Chapter M: C. Baillairgé, Quebec (55)

=Lefebvre, Guillaume=, Waterloo, P.Q., was born at Laurenceville, in the province of Quebec, on the 19th of February, 1856. He was educated at the Knowlton academy, afterwards taking a course at Bryant & Stratton’s business college, in Montreal. He was in the lumber trade from 1873 to 1877, with his brother, Joseph H. Lefebvre, and then bought him out. His business as lumber dealer and furniture manufacturer, at Waterloo, Quebec province, has continued to increase, and is now in a most prosperous condition, employing a large number of hands. He was married on the 16th of June, 1885, to Alphonsine Maynard, of St. John’s, Quebec, and they have one child.

* * * * *

=McIlwraith, Thomas=, Hamilton, Ontario, Coal Merchant, and the leading Ornithologist in Canada, was born in Newton, Ayr, Scotland, on the 25th of December, 1824. He received an ordinary education at the schools there, and early in 1846 went to reside in Edinburgh, where he remained till about the close of 1848. Returning at that time to his native town, he remained there till the latter part of 1853, when he arranged to come to Hamilton, Canada, to superintend the gas works of that city. In October of that year he married Mary, daughter of Bailie Hugh Park, a friend of his school days, and he and his bride landed in Hamilton, on the 9th November, 1853, at a point very near the property he has since purchased, and where he now resides with his family. He remained in the position of manager of the gas works till 1871, when he bought the Commercial Wharf, with the coal and forwarding business then being carried on by John Procton, and has since continued to carry on this business in the same premises. He has been successful in business, and has brought up four sons and three daughters, the youngest of the family, K. C. McIlwraith, who partakes largely of his father’s love of nature, being now attending the University in Toronto. In politics Mr. McIlwraith has always been a Liberal, but he has never taken an active part in political contests. Since attaining manhood he has been a member of the Presbyterian church. He has held many prominent positions in the directorate of banks, insurance companies, etc., and was for many years president of the Mechanics’ Institute, and in 1878 represented the ward in which he resides in the city council. But it is as a naturalist that he is best known in Canada. Possessing from early childhood a strong love of nature in all its forms, the insects, plants, and specially the birds of Scotland were familiar to him at an early age. His first summer in Canada was therefore to him the entrance to a new world. The liberty of roaming at will through the woods without such restraints as exist in older lands; the new and varied forms of plant and bird life which he met were a continual source of delight, and made an impression which time has not been able to efface. His attention was now specially directed to the birds, and there being no published books to serve as guides to the identifying of the species he might find here, he prepared a paper on the subject, with a list of such birds as he had obtained, and read it before the Hamilton Association, which was organized about that time for the study of scientific subjects. The list appeared in the _Canadian Journal_ for July, 1860, and the paper in the same journal in January, 1861; they attracted the attention of ornithologists in the United States, and in 1865 he prepared, by request, an extended list of birds observed near Hamilton, which list appeared in the proceedings of the Essex Institute for 1866. During the years that succeeded, the study still occupied many of his spare hours, and was the subject of occasional notes to the magazines. In 1883 he attended by invitation a meeting of the leading ornithologists of the United States. This meeting, which was held in the library of the Central Park Museum, New York, was called to consider and revise the classification and nomenclature of American birds, resulted in the organization of the now well-known American Ornithologist Union, of which he had thus the honor of being one of the founders. In this connection he was appointed superintendent of the district of Ontario for the migration committee of the union, and did considerable work in appointing observers throughout Ontario to note the arrival and departure of the migratory birds. There being still a want of a suitable text book for beginners in the study of ornithology, he was urged by many to give the public the benefit of his knowledge on this subject. This he did in a book of 300 pages, in which upwards of 300 species of birds, with their nests, eggs, etc., are minutely and correctly described, the MS. of which he presented to the Hamilton Association. Sir William Dawson has highly spoken of it, and Dr. S. P. May, superintendent of Mechanics’ Institutes and Art Schools for Ontario, says:—“I have carefully examined the ‘Birds of Ontario,’ by Mr. McIlwraith, superintendent of the district of Ontario for the migration committee of the American Ornithologist Union. It contains a most graphic description of Canadian birds, their habits, nests and eggs, and distribution, and will be of valuable assistance to persons interested in the study of natural history. I may mention that, as an ornithologist, I have frequently been associated with Mr. McIlwraith during the past twenty-five years, and I consider him to be one of the most practical and best authorities on Canadian birds on this continent. The book should be in every mechanics’ institute and public library in this country, and I have great pleasure in recommending it for that purpose.” Mr. McIlwraith’s strong love of the subject led him at an early date to preserve and mount his own specimens. His thorough knowledge of the attitudes of the birds when in life enabled him to do this most successfully, and he has now one of the largest, if not the largest, and best prepared private collections in the Dominion. And what is more, he is always pleased to show it to those interested. He has confined his attention chiefly to birds of Britain and America, but has also a few from the far off islands of the sea.

