CHARLES M. HAYSCHARLES M. HAYS
CHARLES M. HAYS
In 1886 he was appointed general manager of the road and the following year became general manager of the Wabash Western, comprising all of the Wabash lines west of the Mississippi and also between Chicago and Detroit. In 1889 he was appointed general manager of the reorganized and consolidated Wabash system and controlled the important and manifold interests of the railway for six years or until he resigned to become general manager of the Grand Trunk, succeeding L. J. Seargeant. Five years later he left the Grand Trunk to take the position of president of the Southern Pacific Railway Company but remained in that connection for only a year, as the railway passed under the control of the Harriman interests, whose policy differed from that of Mr. Hays. About that time he received a communication from Sir Charles Rivers Wilson, again offering him the position of general manager of the Grand Trunk and he returned to the latter road late in 1901 as second vice president and general manager. His connection therewith was continuous from that time until his demise, and on the retirement of Sir Charles Rivers Wilson in October, 1909, he was appointed president. In the meantime his connection with railway interests constantly broadened, making him one of the notable figures in railway circles on the American continent. He became president of the Central Vermont Railway, the Grand Trunk Western Railway, the Detroit, Grand Haven & Milwaukee Railway, the Toledo, Saginaw & Muskegon Railway, the Michigan Air Line Railway, the Chicago, Detroit and Canada Grand Trunk Junction Railway, the Detroit & Toledo Shore Line, the Southern New England Railway Company, the Canadian Express Company, the Grand Trunk Railway Insurance & Provident Society and of various corporations featuring largely as factors in commercial and industrial development. He was chosen to the presidency of the St. Clair Tunnel Company, the International Bridge Company, the Montreal Warehousing Company, the Portland Elevator Company and the New England Elevator Company. He also represented the Grand Trunk Western Railway as a director of the Chicago & Western Indiana Railway and Belt Railway of Chicago.
In 1905 he was made a member of the permanent commission of the International Railway Congress and also a director of the United States Mortgage & Trust Company. He was a delegate to the Imperial Trades Congress in 1903. He became a director of the Royal Trust Company and the Merchants Bank of Canada and a director of the Canadian Board of the London & Lancashire Life Assurance Company. He was also a director of the Montreal Horticultural and Fruit Growing Association—a fact which indicated much of the breadth of his interests. His executive ability was sought as an element in the successful management of various benevolent, charitable and philanthropic enterprises. He was a governor of the Montreal General Hospital, a governor of the Royal Victoria Hospital and a governor of the McGill University. In 1907 he was decorated with the Order of the Rising Sun (third class) by the emperor of Japan.
He was a man of remarkable personality. Obstacles and difficulties seemed but a stimulus for renewed effort on his part and he was neverhappier than when he could grasp an opportunity and utilize it to the fullest extent or untangle a knotty problem in railway management and control. Mr. Hays was a well known figure in club circles, belonging to the Mount Royal, St. James, Canada, Forest and Stream, Montreal Jockey, Montreal Hunt, St. Maurice Fish and Game Club and the Laurentian Club of Montreal and the Rideau Club of Ottawa. Sir Wilfrid Laurier had termed him “a valuable acquisition to Canada,” and the Montreal Witness said he was “a splendid example of what brains, pluck and industry can overcome and accomplish,” while the Montreal Standard styled him “a man of quiet dignity, whose sanity and strength are seen and felt in all his undertakings.”
Mr. Hays was survived by his widow, who was Miss Clara J. Gregg, a daughter of William H. Gregg of St. Louis, Missouri, and four daughters, Mrs. George D. Hall, of Boston, Mrs. Thornton Davidson, Mrs. A. Harold Grier and Mrs. Hope C. Scott, of Montreal.
One of the ships that hastened to the relief of the Titanic recovered the body of Mr. Hays, which was brought back to Montreal for interment and laid to rest following one of the most imposing funerals ever accorded a civilian in this city. Mr. Hays worshipped at the American Presbyterian church of Montreal and was one of its trustees, but retained his membership in the First Presbyterian church of St. Louis, Missouri, and in the memorial services held in the former on the 25th of April, 1912, a sermon by the Rev. Dr. McKittrick, pastor of the First Presbyterian church of St. Louis, following the death of Mr. Hays, was read. He said in part: “The colossal catastrophe of the seas which has so recently startled and dismayed the civilized world could not pass today entirely unnoted in the temples of the living God. Among those who went down to their unexpected and, it seems to our vision, their untimely death, there was no man who worthily had a higher position in the social, industrial and financial world than Mr. Charles M. Hays, president of the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada. Since commonly the boy is father of the man we might almost refer to him as ‘our Mr. Hays’ for he was once in our Sunday School, and afterwards a member of our Board of Trustees. His is an inspiring example to all our boys and to every boy in the land of what may be accomplished by rightful purpose, industry, determination, all these by the worthy motives which variously constitute character. It took all the elements which are found in a manly man to make first so notable a record as was his in this city, and then to create for himself the distinguished name and for his undertaking the great prosperity which concerning both the history of today reveals.”
