=Thomson, Donald Cameron=, Lieutenant-Colonel, Lumber Merchant, Quebec,

one of the most esteemed and successful men of business in the ancient

capital, was born in 1823, at Kenlochiel House, near St. Andrew’s,

county of Argenteuil, province of Quebec. His father served as a

commissariat officer during the war of 1812; and his mother belonged to

the family of Lochiel. In 1860, when the _Trent_ outrage aroused the

loyalty of Canada’s sons, Mr. Thomson raised a company of volunteers,

and was attached to the battalion commanded by Lieut.-Col. De Salaberry,

and on the latter retiring from the service, Captain Thomson was

promoted to the lieutenant-colonelcy, and given command of the

battalion. He was out during the Fenian troubles, and subsequently

retired retaining his rank. For a number of years Colonel Thomson has

been actively engaged, and still continues, in the export trade of

timber to Britain, etc. He took a prominent part in the creation of the

Union Bank of Canada, at Quebec, as well as in the formation of several

commercial companies connected with river navigation. At present he is a

director of the Union Bank of Canada; vice-president of the Quebec

Steamship Company; president of the Saguenay & Lake St. John Railway

Company; director of the St. Lawrence Steamboat Company; and director of

the Quebec Ferry Company. A lover of sport Col. Thomson divides his

summer vacation between the secluded salmon pools of the Murray river,

leased to him, and his rustic cottage at Pointe-à-Pic, Murray Bay. Later

on one may meet him scouring for cariboo, with an Indian guide, the

snow-clad heights in rear of Baie St. Paul, known as Les Jardins. In

politics the colonel may be counted among the Liberal-Conservatives, and

in religion an adherent of the Presbyterian church. He is married to

Annie Atkinson, niece of the late Henry Atkinson, of Spencerwood.

* * * * *

=Oulton, Alfred E.=, Dorchester, Judge of Probate for the county of

Westmoreland, New Brunswick, was born in Westmoreland, on the 2nd March,

1845. His parents were Thomas E. Oulton and Elizabeth Carter, both

natives of Westmoreland county, whose ancestors came from Yorkshire,

England, and settled in Westmoreland in 1763. Mr. Oulton received his

education at the schools of his native place, and after attending in his

father’s store for a while, went to Sackville, New Brunswick, and spent

three years in Mount Allison Academy, taking a course of studies which

embraced the higher mathematics and the Latin language. He adopted law

as a profession, and pursued his studies in the office of A. L. Palmer,

now judge in equity of New Brunswick. He was admitted to practice as an

attorney in June, 1867, and as a barrister in June the following year.

He then went into a law partnership with Mr. Palmer for three years,

when Mr. Palmer removed to St. John and the partnership was dissolved.

Since then he has carried on business on his own account, and we may say

here that he has been a very successful lawyer. His practice extends

into all the courts in the province, and also into the Supreme courts of

the Dominion, and he does a great deal of office work, such as the

collecting of claims, conveyancing, and general notarial work. Mr.

Oulton was elected secretary of the municipal council of Dorchester,

N.B., on its organization on the 7th June, 1887, and still holds the

office. On the death of Governor Chandler, he was appointed judge of

probate, August 1, 1878, and is considered practical and painstaking in

the discharge of his official duties, and gives great satisfaction to

the public. He is a commissioner for the Admiralty Court of New

Brunswick. He joined the Masonic order in 1866, and was for three years

in succession master of the Blue lodge at Dorchester. He is also a Royal

Arch Mason, being a member of the chapter held at Moncton. In religion

he is a member of the Church of England; and in politics a Conservative.

He was married in June, 1883, to Kate Estabrook, daughter of the late G.

B. Estabrook, of Sackville, N.B., and they have a family of three

children, two boys and one girl.

* * * * *

=McIsaac, Colin F.=, Barrister, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, M.P.P. for

Antigonish, was born at South River, Antigonish county, in 1856. He is

of Scotch descent, his ancestors having come from Inverness-shire,

Scotland, many years ago, and settled in Antigonish county. His brother,

Angus McIsaac, now judge of the county court of Antigonish, sat in the

House of Commons at Ottawa from 1873 to 1885. Colin F. McIsaac was

educated at St. François Xavier College, in his native county. Having

adopted law as a profession, he devoted some years to study, and on 12th

January, 1880, was admitted to the bar of Nova Scotia, since which time

he has successfully practised his profession. In 1882 he was elected a

governor of St. François Xavier College, and has occupied this position

ever since. He entered political life in 1886, and at the general

election held that year was elected by a handsome majority to represent

Antigonish in the Nova Scotia legislature. In politics Mr. McIsaac is a

Liberal; and in religion is a member of the Roman Catholic church.

* * * * *

=Philp, Rev. John=, M.A., Pastor St. James Street Methodist Church,

Montreal, is a Canadian by birth, having been born in the town of

Cobourg, in the province of Ontario. His father, the Rev. William Philp,

a native of Cornwall, England, was for nearly forty years a minister of

the Wesleyan Methodist church in Canada. His mother was a person of rare

excellence of heart and life. Rev. Mr. Philp, the subject of our sketch,

was educated at Victoria University, Cobourg, and graduated in the arts

course in 1861, receiving the B.A. degree, and taking the Hodgins prize.

Three years later the same university conferred upon him the M.A.

degree. He entered the ministry of the Wesleyan Methodist church in

1860, when in the twentieth year of his age, and while yet at college.

In June, 1861, he received his first appointment. In June, 1865, he was

married to Miss Maggie Grafton, of Dundas, Ontario, and has a family of

four children, living, the eldest of whom will soon graduate in medicine

in McGill University, Montreal. His stations in order have been

Oakville, Dundas, St. Mary’s, Woodstock, Fairfield, Windsor, Paris, St.

Mary’s, Queen’s Avenue Church, London; Wesley Church, Hamilton; Carlton

Street Church, Toronto; St. James Street Church, Montreal, and few

ministers in the denomination can show more work done in the Master’s

vineyard during nearly twenty-eight years. Fairfield circuit, near

Brantford, was his first superintendency, and here extensive revivals of

religion took place. One of the finest country churches was erected on

what is known as Fairfield Plain. At Windsor during his term, the small

frame building in which the congregation had long worshipped was

superseded by a new and attractive brick church. At Paris, the present

beautiful sanctuary was built, and thus the interests of Methodism there

greatly furthered. At St. Mary’s, a remarkable temperance movement took

place, in which over two thousand signed the pledge. In this he took an

active part. During his term in London, the Queen’s Avenue Methodist

Church was modernised and beautified, at a cost of $14,000. And since he

took charge of the St. James Street Church, Montreal, the congregation,

by their spirit and liberality, have begun a signally important and

greatly needed work—the erection of a representative church in a more

central part of the city; which, when it is completed will be the most

imposing and commodious religious edifice of Methodism in Canada. Mr.

Philp has received many marks of esteem and confidence on the part of

his brethren in the church. He has been the secretary of the London

Conference; secretary of the Examining Board; delegate to the General

Conference; Conference examiner for the Theological College, Montreal;

preacher of one of the baccalaureate sermons for Victoria University,

&c. Though greatly devoted to his ministerial duties, he has found time

to go abroad a little, making a trip to Britain, and a tour through the

Continent, sailing up the Rhine, lingering amid the glories of Alpine

scenery, and viewing some of the principal cities of Europe. While in

England, nothing affected the reverend gentleman more than a visit to

the little Cornish town where his (now sainted) parents were born and

spent their early days. From that unpretentious centre (Lostwithiel and

its immediate vicinity) came eight young men who knew each other in

their boyhood, and who entered the ministry of the Methodist church in

Canada, doing blessed and effective service for Christ. Most of them

have since passed to their reward. Rev. Mr. Philp is a firm believer in

the great doctrines of truth as held by the Methodist church, not

because they are the creed of the church, but because they are the

vitalities of Christian life; preeminently, the divinity of the Son of

God, the vicarious character and sufficiency of the atonement, free and

full salvation alone through faith in Christ, regeneration, the witness

of the Spirit, the divine authority of the Holy Scriptures. But, while

strongly attached to the Methodist church, he would scorn all narrowness

of thought and view, all servile devotion to mere dogma, all sectarian

prejudice and caste, and would most fervently pray with the Apostle,

“Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.”

He believes that the pulpit should be progressive in its spirit and aim;

abreast of the times in sanctified scholarship and power to teach,

wisely conservative in its doctrinal tendency (by which he means not too

eager to hail and foster new things), gospel in its character, never

descending to the level of the mere lecture platform, or wasting its

energy in mere speculative enquiry. Its one mission should be to preach

Christ with all tenderness, simplicity, earnestness and directness as

the sinner’s hope, the world’s saviour. The Montreal _Daily Star_, of

the 24th October, 1887, thus kindly speaks of the Rev. Mr. Philp:—“He

is a comparatively young man, although his ministerial work has been

much greater and more varied than falls to the lot of men of his years.

In the pulpit he presents the appearance of a man of great intellectual

power, and his delivery bears out the impression, as his discourses are

logical and keenly analytic. His elocution is easy, and increases in

animation as he approaches the conclusion and application of his

arguments. Mr. Philp is noted as a successful revivalist, and he has

held in many places large meetings, and by his earnest, self-denying

labors in every station in which he has labored caused large increases

in the membership of his church. While especially active in forwarding

the advance of the spiritual interests of his flock, Mr. Philp is not

forgetful of the fact that the handmaids of religion, architecture,

music, etc., have also their influence on the people. He has endeavored

to promote their cultivation in available forms, and his efforts in the

direction of improving the ecclesiastical structures over which he has

had control, and the erection of others, have been peculiarly

successful.”

* * * * *

=Paton, Hugh=, General Manager and Secretary of the Shedden Company,

Montreal, was born at Johnstone, Renfrewshire, Scotland, on the 5th

October, 1852. His parents were William Paton and Mary Shedden, of

Kilbirnie, Ayrshire, Scotland. Mr. Paton received his education in the

Grammar School of Paisley, Scotland. In 1871 he came out to Canada, to

reside with his uncle, the late John Shedden, railway contractor,

Toronto. He entered Mr. Shedden’s office in Toronto, and remained there

until that gentleman’s untimely death in 1873, he having been killed by

a train on the Toronto and Nipissing Railway, when celebrating the

opening of that line, which he had built. Mr. Paton then removed to

Montreal, where he has since resided, and became secretary-treasurer of

the Shedden Company, general forwarders and carriers, and cartage agents

for the Grand Trunk Railway, which succeeded to the business of the

deceased Mr. Shedden. This position he occupied until 1879, when he

became manager and secretary, and this office he still holds; and we say

here that Mr. Paton is now the principal proprietor of this company. He

was honorary secretary-treasurer of the Province of Quebec Turf Club for

four years; and honorary secretary-treasurer of the Montreal Tandem Club

for two years. From 1879 to 1886 he was honorary secretary-treasuror of

the Montreal Hunt; and this year (1887) he was elected master of the fox

hounds, and that position he now holds. He has always taken an interest

in racing and in agricultural pursuits, and is the owner of a farm near

the city of Montreal where he resides during the summer months, and

where he indulges in his favorite pursuits. He has owned several

“Queen’s platers” and “steeple-chasers.” Since Mr. Paton took charge of

the Shedden Company he has considerably extended its ramifications over

the Dominion of Canada and the Western States of America, carrying on

the business of contractors, forwarders, and carriers, owning about

eight hundred horses, and grain and general storage warehouses at

several points. In 1879 he made an extended tour over the continent of

America, visiting nearly all the western states, and among other places

of note Salt Lake City, the Yosemite valley, and San Francisco. Since

then he has twice travelled over the continent of Europe. Mr. Paton is a

Liberal-Conservative in politics; and in religion is an adherent of the

Presbyterian church. He was married in 1884 to Bella Robertson, daughter

of Andrew Robertson, formerly merchant, Montreal, and now chairman of

the Montreal Harbor Commission.

