,
1854, Mr. Saint-Cyr married Marie Rose Anne Amanda, a daughter, of
Antoine Deshayes Saint-Cyr and Marguerite Emilie Ricard, by whom he had
issue fifteen children, eight of whom still survive, five sons and three
daughters. His residence is Ste. Anne de la Pérade.
* * * * *
=Thomas, Benjamin Daniel=, D.D., Pastor of the Jarvis Street Baptist
Church, Toronto.—This popular divine is a Welshman by birth, having
been born near Narberth, Pembrokeshire, on the 23rd January, 1843. He
comes of a good stock. His parents were Benjamin and Jane Thomas. His
father, the Rev. Benjamin Thomas, was pastor of the Baptist Church in
Narberth for the long period of forty years. Dr. Thomas received his
primary education in Graig House Academy at Swansea, where he spent four
years, and then entered Haverford-West, the denominational college of
South Wales, where he pursued a regular course of study, and graduated.
Immediately on leaving college he was chosen pastor of the Baptist
Church at Neath, Glamorganshire, where he successfully labored for six
years. In the fall of 1868 he came to the United States, and soon after
his arrival entered upon the pastorate of the Baptist Church in
Pittston, Pennsylvania, where he remained nearly three years. In
October, 1871, became pastor of the Fifth Church, one of the largest in
Philadelphia, where he labored with great acceptance until he removed to
Canada. In 1882 he was chosen as successor to Rev. Dr. John Castle, who
had become principal of McMaster Hall (Baptist College), Toronto, and in
October of the same year he settled as pastor of Jarvis Street Baptist
Church. Here a large congregation attends his ministrations, to whom he
has greatly endeared himself. As a preacher he is popular, and never
fails to bring forth things new and old from Bible treasures, and
presents them to his hearers in “thoughts that breathe and words that
burn.” He contributes occasionally to religious papers and magazines;
and a few years ago he published a small volume of great merit,
entitled, “Popular Excuses of the Unconverted.” He favors all social
movements having in view the elevation of the race, and labors earnestly
to extend Christ’s kingdom on the earth. He was married in Wales, in
1864, to Mary Jones, but this estimable lady died in 1886, leaving six
children behind, with their father, to mourn her early demise.
* * * * *
=Richey, Hon. Matthew H.=, Q.C., D.C.L., Government House, Halifax,
Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Nova Scotia, was born on the 10th
June, 1828, at Windsor, N.S. He is the third son of the Rev. Matthew
Richey, D.D., by his marriage with Louisa Matilda Nichols, a native of
New York, but of English parentage, her grandfather having been one of
John Wesley’s assistants, and of a Cornish family. Lieutenant-Governor
Richey received his education at the Windsor Collegiate School, the
Upper Canada Academy (Cobourg), of which his father was the first
principal, the Upper Canada College (Toronto), and Queen’s College
(Kingston), where he went through the usual course of study in the
English branches and classics. He adopted law as a profession, and began
its study in Windsor, N.S., in the office of the Hon. Lewis M. Wilkins,
afterwards one of the judges of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia. He was
called to the bar of Nova Scotia in 1850, and practised his profession
in Halifax. In 1873 he was created a Queen’s counsel. He occupied a
prominent position among his fellow-citizens of Halifax; sat as alderman
in the city council during the years 1858-1864, inclusive; and was mayor
of the city for six years, namely, from 1864 to 1867, and from 1875 to
1878. His attention to the duties of his office won general approbation.
At the general elections held in September, 1878, he was first elected
to represent Halifax in the House of Commons at Ottawa, and occupied a
place in that house until his appointment to the position of
lieutenant-governor on the 4th July, 1883, and this office he has since
held with dignity and satisfaction to the people of Nova Scotia. While
in political life he was a member of the Liberal-Conservative party. For
some years he was president of the Halifax School Association, a society
originated for the purpose of working reforms in the school system of
his province; and in 1865, when the law establishing free schools came
into operation, he was chosen one of the school commissioners, and
served in that capacity for several years. When the University of
Halifax was established he was appointed by the government one of the
members of the senate of the university, and was also one of its
examiners in jurisprudence and Roman law. Mount Allison Wesleyan
College, Sackville, New Brunswick, conferred upon him the honorary
degree of D.C.L. in 1884. Lieut.-Governor Richey has always manifested a
strong inclination towards the promotion of social science, and formerly
gave much time to literary and charitable institutions, which, in
Halifax, are numerous and well conducted. Mr. Richey was for some years
the president of the Halifax Society for the Prevention of Cruelty, and
when a member of the parliament of Canada, was active in promoting
remedial legislation in furtherance of the objects of such societies.
His honor is an adherent of the Methodist Church of Canada. For six
years, from 1854 to 1860, he conducted with marked success the
denominational organ of that church in the Maritime provinces. While in
the Dominion Parliament he did not often speak, but when he did so, was
listened to attentively. During the session of 1879 he spoke on the then
all-absorbing question—the tariff. In 1880 he was selected by the
premier to move the answer to the Speech from the throne; and he led in
the adjourned debate on the question of the fishery award, in a speech
which covered a large field of constitutional law, and the relations of
the provinces to the Dominion under the Act of Confederation. He was
married on the 22nd June, 1854, to Sarah Lavinia, daughter of the late
Hon. John Hawkins Anderson, for some time member of the Legislative
Council, and receiver-general of the province of Nova Scotia, and called
by Royal proclamation to the Senate of Canada, 1st July, 1867. Three
children have been the fruit of their union. Hon. Mr. Anderson died in
1870.
* * * * *
=McNeil, Hon. Daniel=, Barrister, Port Hood, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia,
M.P.P. for Inverness county, N.S., was born at Mabou, C.B., on the 31st
January, 1853. He is the second son of Malcolm and Ellen McNeil, and
brother of the Rev. Neil McNeil, D.D., Ph.D., rector of St. François
Xavier College, Antigonish. The subject of our sketch is descended, on
the paternal side, from Roderick McNeil, of Bara, Scotland, who settled
in Cape Breton during the early part of this century. Hon. Mr. McNeil
was educated at the St. François Xavier College. He studied law at
Halifax; was called to the bar of Nova Scotia in December, 1879, and
then removed to Port Hood, the shiretown of his native county. Here he
entered into partnership with S. Macdonnell, Q.C., ex-M.P., and
continued as a partner with this gentleman for about three years and a
half, when the partnership was dissolved. Afterwards he became the
senior member of the law firm of McNeil & Hensley, solicitors, notaries
public, etc., in the same town. In June, 1883, Mr. McNeil was appointed
a school commissioner for South Inverness; in July, of the same year, a
notary and tabellion public; and in March, 1884, a commissioner of the
Supreme Court of Nova Scotia. He has for a number of years taken an
interest in all the political movements,—municipal, provincial and
federal—and always on the Liberal side. He was first returned to the
Nova Scotia legislature at the last general election; and on the 28th
June, 1886, was sworn in a member of the Executive Council of Nova
Scotia, and took office in the Fielding administration, without a
portfolio. In religion he is an adherent of the Roman Catholic church.
He married, on the 4th August, 1881, Ellen Maria Margaret, youngest
daughter of the late James McDonnell. For a period of upwards of a
quarter of a century, this gentleman held the important offices of
prothonotary of the Supreme Court and clerk of the Crown at Port Hood;
also the office of registrar of deeds for the county of Inverness for
many years. He was the first inspector of schools for Inverness county
under the present educational system of the province.