The following reference to Mr. Hays’ life and work was made at the close of public worship in the American Presbyterian church, Montreal, on Sabbath, April 28th. Dr. Johnston said: “The subject that we have been considering this morning has unavoidably suggested to you, as it has to me, many thoughts regarding the life, the death and the work of Mr. Charles M. Hays whose loss our land mourns today.
“Much has already been said of Mr. Hays as the railway magnate, the man of enterprise, the devoted husband and father and the loyal friend. Upon these phases of his character I will not therefore further dwell, but there remains something to be said of that feature of his life which, though less conspicuous to the general public, nevertheless lay deep and strongbehind all these other characteristics, and was indeed the inspiration of them. We all in this congregation know the large place which Mr. Hays gave to the work and worship of the church, and the readiness with which his time and influence were always lent to its interests. He loved the House of God. That love, in a measure, was doubtless the result of early training in a home of whose deep religious character he ever loved to speak in terms of affection and appreciation. It was also due in part to his deep sense of what he owed in his place of great prominence to the community at large, and to a younger generation in particular, in the way of example. Most of all, however, it was due to his appreciation of the place that worship should have in every life, and to his deep sense of the need of every soul for those things that the House of God and its services can give. This attitude instead of lessening, as in so many lives it does, as responsibilities increased, and honours accumulated, deepened in Mr. Hays with the passing years.
“The continent-wide enterprises with which his name will always be associated were not simply enterprises and interests to him. They constituted a work, a ministry, which it was given him to administer for man, and through man for God. The tens of thousands for whom he had already thrown open the door of their exodus from European stagnation and oppression were his Israel, whom he, in God’s name, was leading out into liberty and larger life. These broad prairies and boundless stretches of Northern Saskatchewan and the Peace River district, those hitherto impassable Rockies, giving gateway to the flowering farmlands that slope toward the silver sands of the Pacific—these were his Canaan, which it was his to conquer, not with sword and clash of battle, but with genius and enterprise and the power of science, so that into the good ‘Land of Promise’ he might bring the oppressed peoples of the world, to make a nation strong in liberty and in righteousness.
“Did time permit I could tell you much of how Mr. Hays carried on his great heart, the toiling multitudes of earth and their needs, and of how it was to him a vision glorious that he was permitted in some measure to contribute to their uplift and redemption. He, too, like Israel’s leader, had looked upon the burdens of the people. To us it seems that, like Moses, he has been permitted only to view his promised land from afar. On the threshhold of completion he has been bidden to lay down his work. A broken column? A work incomplete? Yes, if this world is all, and this life the only life, but if death is indeed for the life that lives in Christ, not extinction but expansion, not frustration but promotion, than surely in some other of the many mansions in our Father’s one great house, they still serve who have ceased from labor here, and work with gladness for the bringing in of that day when throughout all the universe of God there shall be nothing to hurt nor to destroy, but ‘God shall be all and in all.’”
The press throughout the American continent united in tribute to Charles Melville Hays and under the caption of Montreal’s Loss the Gazette of April 19, 1912, said editorially:“Among the many places which will have home reasons for bearing the loss (April 15, 1912) of the steamship Titanic in sorrowful memory there will be few to rank before Montreal. Of residents who had won or were winning honorable places of usefulness in the city’s commercial life, no less than four ended their earthly career in the dark hours of Monday when the Atlantic waters closed over the wreck of what had been one of the world’s noblest vessels. First of these, of course, ranks Mr. Charles M. Hays, president of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railways and director and adviser in many allied and other enterprises. Mr. Hays came to Montreal as a stranger, when the condition and fortunes of the Grand Trunk Railway were low indeed. The life had apparently gone out of the direction and a great property, with greater potentialities, was in danger of passing into bankruptcy. He and his associates found their task harder also because they were strangers. It was only a little while, however, before the city and the country, as well as the proprietors of the railway, recognized that in the new general manager, which was the title Mr. Hays then had, they had a man who for capacity ranked with the highest in his profession. With a slight interruption Mr. Hays has had chief executive control since 1897 of the Grand Trunk Railway. In that time it has been lifted physically to the standard of a high class, well equipped road, with few superiors in America. Financially it has been so improved as to meet the interest charges on the new capital raised for betterments and has been able to pay dividends on some of the older issues that once seemed to have lost all value as investments. In late years he was a chief moving spirit in the projection and construction of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, which is now approaching completion. His work in these connections speaks of his executive ability louder than can words written or spoken. It is only to be added that in all relations of life, business or social, he was a plain, courteous and kindly gentleman, to whom all were ready to pay in full measure the respect that he deserved.”