* * * * *

=De Wolfe, Charles Edgar=, Windsor, Barrister, Judge of Probate, and

Revising Barrister for the county of Hants, Nova Scotia, was born in the

town of Windsor, the shire town of the county of Hants, Nova Scotia, on

the 22nd of July, 1845. His parents were James Lovitt De Wolfe, and

Margaret A., daughter of the late Thomas Lovett, of Cornwallis, Kings

county, Nova Scotia. Their children were Charles Edgar, Sarah Frances,

widow of the Rev. H. P. Almon; Amelia Isabella; Benjamin Arthur, who

died 17th February, 1845; James Lovitt, a doctor, residing in England;

Benjamin Alfred, who died 17th August, 1851; Perez Morton, head of the

well-known book firm of De Wolfe, Fiske & Co., Archway Book Store, 365

Washington street, Boston; Annie, wife of W. I. Fenwick, broker,

Montreal, and Mary Agnes. J. L. De Wolfe was a lawyer, studied law in

the office of the late Judge L. M. Wilkins; and subsequently, and for

many years, Mr. De Wolfe was engaged in mercantile business in the town

of Windsor, in the widely-known firm of B. De Wolfe & Son, in which he

was junior partner. He died on 16th April, 1863, and his wife died on

23rd November, 1886. Benjamin De Wolfe, grandfather of C. E. De Wolfe,

was the senior partner in the before-mentioned firm. He was member for

Hants county in 1827-31. He married a Miss Lovitt, of the city of St.

John, New Brunswick. They had four children, James Lovitt, Benjamin,

lost at sea when acting as supercargo of a vessel; George, a medical

student, also dead; and Sarah L., who now resides in Windsor. Benjamin

De Wolfe, senior, died 9th December, 1863. Loran De Wolfe, the father of

Benjamin, was born at Say Brook, Connecticut, 7th April, 1754. He

resided in Windsor, or about three miles from it, the greater portion of

his life. He married Mary Fox, of Cornwallis, Kings county. They had

five children, viz., Benjamin, Phœbe M., George, Hannah, and Isaac. In

1791 Loran De Wolfe was assessor for the town of Windsor. The “Baptist

Missionary Magazine” for April, 1835, in an obituary notice of him

remarks: “As an instance of the public confidence in this worthy man, we

may remark that he was elected in 1812 by acclamation, to represent the

township of Windsor in the General Assembly. He retained his seat until

ill health obliged him to retire from public life.” Nathan De Wolfe,

father of Loran, and great-great-grandfather of C. E. De Wolfe, was born

in Say Brook, Connecticut, in 1720, graduated A.M. in 1743, at Yale

College, New Haven, and was engaged in the practice of law. He had

previously “owned the covenant,” or joined the Congregational church,

7th June, 1741. He married, first, about 1748, Lydia Kirtland, daughter

of John Kirtland. His second wife was Lydia Beldon, born at Say Brook,

October 28th, 1721. Their children were Lucilla; Edward, born 1752;

Loran, born 7th April, 1754; Elisha, born 5th May, 1756, and Nathan.

Nathan, senr., came to Horton, Kings county, Nova Scotia, in 1760. He

was a successful farmer. The Nova Scotian census returns of 1770 give a

detailed account of his farm produce and stock. His residence was on the

east side of the main post road, opposite to the present Baptist church,

in Wolfville (1887). His legal practice did not interfere with his

agricultural pursuits. He was for many years senior justice of the peace

for Kings county. He was also registrar of probate, and took an active

part in public affairs. He died at Horton on the 21st of March, 1789,

aged sixty-nine years. Charles Edgar De Wolfe, the subject of our

sketch, after receiving the usual course of education, entered upon the

study of law in the office of the solicitor of the city of Portland,

Maine, U.S., and continued his studies in the office of S. L. Morse,

Q.C., Bridgetown, Annapolis county, Nova Scotia, and completed them in

the office of the Hon. James Macdonald, Halifax, the present chief

justice of Nova Scotia. He was admitted to the bar on the 19th of July,

1870. In 1880 he was appointed judge of probate for Hants county; and in

1886 was made revising barrister for the same county, under the

Electoral Franchise Act, and both offices he still continues to hold.

Previous to his becoming a law student, Mr. De Wolfe owned and edited a

weekly newspaper in Bridgetown, and for five years he was proprietor and

editor of the Windsor _Mail_, published at Windsor, N.S. He has taken a

deep interest in the temperance movement, and on various occasions, and

in different places in his native province, delivered strong addresses

on its behalf. In politics he is a Liberal-Conservative, and has been an

active party man in his county. On the 12th of October, 1887, he was

married to Cassie H., daughter of Samuel Grey, of New Annan, Colchester

county, N.S. Mrs. De Wolfe was, before her marriage, a captain in the

Salvation Army, and a very zealous worker for God and humanity in the

provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, but through ill health, had

to retire from active service in the army. Mrs. De Wolfe has a sister in

India, working there as a missionary, under the direction of the Baptist

Board of Foreign Missions, of Nova Scotia.

* * * * *

=Killam, Amasa Emerson=, Moncton, Manager of the St. Martin’s and Upham

Railway, M.P.P. for Westmoreland county, New Brunswick, was born on the

25th of August, 1834. His parents were born in New Brunswick, his father

on the 26th of March, 1811, and his mother on the 10th of May, 1812. His

paternal grandfather was an officer in the British army, and served

during the American war of independence, and on the declaration of peace

came to New Brunswick and settled at Sackville. His grandparents, on the

mother’s side, were U. E. loyalists, and also became settlers in the

Maritime provinces. Mr. Killam received his education at the common

schools of his native place. He held the position of postmaster for a

number of years, and is now manager of the St. Martin’s and Upham

Railway, and in 1884 purchased the Elgin, Petitcodiac and Havelock

railway, from Petitcodiac to Elgin, and in 1885 built the extension of

the road to Havelock, and became managing director, and in 1886 took an

interest in building the Central Railway, from Norton to Fredericton,

and is managing director of the company: also managing director of the

Buctouche and Moncton railway. He first entered the House of Assembly

after the general election held in 1878, as representative of

Westmoreland county. At the following general election he failed to be

returned; but in September, 1883, on the resignation of P. A. Landry,

who was elected to the House of Commons at Ottawa, Mr. Killam was chosen

to fill the vacancy. At the general election held in 1886 he again came

before his constituents, and was once more chosen their representative

in the local house. In politics he is a Liberal-Conservative. On the

25th July, 1857, he was married, at Sackville, to Millicent Wheaton, and

the fruit of the union has been seventeen children.

* * * * *

=Young, Sir William=, LL.D., ex-Chief Justice of Nova Scotia,

Halifax.—The late Sir William Young, who was a Scotchman by birth, was

born at Falkirk, in 1799, and died at Halifax, on the 8th of May, 1887.

He was a son of John Young, of Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland, who,

many years ago, emigrated to Nova Scotia, making Halifax his home. His

son William received his education at the University of Glasgow, where

he took honors. He then took up law as a profession, was admitted to the

bar of Nova Scotia in 1826, and appointed Queen’s counsel in 1843. In

commencing his career as a lawyer, he had some advantages over most

young men, in his family connections, which were quite numerous. But he,

wisely, did not too largely depend on this for success; he was

well-read, clear-headed, energetic, and bound to get on through his own

inherent powers and perseverance. When he had established his reputation

at the bar, and became comparatively independent in circumstances, he

entered the Legislative Assembly of Nova Scotia, having been returned in

1833 to represent the island of Cape Breton when it formed an electoral

district. Subsequently, when the island was divided, he represented

Inverness, extending over a period of twenty-two years—from 1837 to

1859. In the latter year he successfully contested the county of

Cumberland against Dr. (now Sir Charles) Tupper. Sir William being at

that time leader of the Liberals, or opposition, and Dr. Tupper that of

the Conservatives, or government party. Cumberland returned both these

gentlemen to the Legislature, there being three members, Sir William,

however, taking the lead. Shortly after getting into parliament Sir

William showed his boldness of spirit and manly independence by entering

his protest against the unjust coal mining monopoly then in existence,

which had been granted by the Crown to the creditors of the late Duke of

York, a monopoly which he and his brother George were largely

instrumental in having removed at a later date. In 1838, during the

closing scenes of the Canadian rebellion of that time, he was appointed

as a delegate, with others, to meet Lord Durham, and discuss the

numerous grievances of which the French population complained. The

grievances of his own province he exposed in a letter of vigorous

remonstrance, which Lord Durham afterwards annexed to his celebrated

report. His associates on this memorable occasion were Mather B. Almon,

J. W. Johnson and Jas. B. Uniacke, and sad to say the last of these

delegates in the person of Sir William Young has now passed away. They

met Lord Durham in Quebec, and in the several interviews with his

lordship and his suite, and representatives from the several other

provinces, they laid the foundations of the confederacy which in July,

1867, was perfected. In 1839 Sir William Young and Herbert Huntington

were sent to Britain to impress upon the home government the removal of

grievances existing in Nova Scotia, such a delegation having been found

necessary, Lord Durham having thrown up his office, and returned to

England in disgust. These delegates showed a considerable amount of tact

and diplomatic skill, and their mission advanced the interests of the

people in many ways. Their report, which shortly after their return was

published, covered a wide field, and exhibited an active correspondence

with the several departments of the Imperial government, from which

valuable concessions were obtained. During the long period Sir William

served in parliament he was a prominent figure in that body, acting

either as chairman or leading member on almost every important

committee. He became a member of the Executive Council in 1842. In 1843

he was elected speaker of the Legislative Assembly, and occupied this

office for eleven consecutive years. In 1854 he became leader of the

government as well as attorney-general; and leader of the opposition in

1857, a change of government having taken place. In 1859 he was chosen

president of the Executive Council. For all this period, even when in

the speaker’s chair, the impress of his strong mind was visible in

almost every important measure, as the journals of the house amply

testify, from the time he first attacked the coal mine monopoly of the

creditors of the Duke of York, to the time of his retirement from the

arena of politics. In 1851 he was associated with Messrs. Ritchie and

McCully, both of whom afterwards were, like himself, made judges, in

revising the statutes of Nova Scotia; and on the floor of the house he

was the recognized spokesman of the agriculturists of the province, “a

legacy,” which he often jokingly remarked, “had possibly descended to

him from his father, the famous ‘Agricola,’” a then popular writer on

agriculture both as a science and as an art. In 1860 he retired from

political life, and was appointed chief justice of Nova Scotia, and this

office he resigned in 1881 on account of age. When appointed to the

chief justiceship he brought to the discharge of his high duties a clear

intellect, a sound understanding of law, and a well-trained judicial

mind, and during the time he sat on the bench he attended to its duties

faithfully. His quick apprehension of points of both law and practice,

his searching insight into all matters of a difficult or abstract

character, made him distinguished as a judge and respected by the bar.

In 1876 Sir William started on a six months’ tour in Europe, and, just

before he left, the bar of Nova Scotia, and the mayor and corporation of

Halifax presented him with addresses, which bore feeling testimony to

his eminent services in the legislative halls, on the bench, and as a

citizen in all the various spheres of life. To these addresses he made

an off-hand and very happy response, showing the cordiality of his

disposition and warmth of heart, as well as his readiness and ability as

a speaker. In 1868 he received the honor of knighthood from her Majesty

Queen Victoria; and in 1881 the degree of LL.D. was conferred on him by

Dalhousie College. Sir William Young was married, in 1830, to Anne,

daughter of the late Hon. Michael Tobin, M.L.C. She died at Halifax on

the 12th January, 1883, at the age of seventy-nine years. Few ladies in

Halifax were more generally known or more sincerely respected than Lady

Young. She was a lifelong contributor to all public charities of the

city, and in her more active years was prominently connected with every

benevolent undertaking. Sir William Young was possessed of considerable

means at the time of his death, and by his will he left his possessions

to various educational, charitable, and other institutes in the city in

which he had lived and been so benevolent and public spirited a citizen

for the greater part of a century.

* * * * *

=Cannon, Lawrence Ambrose=, Quebec, Advocate, and Clerk of the

Corporation of Quebec city, was born at Quebec on the 20th March, 1814.

His father, John Cannon, architect, was of Irish parentage, and his

mother, Angèle Griault dite Larivière, was of French descent. Mr.