* * * * *

=Fiske, Edward=, Lumber Merchant, Joliette, Quebec, was born at Abbotsford, Quebec province, on the 5th September, 1841. His parents were Ebenezer Fiske and Eliza Bradford. He was educated in his native place, and received a sound commercial education. Adopting commerce as a profession, he was very successful, and is now possessed of large means. He holds land property in Montreal and St. Jerome, and at the latter place has a hardware store, conducted under the firm name of Treffle, Cote & Co., and in which a paying business is done. He is also owner of two saw mills in which a large quantity of lumber is shipped to the Montreal and other markets in Canada. In Joliette he has erected a handsome block of buildings, known as the “Fiske Block,” and this has turned out a good investment. In short Mr. Fiske may be classed among what some people call the “lucky ones,” but we are rather inclined to the belief that his luck has come from close attention to business, and making the most of favorable circumstances as they presented themselves, rather than from what he could not control. He went to Montreal in 1860, and was employed in a wholesale hardware store until 1865, and from there he went into the cotton business in Georgia and Florida for two years, and then returned to New York state, where he continued business, and remained until 1869, and since then at Joliette. Last year (1887) Mr. Fiske crossed the Atlantic, and visited Glasgow, London, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, France, etc.; during those travels he was very observant, and picked up a store of useful information. On the 2nd October, 1867, he was married to Emma E. S. Elliott, daughter of John Elliott, wholesale grocer, Montreal.

* * * * *

=Barry, Denis=, B.C.L., Barrister, of Montreal, takes rank among the most distinguished Irishmen of Canada. Born in the city of Cork in the year 1835, he, early in life, emigrated from Ireland to America with his father, James Barry, who is still living at Rockwood, Ont. The Barry family is one of the oldest in the south of Ireland, and has furnished many brave and able men to the army and navy, the bench and the bar, and the other liberal professions of the United Kingdom. The father of the American navy, Commodore Jack Barry, belonged to that branch of the Barry family from which the subject of this sketch is descended. His mother, Hannah Kelleher, was a daughter of Captain Kelleher, who served with distinction in the service of the Hon. East India Company. Mr. Barry began his education at the common school and continued his studies at Rockwood Academy. Subsequently he went through a classical course at Regiopolis College, Kingston, Ont. Studied theology for some time at the Grand Seminary and at Laval University, and law at McGill University, where he graduated as B.C.L. Entered the volunteer service of Canada as lieutenant in the St. Jean Baptiste Company, Montreal, M. W. Kirwan, captain, in 1877; was promoted to the captaincy of the same company and remained in command thereof till the corps was merged in the 85th battalion, when he retired, went through the Military School, Montreal, and obtained the certificate that entitled him to his rank. Is now joint fire commissioner for the city of Montreal. Has been president of St. Patrick’s Society of Montreal, for four years consecutively. Is past-president of the Young Men’s Reform Club of Montreal. Has taken an active part in political contests, both provincial and federal; also in municipal affairs, having been an unsuccessful candidate for alderman in St. Ann’s Ward, Montreal, in 1882. Mr. Barry is of the same faith as his forefathers—a Roman Catholic—and has never changed his religious views. Mr. Barry had experience of backwoods life as a settler on a free grant farm on the Hastings road in 1856, at that time one of the wildest parts of Upper Canada, but now a beautiful and prosperous region. He also engaged in the lumbering business for some time on the York branch of the Madawaska river, Ontario; subsequently he was engaged in the crown lands office, on the Opeongo road, with Mr. T. P. French, now post-office inspector, Ottawa district. Since his adoption of the profession of the law, Mr. Barry has resided at Montreal, where he has achieved a very high position. He is particularly noted as a _nisi prius_ practitioner, and has conducted a large number of famous cases successfully. As a speaker, Mr. Barry is not surpassed at a bar distinguished for the oratorical abilities of its members, while, in his addresses before popular audiences, he comes up to the best standard of the times. Personally, the writer of this sketch can bear testimony, he is one of the most genial and kind-hearted of men. Ever foremost in all good works, and as the champion of his less fortunate countrymen, Mr. Barry is endeared to all who know him, and beloved in all the relations of home and friendship. He married, in 1869, Kathleen, daughter of the late Michael Morgan, merchant, of Sorel, P.Q., a lady distinguished as much for amiability and goodness as for her charming personality. The union has been blest with a large family.