The memorial service read in the American Presbyterian church to which previous allusion has been made, was one of the most impressive ever held within the borders of Canada and the tributes to Mr. Hays on that occasion attested how high was the position which he held in the regard of business colleagues, of eminent educators, ministers and others. Principal Peterson of McGill University said in part: “We have done well to come together in this solemn manner, not to meet in a useless parade of grief and sorrow, but to pay a sincere tribute to the worth of one who has gone to his last reward and to express our sympathy to those who suffer the loss of one so dear, and who have scarcely yet survived the shock of their sudden bereavement. Our men died like heroes—in that last dread extremity they bore themselves nobly and well.
“And I doubt not that foremost in fortitude was that great-hearted man who today is mourned throughout the world, Charles M. Hays, who was then eagerly returning to take his controlling part in those great enterprises with which his name will always be associated, and no doubt looking forward with joy to returning to his accustomed work and surroundings here. The vast transportation system over which he so well presided, and to which he gave fresh life, has just paid him well earned tribute in those moments of organized, concerted, silence stretching across this continent—the awed hush of reverent respect and tender sympathy from every section of the railway service and from every rank and class in the community at large. It was a moving incident, but only a slight indication of the esteem in which he washeld everywhere, and of the loss which the railways and the people have sustained.
“Mr. Hays came to Montreal in 1896, shortly after I came here, and since then it has been my privilege to know him well, and to meet him frequently in university and other affairs. Only a short time before Mr. Hays left for Europe I had a walk with him, when he talked to me of his plans for the future, and discussed university and other educational matters, with the grave and serious hope for future advancement which marked his thought. Little then did either of us think it possible that so terrible a disaster should cut short his vigorous and useful career. He was a real leader of men, a true captain of industry, carrying a huge burden of work and responsibility on his shoulders, and always carrying it as a strong Christian man should. We shall go forth from this solemn service to our customary duties, graver and sadder men. It may be that we shall not have the melancholy duty of following to the grave the remains of this man whose work interlinked a vast continent. He has found his grave in the ocean, and it may be literally said of him that the whole world is his tomb. Certainly his memory will not soon die; for long will the memory live of this impressive memorial of his sad fate and the sorrow of his stricken family. And when the far-reaching plans for which he stood sponsor are realized we shall often go back in thought to what this city, this dominion and the empire at large owes to the ability, the integrity and dauntless energy of Charles Melville Hays.”
One of the glowing and well deserved tributes paid to the memory of Charles Melville Hays was spoken by Rev. T. S. McWilliams. D. D., of Cleveland, Ohio, who said: “The man whose loss we mourn today, and whose memory we would honor was not merely a national, he was an international figure. The great enterprise of which he was at the head, and, to an unusual degree the guiding and animating spirit, was not merely a national, but an international railway. It seems fitting therefore that one from the United States should have a small part in this memorial service. The humble tribute which I bring is not merely that of a former pastor—as such I was privileged to say a few words on Sunday last. Nor is my tribute that of a personal friend—as such my place would not be here in the pulpit, but in position with the mourners, amongst those who most deeply and genuinely feel a sense of personal loss. Mine is the privilege today of bringing a neighboring nation’s tribute, if you will; of assuring you that many of the American people share with you the sorrow and sense of loss which you feel so keenly. In the United States the late Charles M. Hays was born, and there he spent the larger part of his life. Of our country he remained a citizen to the last. Yet there were few men more genuinely devoted to the interests of Canada or more intelligently attached to British institutions than he. Few, if any, in Canada saw with clearer vision the great possibilities of the future of your country and believed more intensely in the great destinies of Canada.
“To speak of Mr. Hays’ preeminent ability as a railway man is scarcely necessary. We have only to look around to see the monuments to his genius. There are two immense office buildings that ornament your city; there is that wonderful steel bridge over Niagara’s gorge and the great station at Ottawa. There is the rejuvenated and vastly extended Grand Trunk Railway.And, perhaps greatest of all, there is the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, destined at no distant date to span this continent, making accessible natural resources of incalculable value, and bringing into practical part of the national progress vast regions at present inaccessible to the agriculturist. These are great enterprises which have attracted the admiring attention of the world and stimulated rival systems to greater activity, while bringing millions in money to your land, and, what means much more to you, an unprecedented tide of immigration. It is but just to say that such enterprises as these have been no small factor in the building up of that great progress and prosperity which characterizes Canada at the present time.