* * * * *
=Chabot, Julien=, Harbor Commissioner, Quebec, was born at Levis, in
October, 1834, and is a descendant of one of the oldest French families
who emigrated from Poitiers, France, and settled in Canada in the
vicinity of Quebec in 1632. His father, Julien Chabot, was born at the
Island of Orleans in 1800, and died on 10th August, 1864. He came to
Levis at the age of thirteen, and here he married Dame Susanne Carrier
in 1830. Being engaged in navigation, he gained wealth and reputation by
promoting the local industries of Levis. He built the first horse boat
which crossed the ferry between Quebec and Levis in 1828, and afterwards
the first regular ferry-boat which ran between the two cities in 1844.
He was also extensively engaged in the towing business, and between the
years 1845 and 1860 he built several tug steamers to tow sailing vessels
from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Montreal. His son Julien, the subject
of our sketch, was educated in the Seminary of Quebec from 1846 to 1853;
and in 1856 he became a partner with his father, and took the management
of the business. In 1863 he succeeded, with all the tug owners of the
port of Quebec, in forming a joint stock company, called the St.
Lawrence Tow Boat Company, and had it incorporated on the 12th of May of
that year, for the purpose of towing large sailing vessels from the Gulf
to Montreal, and he had the management of this company for twenty-three
years. During this period he supported the views of the president of the
company, Hon. Thomas McGreevy and of the bishop, D. Racine, in
inaugurating in 1866 the Saguenay line, which has proved so beneficial
to the colonization of the Chicoutimi district and the St. John valley.
Since 1874 a daily line has been established to Ha! Ha! Bay and
Chicoutimi, the management of which is highly praised by the local and
principally by the American tourists. The Saguenay line is now connected
with the Richelieu and Ontario Navigation Company, and is under the
special management of its inaugurator, Mr. Chabot. He had the control of
the Quebec and Levis ferries for several years, during which period the
old system of summer and winter ferries were remodelled and rebuilt in
the best modern style, and were classified the best ferry steamers in
Canada. Mr. Chabot having been impressed from his boyhood with the
difficulties of the winter navigation of the St. Lawrence, several
successful tests were made by the St. Lawrence Steam Navigation Company,
under his supervision, during the winter months on the Lower St.
Lawrence. Mr. Chabot is now the oldest member of the Quebec Harbor
Commissioners trust, having been on active duty since 1870, and has
helped as trustee with his co-members in building the extensive harbor
improvements in the port of Quebec, and in securing for Levis, his
native place, the location of the largest graving dock on this
continent. He was twice elected president of the Board of Trade of
Levis. In religion, he is a member of the Roman Catholic church, and
held the office of church warden in Notre Dame church in 1879. A
Conservative in politics, Mr. Chabot has taken a prominent part in
support of his principles. He contested the county of Levis in 1874
against Louis Honoré Frechette, the poet laureate, when the Liberal
party came into power, but was defeated by the influence of the Federal
government by only a small majority. He married, on the 26th October,
1857, Marguerite Aimée Brunelle, daughter of the celebrated ship
builder, Pierre Brunelle, of Quebec.
* * * * *
=Lugrin, Charles H.=, A.M., Barrister, Fredericton, New Brunswick, was
born at Fredericton in 1846. His parents were Charles S. Lugrin and
Martha Stevens. (See sketch of Charles S. Lugrin.) Mr. Lugrin received
his education at the Collegiate School of Fredericton, and at the New
Brunswick University, graduating from the latter institution in 1865.
For some time he taught the St. Stephen’s High School, and afterwards
studied law. In 1868 he was admitted attorney, and called to the bar of
New Brunswick in due course. He was appointed clerk of the peace, clerk
of the county court, and clerk of circuits for Victoria, N.B., in 1869.
He removed to Grand Falls, Victoria, in that year, and remained there
until 1874, when he took up his abode in Fredericton, and joined in a
law partnership with George Botsford. Since that time he has been
engaged, with much success, as counsel in many important criminal cases.
He acted as counsel for the temperance party in New Brunswick, in the
cases involving the constitutionality of the Canada Temperance Act. He
has also engaged largely in journalism, and took an active part in
politics, unsuccessfully contesting Victoria for a seat in the local
legislature in 1878. He was appointed secretary of the Board of
Agriculture in 1885. He is the author of the works—“New Brunswick: Its
Resources, Advantages and Progress;” “Open Season;” “The Fertile Belt,”
and numerous pamphlets and letters upon New Brunswick, commercial union,
temperance legislation, and other subjects. He volunteered and was
enrolled at St. Stephen at the time of the threatened Fenian raid in
1866; and afterwards was appointed a captain in the reserve militia. He
is a past worthy patriarch of the Sons of Temperance; and secretary and
treasurer of the New Brunswick branch of the Prohibitory Alliance. He
has been secretary of the Fredericton Board of Trade. In religion he is
an adherent of the Methodist church, and in politics a Liberal. He is
married to Maria, daughter of G. L. Raymond, now of Olympia, Washington
territory. Mr. Raymond was grandson of Rice Raymond, a loyalist from
Long Island.
* * * * *
=Spencer, Elijah Edmund=, Frelighsburg, province of Quebec, M.P.P. for
Missisquoi county, is of English and Welsh descent, but his immediate
ancestors were United Empire loyalists. He is a son of the late Ambrose
S. Spencer, who was for many years one of the most prominent men and
magistrates of the county, and whose father before him was among the
first who settled in that section, and took an active part in the
stirring scenes connected with its early history. His mother, Mary
Thomas, is a daughter of the late Major P. Thomas, who was also one of
that hardy band of pioneers who battled so successfully with the rougher
elements of an early settler’s life. Elijah Edmund Spencer, the subject
of our sketch, was born in St. Armand East, on the 19th April, 1846, and
has always resided in the immediate vicinity of his ancestral home. He
received his education mainly at the Frelighsburg Grammar School, but
subsequently passed through a course of study at Poughkeepsie, in the
state of New York. In June, 1883, he was married to Frances S., daughter
of the late R. L. Galer, of Dunham, province of Quebec, with whom he now
resides at his home overlooking the pleasant village of Frelighsburg. In
religion, he is a Protestant, and in politics, a Liberal-Conservative.
He has always followed farming as an occupation, and has at the present
time a large landed estate demanding his personal supervision. From his
boyhood he has taken an active part in municipal affairs, and held in
succession many prominent offices in the town and county. He was for
some time president of the Missisquoi County Agricultural Society, and
is now president of the Missisquoi and Rouville Mutual Fire Insurance
Company. At the general election in 1881, for member of the Legislative
Assembly of the province of Quebec, the county being essentially an
agricultural one, and its farming interest largely predominating, he was
brought forward as a candidate, representing a class which were thought
to be as equally deserving recognition as the commercial and
manufacturing interests of the country. The result was his return by a
large majority, and he took his seat, being one of the youngest members
of the house. At the last general election, in 1886, he again came
forward as a candidate, and his course in the house during the five
years he held the seat being eminently satisfactory, his constituents
again honored him with their confidence, and re-elected him for another
term.