* * * * *

=Pettit, Rev. Charles Biggar=, M.A., Rector of Cornwall, was born at Grimsby, Ontario, in 1827. His father, Andrew Pettit, was an honest and successful farmer, a leading churchman and a tory of the old school. His grandfather was a United Empire loyalist, and one of the first settlers in the township of Grimsby. He was educated at King’s College, Toronto, graduated at McGill College, Montreal, and was ordained from the Diocesan Theological Institution, Cobourg, by the first bishop of Toronto. His first mission was that vast field lying between Guelph and the northern shores of Lake Huron—then almost a dense wilderness, now thickly settled and studded with churches. In 1852 he was admitted to priest’s orders, and appointed to Burford, in the county of Brant. In 1855 he was presented to the rectory of Richmond, in the county of Carleton, where he ministered for more than twenty-two years, and where he took an active part in the educational work of the county, and with what success an address presented to him in 1877 by one hundred and four leading men of the city of Ottawa and of the county of Carleton, accompanied by a large purse, only slightly indicates. In 1877 he was presented to the rectory of Cornwall, and also to a canonry in St. George’s Cathedral, Kingston, and shortly after appointed rural dean of Stormont. The most interesting event to the public in his parochial career at Cornwall was the consecration of the Bishop Strachan Memorial Church, which partook of a state ceremony and was attended by his Honor J. B. Robinson, lieutenant-governor, who read the _mandate_; by the Hon. George A. Kirkpatrick, speaker of the House of Commons; by the clergy of the town, by the judges, the sheriff, the mayor and members of the town council, and by a very large number of parishioners. In 1852 he married Helen Clara, only daughter of the late Colonel Thomas Parker, of Belleville, by whom he has three sons and five daughters.

* * * * *

=Dunbar, James=, Q.C., Quebec, is one of the leading members of the Quebec bar, at which he has been a successful practitioner for upwards of thirty years. As his name indicates, he is of Scottish extraction. His father, the late Ferguson Dunbar, was paymaster of the 74th Highlanders, and married while serving with his regiment in Ireland, where our subject was born in the year 1833. Educated in the Gosport Naval Academy, and other well-known schools of the United Kingdom and at the Quebec High School, Mr. Dunbar turned his attention early in life to journalism, and for a time was editor of the Quebec _Morning Chronicle_, then the leading daily of the ancient capital. The period was one of great political excitement in Canada. The public mind was agitated by questions of such burning importance as the secularization of the clergy reserves, and the abolition of the seigniorial tenure in Lower Canada. As a journalist at the head of one of the chief newspapers of the day, Mr. Dunbar not only distinguished himself as a terse, critical and vigorous writer, but as such did much to shape the course of events and of legislation. He always, however, evinced a taste for the law, and after occupying the editorial chair of the _Chronicle_ with marked success for about five years he gave up newspaper life to devote himself to the study of Blackstone and Pothier. In his new profession he made rapid headway under the tuition of the late Mr. Secretan, a well-known practitioner at Quebec, and at the age of twenty-two was duly called to the Lower Canada bar, when he formed a partnership with Mr. Secretan, which subsisted until the latter’s death. Thenceforward his success was assured, but it was not won in a day. Gradually the talented and energetic young lawyer worked his way, not only in public estimation, but into the front ranks of the profession, and in 1873, simultaneously with his commission from England as registrar of the Vice-Admiralty Court at Quebec, he received from the Dominion government one of the great objects of professional ambition, the silk gown of a Queen’s counsel, in recognition of his abilities and standing at the bar. These were further acknowledged in 1878 by his appointment as Crown prosecutor for the district of Quebec. In this prominent and responsible position, which he filled with general acceptance down to 1887, he distinguished himself as much by his humanity as by his ability, and his name remains honorably connected with the administration of criminal justice in Quebec, and with all the cases of importance which were tried before the courts of the ancient capital during a period of nine years. Always conspicuous for his sound judgment, thorough knowledge of the law and keen perception of the intricacies of the case, his manner of examining witnesses was especially admirable, his questions being always to the point and put in such a way as to bring out the needed answer even from the most reluctant witness in the box, while his addresses to the jury were always clear, precise and remarkable not only for their logic but for their skill in sifting and summarizing evidence. He is a good speaker, his manner being pleasing but forcible, and his deportment always gentlemanly. As an exponent of maritime law he is admitted to have few equals at the bar of Canada. In 1875 his colleagues of the Quebec bar paid him the compliment of electing him their _bâtonnier_, and he has been for some years chairman of the board of examiners of law students. A churchman of broad views, he has been a delegate to the diocesan and provincial synods of the Church of England, in which capacity he has always maintained his own. His masonic record is prominent. He has filled all the principal offices of the craft in the Blue lodge, and is now a past grand principal of the Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons of Canada, and past grand master of the Grand Lodge of Quebec. In 1862 he married Emma Amelia, daughter of James Poole, jr., of the Commissariat department, Montreal, and by her has had issue a son (who is now also a Quebec barrister and LL.M. of Laval University), and two daughters. Mr. Dunbar is an indefatigable worker, estimable as a citizen and agreeable and cordial in manner. He has never entered public life, but his politics are understood to be moderate Conservative.