Cannon, senr., was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada

from 1824 to 1830, and represented the county of Hampshire, then

comprising the present counties of Portneuf and Champlain. He was an

Independent in politics, and though not unfriendly to the powers that

then ruled, was much attached to the principles of the French Canadian

party in the Assembly. He was a strenuous supporter of the Autonomists,

who, at the time of the first proposed union of Lower and Upper Canada,

exerted themselves so strongly that they succeeded in defeating the

measure. Mr. Cannon was also above all an Irishman, and although living

in Canada, he deeply sympathized with every movement calculated to

advance the prosperity of the land of his birth. He, too, helped his

fellow-countrymen in the land of his adoption, and contributed largely

by his exertions and means to have erected in Quebec St. Patrick’s

Church, which stands to-day as a monument to the religious ardor and

generosity of the Irish race in the ancient capital. He was twice

married; first to Angèle Griault dite Larivière; and the second time, in

1826, to widow Rosslewin, _née_ Archange Baby. Lawrence Ambrose Cannon,

the subject of our sketch, was educated first in private English

schools, and afterwards in the Quebec Seminary, where he prosecuted and

terminated his classical course of studies in 1833. He entered as a law

student the office of Hon. C. R. Ogden, then attorney-general of Lower

Canada; and in 1836, that of Stuart and Black. When he had completed his

legal studies in 1838, he was called to the bar, and continued to

practise his profession until May, 1864. On the resignation of F. X.

Garneau, the Canadian historian, the city clerk of Quebec, through

ill-health, Mr. Cannon was elected to fill this important position, and

he has done it faithfully ever since. Some time after his appointment,

the charter of the city was materially amended, thus considerably

increasing his duties. Among other important changes, he was charged

with the preparing of the lists of the parliamentary electors, and also

of the persons qualified to be called upon to act as grand and petit

jurors. And by the Act 33 Vict., chap. 46, the sole management of the

municipal elections was conferred upon him. He married in 1845, Mary

Jane Cary, daughter of the late Thomas Cary, then proprietor and

publisher of the Quebec _Mercury_, and of Marie Anne Dorion. He has

three surviving children; one son, Lawrence John Cannon, a practising

barrister in Arthabaskaville, and two daughters.

* * * * *

=Torrance, David=, Montreal.—Mr. Torrance, during his lifetime one of

Montreal’s most successful and distinguished merchants, was of Scotch

parentage. He was born in New York in 1805, and died in Montreal Jan.

29th, 1876. When yet a boy he came to Kingston, Upper Canada (now

Ontario), with his father, James Torrance, who was then extensively

engaged in business in that town. In 1821 he removed to Montreal, and

became a clerk with his uncle, the late John Torrance, who kept a place

of business at the corner of St. Paul and St. Nicholas streets. By his

close attention to his duties, and aptitude to the work, he rapidly rose

in his employer’s estimation, which ended in his being taken into

partnership in 1833. During his clerkship the late Rev. Dr. Wilkes, and

the late Hon. John Young were engaged in the same establishment. With

the view of extending the business of the concern, in 1835 Mr. Torrance

entered into partnership with Mr. Young, of Quebec, under the firm name

of Torrance & Young; and on the retirement of the late John Torrance,

the senior member, the firm’s name was changed to that of D. Torrance &

Co., which continued to the date of his demise, his partners being for

many years Thomas Cramp, and his son John Torrance. In 1826 the old firm

purchased a tug and passenger boat, the _Hercules_, from John Handyside

& Co., and placed it under the command of Captain Brush, who afterwards

became the proprietor of the Eagle Foundry, Montreal. This was the first

step towards the establishment of an opposition line to the Molsons’

steamboats, then plying on the St. Lawrence, and its stock was

eventually merged in that of the Richelieu Steamboat Company (now the

Richelieu and Ontario Navigation Company). Mr. Torrance was early alive

to the great future in store for Montreal, and was the first to launch

out into direct trade with the East Indies and China, and for over

thirty years the name of his firm has been well known in the great

eastern centres of commerce. As a business man he was remarkable for

great force of character and determination. This, combined with

unflinching industry and regular habits, made the immense business of

the firm move ahead with precision. An old friend of his once said of

him, “He was a model man in regard to his business and social habits,

and in the days of his prosperity was as regular in his attendance at

the counting house as when he first started in business. His ambition

was great, but tempered with prudence, and though he engaged in

commercial ventures in other cities than Montreal, yet was uniformly

successful.” Besides his promotion of commerce and navigation, he

likewise proved himself a stay to our banking system, and after holding

office for a long time as one of the directors of the Bank of Montreal,

he was in 1873 elected president, which responsible position he held at

the time of his death. His firm was also one of the originators of the

Dominion Steamship Company. While largely engaged in ocean commerce, his

capital and resources were also devoted to the carrying on of our inland

forwarding trade. He was a diligent merchant, and did not meddle much in

public affairs, though he was a consistent Liberal in politics

throughout. To all benevolent and charitable schemes he was a frequent

and liberal giver. He was always ready to aid the distressed and bring

joy to those in want, and the main feature in this regard was the

unostentatious way in which he helped those in need. He was a member of

the St. James Street Methodist Church, and at the time of his death was

one of its trustees. He was, in fact, the thorough type of a merchant

prince, a representative of a class which, unfortunately, is far too

small in these latter days. He was married to his cousin, the eldest

daughter of the late John Torrance. He was in feeble health for some

years previous to his death, and had only a few months before to forego

active business, and when death at last came he passed away quietly,

surrounded by his sorrowing family.

* * * * *

=Skinner, Hon. Charles N.=, Q.C., St. John, ex-Judge of Probate for the

county of St. John, New Brunswick, was born in St. John on the 12th

March, 1833. His father, Samuel Skinner, was a contractor and builder,

and was a native of Nova Scotia. His mother, Phœbe Sherwood, was a

daughter of Robert Golding, whose grandfather, Captain Golding,

commanded a company of loyal dragoons during the American revolutionary

war. Both the Skinner and Golding families were loyalists and emigrated

from the New England states—Mr. Skinner, the grandfather of the subject

of our sketch, a short time before the outbreak of the revolution, and

Mr. Golding after the war—and settled in the Maritime provinces.

Charles N. Skinner received his education in the common and grammar

schools of St. John. He studied law under Charles W. Stockton, of that

city; was admitted to practice in 1858, and called to the bar in 1860.

Since then he has successfully practised his profession in his native

city. He is a well-read lawyer, a fluent, clear, and logical speaker,

and seldom fails to present his case in the best possible light before a

jury. His mind, too, is of a judicial cast; he is candid, honest, and

impartial, and is admirably fitted by nature for the position he holds.

When only about twenty-eight years of age he entered the field of

politics, and was elected to represent St. John in the Legislative

Assembly of New Brunswick in 1861. After being in the house three years,

the party with whom he was allied was defeated on the question of

confederation. In 1866 he again appealed to his constituents, and was

elected. During August of next year he was appointed solicitor-general

in the A. R. Wetmore administration, and this office he held until

March, 1868, when he retired from political life, having been made a

judge of probate. He was also created a Queen’s counsel that year by the

Provincial government, and by the Dominion government in 1873. He was

elected to the Dominion parliament to represent the city and county of

St. John at the general election in 1887, having previously resigned the

office of Judge of Probate. He still practises at the bar of St. John,

and stands high among his _confrères_. For some years he was a member of

St. John city council, and took an active interest in all matters

brought forward for the benefit of the citizens. He is a member of the

brotherhood of Oddfellows. He belongs to the Baptist denomination, and

is considered a man of unblemished character and liberal impulses. On

the 12th January, 1865, he was married to Eliza Jane, daughter of Daniel

J. McLaughlan (then president of the Commercial Bank of N.B.), of St.

John, and the fruit of this union has been a family of eight children.

* * * * *

=Fenwick, George Edgeworth=, M.D., C.M., Montreal, was born in the city

of Quebec, on the 8th October, 1825. His father, Joseph Fenwick, in

early life entered the East India Company’s service, and subsequently,

in command of his own ship, traded between London and the port of

Montreal. He was from Morpeth, Northumberland, England. His mother,

Margaret Elizabeth Greig, was a native of Quebec, of Scotch descent. His

grandfather belonged to the landed gentry of Northumberland. Dr. Fenwick

received his education under the Rev. Mr. Ramsay, a clergyman of the

Church of England; and in June, 1841, began the study of medicine and

surgery in the Marine and Emigrant Hospital in his native city. His

brother, Dr. A. G. Fenwick, was at that time house-surgeon to that

institution, and he acted under him as house apothecary. He remained in

this position until November, 1842, when he entered the medical

department of McGill College, in Montreal. He successfully passed his

examination in May, 1846, but not being of age did not receive his

diploma until January, 1847, when a special convention of the University

was called for the purpose of conferring upon him the degree of doctor

in medicine and master in surgery. In May following, Dr. Fenwick was

appointed house-surgeon and apothecary to the Montreal General Hospital,

which office he filled until December, 1848, when he commenced general

practice in Montreal. In 1849 he aided, in conjunction with Dr. Howard,

the late Dr. G. D. Gibb (afterwards Sir G. D. Gibb, baronet, M.D., of

London, England), and the late Drs. Pelletier, Boyer and Jones, in

establishing the Montreal Dispensary, and was one of the attending staff

of that institution until November, 1864, when, on the death of Dr.

Thomas Walter Jones, he received the appointment of attending surgeon of

the Montreal General Hospital. In 1867 he was appointed professor of

clinical surgery in McGill University, and held this position until

1876, when, on the resignation of the late Dr. George W. Campbell, he

was appointed professor of surgery, which chair he has filled to this

time. As a teacher Dr. Fenwick has had long experience in the teaching

of surgery. For many years professor of clinical surgery, his lectures

were all delivered in the General Hospital, and every student who had

the privilege of visiting the wards during his term of service, knows

well the keen interest he took in everything concerning the cases in

hand. Careful and painstaking himself, he firmly exacted from his

assistants, house officers and dressers, a like degree of attention and

carefulness in little things. After his promotion to the chair of

surgery his lectures were of a more didactic nature, but to them he

brought the same spirit of earnest devotion to the cause of science, the

same grasp of subject leading to the formation of opinions strongly

held, the same care for the important minutiæ, and the same genial and

impressive manner which characterized his early teachings in the wards.

In 1864 Dr. Fenwick, with his colleague, Dr. F. W. Campbell, established

the _Canada Medical Journal_, which he continued to edit until 1879,

when he relinquished the editorial chair. As a medical writer he is

probably as well known as any in Canada. His articles upon surgical

subjects are all terse and logical, and carry the impress of a vigorous

and thoughtful mind. His most important papers are those upon lithotomy,

of which operation he has probably had a larger experience than any

other living surgeon in the Dominion. On excision of bronchocele, his

bold operations have commanded the most wide-spread attention, and on

excision of the knee-joint and other major operations he has been

remarkably successful. He holds the degree of M.D., C.M. from his first

university, and has never sought medical honors from any institution

abroad; nevertheless, he has been considered worthy of them. He has been

elected honorary member of the New Brunswick Medical Society; of the

Medical Society of Nova Scotia, and of the Gynæcological Society of

Boston. For many years Dr. Fenwick represented the profession of

Montreal as one of the governors of the College of Physicians and

Surgeons of Quebec province. He has served as president of the

Medico-Chirurgical Society of Montreal; and was, at the meeting of the

Canada Medical Association, held at Ottawa in 1880, elected vice

president of that body for Quebec province, and in 1882 was elected

president of the association. Dr. Fenwick is an adherent of the

Episcopal church; and in politics a Conservative. In 1852 he was married

to Eliza Charlotte, daughter of the late Colonel de Hertel, of St.

Andrews, Argenteuil. The fruit of this union has been seven children,

only three of whom survive.

* * * * *

=Adams, Rev. Thomas=, M.A., Cambridge, D.C.L., Lennoxville, was born at

Paramatta, New South Wales, on September 14, 1847. His father, the Rev.

Thomas Adams, was a member of a family in Cornwall, England, of which

the eldest brother is J. C. Adams, F.R.S., the celebrated discoverer of

the planet Neptune, who, on the retirement of Sir G. B. Airy, declined

the position of Astronomer Royal of Great Britain, and is still director

of the Cambridge University. Another brother (W. G. Adams, F.R.S.), is a

leading authority on electricity and natural philosophy, and occupies

the professorial chair in King’s College, London, once held by

Wheatstone, and afterwards by Clerk Maxwell. The father of Principal

Adams became a missionary in the Friendly Islands (South Pacific), and

it was in Australia, on the way to that mission, that Dr. Adams was

born. Thomas Adams, sen., is chiefly noted for having been the

translator of a great portion of the Bible into Tonguese, and for having

been the first who issued a complete edition of the Sacred Book in that

language. His mother was Maria French, of Taunton, Somerset. She

accompanied his father into the mission field, and gave her life to the

work. She died in Vavau in February, 1860. Professor Adams was educated

first at Taunton, Somerset, at a large proprietary school, under T.