* * * * *
=Valin, Pierre Vincent=, Shipbuilder, Château Richer, county of
Montmorency, province of Quebec, was born at Château Richer, on the 1st
of June, 1827. His parents, though not possessed of a large share of
this world’s goods, were industrious and highly esteemed. From an old
record we find that the family belongs to the nobility of old France,
although in this democratic country they do not see fit to wear the
title they are entitled to. We quote the extract: “Extrait de ‘L’Art
Héraldique,’ par A. Playne, avocat et professeur chez Charles Osmond,
libraire, enregistré à Paris le 23 décembre, 1716, avec approbation du
roi du 2 décembre, 1716, par Fouquet. Valin . . . de gueules à la bande
composée d’argent et d’azur.” Toussaint Valin, the father of the subject
of our sketch, married Marie Tremblay, of Eboulements, county of
Charlevoix, and they settled in Château Richer, where their elder
children were born. The space at our disposal is too limited to admit of
a narrative of the various phases through which Pierre Vincent Valin has
passed in the course of a long and eventful career; we will simply refer
in a general manner to the difficulties surmounted by the indefatigable
energy he displayed from his youth until, having started from the lowest
rung of the social ladder, he finally attained the pinnacle of rank and
wealth. Through his own efforts, with only his energy and the good
principles inculcated in his mind by zealous parents, he obtained
sufficient education to enable him to hold, in after years, the
following prominent positions: chairman of the Quebec Harbor Commission;
member of the Legislative Assembly, and member of the House of Commons.
In these divers posts his social and individual qualities made him a
friend to all those who came in contact with him. His remarkable
business tact and sterling integrity soon brought him to the front rank
among the princes of finance and commerce, and he has fairly earned the
title ascribed to so many in this country, “self-made man.” In his youth
he worked at different trades, and devoted the whole of his scanty
earnings to help his parents, and commenced shipbuilding when yet quite
a young man. He soon rose to the position of employer, and as his
business increased, so did his facilities for doing the work he was
engaged in, until he gave employment to hundreds of men, paying $5,000
in wages alone every week. In the beginning of his career he fully
developed the capacities he possessed, being at the same time architect,
builder, clerk, bookkeeper, and his own consignee, seller and buyer on
the European markets. He still owns several large ships which are
engaged in the East India trade. He is also interested in steamers
running to Newfoundland. He crossed the Atlantic sixty times in the
transaction of business, and made warm and devoted friends in both
France and England, in the best society of these countries. In 1872, the
warm-hearted population of Quebec East, to whom he had been a
benefactor, begged him to represent them in the city council. After
serving a short time as councillor, his constituents sent him to the
Legislative Assembly in 1874, and he made his first appearance in public
life. In 1878 he presented himself before the electors of Montmorency,
who elected him in preference to Jean Langlois, the former
representative of the county, by a majority of 226. On the 14th January,
1880, he was unseated on petition, but re-elected again. At the general
election of 1882 he was again chosen as the Conservative standard-bearer
of the county of Montmorency over Charles Langelier, one of the strong
men of the Liberal party. At the last general election (1887) he was
unsuccessful, the majority against him being only one vote. Since he has
acquired wealth Mr. Valin has made a noble use of his means. The whole
county, and more particularly his native parish, are greatly indebted to
him for the improvements he has made. He bought from the Lemoine family
the splendid mansion called “Château Beau Pré,” and the numerous and
artistic improvements with which he has adorned the château and its
_alentours_, have made it a lovely spot, which excites the admiration of
all the American tourists who visit this part of the country every
summer. The beautiful parish church building, with its costly decoration
and numerous oil paintings, has been mainly built by him, and as a
crowning gift he presented the curé with its largest bell. The
employment he gives to the laboring class of Château Richer gives
sustenance to a large proportion of its population. Apart from his
individual means, he has been able to secure an expenditure of over
$80,000 by the government in public works in the county of Montmorency,
and by untiring efforts has succeeded in establishing telegraphic
communication between the mainland and the Island of Orleans. On the
inhospitable beach of St. François and Ste. Famille, where so many lives
have been lost by wrecks, two wharves were built at considerable
expense. The channel of the St. Lawrence was deepened and widened
between the island and Beaupré, thus enabling ships to pass through at
low tide without danger. The placing of twelve lights and six buoys on
the river, reducing danger from wrecking to the least proportion, is
also due to his influence. In 1880 he presented the Cercle Catholique of
Quebec with a handsome banner woven in golden cloth, which he had
brought from Paris. He is chairman of the Harbor Commission of Quebec,
and since he has held that office several important works have been
undertaken and carried to a successful issue, among others may be
mentioned the following: the graving dock, the Basin Louise, the work
done opposite Quebec by the lifting-barge, etc. Mr. Valin married in
1854, Marie Angélique, daughter of Joseph Talbot, Beaumont, Bellechasse
county. She died on the 8th of October, 1883. He married a second time,
on the 10th June, 1885, in the chapel of the Sacred Heart, Quebec, Marie
Virginie Célina, a daughter of the late and regretted Dr. P. M. Bardy,
in his lifetime one of the most remarkable men of the city of Quebec,
and a descendant of a French family of rank, in fact the Count de Bardi
and the Duke de Parma being the sons of Madame Louise, the only sister
of the late Henry V., Count de Chambord, the legitimate successor to
Louis XVIII., and consequently the heir to the throne of France, if that
country had retained its monarchical institutions. In the remarkable
work of Benjamin Sulte, “L’Histoire des Canadiens-Français,” will be
found a complete biography of Dr. Bardy, who was the first president of
the St. Jean Baptiste Society of Quebec. On the occasion of the marriage
of Mr. Valin, we clip the following from _La Patrie_ of the 12th of
June, 1885:—“A telegraphic despatch from Quebec announces the marriage
of P. V. Valin, M.P. for Montmorency, and chairman of the Harbor
Commission for Quebec, to Célina Bardy, only daughter of Dr. Bardy, the
founder and first president of the St. Jean Baptiste Society of Quebec,
in his lifetime one of the foremost citizens of the ancient capital.
Miss Bardy, who is a lady endowed with wonderful beauty and good
qualities, has conquered a most enviable rank among the _littérateurs_
of the province. She is a member of L’Académie des Muses Santonnes,
France. We extend our hearty congratulations to the happy couple.” The
following extract is taken from the Ottawa _Citizen_ of the 18th June,
1885:—“Last evening, while the Hon. J. A. Chapleau, secretary of state,
was speaking on the Pacific Railway resolutions, applause commenced on
the ministerial side and soon became general. Many persons were unable
to discern for a time the cause of it, as the remarks of the honorable
gentleman did not call for any expression of approval, more especially
on the part of ‘honorable gentlemen opposite.’ It turned out that the
greeting was addressed to Mr. Valin, M.P. for Montmorency, who had just
entered the chamber on his return from his honeymoon trip. He
acknowledged the compliment by bowing his head, and after the applause
subsided, Hon. Mr. Chapleau complimented him in a few elegantly
constructed sentences, wishing the honorable gentleman the supreme
degree of connubial bliss.” These flattering newspaper comments show
clearly the high esteem Mr. and Mrs. Valin enjoy among their friends, as
well as among the members of the whole house.