* * * * *

=Meek, Edward=, Barrister, Toronto, was born in the village of Port Stanley, Ontario, on the 27th December, 1845. His father, James Meek, came to Canada at the early age of three years with his parents, in 1817, from Ballymena, North of Ireland, and they settled in the same year in Talbot district, and took up a large tract of land near Port Stanley, being one of the earliest pioneers of that part of the country. At the time of Edward’s birth his father was conducting a foundry, which he carried on successfully for a number of years; but owing to a disastrous conflagration, which destroyed the whole of the extensive establishment, he returned to his farm again, on which he has remained till the present time. Edward received his early education at the Port Stanley school, and afterwards at the Grammar School, St. Thomas. After leaving school, at the age of seventeen, he was granted a certificate to teach, which occupation he followed for three years. He then accepted a position as bookkeeper in a grain warehouse, at which he continued for a short time only; but thinking a short journey among strangers would improve his prospects, he went to Boston and engaged with the publishing house of a prominent firm there. After a short sojourn he returned to London, Ontario, and there commenced the study of law. In 1873 he removed to Toronto, where he continued his studies and finished his law course in the office of Harrison, Osler and Moss, three gentlemen who afterwards became distinguished judges. He was called to the bar of Ontario in the spring of 1874, and he then formed a partnership with the Hon. John O’Donohoe, which continued for three years, when it was dissolved. He then opened an office of his own until he formed a partnership with William Norris, of Woodstock, which lasted till Mr. Norris returned to Woodstock. In 1877 he commenced to take an active part in the politics of the country, and especially in the promotion of the national policy; in fact he was one of the originators of the work, and travelled over Ontario assisting in the formation of political organizations to enable the government to carry their national policy to a successful issue. He continued from that time to take an active part as one of the leading political writers and speakers on the platform until the winter of 1884, when he and a number of other politicians conceived the idea of forming a coalition government for the province of Ontario, their object being to do away with partyism in the local legislature. Others were brought into the scheme who were impatient of the slow method of bringing about the change by argument, and thought that a sufficient number of the members of the legislature could be secured by offers and promises to at once defeat the Mowat government, when the coalition could be immediately formed during the spring session of 1884. The plans were disapproved of by the originators of the idea, but the hot heads could not be kept under control, and the public know the result of the unfortunate conspiracy case which sprung from it, involving those more actively concerned in the long and tedious investigation and prosecution before a Royal commission and in the criminal courts. The Royal commission brought in a divided report, which the house never acted upon. The verdict of the jury in the criminal court, in the trial of May, 1885, acquitted the accused. Since that time Mr. Meek has devoted himself strictly to the practice of his profession in Toronto, and the promotion and formation of joint stock and other companies. Mr. Meek was joined in marriage on the 30th June, 1873, to Anna Margaret McBride, daughter of Samuel McBride, of London, Ontario, by which union they have issue two sons and one daughter. Mr. Meek and family are members of the Church of England.

* * * * *

=Smith, Andrew=, F.R.C.V.S. (Eng.), Principal of the Ontario Veterinary College, Toronto, is a native of the “Land o’ Burns,” having been born in Ayrshire, Scotland. He received his early educational training in Dalrymple, his native parish, and going to Edinburgh, entered the Veterinary College of that city, where he passed a brilliant course of study, carrying off the highest honors, and five medals. He graduated in 1861, and after coming to Canada settled in Toronto, where he has since led a busy professional life. He is the founder and principal of the Ontario Veterinary College, Toronto, and consulting veterinary surgeon of the Board of Agriculture of Ontario. For three years Professor Smith occupied the position of president of the Caledonian Society of Toronto; was worshipful master of St. Andrew’s lodge of A. F. & A. M. during the year 1874-5, and is a director of the Industrial Exhibition of Toronto. He is also a member of the executive committee of the Toronto Jockey Club, and master of the Toronto Hunt. In religion Mr. Smith is a Presbyterian.