Sibly, B.A.; next at University College, London, under the late

Professor de Morgan, in mathematics, and Professor J. R. Seeley, in

classics. In November, 1867, he joined the geological survey of England,

under Sir A. C. Ramsay, but resigned in April, 1869, owing to a severe

sprain. In October, 1869, he entered St. John’s College, Cambridge, and

in January, 1873, graduated as 19th wrangler in a first class of

thirty-seven. After acting temporarily as professor of mathematics in

the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, he was appointed

mathematical and science master in the Royal Grammar School, Lancaster,

and in August, 1874, he became senior mathematical master in the Royal

School of St. Peter’s, York. He was ordained deacon in 1874, and priest

in 1876, by the present archbishop of York. In 1881, on the occasion of

the jubilee meeting of the British Association in York, in conjunction

with Dr. T. Anderson, he became local secretary. In December, 1882, he

was elected, out of fifty-seven competitors, as the first head master of

the High School for boys, Gateshead-on-Tyne, and left there a school of

one hundred and fifty boys to accept the position he now holds of

principal of the University of Bishop’s College, and rector of the

College School, Lennoxville, province of Quebec. He has held this

position since August, 1885, and succeeded Dr. Lobley in both offices.

In July, 1878, he was married to Annie Stanley, youngest daughter of the

late T. Barnes, of London, England.

* * * * *

=Turnbull, Lieut.-Colonel James Ferdinand=, Commandant of the Royal

School of Cavalry, Quebec city, was born in London, England, on the 19th

July, 1835, and baptized at Westerham, in Kent, in the same font that

had done duty to the ever immortal General Wolfe. He is the eldest son

of the late James Turnbull, by his second marriage with Caroline

Oldaker, and came to Canada when only one year old with his parents, who

settled in Quebec. In 1841 he was sent to St. Andrew’s Church school,

under a worthy good master, William Bain, leaving next year to join the

school of that excellent teacher and missionary, the Rev. Mr. Handsell,

and from there went to the High School on its formation in 1845, where

he received his education until May, 1850, when he left school for good

and entered the office as junior clerk of the mercantile firm of P.

Langlois & Co., on St. Andrew’s wharf. In 1855, upon the formation of

the volunteer militia corps, he joined as a private, together with a

number of other young men of Quebec, the troop of cavalry that was

enrolled that autumn, and his love for horses and riding had an

opportunity to display itself. In 1860, at a general meeting of the

citizens of Quebec, called at the Merchants’ Exchange, by his Worship

the Mayor, Hector Langevin, to form a committee for the reception of

H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, Mr. Turnbull was unanimously called upon to

act as honorary secretary to the said committee, and performed his

arduous duties to the entire satisfaction of the whole community,

receiving a very complimentary vote of thanks. In 1861 he received a

commission as cornet in No. 2 troop Quebec Volunteer Cavalry, and upon

the disbanding of this troop in 1862, was promoted to be lieutenant in

No. 3 troop, which subsequently replaced No. 2, and the subject of this

sketch was gazetted captain on May 20th, 1864, and visited the American

cavalry and their remount depôts during their civil war. In 1865 he

proceeded to the Cavalry Depot, Canterbury, for a course of instruction,

at the suggestion of Colonel MacDougall, adjutant-general, who saw the

necessity of establishing a school of cavalry in Canada; and upon the

news of a probable Fenian raid, returned by way of New York in March,

1866, acting both there and on the frontier as intelligence officer to

the adjutant-general then in Montreal; subsequently coming on to Quebec

and assuming charge of the Quebec cavalry. In 1867 Captain Turnbull went

to France, at the suggestion of Sir George Cartier, to study the French

cavalry drill, and through the British ambassador in Paris, Lord Lyons,

received the necessary permission to visit the regiment at St. Germain,

“Les Dragons de l’Imperatrice.” In 1869 he received the brevet rank of

major. In 1872 he went with official letters from the Governor-General

to England for cavalry instruction, and was attached to the 7th Hussars

at Aldershot, returning again in time for the annual drill in camp at

Levis the next summer. In 1874 he received the brevet rank of

lieutenant-colonel. In 1875 he again proceeded to England for cavalry

instruction, and was put on the cavalry staff at Aldershot during the

autumn manœuvres, subsequently proceeding to Italy for the winter, and

while in Rome had the privilege of a private presentation to His

Holiness Pius IX., by Monsignor Stonor. Colonel Turnbull returned to

Canada for the drill season of 1876, but shortly afterwards started

again for an extended European tour, and while in Paris in the month of

April, 1878, received an offer from the War Office, in the probable

event of war with Russia, to raise a regiment of cavalry in Canada for

service in the East, and spent some weeks in communication with the War

office authorities and H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge, to whom he was

presented by Sir Patrick MacDougall, as the best Canadian officer that

he knew of to undertake the task,—rendered, however, unnecessary by the

celebrated conference at Berlin, when “peace with honour” was concluded.

In 1879 Sir Patrick MacDougall cabled from Halifax that Lieut.-Colonel

Turnbull was ready to raise a regiment of cavalry for service in South

Africa if permission were granted him by the Canadian authorities, the

Whitehall “Review” of the 27th March, 1879, remarking upon the offer as

follows:—“The Government has found it necessary to decline the offer

made by Lieut.-Col. Turnbull to raise a regiment in Canada for service

at the Cape, but it has signified its appreciation of the very laudable

spirit in which the offer has been made. Colonel Turnbull was lately

residing temporarily in England, and made the acquaintance of many

officers of our army. He is spoken of as an officer of considerable

military ability, and this is not the first occasion on which he has

given convincing proof of his loyalty and anxiety to serve the interests

of the British Crown.” In 1883 the dominion government having in view

the establishment of a cavalry school of instruction, Colonel Turnbull,

together with three other commandants of infantry schools, was sent to

Aldershot, where he was attached for three months to the 15th Hussars,

and on the 21st December, 1883, his official appointment as commandant

of the cavalry school corps appeared in the “Gazette.” On the breaking

out of the Riel rebellion he was ordered with his corps to the

North-West and stationed by General Middleton in the Touchwood Hills,

where so much depended upon the several reserves of Indians in that

district being prevented from going on the war-path and joining the

rebels at Batoche. The tact and firmness displayed in dealing with these

bands, had a satisfactory result; and in common with the rest of the

expedition, he received the war medal. Besides his military proclivities

he has long been an active promoter of sport and general club life,

having been a member of the committee of the Turf Club, Hunt Club,

Curling Club, Racket Court, Tandem Club, Yacht Club, Rowing Club, Rifle

Association, of which he was president; Stadacona Club, and Garrison

Club, Quebec. He is also a member of more than one military club in

London, and the Royal Canadian Yacht Club, Toronto. Colonel Turnbull was

married in June, 1867, to Elizabeth, third daughter of James MacKenzie,

of Point Levis. His residence is “Clermont,” St. Louis road, Quebec.

* * * * *

=Pacaud, Ernest=, Advocate and Journalist, Quebec, was born at Three

Rivers, province of Quebec, on the 25th August, 1850. He is a son of the

late P. N. Pacaud, in his lifetime notary at Arthabaska. Mr. Pacaud was

educated at Nicolet’s College, from September, 1860, to September, 1867,

and was admitted to the bar 8th July, 1872. He practised at the

Arthabaska bar from 1872 to 14th June, 1878, when he was appointed by

the Provincial government, Hon. Mr. Joly at the time being premier, the

prothonotary of the Superior Court, clerk of the Crown, and clerk of the

Circuit Court at Three Rivers. He was, however, dismissed for political

reasons in March, 1880, by the Tory government, headed by the Hon. Mr.

Chapleau. He established the _Journal d’ Arthabaska_ in September, 1877,

in the interest of the Liberal party, and published it till June, 1878,

when he received the appointment of prothonotary at Three Rivers. He

took the editorship of _La Concorde_, published at Three Rivers, April,

1880, but on the 15th December, 1880, left the _Concorde_, when called

by the leaders of the Liberal party to take the editorship of

_L’Electeur_, a daily morning paper published in the city of Quebec, and

the chief Liberal organ in the province. He is now the proprietor and

chief editor of _L’Electeur_. He ran as a representative for the local

house in Drummond and Arthabaska in January, 1874, after Hon. Mr.

Laurier’s resignation in the Legislative Assembly, to run for the House

of Commons at Ottawa. He also was a candidate for the House of Commons

in Bellechasse, at the general elections of 1882, but was defeated by

Colonel Amyot, then the Tory candidate. He is Catholic in religion, and

a Liberal in politics. Mr. Pacaud accompanied, in 1881, the Hon. Messrs.

Blake, Laurier, and Huntingdon in their political tour in Nova Scotia,

as correspondent for the French Liberal press of the province of Quebec.

He was married on the 23rd August, 1876, to Marie Louise Camille

Turcotte, daughter of the late Hon. J. E. Turcotte, who was a speaker of

the House of Commons and member of the government under the union of the

two Canadas, and sister of the Hon. A. Turcotte, Speaker of the House of

Assembly of Quebec from 1878 to 1881, and now commissioner of crown

lands in the Mercier government.

* * * * *

=Doucet, Laman R.=, Bathurst, Sheriff of the County of Gloucester, New

Brunswick, was born at Bathurst on the 25th of August, 1847. His parents

were Romain D. Doucet and Marie DeGrâce. His father was of Acadian

descent; and his grandfather one of the first French settlers after the

expulsion of the Acadians from old Acadia in 1755. His mother was of

Spanish descent, her grandfather having come from Spain to America about

the year 1781, when only about seventeen years of age, with his uncle,

Admiral DeGrâce, who was in command of a French fleet, and who figured

conspicuously on the side of freedom at the siege of Yorktown, when the

last successful effort was made for American independence in 1781.

Sheriff Doucet was educated in the schools of his native parish, and

succeeded in securing a good French and English education. He is a man

of great energy of character, and through his own almost unaided

exertions he now stands high among his fellow countrymen. In April,

1881, he was appointed sheriff of his native county, being the second

gentleman of French origin who has attained to this position in the

province of New Brunswick. Since his appointment he has acted as

returning officer in all the local and federal elections in Gloucester

county. In religion he is an adherent of the Roman Catholic church. He

was married on the 19th July, 1876, to Margaret Dion, of Bathurst.

* * * * *

=Genest, Laurent Ubalde Archibalde=, Counsellor-at-Law, Three Rivers,

Province of Quebec, was born on the 4th March, 1828, at Gentilly, in the

same province. His ancestors came from France, where several villages

bearing their name remain to this day as old landmarks of several

branches of this ancient family. One of them, Louis Genest, captain of

militia, and a thriving agriculturist, settled at St. Jean, Isle

d’Orleans, near Quebec, where, on the 19th January, 1777, he married

Elizabeth Amireau, _alias_ Mireau, from l’Acadie, in Nova Scotia. From

Louis Genest and Elizabeth Amireau, or Mireau, was born on 18th April,

1779, Laurent Genest, father of the subject of this sketch. L. Genest,

the elder, received his education at Quebec, where, on the 24th March,

1808, he was, by Royal commission, appointed a notary public for Lower

Canada. Shortly afterwards he left Quebec, and settled in the parish of

Gentilly, in the county of Nicolet, where he acted as agent for the

seigniory of Gentilly, and on behalf of several large landowners in the

neighboring townships of Maddington, Blandford, Bulstrode, Stanfold and

Somerset. On 29th October, 1810, he married, at Gentilly, Marie Anne

Panneton, daughter of Jean-Baptiste Panneton, a captain of militia, and

a prosperous agriculturist. On 1st September, 1812, he was appointed

adjutant of militia in full pay, and raised a battalion, from the

Bécancour division, for the American war with Great Britain. He marched

off with that battalion for the seat of war; but the battle of

Chateauguay (26th October, 1813) having been won, his battalion was

recalled home. On the 17th February, 1815; 8th March, 1816; 13th

September, 1830; 11th October, 1834, and 2nd March, 1835, he was

appointed, by as many Royal commissions, a returning officer for the

election of members for the counties of Buckingham and Nicolet. On 13th

February, 1822, under the Earl of Dalhousie, he was appointed again

captain and adjutant of militia for the Bécancour division. On 27th

January, 1831, under Lord Aylmer, he was appointed again captain for the

second battalion in the militia of the county of Nicolet. On 13th April,

1839, he was appointed clerk of the Court of Requests at Gentilly, a

county court for the county of Nicolet which sat quarterly, doing

considerable business. On 7th June, 1842, he was appointed a justice of

the peace for the district of Three Rivers. On 22nd April, 1844, he was

appointed clerk of the Circuit Court of Gentilly, a circuit embracing

the whole county of Nicolet. On 6th October, 1845, he was appointed a

commissioner to administer official oaths in Lower Canada. He was

offered on several occasions, by the electors of the county of Nicolet,

the nomination as their representative in the House of Assembly, but

always declined. He was a man of sterling worth, much loved and

respected on account of his irreproachable integrity and his sociable

character. His friends were many and most distinguished, especially in

the city of Quebec, whence he came. He died much regretted at Gentilly,

on the 25th of September, 1846, in the sixty-seventh year of his age.