* * * * *
=Morin, Louis Edmond=, President of the Corporation of Pilots, Quebec,
was born on the 25th August, 1837, in St. Rochs, Quebec, Canada. He was
the fourth son of a family of six children. His father, Michel Morin,
was a sea pilot for a period of fifty years on the river St. Lawrence,
and died at the advanced age of seventy-seven in 1880. His mother,
Christine Nolet, is still living, and in full possession of her health,
at eighty years of age. Mr. Morin, the subject of our sketch, was
educated at the Christian Brothers’ School, and afterwards at Thom’s
Commercial Academy, Quebec. He was for two years in one of the largest
dry goods stores in the upper town of Quebec, but finding that his
health was declining, he left the trade. In 1855 he resolved to follow
the calling his father had so very successfully followed, and
apprenticed himself as a pilot. He served in this capacity for seven
years, during which period he crossed the Atlantic ocean no less than
ten times. On the 6th March, 1862, his apprenticeship being completed,
he was permitted to act as a sea pilot, and he has been one of the most
successful of the profession on the St. Lawrence. In 1868 he was
selected to pilot the steamers of the Allan line, and continued to act
as such until the fall of 1872, when he retired, on being elected one of
the directors of the Corporation of Pilots of Quebec, incorporated by
Act of Parliament in 1860. He remained on the board for a period of
eleven consecutive years, of which time he was six years president. In
1884 he was again selected to pilot the steamers of the Allan line. In
1885 he was re-elected president of the Corporation of Pilots, and still
occupies the same position. In 1873 Mr. Morin was delegated to go to
Ottawa in the interest of the sea pilots, in order to watch the passing
of the Pilotage Act, and succeeded in getting a clause inserted in this
act, whereby a guarantee was given that at the end of each period of
three years the salary of the pilots would be increased if their
earnings were in the average during the season less than six hundred
dollars net. In 1880, with the help of some of his _confrères_ and of
several members of the government, he succeeded in getting a by-law
passed by the Board of Harbor Commissioners, by which the tariff of
pilotage was raised fifteen per cent; but after having several
interviews with the members of the Dominion government at Ottawa, with
the object of gaining this boon, he failed to secure what he wanted in
consequence of a strong outside pressure against the measure. He,
however, accepted a compromise, namely that of an advance of seven and a
half per cent, on the old tariff, and the promise of the government that
the revised tariff would be based on tonnage throughout the whole
Dominion. In religion Mr. Morin is a Roman Catholic; and in politics an
independent. He was married, in 1863, to Marie Flore Trahan, daughter of
the late Edward Trahan, in his lifetime shipbuilder in Quebec, and of
Marie Bédard. The fruit of this marriage has been thirteen children, of
whom eight are still living, four sons and four daughters.
* * * * *
=Jones, Hon. Alfred Gilpin=, P.C., Bloomingdale, North-West Arm,
Halifax, M.P. for Halifax, Nova Scotia, was born at Weymouth, Nova
Scotia, September, 1824. He is a son of the late Guy Jones, who was
registrar of deeds for Digby county. His paternal ancestor, Josiah
Jones, emigrated from England, and settled in Boston, Massachusetts, in
1665. His grandfather, Stephen Jones, a graduate of Harvard College, was
an officer in the King’s American Dragoons, and at the close of the
revolutionary war settled in Nova Scotia, where he died in 1830. Hon.
Mr. Jones was educated at Yarmouth Academy, and chose commerce as a
profession. He has been a successful merchant, and is now the head of
the firm of A. G. Jones & Co., West India importers. He occupies the
position of governor of the Protestant Orphans’ Home, and also that of
Dalhousie College; is president of the Nova Scotia Marine Insurance
Company, and a director of the Acadia Fire Insurance Company. For a
number of years Mr. Jones was lieutenant commanding the 1st Halifax
Brigade Garrison Artillery. He sat in the House of Commons at Ottawa
from 1867 to 1872, but at the general election, held during the latter
year, he suffered defeat. However, in 1874 he was again elected, but
resigned in January, 1878, in consequence of an alleged breach of the
Independence of Parliament Act, but was re-elected. He was sworn in a
member of the Privy Council, and held the office of Minister of Militia
in the Mackenzie administration from January, 1878, to September of the
same year. At the general elections held in 1878 and 1882, he was an
unsuccessful candidate, but at the general election held in 1887 he
again presented himself as a candidate, and was returned at the head of
the poll. Hon. Mr. Jones has been twice married, first, in 1850, to
Margaret Wiseman, daughter of W. Stairs. This lady died in February,
1865. Second, to Emma, daughter of Edward Albrough, of Halifax.
* * * * *
=McConnell, John Bradford=, M.D., C.M., Montreal, was born on 28th
August, 1851, in Chatham, on the Ottawa river, county of Argenteuil. His
father, Andrew McConnell, was a son of John McConnell, who came to
Canada from Glasgow in 1819, his family consisting of John, Mary,
Andrew, William and Agnes. Andrew McConnell was one of the most
successful farmers in the county of Argenteuil, having, through his rare
industry and indomitable energy, accumulated considerable wealth. He was
thus enabled to carry out the intention of his early married life,
namely, that of giving the members of his family the advantages of a
good education. He has been for a quarter of a century a justice of the
peace, a position which he has filled with great ability. The
impartiality of his judgments drew to him applicants for justice from
the most distant parts of the county. He was appointed captain in the
militia during Lord Monck’s administration. He now resides in the town
of Lachute. His family consisted of eight children, namely, John
Bradford, Gilbert Smith, Richard George, Andrew William, Jessie Ann,
James Quinton, Jennie and Hugh. Gilbert, Andrew and James settled a few
years ago in the North-West, first at Qu’Appelle, but are now residing
in Vancouver. Andrew acted as courier for General Middleton during the
recent rebellion, and was one of the nine prisoners rescued at the
battle of Batoche. Richard G. is a B.A. of McGill College, Montreal, and
now holds a prominent position in the geological survey of Canada. His
mother, Martha Jane Bradford, was the youngest daughter of George
Bradford, son of the Rev. Richard Bradford, who was the first English
church minister in Chatham. This gentleman came to New York in 1782,
where he was engaged in a business partnership with a Mr. Smith. A few
years later he came to Canada, and became chaplain to the 49th Regiment
in 1812. He built a comfortable homestead on the Ottawa at a place
called the “Point,” just at the head of the Carillon canal. He then
owned the greater part of the township of Chatham, about twelve square
miles. He accompanied Captain Cook on a voyage around the world; studied
afterwards with an English minister, the Rev. Mr. Jeffreys, whose
daughter he married, and their family consisted of Richard, John, Henry,
George, Charles, Nancy, Sarah, Eliza, Harriet. The latter was married to
the Rev. Joseph Abbott, and one of their sons is the Hon. J. J. C.
Abbott, senator, now mayor (1887) of Montreal. George married Martha
Smith, of Chatham, was a school teacher, and owned a farm on the North
River. He died at the age of sixty-five. His family consisted of George,
Eliza, Henry, Charles, John, and Martha Jane. John Bradford McConnell,
the subject of our sketch, was educated at the district school in
Chatham, and at the Carillon Academy, conducted by the late George
Wanless, and entered on his medical studies in 1869, at McGill College,
Montreal, graduating in 1873. In 1871, he went through the Military
School in Montreal, taking a Second class certificate, and the same year
was appointed lieutenant in the 11th battalion Argenteuil Rangers.