* * * * *

=Guy, Michel Patrice=, Notary Public, Montreal, was born at Montreal on the 18th May, 1809. He is a son of Etienne Guy and Catherine Valée. The Guy family is probably the oldest family in the Dominion, being descended from the French Count, Guy de Montfort, a general in King Charles’ army of France, and close relation to the king. The first of the family to leave France was Pierre Guy, who came to Canada at the commencement of the seventeenth century, and married Madame de la Lande in November, 1723. He entered the army as an ensign, under M. de Beauharnois, who had succeeded de Vaudreuil in the government of New France, where he served with great distinction. He advanced rapidly, being made captain in 1748, and greatly distinguished himself at Louisburg. He died April, 1748. Pierre Guy, his eldest son was born at Ville-Marie (Montreal,) 11th December, 1738, and educated at the Jesuits’ College and the _Petit Séminaire de Quebec_. Having a great aptitude for science, he was sent to France to complete his course; when he returned to Canada, war was then going on with England. He entered the army under General de Montcalm, and took part at Oswego and Fort William Henry in the series of brilliant victories which should always render his name dear to Canadians. He also took part in the battles of Carillon and Montmorency, where he was greatly praised for his martial ardor and bravery. He was also at the battle of the Plains of Abraham, which was fatal to the French. He returned to France after the capitulation of Montreal, where he remained until 1764, when he returned to Canada. After some time he again took up the sword against General Montgomery. He was made lieutenant-colonel of the militia, and a few years afterwards, in 1802, was made colonel. He died in January, 1812. Pierre was buried with military honors by the militia as well as by the 49th regiment, which was then garrisoned in Montreal. Louis Guy was born on the 28th June, 1768, studied law, and obtained from Sir Robert Shore Milnes a commission as notary in 1801. In recognition of past services, Lord Aylmer named him notary to his Majesty (Royal notary) in 1830, a position now abolished. When the second American invasion came, he took arms against the enemy. He was then major of the 5th battalion of militia, and as a recompense for his great military services, Sir James Kempt appointed him colonel of the militia for the county of Montreal. On the 23rd February, 1837, through the representations of Sir James Kempt, William IV. summoned him to the Council. He was most intimate with Lord Aylmer, who often spent days with him at his house, which was surrounded with the largest gardens then in Montreal. He died at Montreal in February, 1840. Hippolyte Guy, son of the Hon. F. Guy and Dame J. Curot, was born in Montreal on the 3rd July, 1800, and was educated for the law. He held a great reputation as a jurisconsult, and was made judge of the Superior Court. Louis Guy, eldest brother of the above, entered the British army as lieutenant in the 81st regiment of the line. This command was given him by the Duke of Wellington, in consideration of his bravery at Chateauguay, where, as captain of the _Voltigeurs_, he commanded the advance posts. Years before entering the British army he served in France in the body guards of Charles X. During some time he was made deputy adjutant-general of the militia of Lower Canada, in conjunction with the Hon. Juchereau Duchesnay. This charge being abolished, he was recalled to his regiment, then garrisoned at Trinidad, in the West Indies. He was hardly returned when he was attacked with yellow fever, and died on the island of St. Kitts, on 27th March, 1841. He had served with great distinction in Spain and Malta, and at the time of his death held the rank of major. The officers of his regiment erected a large monument to his memory. His eldest sister married Colonel de Salaberry. Michel Patrice Guy was educated at Montreal College, where he received a classical education, and afterwards studied law. He was admitted to the practice of the notarial profession on the 5th May, 1831. He became lieutenant-colonel in the 10th battalion Montreal militia during the troubles of 1837. He was one of the promoters of the Montreal wharves, and one of the founders of the Montreal College. A street, extending over a mile in length, running through the breadth of the city of Montreal was named after him, and is now known as Guy street. Mr. Guy was seriously wounded during the Gavazzi riots in Montreal. He was standing some distance away from the rioters when he was struck by a ball in the leg, and it was a question of life or death with him for a long while afterwards, being confined in his bed for fourteen months. Mr. Guy possesses one of the finest collections of old family parchments and documents, as well as many important letters. In politics he is a Liberal, and in religion a member of the Roman Catholic church. He was married on the 19th of December, 1869, to Dame Julie F. Schiller, sister of the late Charles E. Schiller, clerk of the Crown. His two sons, E. C. P. and G. L. H. Guy, are the only remaining members of the family in Canada.

* * * * *

=Thompson, David=, Northwest Pioneer Geographer.—The late Mr. Thompson was born in the parish of St. John, Westminster, England, the 30th April, 1770. He was educated at the “Blue Coat School,” London, and was perhaps for a short time a student at Oxford. When about nineteen he must have entered the service of the Hudson’s Bay Company, as in October, 1789, his journal opens at the company’s establishment at Cumberland House. An account of various journeys and surveys in the Northwest Territory of Canada then follows to May 23, 1797, when he left the service of the Hudson’s Bay Company and entered that of the North-West Company. After a number of explorations he started on foot, February 25, 1798, with a dog-team to connect the waters of the Red River and the Mississippi, thence over to Lake Superior. On April 27th he reached Turtle Lake, from which flows “Turtle Brook,” which he states to be the source of the Mississippi, since it is from here that the river takes the most direct course to the sea. Thus to this indefatigable, but hitherto almost unknown, geographer, belongs the honor of discovering the head waters of that great river. The first who is stated to have travelled through the country north of Red Cedar Lake was J. C. Beltrami, an Italian gentleman, who accompanied Major Long’s expedition as far as Pembina. He ascended Bloody (Red Lake) River to Red Lake, and from thence followed Thompson’s route to Turtle Lake, whence he descended the Mississippi to its mouth. This was in the summer of 1823, nine years after Thompson had recorded his discoveries on his map of the North-West Territories of Canada in 1813-14, now in possession of the government of Ontario. On May 10th he reached Fond-du-Lac House, two miles and a half up the river from Lake Superior. From here he surveyed the south shore of Lake Superior, arriving at the Falls of Ste. Marie on May 28th. After several journeys in the interior, we find him at Isle à la Crosse, where he was married June 10, 1799, to Charlotte Small, a young girl who had not yet entered her fifteenth year. After many very interesting explorations he re-surveyed the northern shore of Lake Superior in August, 1812. Before October of the same year he had arrived at Terrebonne, in Lower Canada, where he took up his residence and spent the two following years in preparing a map of Western Canada for the North-West Company, on a scale of about fifteen miles to an inch, from the observations he had made and the places he had visited during the previous twenty years. From 1816 to 1826 he was engaged in surveying and defining the boundary line, on the part of Great Britain, between Canada and the United States. In 1834 he surveyed Lake Francis. In 1837 he made a survey of the canoe route from Lake Huron to the Ottawa river, and a few years later he made a survey of Lake St. Peter. His last years were spent either in Glengarry county, Ontario, or in Longueuil, opposite Montreal, where he died on the 16th of February, 1857, at the age of nearly eighty-seven years. His wife survived him by only about three months. They are both buried in the Mount Royal Cemetery, Montreal. He died in extreme poverty, and it was due to the kindness of some of his old friends that he received a Christian burial. H. H. Bancroft, who has collected very many interesting details about the old travellers and traders in the west, gives the following account of his personal appearance:—“David Thompson was an entirely different order of man from the orthodox fur trader. Tall and fine-looking, of sandy complexion, with large features, deep-set, studious eyes, high forehead and broad shoulders, the intellectual was well set upon the physical. His deeds have never been trumpeted as those of some of the others, but in the westward exploration of the North-West Company no man performed more valuable service or estimated his achievements more modestly.”