His son, L. U. A. Genest, the subject of this sketch, was born at

Gentilly on the 4th March, 1828. He is a brother of the late Charles B.

Genest, advocate, and an M.P.P. for Three Rivers in the House of

Assembly of Quebec. He was educated at Nicolet College, under the

rectorship of the Right Rev. J. B. A. Ferland, the learned and

distinguished Canadian historian (1840-1846). At the death of his

father, in 1846, he succeeded him as agent for the seigniory of

Gentilly, which office he held until June, 1851. This position induced

him to make a special study of the seignorial tenure and feudal system,

which he admired very much, as having been, as he considered, an

excellent mode to settle, with a select and prosperous population,

French Lower Canada, though afterwards he was compelled to acknowledge

that circumstances were changed, and that many abuses had taken hold of

this fine tenure of lands, which later justified its abolition. Indeed,

his opinion is that too much gratitude cannot be bestowed on the

memories of two very justly regretted Canadian statesmen, the Hon. L. T.

Drummond and Sir George Etienne Cartier (with whom he had the advantage

of being intimately acquainted) for the abolition and redemption of that

tenure, which had lived its full time. He holds that the present lord

and tenant system of Ireland, which, when established, like the Canadian

seignorial tenure, must have been beneficial to all parties concerned,

should also now be abolished by redemption, just after the same mode

which was followed for the abolition of the feudal tenure of Lower

Canada; and he affirms that the British statesman who would accomplish

this at the present time, whatever be his name, would be the greatest

benefactor of the British empire in our days, whilst he would render the

utmost service to every lord and tenant of Ireland, who would only be

the happier for the change, with remarkable gain to all, and an

incalculable saving of ill-feeling, trouble and millions of money to the

mother country. On 20th May, 1850, Mr. Genest was commissioned an ensign

of the 2nd battalion in the militia of Nicolet. In June, 1851 he left

Gentilly for Montreal, where he began his regular legal studies, under

Joseph Peltier, advocate, one of the Canadian braves of 1837, and his

then partner, Joseph Papin, one of the chieftains of the Liberal party

of that period. On 3rd May, 1853, he was admitted as an advocate and

barrister at the bar of Montreal, where he began to practice with

Toussaint Peltier and the Hon. Joseph Bourret. On 18th November, 1853,

he was commissioned lieutenant in the 9th battalion of the militia of

Montreal. In 1855 he was called to take part in the labors of the

Seigniorial Commissioners at Montreal, a task which his previous studies

and taste well fitted him to fulfil. He was also appointed to and filled

the office of clerk of the Seigniorial Court of Review, which sat at

Montreal and Quebec. On 8th March, 1856, he was appointed clerk of the

peace for Three Rivers, where he removed from Montreal, whilst

continuing for some time after to take part in the labors of the

Seigniorial Commission at Montreal and Quebec. On 18th September, 1857,

he was appointed a commissioner to administer official oaths in Lower

Canada. On 1st August, 1876, he was appointed a member of the commission

for the civil erection of parishes and the building of churches in the

diocese of Three Rivers, of which commission he is the president. He is

a member of the Institut National, and of the Historical Society of

Montreal, and of the Literary Society of Three Rivers. He is also a

member of the society for the re-wooding of the province of Quebec. As a

member of the Historical Society of Montreal, he has contributed

largely, with the regretted Sir L. H. LaFontaine, baronet, with whom he

was on very friendly terms, to numerous and important researches

concerning the ancient families who first settled Canada. He ranks among

the first as a criminal lawyer in Lower Canada, and his advice is also

highly prized in civil matters. His word is as good as gold, and he is

held in very high esteem, and enjoys the confidence of his fellow

citizens, on account of his unimpeachable integrity and frankness.

Though neutral in politics, he is, by inheritance and education, a

strong Conservative; nevertheless a friend of all, without regard to

party or creed. He is an enthusiastic admirer of the British

constitution, and will cling to the very last to his allegiance. In

religion he is a Roman Catholic, holding that religion is indispensable

in the governing and ruling of nations to secure their peace, prosperity

and happiness, and to insure the stability of kingdoms, empires and

republics, thereby justifying the family motto—“Nascor, vivere, vincere

et mori, pro Deo, reginâ, patriâ et civibus”; “Je nais, pour vivre,

vaincre et mourir, pour mon Dieu, ma reine, mon pays, mes concitoyens.”

On 21st January, 1856, he married, at Montreal, Emma MacCallum, daughter

of John MacCallum, of that city (formerly a Quebec merchant), by Flavie

Raymond, of Laprairie, a grand-daughter of James MacCallum, a Quebec

merchant, seignior of the seigniories of St. James and Thwaite, in the

district of Montreal, and also at one time a member for the city of

Quebec in the House of Assembly of Lower Canada. Mrs. Genest is a first

cousin, on her mother’s side, of the late Hon. Edouard Masson, M.L.C.,

and of his Excellency the Hon. L. F. R. Masson, member of the Queen’s

Privy Council for Canada, late lieutenant-governor of the province of

Quebec. Mr. Genest resides at 64 Royal street, Three Rivers, P.Q.

* * * * *

=Lugrin, Charles S.=, who was born at Fredericton, New Brunswick, in

1818, and died in the same city on the 27th April, 1877, was educated at

the Collegiate School of his native place. He was a son of George K.

Lugrin, for many years Queen’s printer for New Brunswick, and grandson

of Peter Lugrin, who served as master of hospital stores in the Royal

army during the American revolutionary war. The Lugrins are of Swiss

origin. Captain Peter Moses Lugrin lived at Romainmotier, Switzerland,

in the early part of the eighteenth century, and held important public

positions. He married Lady Beniné Marguerite Rochat, by whom he had

issue, Simeon, great grandfather of Charles S. Lugrin. Charles S.

followed his father’s business of printing, and after the latter’s death

took charge of the Queen’s printer’s establishment, under John Simpson,

the new incumbent of the office, with whom he was in partnership for

some time. After Mr. Simpson’s death, he began the publication of the

_Colonial Farmer_, which he conducted successfully for a number of

years. In 1868 he was appointed secretary of the Board of Agriculture,

and held the office until the abolition of the board in 1875, when he

accepted the office of secretary of the school trustees for Fredericton,

which he held until his death in 1877. He was paymaster in the militia

when a young man. In his lifetime he was an active member of the

Methodist church; a leading temperance advocate, and for a term occupied

the position of grand worthy patriarch of the Grand Division of the Sons

of Temperance of New Brunswick. As a writer he was sharp and incisive,

and in politics a Liberal. He was married to Martha L., daughter of John

and Mary Stevens. The latter was a granddaughter of Colonel Richard

Lawrence, of Staten Island, N.Y., who served on the loyalist side during

the American revolution.

* * * * *

=Chisholm, Peter J.=, President and Manager of the Nova Scotia Lecture

and Concert Bureau, Truro, Nova Scotia, was born at West River, Pictou

county, N.S., on the 1st August, 1848, and is the youngest of a family

of seven sons. Both parents were Scotch, and came to Nova Scotia in

1810. Being poor working people, they were only able to give their son a

common school education; and at the early age of thirteen he was

apprenticed to a general merchant. Here he remained until he was

sixteen, and then started business on his own account. He visited

Halifax and made his own purchases, and after a few years’ successful

operations, he began to import his merchandise direct from foreign

markets, and has continued to do so ever since. In 1866, he joined the

Orange association by becoming a member of Derry lodge, No. 25, Truro,

and is still a member of the same lodge. He occupied the position of

worshipful master three years, and at the present time is grand master

of the Grand Orange lodge of Nova Scotia. In 1873 he joined the

Independent Order of Good Templars, and was elected chief templar the

same year. In 1878 he was sent as a delegate to the Grand Lodge of Nova

Scotia, and was nominated for grand chief templar, but declined. In 1880

he was elected one of the delegates to the Right Worthy Grand Lodge

which met in New York city in 1880; also to Washington in 1884; Toronto

in 1885; Richmond in 1886; and to Saratoga in 1887; and at Washington

session was elected right worthy grand marshal. In 1880, he was elected

grand chief templar of his own Grand Lodge. He held the office for four

successive years; but on being elected the fifth time, he resigned, and

was unanimously elected grand secretary. This office he held for two

years, declining re-election at the last session of the Grand Lodge, on

account of business engagements. When he assumed the office of grand

chief templar in 1880, the Grand Lodge for Nova Scotia had less than

2,000 members, with a debt of over $400; but when he retired from the

office the membership was over 6,000, and a surplus of cash on hand.

During the four years he held the office of grand chief templar, he

travelled extensively through the province of Nova Scotia as a lecturer

and organizer, and was very successful. In 1886 he received an

appointment as deputy right worthy grand templar from his very intimate

friend, the late Hon. John B. Finch, R.W.G.T., and two weeks afterward

he received a commission to proceed at once to Newfoundland and look

after the interests of Good Templary there. His trip was a grand

success, and on the eve of leaving the island he was tendered a grand

reception and was presented with a very flattering address, signed by

the leading Good Templars of Newfoundland. For three years he held the

position of chairman of lecture work, and it was through his influence

that the following celebrated lecturers visited Nova Scotia, New

Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, namely, Hon. John B. Finch, Colonel

J. J. Hickman, Lou. J. Beauchamp, Hon. John Sobieskie, Professor

Crozier, and others. In one year he reported over 300 lectures delivered

and 60 lodges organized; the greatest number of lodges ever organized in

one year in Nova Scotia. At the present time he holds no office in the

Grand Lodge, but he is ever in demand as a lecturer and organizer. At

the present time he is president and manager of the Nova Scotia lecture

and concert bureau. He is a member of the Independent Order of

Foresters. In politics, Mr. Chisholm has always been a strong Liberal;

and in religion, a Presbyterian. Mr. Chisholm has been in business for

twenty years in the town of Truro, and no one living in that beautiful

town takes such great delight as he does in pointing out its beauty and

advocating its advancement. During the last ten years great inducements

have been offered him to leave his beautiful town, but to all such

offers up to the present time he has given a refusal. In 1872 he married

Bessie A. Cock, of Brookside, Colchester county. Her great-grandfather,

Rev. Daniel Cock, was the first settled Presbyterian minister in the

province of Nova Scotia. This is the oldest Presbyterian church in the

Dominion. The Rev. William McCulloch, D.D., who retired from the

ministry about a year ago, was pastor of the above congregation

forty-eight years. Rev. John Robbins, late of Glencoe, Ontario, is now

pastor of this church. Mr. Chisholm has been blessed with a family of

two boys. Mrs. Chisholm is a very active church member; a worker in the

Women’s Christian Temperance Union, and other moral reforms.

* * * * *

=Guillet, Major George=, Merchant, Cobourg, Ontario, M.P. for West

Northumberland, Ontario, was born in Cobourg, on the 19th July, 1840.