Subsequently, for a period of about eight years he was assistant surgeon
in the 1st Prince of Wales Rifles. He has been a member of the Duke of
Edinburgh lodge, I.O.O.F., B.U., since 1875; and was grand master of the
order in the province of Quebec during the term 1884 and 1885; has been
a member of St. James Street Methodist Church, Montreal, since 1878, and
is a teacher in the afternoon Sunday-school. He was, with the late W. J.
B. Patterson, a delegate from the Young Men’s Christian Association, of
Montreal, to the convention in Poughkeepsie in 1874. He has taught in
the medical faculty of the University of Bishop’s College during the
last eleven years, first as professor of botany, a subject to which he
paid considerable attention during his first year at college. He has one
of the largest personal collections of Canadian plants in the Dominion.
During the last three years he has filled the chair of materia medica
and therapeutics, is lecturer on physical diagnosis, and conducts a
practical class on histology and bacteriology. During the summer of 1886
he made an extensive European tour, visiting the hospitals of Dublin,
London, Paris and Berlin, taking the course on bacteriology under
Professor Koch, in the latter city. He has been in active practice in
Montreal since 1873, and is now counted among Montreal’s most successful
and reliable physicians. He is a member of the Natural History Society
of Montreal; Montreal Microscopical Society; Executive Committee of the
Dominion Alliance, Quebec Branch; Medico-Chirurgical Society of
Montreal; and British Medical Association. He is one of the attending
staff of the Western Hospital, consulting physician to the Montreal
Dispensary, of which he was also secretary for about ten years,
resigning in 1887. He is senior attending physician to the Protestant
House of Industry and Refuge. In 1885, the doctor issued a pamphlet
entitled, “Cholera: its Nature, Symptoms, History, Cause and Prevention,
with an outline review of the Germ Theory of Disease,” being one of the
Sommerville course of lectures (extended) provided for by the Natural
History Society of Montreal. The Montreal medical journals show that he
has frequently contributed to their pages papers which have been read at
the Medico-Chirurgical Society. He was married in 1875 to Theodora
Lovell, eldest daughter of Robert Miller, the well-known wholesale
stationer, of Montreal, and has six children living, two others having
died in infancy.
* * * * *
=Jones, Simeon=, Brewer, St. John, New Brunswick, was born at Prince
William, York county, N.B., on the 22nd August, 1828. His father, Thomas
Jones, was a native of Weymouth, Nova Scotia, where Simeon Jones, the
grandfather of the subject of our sketch, settled at the close of the
American revolutionary war. His mother, Elizabeth Caverhill, was a
daughter of Dr. Caverhill, of Dumfries, Scotland. Mr. Jones was educated
in his native parish and at Dumfries, and after leaving school spent two
years farming, under his father. He was then employed by Robert Keltie,
brewer at St. John, to look after his business; and in the position of
manager he remained with Mr. Keltie for eight years. At the end of this
period he bought out the business, his late employer retiring, and has
successfully conducted it ever since. In 1874, in company with Oliver T.
Stone and Joseph R. Stone, Mr. Jones started a private banking house in
St. John, under the firm name of S. Jones and Co., and since then the
firm has done a good banking business. Almost everything to which Mr.
Jones has put his hand has prospered, and this doubtless is owing in a
large degree to his close attention to details, and his shrewdness as a
manager. In 1879 he was elected a member of the city council, where he
served for two years as chairman of the finance committee. So well did
he attend to the duties of this office that in April, 1881, he was
elected to fill the more responsible position of mayor without
opposition, a mark of distinction never before this time conferred in
St. John. During his term of office, which lasted for three years, his
business capacities and fine executive talents showed themselves to good
advantage, and he was one of the most popular chief magistrates St. John
ever had. Mr. Jones has been for many years a vestryman of Trinity
(Episcopal) Church, and is a generous supporter of various religious and
benevolent societies. Indeed, he is never backward in contributing to
any enterprise designed for the good of the community among whom he
resides. In 1861 he was married to Annie M., daughter of Daniel
McLaughlin, St. John, and the fruit of the union has been a family of
eight children.
* * * * *
=McLeod, Howard Douglas=, St. John, Superintendent Southern Division of
the New Brunswick Railway, was born at Studholm, Kings county, New
Brunswick, on the 29th July, 1838. His father, Matthew McLeod, was of
Scotch descent; and his mother, Deborah Heine, of German descent. Howard
received a common school education at the schools in his native parish,
and afterwards attended, for about six months, Sackville Academy,
Sackville, N.B. For about eleven months he taught school in Studholm
parish; and in the month of October, 1859, entered the railway service
as station agent at Sussex, upon the opening of what was then named the
European and North American Railway (now the Intercolonial). Here he
remained as agent for two years, when he was removed to the audit
department, in the general offices in St. John. From freight auditor he
was promoted to accountant of the road, which was then worked as a
government road. In 1865 he left the railway service, and took a
situation in a leading dry-goods house as book-keeper; but not liking
the change he soon abandoned this position. He then connected himself
with the building of the railway west of St. John, and upon the
completion of the line occupied the offices on it of accountant and
general freight agent; and was afterwards promoted to the office of
superintendent of the southern division, which position he now fills.
Mr. McLeod is a justice of the peace for the city and county of St.
John. He has travelled over the greater part of the United States east
of the Mississippi, and is also familiar with the principal points in
Canada. In religion he belongs to the Baptist church. He was married on
the 26th May, 1869, to Isabel Barker, a daughter of T. B. Barker,
druggist, and a niece of Sir Leonard Tilley, lieutenant-governor of New
Brunswick. Mrs. McLeod died on the 6th July, 1881.
* * * * *
=McIsaac, Angus=, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Judge of the County Court,
was born in the parish of St. Andrew’s, Antigonish county, province of
Nova Scotia. His ancestors came from Inverness-shire, Scotland, and were
among the earliest Scotch settlers in Antigonish county. He was educated
in St. François Xavier College. Admitted to the bar in 1872. Represented
Antigonish county in the Canadian House of Commons from 1874 till
September, 1885, when he was appointed judge of the County Court for
Judicial District No. 6, of the said province. Was married in November,
1882, to Mary, daughter of the late Patrick Power, of Halifax, N.S.