* * * * *

=Davie, George Taylor=, Levis and Quebec, is one of the prominent figures in the shipping trade of the port of Quebec, and few men of his day have done more to promote it, as well as to lessen the perils incidental to the navigation of the St. Lawrence. He was born in the city of Quebec, in the year 1828. His parents were both English—his father being the late Alison Davie, master mariner, of Yarmouth, England, and his mother Miss Taylor, daughter of the late George Taylor, of Shields, who came to Canada in 1811, establishing himself at Quebec, and was for many years a leading ship-builder at that port. In 1827, Mr. Taylor, acting under instructions from the Earl of Dalhousie, then governor-general of Canada, built at his yard in Quebec, a splendid gun-brig or frigate named the _Kingfisher_, for the Imperial naval service. The Quebec _Gazette_ of the 17th May, 1827, reporting the launching of this vessel three days previously, and the ceremonial on the occasion, referred in the most commendatory terms to the beauty of its model, and to Mr. Taylor’s skill and enterprise as a shipwright, mentioning also the presentation to him, by the governor-general, of a magnificent silver cup as a memento of the event. This precious _souvenir_, which is of massive silver, and valued at £40 sterling, bears the arms of the Dalhousie family and a suitable inscription, and is surmounted by a cover the handle of which is formed by a beautifully chiselled figure of the unicorn. The whole is encased in a handsome mahogany box, and preserved as a cherished heirloom in the family of Mr. Taylor’s descendants, being now in the possession of his grandson, G. T. Davie, the subject of this sketch. The _Kingfisher_, which carried eighteen guns, was afterwards sent to England under the command of Captain Rayside, who was, later on, deputy harbor-master at Quebec, and, still later, harbor-master of Montreal. Mr. Davie was educated at Gale’s boarding school, at St. Augustin, some twenty-five miles from Quebec, but was taken early from school to learn the trade of the shipwright. Arrived at the age of manhood, he went into the shipbuilding business on his own account, and successfully built a large number of ocean vessels, as well as river, tug and passenger boats; he came into possession of the patent slip at Levis, opposite Quebec, on the death of his father, who, in 1832, first introduced it, which bears his name, and which has proved of such immense advantage to the shipping trade of the St. Lawrence. This valuable convenience he still runs in connection with his floating docks and the wrecking business, in which he has been engaged with the greatest success for some years. Indeed it is no exaggeration to say that Mr. Davie’s improved appliances for raising and saving wrecks, and his skill and enterprise in that line, have been the means of rescuing millions worth of property from total loss in the river and gulf of St. Lawrence, and fairly constitute him a public benefactor. Among the more important property of this kind which he has snatched from destruction on Anticosti, St. Pierre, Miquelon, and elsewhere, may be mentioned the steamships _Corean_, of the Allan line, _Vendolana_, _Warwick_, _River_, _Ettrick_, _Colina_, _Douro_, _Amaryllis_, _Titanic_, and _Lake Huron_. In some instances the salvages of these vessels was a real feat of skill and daring without parallel in the history of the wrecking business on the St. Lawrence, and Mr. Davie can fairly lay claim to the title of the most successful of Canadian wreckers. The first vessel to be docked and repaired in the new graving dock was the s. s. _Titania_, which Mr. Davie had successfully hauled off Anticosti, where it would have been otherwise doomed to destruction, having been condemned by surveyors and bought from underwriters by him. The execution of the repairs to this vessel, also by Mr. Davie, further proved that work of this magnitude can now be done as well in Canada as on the Clyde. Indeed, Mr. Davie has erected at the Levis graving dock repair shops, as complete in all respects as the best on the other side of the Atlantic, and the shipping trade of the St. Lawrence has been thus provided with an important and long needed facility which must tend to its increase and prosperity. In other respects, also, Mr. Davie is known as a public-spirited citizen. He has served for about ten years in the town council of Levis as the representative of Lauzon ward, and is a large employer of labor on that side of the river. On the 3rd of September, 1860, he married Mary Euphemia Patton, daughter of the late Duncan Patton, of Indian Cove, in his day one of the great lumber merchants of Quebec, and by her has issue a number of children, who are still in their teens. He has travelled considerably in Canada, England, and the United States, but always on business.