His father, John Guillet, was born in St. Helier, Island of Jersey, and

after coming to America resided several years in St. John’s,

Newfoundland, where he acted as agent for a Jersey firm engaged in the

fisheries. His mother, Charlotte Payne, was the second daughter of John

Payne, and was born in Frome, Somersetshire, England. Mr. Guillet

received his elementary education at the public schools, and at a

private school of John Wilson, M.A., LL.D., and then entered Victoria

College, Cobourg. He enlisted at the time of the _Trent_ difficulty in

the Cobourg Rifle Company, was promoted to the ensigncy of that company,

and afterwards received a lieutenant’s commission in No. 2 company, 40th

battalion, becoming its captain in October, 1873. He is now

quartermaster of the 40th, with the rank of major. He sat in the

municipal council of Cobourg seven years, and was also for four years

mayor and commissioner of the town trust. His municipal career was

marked by the liberal encouragement given to the manufacturing interests

of the town; the obtaining of the passage of an act in the Ontario

legislature providing a property qualification for commissioners of the

town trust, and declaring the position shall be held without emolument,

save by the chairman and treasurer of the board. Several important

street improvements in the town also owe their origin to him. In

addition, he was active in promoting the educational interests of

Cobourg, particularly in getting erected the Faraday Science Hall, in

connection with Victoria University, and the Collegiate Institute. He

contested the West Riding of Northumberland in the provincial election

of 1879, but was defeated by 21 votes. On the resignation of the Hon.

James Cockburn, in 1881, Mr. Guillet was nominated for the vacant seat,

and was elected by a majority of 79 votes over the Reform candidate,

George Waters, M.D. He was re-elected at the general election of 1882,

but his election having been voided by the Supreme Court, he was again

nominated for re-election, and was returned, defeating for the second

time his opponent of 1882, William Kerr. At the general election of

1887, he again defeated the Reform candidate, J. H. Dumble, police

magistrate of Cobourg, and now represents West Northumberland in the

House of Commons at Ottawa. He is a firm supporter of British

connection, and all lines of national policy consistent therewith. He

is, however, in favour of reciprocal trade in natural products with the

United States, and the abolition of the canal tolls on Canadian trade.

While he is opposed to frequent changes in the British North America

Act, he favours the idea of transferring the power of prohibiting the

sale of intoxicating liquors to the provinces. In the session of 1882,

he introduced the bill granting to seamen a first lien and the right of

recovery of wages in _rem_, and by a summary process, which resulted in

the amendment of the Merchants’ Shipping Act of 1873 to that effect; and

he received the thanks of the Seamen’s Union for obtaining these

concessions. He is opposed to commercial union, on the ground of

impracticability, save at the sacrifice of distinctively Canadian

interests and institutions, and at the cost of humiliation and dishonour

to the Canadian name. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, also of

the Oddfellows, and the Ancient Order of United Workmen. In politics Mr.

Guillet is a Liberal-Conservative, and in religion an adherent of the

Methodist church. He has lived continuously in Cobourg since the day of

his birth, and has been engaged in the wholesale and retail grocery and

crockery business for over twenty-five years. This business was first

established by John Guillet, and is now one of the oldest of its kind in

Cobourg. Mr. Guillet has been a successful merchant; his career not

having been interrupted by either suspension, assignment, or compromise.

In addition to his regular line of business, he has invested

considerable of his means in lake shipping.

* * * * *

=McKinnon, Hon. John=, Farmer and Trader, Whycocomagh, M.P.P. for

Inverness, Nova Scotia, was born at Whycocomagh, Cape Breton, Nova

Scotia, on the 14th July, 1833. The family belongs to the McKinnons, of

Skye, Scotland, and the subject of our sketch is the second son of

Lauchlan McKinnon, who emigrated to Cape Breton from North Uist in 1828.

His mother was Anna McLean. Mr. McKinnon received his education at the

Free Church College, in Halifax. Apart from his business operations, he

has devoted a good deal of his time to public concerns. He taught for

several years, as Grammar school teacher in Halifax and Victoria

counties. He was gazetted captain in No. 5 Inverness Infantry of

militia, previous to confederation. In 1874 he was elected to represent

the county of Inverness in the House of Assembly of Nova Scotia. In May,

1875, he was sworn in as member of the Executive Council, and held

office without a portfolio in the Hill administration until its

resignation, in October, 1878. He was an unsuccessful candidate at the

general elections, held in 1878 and 1882; but at the general election in

1886 he was again returned to the Legislature by his old constituency.

Mr. McKinnon was a strong supporter of confederation, and assisted in

promoting the building of the railway extension from New Glasgow to the

Strait of Canso. He takes a deep interest in the temperance movement,

and has held several offices in the orders of the Sons of Temperance and

Good Templars. He actively supports the Scott Act. In politics, he is a

Liberal; and in religion, an adherent of the Presbyterian church. He was

married on the 19th December, 1878, to Harriet, daughter of the late D.

McQueen, of Sydney, Cape Breton.

* * * * *

=Owens, William=, Stonefield, Lachute, M.P.P. for Argenteuil, was born

at Stonefield, province of Quebec, in 1840. His father, Owen Owens, was

a native of Denbigh, Wales, and his mother, Charlotte Lindley, of

Brantford, England. Mr. Owens received his education in the schools of

his native parish; and afterwards adopted commerce as his profession. In

1861 he joined his brother in partnership, under the firm name of T. &

W. Owens, and they have since carried on an extensive business as

merchants and forwarders, until 1887, when Mr. Owens retired from

business. Mr. Owens was an officer in the active militia from 1863 to

1883, and retired with the rank of captain. For many years he held the

position of postmaster of Chatham, and also filled several terms as

councillor, and latterly as mayor, of the township of Chatham. In 1881

he entered political life, and at the general election of that year was

returned to the Legislative Assembly of Quebec province, as

representative of his native county. At the general election held in

1886 he was again elected for Argenteuil, this time by acclamation. In

politics Mr. Owens is a Conservative; and in religion is an adherent of

the Church of England. He is a widower.

* * * * *

=Taschereau, Hon. Henry T.=, B.L., B.C.L., Montreal, Judge of the

Superior Court of the province of Quebec, was born in the city of

Quebec, on the 6th October, 1841. He is the son of the Hon. Jean Thomas

Taschereau, late one of the judges of the Supreme Court of the Dominion,

who, after being on the bench for nineteen years, was forced to resign

his position in consequence of ill-health, in October, 1878. His

grandfather, Hon. Jean Thomas Taschereau, was in his lifetime one of the

puisne judges of the Court of Queen’s Bench of Lower Canada, and his

grandmother, Marie Panet, was a daughter of the Hon. Jean Panet, first

speaker of the House of Assembly for Quebec province, which he held for

twenty consecutive years. Judge Taschereau, the subject of our sketch,

is the fifth member of the Taschereau family who have sat on the bench

of the province of Quebec, or of the dominion of Canada, and is a nephew

of his Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop of Quebec. The family is one of

the oldest and most distinguished in that province, its founder in

Canada having been Thomas Jacques, of Touraine, France, son of

Christopher Taschereau, King’s counsellor, director of the mint, and

treasurer of the city of Tours. This gentleman came to Canada about the

beginning of the last century, was appointed treasurer of the marine,

and in 1736 obtained the cession of a seigniory on the banks of the

Chaudière river, Quebec province. Judge Taschereau was educated at the

Quebec Seminary, and at Laval University, and received from Laval the

degree of B.L., in 1861, and B.C.L. in 1862. He took up law as a

profession, and practised in Quebec, with marked success, until he was

elevated to the bench, in 1878. He was at one time a member of the city

council of Quebec, and represented the city on the North Shore Railway

Board. In 1862 he edited the newspaper, _Les Debats_, and in 1863 was

one of the editors of _La Tribune_, of Quebec. He entered active

political life in 1863, and ran as candidate for the county of

Dorchester in the Legislative Assembly of Canada, but failed to secure

his election. In 1872 he was more successful, and was returned as member

for Montmagny county to the House of Commons. In 1874 he again presented

himself for election, and was returned by acclamation. In politics, he

was a Liberal. Being possessed of good talents and fine culture, with a

good judicial mind, he has already done credit to his family of eminent

parents. He was first married to a daughter of E. L. Pacaud, advocate of

Arthabaska, on the 22nd June, 1864, and has a family of nine children.

After the death of his first wife (Nov., 1883), he married in April,

1885, Mrs. Marie Masson, widow, of Montreal, sister-in-law of

ex-Lieut.-Governor Masson. No children by last marriage.

* * * * *

=McLachlan, Alexander=, Erin, Ontario, was born at the Brig o’ Johnston,

Scotland, in the year 1820. He is the son of a mechanic, and has had few

of the advantages to be derived from a liberal education, yet from

boyhood he was a great reader, and thus became acquainted with the works

of the principal British authors. In early life he was apprenticed to a

tailor, and worked at his trade for many years. In this way he fostered

his inborn love of song, as few occupations are more conducive to the

growth of poetic sentiment than a mechanical movement of the fingers,

which leaves thought free to soar to heights that idleness could never

hope to attain. In early life he became connected with the Chartist

movement, but afterwards changed his views. In 1840 he emigrated to

Canada, and, for a short time, made his home in the wild-wood; but since

appearing before the public as an author and lecturer, he has resided at

Erin, Wellington county, Ontario. The height of Mr. McLachlan’s ambition

is to be to Canada what Burns was to Scotland: the poet of the people;

and in this, we think, he has succeeded thus far. We cannot say that a

greater than he may not appear in the future; but we have not yet seen

any volume of Canadian verse equal to his in the simplicity that goes to

the heart of the poor and lowly. In this respect he meets a want of the

community, and occupies a position of honor that a poet of higher

culture might vainly aspire to fill. It does not fall to the lot of

every man to receive an education that will enable him to appreciate the

classic beauties of a “Mulvaney” or a “Roberts,” or the chaste imagery

of a “Maclean”; nor has nature gifted everyone with the “wild wealth of

imagination” (we quote Collins) that would lead him to revel in the

love-songs, of a “Caris Sima”; but what Canadian farmer, with a soul

large enough to survive the transit to another sphere, would not feel

the pathos of the lines that he writes on the death of his ox. This

poem, though faulty in construction, brings the trials and sufferings of

the early settler so graphically before the reader that it is impossible

for us to overlook it. We quote the following lines:

Here, single-handed, in the bush, I battled on for years;

My heart sometimes buoyed up with hope; sometimes bowed down with

fears.

I had misfortunes not a few, e’en from the very first;

But take them altogether, “Bright,” thy death’s the very worst.

And again he writes,

How can I ever clear the land? How can I drag the wheat?

How can I keep my credit good? How can my children eat?

The reader of these lines, perhaps, at the moment, a judge of the

supreme court, a member of parliament, or a minister of the Gospel, will

instantly look back to his boyhood’s days and see the meek-eyed oxen

standing before the log-cabin door, from which issues the form of his

father, bearing a long slender switch, which he twirls round in front of

the gentle animals as he says “haw, Buck, gee, Bright”; and again he

will see them struggling in the yoke, their wide-spreading horns

clashing together as they draw the great logs into a heap for the

burning; and seeing the result of the early settlers’ efforts in the

magnificent stretches of cleared land, and waving fields of grain, he

will sing, with our poet, in patriotic strain:

Hurrah! for the grand old forest land,

Where freedom spreads her pinion;

Hurrah with me, for the maple tree,

Hurrah! for the new Dominion.

It is, though portrayed in the humblest language, a very pathetic

picture he draws of “Old Hannah,” poor old woman, husband and children

all gone, sitting, on the Sabbath morn, on the doorstep of her desolate

home, with her Bible on her knee, looking as sweetly patient as only

those purified by affliction can look, and silently teaching us to thank

God for the suffering that alone can fit us for the kingdom of heaven.

We quote these lines:

In her faded widow’s cap;

She is sitting alone

On the old grey stone

With her Bible in her lap.

. . . . . .

Her years are o’er three score and ten,

And her eyes are waxing dim,

But the page is bright

With a living light,

And her heart leaps up to Him

Who pours the mystic harmony

Which the soul can only hear,

She is not alone

On the old grey stone,

Though no earthly friend is near.

For his poem, “Halls of Holyrood,” Mr. McLachlan, in a world-wide

competition, won the prize offered some years ago by the _Glasgow

Workman_ newspaper, for a national song for Scotland. In 1863 he was

appointed by the Canadian government to lecture throughout Great Britain

in favor of emigration to Canada. He has also lectured in the principal

Canadian towns and villages on various subjects. He speaks with much

earnestness and simplicity. As a poet, we would say, Mr. McLachlan has

written many pretty musical pieces, while all his work evinces much

force, fervor, and simplicity. Here is a line of great beauty that he

gives birth to when he speaks of the humming bird as

Wandering spirit of the flowers.