* * * * *
=Grant, Rev. George Monro=, D.D., Principal of Queen’s University,
Kingston, Ontario.—In an age too prone to rank mere material good above
the higher well-being of man, it is well for Canada that she can claim
in Principal Grant a representative Canadian—representative at least of
her higher, purer, and more generous life. The principal of Queen’s
University is emphatically what the late editor of the “Century”
magazine once styled him, “a strong man,” having that union of diverse
qualities that constitutes strength. He comes of the fine old Celtic
stock which, when its intensity and enthusiasm are blended with an
infusion of Anglo-Saxon breadth, energy, and common sense, has produced
not a few of the leaders of men. He is a native of the county of Pictou,
Nova Scotia, somewhat remarkable for the number of eminent men it has
already produced. His patriotic and passionate love for his country in
all her magnificent proportions is one of his leading traits, and has
much the same influence on his mind which the love of Scotland had on
that of Burns, when, in his generous youth, he desired, for her dear
sake, to “sing a sang at least,” if he could do no more. Principal Grant
was born on the 22nd December, 1835, at Stellarton (Albion Mines), a
village on the East River, Pictou county, and his early days were passed
in a quiet country home, amid the influences of nature, to which he is
strongly susceptible. His father, who was a Scotchman by birth, taught
the village school. He was led by circumstances, and doubtless by that
“divinity that shapes our ends,” to study for the ministry, and won
honorable distinction in his preliminary course in the Academy at
Pictou, where the family had removed. His studies were pursued chiefly
at Glasgow University, where he came under the strong personal influence
and inspiration of the high-souled and large-hearted Norman McLeod, whom
in some of his characteristics he strongly resembles. While a student in
Glasgow he became a laborer in the mission work carried on amid the
degraded inhabitants of its closes and wynds, gaining there an insight
into life and character which has been most valuable to him in fitting
him for his later work among men. He did not remain long in Scotland,
however, for though the beauty and culture of the land of his fathers
had many attractions for him, he felt that to Canada his heart and his
duty called him. He ministered for a time to the quiet country charge of
Georgetown, in Prince Edward Island, from which he was soon called to
the pastorate of St. Matthew’s Church, Halifax, one of the oldest
congregations in the Dominion. His gifts as a pulpit orator were soon
recognised. The force, directness, and reality of his preaching strongly
attracted to him thoughtful young men, who found in him one who could
understand their own difficulties, and who never gave them a “stone” for
the “bread” they craved. His charge grew and prospered, and a new church
was built during his pastorate. His ministerial relations were so happy
that it was a real pain when a voice that he could not resist called him
to another sphere. When his friend and parishioner, Sandford Fleming,
civil engineer, was about to start on a surveying expedition for the
proposed Canadian Pacific Railway, Dr. Grant accompanied the party for a
much-needed holiday. The novel experiences of the long canoe journey,
through what was then a “great lone land” with unknown capabilities,
strongly impressed his own imagination, and were communicated to
thousands of readers through the hastily-written but graphic pages of
“From Ocean to Ocean.” This glimpse of the extent and grandeur of the
national heritage of Canadians—the fit home of a great people—made him
still more emphatically a Canadian, and gave him a still stronger
impulse and more earnest aim to use all the powers he possessed to aid
in moulding the still plastic life of a young nation born to such
privileges and responsibilities. The popularity attained by the
publication of this volume (published by Hunter, Rose & Co., Toronto)
called attention to Principal Grant as a writer, and though his time and
strength have been too much taxed in other fields to leave him leisure
for much literary labor, his vivid and forceful style has made him a
welcome contributor to Canadian and American periodical literature, as
well as to “Good Words” and the “Contemporary Review.” Several articles
of his in the “Century” magazine have given American readers some idea
of the extent and grandeur of the Canadian Pacific. His happy
associations with the inception of this enterprise, and repeated visits
during its progress, have given him an almost romantic interest in an
achievement worthy of the “brave days of old.” If in the judgment of
some he seems to exaggerate its utility, and to lose sight of serious
drawbacks and evils which have become connected with an enterprise too
heavy for the present resources of the country, the explanation is to be
found in the fascination which, to his patriotic heart, invests a work
that connects the extremities of our vast Canadian territory, and helps
to unite its far-scattered people. It need hardly be said that Principal
Grant heartily rejoiced over the confederation of the Canadian
provinces, or that he has always been a warm supporter of its integrity,
and a staunch opponent of every suggestion of dismemberment. He thinks
it not all a dream that this young sturdy “Canada of ours” should indeed
become the youngest Anglo-Saxon nation, working out for herself an
individual character and destiny of her own on the last of the
continents where such an experiment is practicable. It is his hope that
such a nation might grow up side by side with the neighboring Republic,
and in the closest fraternal relations with it, free to mould its life
into the form most useful and natural, and therefore most enduring, but
yet remaining a member of the great British commonwealth, bound to it by
firm though elastic bonds of political unity, as well as by unity of
tradition, thought, and literature. This hope and belief makes him a
warm supporter of Imperial federation—a scheme which he thinks full of
promise, both for Great Britain herself and for her scattered colonies,
as well as for the world at large, in which such a federation might be a
potent influence, leading possibly to a still greater Anglo-Saxon
federation. To such a consummation his wide and catholic sympathies
would give a hearty God-speed. But he believes intensely that, in order
to secure a noble destiny, there must be a noble and healthy political
life, and that for this there must be a high and healthy tone of public
opinion, a pure and lofty patriotism. And this he earnestly seeks to
promote so far as in him lies. The following stirring words recently
published in the _Mail_ are a good illustration of the spirit in which
he seeks to arouse Canadians to their responsibilities: “Duty demands
that we shall be true to our history. Duty also demands that we shall be
true to our home. All of us must be Canada-first men. O, for something
of the spirit that has animated the sons of Scotland for centuries, and
that breathes in the fervent prayer ‘God save Ireland,’ uttered by the
poorest peasant and the servant girl far away from green Erin! Think
what a home we have. Every province is fair to see. Its sons and
daughters are proud of the dear natal soil. Why, then, should not all
taken together inspire loyalty in souls least capable of patriotic
emotion? I have sat on blocks of coal in the Pictou mines, wandered
through glens of Cape Breton and around Cape North, and driven for a
hundred miles under apple blossoms in the Cornwallis and Annapolis
valleys. I have seen the glory of our Western mountains, and toiled
through passes where the great cedars and Douglas pines of the Pacific
slope hid sun and sky at noonday, and I say that, in the four thousand
miles that extend between, there is everything that man can desire, and
the promise of a mighty future. If we cannot make a country out of such
materials it is because we are not true to ourselves; and if we are not,
be sure our sins will find us out.” All narrow partisanship he hates,
and every kind of wire-pulling and corruption he most emphatically
denounces, whether the purchase be that of a vote, a constituency, or a
province. The evils inflicted on the country by the virulence of blind
party spirit he has again and again exposed, with a frankness that finds
no favor from the thorough-going partisans of either side. During the
elections of 1886-7 his voice and pen urged on all whom he could reach
the honest discharge of the most sacred trust of citizenship, the
paramount duty of maintaining political purity—of opposing, as an
insult to manhood itself, every approach to bribery, direct or indirect.
Nor were his eloquent appeals to conscience quite in vain. Some
elections at least were in some degree the purer because, leaving the
beaten track to which some preachers too often confine themselves, he
followed the example of the old Hebrew prophets in denouncing the moral
evils that threaten to sap the public conscience, and seeking at a
public crisis to uphold the “righteousness that exalteth a nation.” In
1877 Principal Grant was called from his pastorate at Halifax, to take
the responsible office of principal of Queen’s University, Kingston. It
was no sinecure that was offered him, and considerations of personal
happiness and comfort would have led him to decline the call. But the
university had urgent need of just such a man to preside over its
interests, and he could not refuse what he felt a call of duty. The
institution was passing through a financial crisis, and it was
imperatively necessary that it should be at once placed on a secure
basis, with a more satisfactory equipment. He threw himself into his new
work with characteristic energy, and his great talent for organization
and comprehensive plans soon made itself felt. It is mainly due to his
counsels and efforts that the university has been able to lengthen her
cords and strengthen her stakes, as in the last ten years she has done.