“The credit of such achievements is, of course, to be shared with Mr. Hays’ earnest colaborers—and he would have been the first to give them such credit—but to Mr. Hays is certainly due the credit of the initiative. For a man at the early age of thirty-eight years to rise from the bottom of the ladder to the presidency of such a railway system as the Wabash, and later to be selected as president of the Grand Trunk, charged with its rehabilitation, and to so conduct its affairs that after only five years its securities had enhanced in value by eighty-six millions of dollars; to be called to the presidency of the Southern Pacific, and then called back again to the Grand Trunk to consummate yet vaster plans—these are proofs positive and sufficient of his preeminent railway genius. The tribute of silence in which we a few minutes ago reverently joined—a silence in which we were joined by that great army of employes from ocean to ocean—was not the silence of obedience to an enforced order. It was the genuine heart-felt tribute of men of all ranks to a leader whom they had loved and lost.
“The contagion of his example spread through every part of that great system. Himself a hard and rapid worker his own example was a sufficient incentive to do away with indolence and incompetence. His presence anywhere on the system encouraged and thrilled to better work not by fear of the tyrant’s command to go, but they thrilled at the leader’s call to come.
“Mr. Hays was first, last and all the time a great railway man. But it would be unjust to speak merely of that. He possessed other qualities that impressed me even more than that. He was throughout his life a man of lofty and unbending principle. I personally know that his early ending of his connection with a great railway system, sacrificing a position to which was attached great honor and an immense salary, and his going out of that office, not knowing whither he went, was a wonderful example of the triumph of principle over what appeared to be personal interests. It stands as a proof of Mr. Hays’ unwillingness to be the tool of a designing genius no matter what that might seem to offer him in the way of personal remuneration. And in the great positions he held it was his constant endeavor to be just to all. It was his endeavor by day and his prayer by night to always carry an even balance between the employes of his company and those who had invested their living in it with even justice to both. Knowledge of this permeated the whole system, and brought a realization amongst the men that the main endeavor of the leader was not to get out of the employes as much as possible and give them in return aslittle as possible, but that they were really working with, not for, their president, in the interests of all.
“And he was a public-spirited man in many other spheres. That he was a generous friend of education is proven in that he was a governor of McGill University; that he was a benefactor to suffering humanity is shown by the hospitals of which he was a governor. But far more than these public positions were innumerable cases in which he proved himself a generous but unostentatious friend to the needy. And may I for a moment draw aside the sacred veil, and speak of his home life. As a father, husband, brother, comrade, to all in his household he was ever the genial, pure, high-minded Christian gentleman—the idol of his home, as he deserved to be. His religious influence was unmistakable and caused him inevitably to work for the right. I am confident that his deep religious sense of duty was at the bottom of much that we admire in his career—he was utterly honest, not because he believed it to be the best business policy, but because he had faith in the right; he was filled with genial optimism, not from blindness to the facts, but because he knew them.
“That such lives should be allowed to be interrupted by such disasters as that we now mourn is a problem which cannot be satisfactorily answered. It may be said that no man’s place is impossible to be filled. But Methodism has never found another John Wesley, and the Grand Trunk will look and wait for long before it finds another Charles Melville Hays.”
One of the most able, successful and progressive of the younger generation of professional men in Montreal is Dougall Cushing, connected with important legal interests as a member of the firm of Barron & Cushing, notaries. He is a native son of the city, born May 3, 1886, his parents being Charles and Lily (Macaulay) Cushing. The family is of old American establishment, the great-grandfather of the subject of this review, Job Cushing, having been born in Massachusetts in 1765. The father was born in May, 1848, and he was for a number of years the senior member of the firm of Cushing & Barron and known as an able and reliable notary. He was in addition a director in the Sun Life Assurance Company, on the board of governors of the Young Men’s Christian Association and deacon in Calvary Congregational church, a man of wide interests, high standards and useful and important accomplishments. His death occurred September 30, 1910. He and his wife became the parents of seven children, R. Macaulay, Dougall of this review, Charles, Arthur, Eric, Geoffrey and Edith.
Dougall Cushing was reared in his parents’ home and acquired his preliminary education in the grammar and high schools of Montreal. He afterward attended McGill University, from which he was graduated B. A. in 1907 and B. C. L. in 1910. In the following year he established himself as a notary in his native city, associating himself with Robert H. Barron, his father’s former partner. The firm of Barron & Cushing is today, as it has been for many years past, one of the strongest of its kind in the city, for Dougall Cushing has followed closely inhis father’s footsteps, and has proved himself brilliant, reliable and energetic in the conduct of his professional interests.