* * * * *

=Kenny, Thomas Edward=, M.P. for the County of Halifax, N.S., was born in Halifax city on the 12th October, 1833. He is the eldest son of the Hon. Sir Edward Kenny, knight, former member of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada. There were two young Irishmen, Thomas and Edward Kenny, natives of county Kerry, who came to Halifax in 1824, and there, four years later, established the wholesale dry goods house of T. & E. Kenny. Sir Edward Kenny was born in 1800, and married, in 1832, Anne, daughter of Michael Forrestall. He and his wife are still living in green old age. He has been for sixty years a leading representative of the Catholics in Halifax, having been mayor of the city, twice president of the Charitable Irish Society (the great Irish social organization of Halifax), a director of the Union Bank, and also of the Merchants Bank of Halifax, and a commissioner for signing provincial notes. He sat in the Legislative Council for twenty-six years, during eleven of which he was president of that body. Upon the forming of Sir John A. Macdonald’s first government under confederation, in July, 1867, Sir Edward Kenny was sworn in a privy councillor, and appointed receiver-general in the ministry. He held this office until October, 1869, when he was transferred to the presidency of the privy council. He retired from the cabinet in May, 1870, when he was appointed administrator of the government of Nova Scotia. He was created a knight by her Majesty in September, 1872. He never represented a constituency in the House of Commons, but sat in the Senate from 1867 to 1870, when he resigned. During all these years he and his brother Thomas carried on the dry goods business, and on retiring from its management placed it in the hands of T. E. Kenny, under whom it has grown and prospered. Thomas Kenny built himself a handsome residence on the borders of Bedford Basin, not far from the Duke of Kent’s classic lodge. It has recently been sold to a corporation for the use of the ladies of the Convent of the Sacred Heart, Spring Garden road, Halifax. The subject of this sketch was educated at Stonyhurst College, the great educational institution of the Jesuits in England, and also spent some time at St. Servais College, at Liege, in Belgium. Having finished his studies and his travels for that time, Mr. Kenny returned to Halifax, and assumed a position in the dry goods business. Of late years he has been extensively interested in shipbuilding, which he carried on in the counties of Kings, Hants, Colchester, Pictou and Cumberland. He was especially interested in shipbuilding with Alfred Putnam, of Maitland, the popular M.P. of Hants county. In 1866 he had built in England the iron ship Eskasoni, of 1,715 tons. A branch of the firm’s business is carried on in London, England, under the management of F. C. Mahon. In dry goods the firm does an extensive wholesale trade at their massive granite emporium at the corner of Granville and George streets, Halifax, employing a large staff of clerks and other employés, and keeping a number of travellers on the circuit in the maritime provinces. Mr. Kenny, like his father, is a man of great geniality, wit and common-sense. He has been president of the Charitable Irish Society, and is president of the Merchants Bank of Halifax, the bank doing, perhaps, the largest business in the city, excepting the Bank of Nova Scotia. He has been a warm friend of many new industries, having taken a prominent part in starting the N.S. Cotton Manufacturing Co., of which he is a director, as well as a large stockholder in the sugar refinery. When, two years ago, there was a disposition on the part of some of the shareholders to sell out the refinery and wind up the concern, Mr. Kenny took an active part in organizing a new company, and was instrumental in securing to Halifax the advantages of this great industry. Mr. Kenny is a director of the North Sydney Marine Railway Co.; a trustee of the Western Counties Railway Co.; and a member of the Royal Commission on Railways. His brother and business partner, Edward Kenny, was one of those Halifax merchants who were lost in the _City of Boston_, the Inman liner, which left Halifax in the early part of 1869, and was never afterwards heard of. Another of the family is a member of the Society of Jesus, who began life as a successful lawyer, but entered the priesthood. The youngest brother, Jeremiah F. Kenny, does business in Halifax as an insurance agent. A sister of theirs is the wife of M. Bowes Daly, ex-M.P. for Halifax county, and another is mother superior of the Convent of the Sacred Heart, Halifax. T. E. Kenny was married in New York, on the 2nd of October, 1856, to Margaret Jones, daughter of the Hon. M. Burke, of New York. He has several children and grandchildren. His eldest son, Captain Kenny, was an officer in the Halifax battalion which served during the Northwest rebellion in 1885. Mr. Kenny resides at a charming residence, called Thornvale, on the banks of the North-West Arm, about three miles from his warehouse in the city, and it is a lovely spot in summer, having abundant facilities for boating and bathing. Here, in the enjoyment of every beauty of wave and sky, surrounded by luxuries of every description, and furnished with everything that conduces to comfort and repose, the busy merchant and politician takes his ease. In the _rôle_ of politician Mr. Kenny, through the absorbing nature of his commercial pursuits, has never until lately taken a prominent position, but he has made his influence, though silently, none the less powerfully felt in the sphere of politics for many years. He has repeatedly been offered the nomination as standard-bearer in the House of Commons of the Halifax Conservatives, but, until the nomination was forced upon him, on the eve of the general election of February, 1887, never accepted. As a well-known Catholic in the city, his approbation of measures affecting his co-religionists has always been sought. He and John F. Stairs were the government candidates, and were opposed by such well-known and experienced men as the Hon. A. G. Jones, ex-minister of militia, and H. H. Fuller. The vote stood—Jones, 4,243; Kenny, 4,181, defeating Stairs, 4,099; Fuller, 4,098. Thus Messrs. Jones and Kenny represent Halifax county. Mr. Kenny distinguished himself during the campaign by his unfailing good nature, cheery Irish wit and great good judgment. In the Commons the same useful qualities have secured for him general respect and esteem. Although getting up in years, Mr. Kenny is possessed of a tall form and commanding presence, and enjoys vigorous health. He has probably many years ahead of him, during which honors and emoluments will be heaped upon him. Electors voted for Jones and Kenny because, according to the popular cry, they were the best men, quite independently of their political leanings. Few, if any, counties in the Dominion are better represented in parliament than Halifax, N.S.