And here is a pretty stanza from “Indian Summer”:

Down from the blue the sun has driven,

And stands between the earth and heaven,

In robes of smouldering flame;

A smoking cloud before him hung,

A mystic veil, for which no tongue

Of earth can find a name;

And o’er him bends the vault of blue;

With shadowy faces looking through

The azure deep profound;

The stillness of eternity,

A glory and a mystery,

Encompass him around.

The air is thick with golden haze,

The woods are in a dreamy maze,

The earth enchanted seems.

Have we not left the realms of care

And entered in the regions fair,

We see in blissful dreams?

Here our poet has left the logging-field and is enjoying the beauties of

nature, while giving more attention to the rhythmic tone of the muse. We

understand that Mr. McLachlan is now writing for _Grip_, and we have

seen some lines of his entitled “May Song” which, as a lyric, is far in

advance of his previous work. We give the first stanza:

Now morn is ascending from out the dark sea,

A light crimson veil hanging o’er her;

The lark leaves her nest on the bonny green lea,

And flutters aloft to adore her.

And, oh, how the living beams revel and leap!

In purple and gold to enfold her;

And how the wild cataract roused on the steep,

Is shouting with joy to behold her.

Here is good word-painting, and shows what heights our poet is capable

of attaining. We would say, in conclusion, that we think Mr. McLachlan

should be looked upon as a benefactor to his country, in that he has

thrown a halo over the humblest home. Well would it be, for those who

are seized with the “brick and mortar craze” of the present day, to

pause and read “The Old Settler’s Address to his Old Log House,” before

he lays the foundation stone of the new brick mansion that too often

leads to ruin, and sometimes to disgrace.

* * * * *

=O’Connor, Hon. John=, Q.C., Puisne Judge of the Divisional Court of

Queen’s Bench, who died at Cobourg, on the 3rd November, 1887, was of

Irish descent. His parents, both of whom were named O’Connor, were

representatives of two distinct branches of that family, and emigrated

in 1823 from Kerry to Boston, Massachusetts, where deceased was born, in

January, 1824. Four years later his parents removed to Canada, and

settled in Essex county, Ontario, where he grew to manhood. When about

nineteen years of age he sustained an accident which materially

influenced his future career. While cutting timber on his father’s farm

a heavy tree fell upon him, jambing one of his legs in the brushwood.

Young O’Connor struggled hard to liberate the limb, but failed, and as

night was fast approaching, and a biting frost prevailed, he feared he

might be frozen to death. There was no hope of assistance. Under these

desperate circumstances the young fellow took out his jackknife, cut off

the limb, and crawled to his home over the snow, bleeding profusely.

This disabled the future judge for manual labor, and from that date he

devoted all his energies to study. Mr. O’Connor was called to the bar in

1854, settled down to practice in Windsor, and was successful, not only

in gaining a profitable business, but in acquiring a good deal of local

influence, political and otherwise. He was also a member of the Michigan

bar. He filled the offices of reeve of Windsor, warden of Essex, and

chairman of the Windsor School Board. In politics, he was a

Conservative, and in religion a Roman Catholic. Mr. O’Connor represented

Essex in the Canadian Assembly for a short period, and he was member of

the same constituency in the House of Commons from 1867 to 1873, being

one of Sir John Macdonald’s cabinet from 1872 till it resigned in 1873.

Defeated in Essex in 1874, he was out of Parliament until 1878, when he

was elected for Russell county, and again became a member of the

Conservative government, holding the portfolios successively of

president of the Council, postmaster-general, and secretary of state.

From the cabinet he went to the bench, having been a judge of the

Ontario Queen’s Bench since September, 1884.

* * * * *

=Moffat, William=, Treasurer of the county of Renfrew, Pembroke,

Ontario, was born on the 29th November, 1825, in Haddingtonshire,

Scotland. His father, Alexander Moffat, came to Pembroke in 1840, and

laid out the village (now town) of Pembroke. He was its first

postmaster, and subsequently became an extensive mill owner. In his day

he was a leading Reformer, and was on one occasion nominated by his

party to represent it in the Legislative Council, but declined the

honor. Mr. Moffat’s mother was Margaret Dickson Purvis, who died in

1834. Mr. Moffat, the subject of our sketch, is the eldest son of this

worthy couple, and received his education in Bytown, now Ottawa. He

worked with his father in his mills in the section of country where the

family had settled, and which was then an almost unbroken wilderness,

until he was twenty-three years of age, when he began the lumber

business, and carried this on until 1865; and from that year he

conducted his father’s business, which consisted of flour and woollen

mills, until his death, on the 7th of April, 1872, when he, with his

brother Alexander, continued the business, to which they have added

oatmeal and saw mills, until 1878. The mills were on the site on which

his father first built in 1840. Mr. Moffat has in his day taken an

active interest in municipal affairs. He was reeve of the township of

Pembroke for the years 1871 to 1874; and during 1872 to 1876 he was

warden of the county of Renfrew. In 1875 and ’76 he occupied the

position of reeve of the village of Pembroke; and he was also the first

mayor of the town of Pembroke, holding that office in 1877 and 1878. In

January, 1885, he was appointed treasurer for the county of Renfrew, and

this office he continues to fill to the satisfaction of his fellow

citizens. He was the projector of the Kingston and Pembroke Railway, and

was one of its first directors. He is a member of the Masonic order. In

politics he is a Reformer, and twice carried the standard of his party

through political contests—one for the Dominion parliament and one for

the Ontario legislature—but unfortunately was unsuccessful on both

occasions. In religion he is a member of the Presbyterian church. In

1849 he was married to Isabella Ambrose Kennedy, who came from

Dumfriesshire, Scotland.

* * * * *

=Ouimet, Hon. Aldric Joseph=, Lieutenant-Colonel, LL.B., Q.C., Montreal,

M.P. for Laval County, and Speaker of the House of Commons at Ottawa,

was born at Ste. Rose, Laval county, on the 20th May, 1848. He belongs

to one of the oldest families in the district of Montreal, they having

settled there over a century ago. His father was Michel Ouimet, a

justice of the peace, and his mother, Elizabeth St. Louis Filiatrault.

Hon. Mr. Ouimet was educated at the Seminary of St. Therese de

Blainville, and graduated a LL.B. at Victoria College, Cobourg, Ontario,

in 1869. He studied law in the office of Edmund Barnard, in Montreal,

and was called to the bar of Lower Canada in 1870, and since that period

he has successfully practised his profession in Montreal, being the head

of the law firm of Ouimet, Cornellier and Emard. On the 11th October,

1880, he was appointed a Queen’s counsel. In 1874, he was elected a

member of the Board of Roman Catholic School Commissioners for Montreal,

and has ever since taken a direct interest in educational matters. He is

now a director of the Montreal City and District Savings Bank, and of

the Credit Foncier Franco-Canadién; and president of the Laval

Agricultural Society. A number of years ago he joined the volunteer

movement, and was promoted to a captaincy in the Mount Royal Rifles. He

is now lieutenant-colonel of the 65th battalion of rifles, and as such

commanded his battalion throughout the North-West campaign in 1885. He

did good service to his country in the Edmonton district, by pacifying

the Indians, and persuading the Half-breeds to support the Dominion

government. He is chairman of the council of the Dominion Rifle

Association. He was first returned to the Dominion parliament in

November, 1873, to his present seat, in place of the Hon. Joseph

Hyacinthe Bellerose, who was called to the Senate in October of that

year, and was re-elected by the same constituency by acclamation in

1874, 1878, and 1882. He was again elected at the general elections held

in 1887. He was unanimously chosen speaker of the House of Commons on

the 13th April, 1887, and now fills that high office with dignity and

impartiality. Hon. Mr. Ouimet is a Liberal-Conservative in politics, and

was returned as an independent supporter of Sir John A. Macdonald’s

administration. He is a thorough Canadian, and has great faith in the

future of Canada and of the Canadian nation. He supports a protective

tariff, and any other well-devised scheme for the improvement of the

country. In 1882 he voted for commercial independence. He seems to have

at an early period of his life struck out for himself an independent

career, and thus far he has succeeded. On the 30th July, 1874, he was

married to Theresa, daughter of Alfred La Rocque, of Montreal, by Emelie

Berthelot, and the fruit of the union has been four children.

* * * * *

=Whelan, Hon. Edward=, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.—The late

Hon. Edward Whelan was born of humble parents, in the county of Mayo,

Ireland, in the year 1824, and having received a fair common school

education, when quite a boy he emigrated to Nova Scotia, and apprenticed

himself to the Hon. Joseph Howe as a printer. At the age of nineteen he

came to Prince Edward Island, and commenced writing for some of the

public newspapers, and the brilliancy and force of his articles soon

brought him into public notice, and shortly afterwards he assumed the

editorship of a newspaper called _The Palladium_, in which the cause of

the tenantry was ably espoused, and the foundation laid for a vigorous

campaign, which resulted in the establishment of the present system of

responsible government, and the abolition of the rental system, which

was then as obnoxious to the people of Prince Edward Island as it is at

present to the people of his native land. At the early age of twenty-one

years, looking but a mere boy, he was elected to represent the second

district of Kings county in the local legislature, and shortly

afterwards having, in conjunction with the Hon. George Coles, succeeded

in obtaining responsible government for the province, was chosen a

member of the first government formed under the new constitution, and

was co-leader with Mr. Coles for several years; when, finding that his

position as a member of the Executive Council interfered with his

freedom in discussing public questions, he retired from the council,

retaining the office of Queen’s printer. His ready pen and eloquent

tongue were ever ready to defend the causes he had espoused, and

sometimes he would reply to the attacks of his opponents with such keen

severity, that, feeling their inability to cope with him in a paper

warfare, he was dragged into the courts on charges of defamation of

character. And his eloquent and able defence before the court on one of

those occasions won for him the admiration of the judges, lawyers, and

all who heard him, convincing not only the court and jury, but all who

heard or read his eloquent address to them, that he was no slanderer,

but only an exponent of public wrongs. He continued to represent the

second district of Kings county for over twenty years, during which time

his popularity never abated. When the confederation of the British

provinces was proposed, he warmly espoused the project, sincerely

believing that its accomplishment would materially add to the prosperity

and development of his adopted country; and although the party with whom

he formerly worked were for the most part opposed to the scheme, and

although he knew that the project was held in small favour by the great

majority of his constituents, he nevertheless openly advocated what his

honest convictions assured him was for their true welfare, although at

the expense of his present popularity and interest. And now, after a

lapse of over twenty years, the province almost unanimously acknowledges

that he was not only honest and sincere in his criticisms, but right in

his judgment, and a movement is on foot to erect a statue to his memory

in the principal square in Charlottetown. He was one of the delegates to

the Quebec convention for the confederation of the provinces, where he

made many friends, and did credit to himself and the province he

represented. The “Canadian Biographical Dictionary” of 1881 contains the

following tribute to his worth:—“Amongst the most noted statesmen and

orators in Prince Edward Island fifteen and thirty years ago was Edward

Whelan. A self-taught man and sagacious politician, at the age of

eighteen he came to the island, and shortly afterwards entered upon a

brilliant career of journalism, having great power with the pen, and

wielding it on the side of the people. In the local parliament, of which

he was a member for a score of years, he was a great power, the premier

part of the time, and one of the most courageous spokesmen of his party

(the Liberal at all times). Few men in this province, living or dead,

have done more service in getting important measures through parliament

and extending civil liberty through the island. . . . Mr. Whelan was a

Roman Catholic, and his death is reported to have been the triumph of

faith.” The following is an extract from a speech by J. C. Underhay,

M.P.P., at a meeting at Morell Bear in the fall of 1886, in advocacy of

erecting a monument to his memory:—“No marble monument is needed to

perpetuate the memory of Edward Whelan in this province. Our free

schools, free lands, and self-government, with the well-tilled fields

and comfortable homes, which all over the province have taken the place

of the rude structures and neglected farms of the rent paying era, are

all monuments to his memory more lasting than freestone or marble. But

the people of Prince Edward Island need to erect a monument to his

memory to tell to future generations that we, who were the immediate

recipients of the benefits his patriotic heart, his gifted intellect,

and his eloquent tongue secured for us, are not ungrateful for or

forgetful of the great benefits he was so largely instrumental in

securing for this province.” In 1851 Mr. Whelan married Mary Major,

daughter of George Hughes, of the commissariat department at Halifax, by

whom he had two daughters, who died some time previous to his own

decease, which took place on the 10th of December, 1867. He had one son,

a promising young man, who perished by the upsetting of a boat in

Charlotte Harbor on the 1st of July, 1875, casting a deep gloom over the

city, and so adding to the bereaved wife and mother’s already

overflowing cup of affliction, that the chief justice was heard to say

on the occasion that if ever there was a time when the miracle of

raising the widow’s son could be fitly repeated it was then. His widow

is still living, and, in consideration of the great public services

rendered to the country by her husband, receives an annual grant from

the legislature. Her whole existence seems to be wrapt up in the memory

of her departed husband, and the one great desire of her life is to live

to see a suitable monument erected to his memory.