His eloquence stirred up the city of Kingston to provide a beautiful and
commodious building to replace her former cramped and inconvenient
habitation. But the gifts that he secured for her treasury were of less
account than the stimulus imparted to the college life by his
overflowing vitality and enthusiasm—a stimulus felt alike by professors
and students. The attendance of the latter largely increased, and the
high aims and ideals of the principal could not fail to have their
influence on all its grades, down to the youngest freshman. He has
always treated the students not as boys, but as gentlemen, seeking to
lead rather than to coerce, and under his sway there has been no need of
formal discipline. The application of female students for admission to
the university led him to grant their request without reluctance or
hesitation, from a conviction that public educational institutions
should be open to the needs of the community as a whole, and, in
supplying these, know no demarcations of sex. Without taking any special
part in the movement for the “Higher Education of Women,” he believes
that every individual who desires a thorough mental training should have
the opportunity of procuring it. He has a firm faith in the power of the
ineradicable laws of human nature to prevent any real confusion of
“spheres,” and believes that it is as beneficial to the race as to the
individual, that each should receive the fullest training and
development of which he or she is susceptible. On the subject of
University federation, Principal Grant has maintained a strongly
conservative attitude. He believes firmly in the wisdom of respecting
historic growth and continuity of organisation, and in the salutary
influence of honorable traditions on institutions as well as countries.
He deprecates extreme centralisation, as narrowing the scope of
education for the many, even though raising its standard for the few. He
thinks that for Canada, as for Scotland and the United States, several
distinct universities, each with its own individuality and _esprit de
corps_, will prove most useful in the end; and that the Queen’s
University, for the good work she has done and the high position she has
maintained, deserves to preserve her continuous historic life. Heartily
endorsed in this position by the trustees and graduates of the
university, he has set himself vigorously to the task of raising by
voluntary subscription such an endowment as shall give it an assured
position for the future, in the face of the growing needs of higher
education in Canada. Probably no other man would have dared such a task,
but that he will carry it to a successful completion few can doubt who
know the man and the magnetic power over men of his cheery and resolute
spirit. Principal Grant has since his appointment acted as professor of
divinity also. His prelections in the class-room, like his preaching,
are characterised by breadth of thought, catholicity of sympathy and
vividness of presentation. He has instituted a series of Sunday
afternoon services for the university, conducted sometimes by himself or
other professors, sometimes by eminent preachers from other places and
of different denominations. These are much appreciated, not only by the
professors and students, but also by a large class of the thoughtful
citizens of Kingston, to whom—though many admirable sermons are
preached there—none are more welcome than those of the principal
himself. As a preacher he is marked by simplicity, directness,
earnestness and force. For “fine writing” and rhetorical and finished
periods he has no admiration, and aims instead at the direct
conversational style for which he has the highest of all examples. He is
not afraid of plain speaking, and prefers direct appeals to heart and
conscience to theological disquisitions. Valuing only that vital
religion which is the root of right feeling and right action in daily
life, he has no respect for a “profession” of faith without its fruits.
As in the case of political sins, so he denounces social and individual
sins with the same fearless freedom, believing that this is one of the
preacher’s most solemn duties. He strives not for _effect_ but for
_effects_, and though he not infrequently rises to impassioned appeals,
he aims rather at producing permanent conviction than temporary
excitement. His moral influence on the community is somewhat analogous
to that of the late Rev. Henry Ward Beecher in the neighboring republic.
He is always on the side of the generous and unselfish policy as against
that of mere expediency, and he seeks to uphold the pursuit of a noble
idea as infinitely better than that of mere material success. Many,
especially of young Canadians, owe to him their perception of this
truth, and some measure of inspiration for his enforcement of it, and
from the example of a noble and unselfish life. But while ever ready to
promote with heart and hand any movement for the real good of humanity,
he believes in no artificial panacea for evil. He holds that as this is
radical, having its root in human selfishness, that power alone, which
can change the natures of individuals, can in the long run change the
condition of masses, and he believes that the only true light of a
darkened World streams from the Cross. “In this sign” all his efforts,
all his teachings find their inspiration. To him it is the most real of
all realities; and to make it such to others is the central aim and
impulse of his life. His faith in this, and in the duty of the Christian
church to fulfil her “marching orders,” have made him a warm advocate
for Christian missions, giving a catholic sympathy to all, of whatever
name, who are seeking to plant among the heathen abroad what he holds to
be the root of a true Christian civilization, or who are laboring by any
method to humanise and christianise the heathen at home. The narrowness
of conventionality in religion is as repulsive to him as that of creed
or ritual. He delights to own true brotherhood with all who “profess and
call themselves Christians,” and he looks and labors for the true spirit
of unity in the Christian church, which shall give it its true power in
the world. It is the inspiration of this faith and hope which has made
his life so fruitful in power and inspiration, and will make him live in
many hearts and lives when other men, as prominent now, shall be
forgotten.
* * * * *
=Gendreau, Jean Baptiste=, Notary Public, Coaticook, county of
Stanstead, province of Quebec, was born on 25th February, 1850, in that
part of the old parish of St. Hyacinthe now called Ste. Madeleine, in
the province of Quebec. His father, Jean Baptiste Gendreau, was first a
farmer and afterwards an hotel keeper in the parish of St. Pie, in Bagot
county. Jean Baptiste Gendreau, the subject of our sketch, first studied
at the College of St. Hyacinthe, and after completing his college
course, passed a few months in the Jesuits’ Novitiate, at
Sault-au-Récollet, near Montreal. He left the latter place for Coaticook
in the fall of 1873, where he served for a few months as a clerk in a
store, and then, in May, 1874, he decided to study the notarial
profession. This he did for four years, and was then admitted to the
profession of notary in May, 1878. He then settled in Coaticook, where
he still resides and does a good business. Though comparatively a young
man, he has taken a prominent part in all the public questions, and is
now one of the leading citizens of his district, especially amongst the
people of his own nationality. When Mr. Gendreau first settled in
Coaticook it was a village municipality, erected in January, 1864; now
it has grown to be an enterprising place, and there are several
manufactories and industries established in it. Mr. Gendreau has
successfully filled the following offices, namely: secretary-treasurer
of the Catholic School Board since 1875; municipal councillor since
1881; president of the old Coaticook Building Society at the time of its
liquidation in 1882; director of the Eastern Townships Colonization and
Credit Company of Lake Megantic since 1882; mayor of Coaticook, after
its erection into a town, in 1884 and 1885, and warden of the county of
Stanstead during the same years; and is now the revising officer of the
same county under the new Dominion Franchise Act. He was married to
Marie Rose Durocher, daughter of Gédéon Durocher, a notary public of the
parish of St. Aimé, in Richelieu county.