* * * * *

=Rose, George Maclean=, Printer and Publisher, Toronto. A writer in “The Scot in British North America,” says that Mr. Rose has been so long and prominently associated with the development of Canadian literature that his name may well be introduced in this connection. He was born in Wick, Caithness-shire, Scotland, on the 14th of March, 1829, and learned the printing trade in the office of the _John O’ Groat Journal_. A year after he had attained his majority the family settled in Canada. He entered the employ of the late John C. Becket, of Montreal, who was then engaged in the publication of the Montreal _Witness_ and other journals. After the death of his father, which took place in 1853, the care of the family devolved upon him. The means at his command were but scanty, but in partnership with his elder brother, Henry, he started a small job-printing office, in Montreal, and by strict industry and economy they obtained a fair measure of success. In 1856 they dissolved partnership, George having become convinced that Western Canada offered more scope for his energies than Montreal. In connection with John Muir he established the _Chronicle_, in the village of Merrickville, but he did not remain there any length of time. Among his other engagements about this period, was that of city editor of the London _Prototype_. In 1858 he came to Toronto as manager of the printing office of Samuel Thompson, for whom he published the Toronto _Atlas_, started in opposition to the _Colonist_, which had taken ground adverse to the government of the day. Mr. Thompson having obtained the contract for government printing, Mr. Rose was assigned to take the management of the office in Quebec, whither he removed in 1859. This arrangement did not long continue. Mr. Thompson found himself unable financially to carry out his contract alone, and a company was organized for the purpose, including Mr. Rose and Robert Hunter, an experienced accountant. Mr. Thompson retired from the business altogether soon afterwards, leaving it to the new firm of Hunter, Rose & Co., who completed the contract and secured its renewal. On the removal of the seat of government to Ottawa in 1865, the firm of course followed. A large and lucrative business was soon built up, and in 1868 a branch was established at Toronto, the firm having secured a ten years contract for the printing of the Provincial government. In 1871 their relations with the Dominion government terminated, and the business was consolidated in Toronto. The firm now entered extensively into the business of publishing Canadian reprints of English copyright books, principally the popular novels of living writers, for which a ready market was found. The firm honestly compensated the authors whose works they reproduced, although this of course placed them at a disadvantage as compared with the piratical publishers of the United States. Another and probably a greater service to the intellectual progress of the country rendered by this enterprising firm, was the publication—at first for others, but latterly at their own risk—of the “Canadian Monthly,” the last and by far the best literary magazine ever issued in this country. This venture unfortunately did not prove pecuniarily successful, and though sustained for many years with a liberality and public spirit highly creditable to the publishers, was at length discontinued. In 1877 the death of Mr. Hunter left Mr. Rose the sole member of the firm, and a year afterwards he took his brother, Daniel, into the concern, the well-known firm name being still retained. Widely as George M. Rose is known to the Canadian people as a successful and enterprising publisher, he has acquired a still more extensive reputation by his unselfish exertions in the cause of temperance and moral reform. A life-long total abstainer and prohibitionist, he has taken an active part in temperance work in connection with various organizations. He has attained the highest offices in the gift of the Sons of Temperance in the Dominion, having been several times chosen to fill the chair of grand worthy patriarch of the order both in Quebec and Ontario, and has also held the second highest position conferrable by that order for the whole continent, having been most worthy associate of the National Division of America. His heart and purse are always open to the appeals for the advancement of the Temperance cause, which he regards as being of vastly more importance than mere party issues. Though a Liberal, politically, he regards all public issues from the standpoint of Temperance reform. Personally Mr. Rose is genial, sociable and unassuming. As his career shows, he has abundant business capacity, and the enthusiasm which forms so strong a feature of his character is well regulated by a fund of practical common sense. For a number of years Mr. Rose has been an active member of the Board of Trade. In 1881 he was elected vice-president of the board, and the following year (1882) was chosen president. On the expiration of his term of office, in 1883, he was elected treasurer, and has been annually re-elected to fill this office ever since. For a number of years he has also been a director of the Ontario Bank. In politics Mr. Rose is a prohibitionist, and in religion a Unitarian. In 1856 he was married to Margaret C. J. L. Manson, daughter of the late William Manson, farmer, Oxford county, and has had a family of ten children—nine of whom survive, six sons and three daughters.

* * * * *