* * * * *

=Underhay, John Collier=, Farmer and Land Surveyor, Bay Fortune, M.P.P.

for Kings, First District, was born at Bay Fortune, in Kings county, in

the province of Prince Edward Island, on the 15th of January, 1829. He

is the only surviving son of William Underhay, who emigrated to Prince

Edward Island from Devonshire, England, in the year 1818, and married

Marianne Withers, daughter of James Withers, of the Commissariat

department, Somerset, England, and sister to J. C. Withers, the present

Queen’s printer of Newfoundland. The first months of their married life

were spent in one of the houses on Lord Townshend’s estate, which

Captain Marryat gives an account of the building of for the Irish

emigrants. It was first occupied by Pat. Pierce, who murdered Abel, the

steward or agent, at whose place the officers of the ship in which the

“naval officer” sailed stayed while Lord Townshend was settling his new

tenants on his estate, the nearest part of which was only about a mile

and a half from the harbor where the warship was lying, and close to

which the agent, Edward Abel, lived. After several removals, each one

diminishing the stock of money brought from the old country, until it

was about exhausted, they settled on the land which now comprises the

premises where the subject of this sketch was born, and now resides. He

received there a good common school education, and he completed his

studies with Robert Blacke Irving, who was then one of the best

mathematicians in the province. Having at a very early age closely

identified himself with the party who was contending for responsible

government, free schools, and free lands. At the age of twenty-four

years he was appointed a justice of the peace, the youngest person ever

appointed to that office in the province. Some years after he was

appointed a commissioner of the court for the trial of small debts at

Bay Fortune, and occupied the position of presiding judge in that court

until those courts gave place to the present county courts. In 1868 he

connected himself with the Independent Order of Good Templars, and in

1870 was elected grand chief of the province, a position which he has

since filled for two successive terms. In May, 1884, he was a delegate

to the Washington session of the Right Worthy Grand Lodge, and was

placed on several important committees; and has ever since his

connection with the order taken a leading part in the temperance

movement. In 1874, he contested, unsuccessfully, the first legislative

council district of Kings county, but in 1879 he was returned to

represent the first district of Kings county in the House of Assembly.

At the general election in 1882 he contested the second district

unsuccessfully; but at the next general election, in 1886, he was

returned for that district, which he now represents, in conjunction with

the leader of the government. He was formerly a Liberal in politics, but

lately has allied himself with the Liberal-Conservatives, whom he thinks

more fully represent the principles of the old Liberal party of his

province. As a justice of the peace Mr. Underhay has demonstrated more

successfully than any other officer in the province that the Canada

Temperance Act was workable in all its provisions, and only wanted

public sympathy and support to make it effectual in the suppression of

the liquor traffic. He has been the presiding magistrate in over fifty

suits for violation of its provisions, and not one of these has been set

aside or judgment reversed by subsequent legal proceedings. During the

survey for the Prince Edward Island Railway, he suggested several

alterations as to location, which time has demonstrated, and it is now

generally conceded, would have been great improvements had they been

adopted, and would have materially added to the utility of the line. He,

however, succeeded, in opposition to the official engineers, in getting

the present line through Souris to the Breakwater—a route which,

although universally admitted to be the best, was declared by the

engineers in charge to be impracticable. This route has proved to be not

only by far the most convenient, but the cheapest to construct. He was

brought up a member of the Church of England, but living amidst a

Presbyterian community, he is a regular attendant and supporter of the

Presbyterian church, and has for over fifteen years held the offices of

secretary and treasurer to the congregation. He took an active and

leading part in the erection of the new church at Bay Fortune. He has

been a trustee for the school district in which he resides continuously

for nearly a quarter of a century; and on every occasion that he was a

candidate for a seat in the legislature he received an almost unanimous

vote from the settlers for several miles around, without regard to

political or other party distinction. He is taking a leading part in the

present movement for the erection of a monument to perpetuate the memory

of the late Hon. E. Whelan, who, in conjunction with the Hon. G. Coles,

obtained for the province self-government, free schools and free lands,

and many other liberal reforms. On the 17th September, 1856, Mr.

Underhay was married to Rosaline, daughter of the late Hon. James

Craswell, M.L.C., a descendant of Sir Edward Craswell.

* * * * *

=Read, John=, Secretary-Treasurer and Manager of the Stratford Gas and

Electric Light Company, Stratford, Ontario, was born in South Petherton,

Somersetshire, England, on the 20th August, 1838. His parents were John

and Susan Read. He received his education in his native parish, and also

attended for a short time Billing’s Academy, near where he was born,

receiving a very meagre education, having to leave school when only

thirteen years of age to accompany his parents to America. Shortly after

his coming to Ontario, in February, 1852—he having arrived in Canada in

September, 1851—he was apprenticed to the late Mark Holmes, in London,

to learn the trade of carriage-making; and having faithfully served his

time and worked some time as a journeyman, he removed to Stratford in

May, 1862, which city he made his place of abode. In 1865 he entered

into partnership with John Humphrey, and they carried on the business of

carriage and waggon makers for some years. In 1875 he became a building

contractor, and continued as such until 1883, when he abandoned

business, and accepted the position of secretary-treasurer and manager

of the Stratford Gas and Electric Light Company, which office he still

holds. Mr. Read has been in public life for about twenty years, and has

held during that time the various offices of councillor, reeve, and

public and high school trustee. He has always taken a great interest in

the improvement of the city, and worked hard to secure for it a public

cemetery, under one management, in which the remains of both Protestants

and Catholics may be consigned to mother earth. He also took an active

part in the erection of the high and public school buildings, which are

a credit to the young city of Stratford. Mr. Read belongs to the order

of Oddfellows, and is a past representative of that body. He is a

Conservative in politics, and has held for several years the office of

president of the Conservative Association of Stratford. He, too, has

been president of the North Perth Agricultural Society, and while he

held office the new fair grounds were purchased and buildings erected

thereon. In religion he is an adherent of the Methodist church. He was

married on the 1st September, 1874, to Mary E. Taylor, whose parents are

of Irish descent, and live in Ohio, United States.

* * * * *

=Pope, Hon. Joseph=, ex-Auditor and Manager of the Savings Bank,

Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, was born on the 20th June, 1803, at

Turnchapel, Devon, England. His father was Thomas Pope, of Padstow,

Cornwall, England, and his mother, Annie Hase, of Barnstaple, Devon,

England. His grandfather was a substantial yeoman, who occupied his own

estate. Joseph was the sixth and youngest son, and his brothers almost

all distinguished themselves in their professions and callings. He

received his education at West Hore, parish of Plymstock, Devon,

England, and landed in Prince Edward Island in 1819, one year later than

his brothers, William and John, who had established themselves there as

merchants and shipowners. John returned to England in 1823, and William

in 1828, leaving Joseph to carry on the business on his own account at

Bedeque, where he afterwards remained for thirty-two years. In 1830 he

was elected to represent Prince county in the Legislative Assembly, and

occupied a seat in the house for twenty-three consecutive years, during

which period he was twice speaker for two full terms. In June, 1839, he

was appointed to a seat in the Executive Council, and in 1851, upon the

introduction of responsible government, was reappointed to the Executive

Council, and appointed treasurer of the island. In 1831 he was appointed

a justice of the peace; in 1832, a commissioner for taking special bail,

and for the recovery of small debts; also a sub-collector of customs,

and collector of inland revenue at Bedeque; in 1833, a deputy receiver

of land tax for Prince Edward Island; in 1837, a high sheriff of Prince

county; in 1843, a commissioner under the Act for the Relief of

Insolvent Debtors; in 1842, a commissioner for managing public shares in

Steamboat Company; and in 1844, a commissioner of Oyer and Terminer. In

1838, the Hon. Mr. Pope was sent to Canada, with the Hon. J. H. Howland,

Joseph Howe, Sir William Young, Dr. Dalrymple, and others, to confer

with Lord Durham regarding federal union, and he received the special

approbation of His Majesty William IV., for upholding the laws of the

colony. In 1847, with the Hon. Edward Palmer (now chief justice), he was

sent by the inhabitants with a petition to Her Majesty, signed by four

thousand two hundred electors, and approved of by the legislature,

praying for the removal of Lieut.-Governor Huntley; and whilst in

England, he conferred with Lord Gray with regard to the introduction of

responsible government, of which he was always an ardent advocate. On

his return to the island with Sir Donald Campbell (a new governor), he

received the thanks of the Assembly and people. As a member of the

Assembly, he originated the erection of the Colonial Building, and

obtained, through the influence of Lady Mary Fitzroy, a grant from the

Imperial government towards the erection of an insane asylum. With Dr.

Dalrymple, he obtained a satisfactory settlement of the glebe lands, and

was chiefly instrumental in bringing in the Road Compensation Act. In

1838 he moved the resolution for the separation of the Legislative and

Executive councils. In 1853, Hon. Mr. Pope resigned office, and was

absent from the island for about fifteen years. In 1868 he returned, and

in 1870 he was re-appointed to his old office of treasurer and manager

of the Savings Bank. In 1873, after confederation, he was appointed by

the Dominion government dominion auditor and manager of the Savings

Bank, and his appointment was confirmed by order-in-council in November

of the same year. But the Hon. Mr. Pope being a staunch Conservative, he

was dismissed from this office by the Mackenzie government a few weeks

after they came into power. However, he was almost immediately

afterwards appointed provincial treasurer by the Island government, and

two years later, commissioner of Crown and Public lands, which office he

held until his reappointment as auditor and manager of the Savings Bank,

in June, 1880. On the 30th of June, 1883, he retired from office, and

has since resided at Summerville, Prince Edward Island. The Hon. Mr.

Pope has for many years taken an interest in military affairs. As early

as 1828, he was appointed captain in the Prince county militia; in 1837,

he was major commanding; and in 1853, he was gazetted

lieutenant-colonel. In religion, he is a member of the Church of

England. He has been married three times, but had no children except by

his first wife, Lucy, who was a daughter of Captain Colledge, of the

First Royal Regiment of foot, of which the Duke of Kent was colonel. His

only children, William Henry, and James Colledge, are both mentioned in

this volume. He spent the year 1848 in Great Britain, and there married

Eliza M. Cooke, of Liverpool, his present wife. In 1853 he fitted up a

vessel and started for Australia, but owing to the sufferings of his

wife from seasickness, had to abandon the voyage at Liverpool, where he

then remained for the next fifteen years.

* * * * *

=McCallum, George Alexander=, M.D., Dunnville, Ontario, was born in

Toronto, on the 23rd April, 1843. His parents were George McCallum, who

was a native of Jedburgh, Scotland; and Jane Sangster, of London,

England. The father’s family were of Highland origin, and the mother’s

Lowland Scotch. Dr. McCallum was educated at Stouffville, Ontario, and

at the age of seventeen, having gained a second-class certificate he

began teaching school, and for two years taught at Ringwood, township of

Markham. He then took up the study of medicine, under the late Dr.

Andrew Lloyd, at Stouffville, and graduated M.D. at Victoria University,

Cobourg, in 1866, and began the practice of his profession. He moved to

Dunnville in 1868, since which time he has enjoyed a large practice. In

1882 Dr. McCallum entered political life and contested the county of

Monck for a seat in the Dominion parliament, against Lachlan McCallum,

but the county having been gerrymandered a short time before, he was

defeated by a small majority. In 1887, at the general election of that

year, the doctor again presented himself for parliamentary honors, but

was defeated by Arthur Boyle. This time the county had been further

manipulated by the new Franchise Act. He has always been a staunch

Liberal; and in religion he is an adherent of the Presbyterian church.

Dr. McCallum was married to Flora Eakins, of Sparta, Ontario, on the

21st September, 1870, by whom four children have been born, two sons and

two daughters.

* * * * *