* * * * *
=McKnight, Robert=, Owen Sound, Registrar of the county of Grey, was
born at Kilkeel, in the county of Down, Ireland, on the 4th September,
1836. His parents were Robert McKnight and Eliza Gray. He received a
scanty education in the schools of his native village, and when only
nineteen years of age left his native land for Canada. He arrived in New
York in the latter end of June, 1858, and while there he engaged with
the captain of a whaling ship to go to the Arctic regions on a whaling
expedition, but in consequence of the ship not being ready to put to sea
at the time agreed upon, he broke off the engagement and started for
Canada. Arriving in Tossoronto, Simcoe county, he found employment in a
saw mill. Six months after the mill was placed in his charge, and the
entire business was conducted by him for the next three years. In 1860
he left the mill, and took charge of a school in the adjoining township
of Essa, where he remained for another three years. Leaving Essa, he
took up his abode in Tecumseth, where he taught for another three years,
and during this time secured the highest grade of a first-class teacher
from the County Board of Education. In 1864 he entered the Military
School at Toronto, and received a cadet’s commission. He raised a
company of volunteers at Markdale during the Fenian raid, and was chosen
captain, but the minister of militia having declined to increase the
strength of the 31st battalion, the company disbanded. Subsequently,
however, on his removal to Meaford, he accepted a lieutenant’s
commission in No. 2 company Grey battalion, and remained in the service
until he was appointed registrar of Grey, when he resigned. Bidding
good-bye to school teaching, he opened a general store in the village of
Markdale, Grey county, where he remained for two years and then sold
out. He next took up his abode in Cookstown, Simcoe county, and here
began business anew, adding drugs to his general business. Next year a
fire broke out in the village, and, among other buildings, swept away
Mr. McKnight’s store and dwelling. Nothing disheartened by this
calamity, although a great loser by the destruction of the contents of
both store and dwelling, he went to work and paid up every dollar of his
indebtedness. He then removed to the then rising village of Meaford, and
went into the drug and grocery business, and through close attention to
business he soon overcame his losses at Cookstown, and it was not long
before he became one of the leading citizens, taking an active part in
everything pertaining to the advancement of the village. As a politician
he was ever active, having first taken a part in the contest between the
late Hon. William McMaster and John W. Gamble, in the old home district,
for a seat in the Legislative Council of Canada. At this time Mr.
McKnight sided with Mr. McMaster and the Reformers, and has ever since
worked in the same ranks. In 1872 he was chosen by the Reformers to
contest East Grey against W. R. Fletcher, the Conservative candidate,
for a seat in the House of Commons, but he failed to secure his
election. Again, in 1874, he took the field against his old opponent,
but at the close of the poll it was found that Mr. Fletcher still held
the seat, although only by a majority of three hundred, on the previous
occasion he having carried his election by six hundred majority. In 1875
Mr. McKnight was once more chosen to carry the Liberal standard, and
this time in North Grey. His opponent was David Creighton, the sitting
member, and editor and proprietor of the Owen Sound _Times_, a gentleman
well known throughout the riding, while Mr. McKnight was practically an
outsider. The battle was a fierce one, but at the end of it Mr.
Creighton held his old seat in the Ontario legislature, only, however,
by a majority of fifty-nine. In 1874 Mr. McKnight was made a justice of
the peace, and the same year a commissioner _per dedimus potestatem_. He
was appointed registrar for the county of Grey in 1875, and to this
office he now devotes the principal part of his time. His removal from
the arena of politics has given the subject of our sketch some leisure
to practise his favorite pursuits—notably, floriculture and
horticulture—and his home in Owen Sound testifies to his skill and
taste in both. But fortunately for his neighbors he does not confine
himself to his own private pursuits. He is at present president of the
Mechanics’ Institute; a member of the Board of Education, and of the
Board of Health; and an active member of the Masonic fraternity. He is
well known as an enthusiastic apiarist. He is one of the leading spirits
of the Ontario Bee-keepers’ Association, having been present at the
convention held in Toronto, when it was first organized, and presided
over the deliberations of that meeting in the city hall for three
evenings. He was elected the secretary-treasurer of the newly-organized
association, and on him devolved the perfecting of the organization,
which he did thoroughly and well. For two years he held this position,
and during that time edited the bee department of the _Canadian Farmer_.
The following year he was elected president, and he has been on the
executive committee ever since. He was appointed one of the delegates to
represent Ontario’s display in the Colonial exhibition, held in London,
England, in 1886. The magnificent display of honey was due in a very
great measure to his efforts, as after a fair trial it was found that he
possessed the art of staging the goods to the best possible advantage,
and we think we may say, without fear of contradiction, that he has no
superior, if an equal, in this line. To him alone was left the entire
arrangement of the display, and the bee-keepers of Ontario feel very
grateful for his untiring efforts in watching and carefully keeping the
display up, changing it from day to day and from week to week, and
making it always look fresh, as if just placed in position. He not only
worked in the honey-building, but frequently spent hours after midnight
with the pen to maintain the honor and reputation of the bee-keepers of
his adopted country. He is an adherent of the Presbyterian church. In
1865 he was married to Miss McLean, daughter of Duncan McLean, of Elm
Grove, and has a family of three children.
* * * * *
=Torrance, Hon. Frederick William=, B.C.L., Judge of the Superior Court
of the Province of Quebec.—The late Judge Torrance was born in Montreal
on the 16th July, 1823, and died in the same city on the 2nd January,
1887. He was a son of John Torrance, in his lifetime one of the leading
merchants of Montreal. Judge Torrance received his primary education at
private schools at Montreal, at the Nicolet College, and at Edinburgh
under private tutors; and finally entered the University of Edinburgh,
where he took the degree of M.A. in 1844, ranking second in the order of
proficiency in classics and mathematics. He had previously, in 1839-40,
followed courses of lectures at Paris, France, at the Ecole de Médecine
and at the Collège de France. He studied law with the late Duncan
Fisher, Q.C., and the Hon. James Smith, subsequently attorney-general
for Lower Canada, and a judge of the Queen’s Bench. In 1848 he was
called to the bar of Lower Canada. In 1852 he formed a partnership with
Alexander Morris, who afterwards for a time filled the position of chief
justice of the Court of Queen’s Bench for Manitoba—the firm being known
as Torrance and Morris. In 1861, Hon. Mr. Morris having entered the
political arena, was elected to represent South Lanark in the
Legislative Assembly, and shortly afterwards removed to the province of
Ontario. He was succeeded in the firm by his brother, J. L. Morris. On
27th August, 1868, Mr. Torrance was appointed a puisne judge of the
Superior Court of Quebec, and from that time until his death earned for
himself the reputation of an eminent jurist, and an upright, careful and
painstaking judge. His decisions in business matters were always
considered of great value, on account of his extensive experience in
commercial law while practising at the bar. Judge Torrance was lecturer
and professor of Roman law in McGill University (of which he was
governor, and from which he obtained the degree of B.C.L. in 1856) from
1854 to 1870. In 1865, he was one of the commissioners appointed to
enquire into the St. Albans raid affair, and did good service. In
conjunction with Strachan Bethune, Q.C., J. L. Morris, and the late Mr.
La Franaie, he brought out the _Lower Canada Jurist_, to which he
contributed for many years. He was intimately connected with the Fraser
Institute, and with the Hon. J. J. C. Abbott devoted much of his time
towards establishing a free library in connection therewith. In religion
Judge Torrance was a staunch Presbyterian, and he took a deep interest
in all things relating to that church. He was president of the
Presbyterian Sabbath-school Association, and after being connected with
the Coté Street Church, Montreal, for many years, he became an elder of
Crescent Street Church, which position he held at the time of his death.
He contributed materially to the foundation of the Montreal Presbyterian
College, and always took a lively interest in its welfare. He was also a
life governor of the Montreal General Hospital. He subscribed largely to
the general fund of the Home and Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian
church. He took special interest in the missions to the Jews. He always
identified himself enthusiastically with Sabbath-school work. He was
known as a generous, kind-hearted and public-spirited citizen, and his
death was deeply regretted by a large number of personal friends and the
whole community, by whom he was held in great esteem. Some ten years ago
he married Mrs. Pugh, of Louisville, Ky. He left a widow, but had no
children. Judge Torrance was not reputed to be very wealthy, but during
his lifetime his donations to the institutions with which he was
connected were large and numerous.
* * * * *