Mr. Cushing belongs to Phi Kappa Pi, which he joined in McGill University and is a member of the Seventeenth Regiment, Duke of York’s Royal Canadian Hussars. He is one of the popular and enterprising young men of Montreal and has already gained a creditable place in a profession in which his superior merit and ability will undoubtedly win for him ultimate distinction.
Hon. Samuel Gale, one of the ablest members of the legal profession in his day, and a very prominent citizen of Montreal, died in that city on Saturday, April 15, 1865. He was the son of a Mr. Gale who, born in Hampshire, England, came to America in 1770 as assistant paymaster to the forces. He married there a Miss Wells, of Brattleboro, and soon after left the army, and took up his residence in the colony of New York. During the Revolution he stood firmly by the old flag under which he had served, and was for some time imprisoned as a loyalist. After the Revolution, he came to reside in Canada, upon an estate granted to his wife’s father by the crown, as indemnification for the losses brought upon him as a loyalist in the Revolution. He was subsequently secretary to Governor Prescott, whom he accompanied to England, and there assisted to defend him from the attacks made upon his administration. While there he wrote an essay on Public Credit, addressed and submitted to Pitt. The following is the inscription on his tombstone at Farnham, in Shefford county:
“Here rests Samuel Gale, Esq., formerly acting deputy paymaster general of H. Majesty’s forces in the Southern Provinces, now the U. S. of America; subsequently Secretary to H. E. the Governor-in-chief of H. M. dominions in N. A.; Author of Essays on Public Credit, and other works; born at Kimpton Hants, England, October 14, 1748; died at Farnham, June 27, 1826.”
Samuel Gale of this review was born at St. Augustine, East Florida, in 1783. He was educated at Quebec, while his father was secretary, and came to study law at Montreal under Chief Justice Sewell, in 1802, having Chief Justice Rolland and Mr. Papineau as fellow students. Mr. Gale was admitted to the bar in 1808, and ere long secured a large practice. In 1815 he was appointed a magistrate in the Indian territories, and accompanied Lord Selkirk when he went to the northwest. Later, when Lord Dalhousie was attacked for his Canadian administration, Mr. Gale went home as bearer of memorials from the English-speaking Lower Canadians in the townships and elsewhere, defending his lordship’s conduct. In 1829, he became chairman of the quarter sessions, and in 1834 was raised to the bench to replace Mr. Justice Uniacke, who preferred to resign the seat on the bench to which he had just been appointed rather than come back to Montreal during the cholera, then raging here. Judge Gale retired from the bench in 1849, forced into retirement by continued ill health and the gradual coming on of the infirmities of old age.
HON. SAMUEL GALEHON. SAMUEL GALE
HON. SAMUEL GALE
He had married in 1839 a Miss Hawley, of St. Armand West, by whom he had three daughters. Mrs. Gale died in September, 1849. Of the daughters the only one now living is Anna R., widow of T. Sterry Hunt, of Montreal, who is mentioned elsewhere in this work; while of the other two, Agnes Logan married Andrew Stuart of Quebec, a son of Chief Justice Stuart and of a very prominent family in that city, and the third became the Baroness von Friesen, who died December 10, 1875, in Berlin, Germany.
Born of parents who had both suffered for their loyal adherence to the British Crown during the American Revolution, and educated in their views Mr. Gale was, as long as he busied himself in politics, a stanch conservative and defender of British unity and British supremacy. He wrote a series of letters to the Montreal Herald (in those days the organ of the stoutest conservatism) over the signature of “Nerva” which produced a strong impression on the public mind at that time; and in espousing the cause of Lord Dalhousie and upholding the old constitution (under the title constitutionalists taken by the conservatives of that day) against the advocates of democracy or responsible government, he was but consistently pursuing the course on which he first set out. While upon the bench he maintained in an elaborate and very able judgment the right of the Crown to establish martial law here in 1837, refusing to theorize about what abstract rights man had or ought to have, declaring simply and firmly what the law, as he read it, established the prerogative of the sovereign to be in a colony. Both as a lawyer and judge he won the respect of his confreres alike by his ability and learning.
For many years previous to his death he was deeply interested in the freedom of the slave. He could not speak with patience of any compromise with slavery and waxed indignant in denunciation of all who in any way aided, abetted, or even countenanced it. When the Anderson case was before the Upper Canada courts he was one of the most active among those who aroused agitation here. When the Prince of Wales visited this country he got up a congratulatory address from the colored people of Canada which, however, was not received, as the prince was desired by the Duke of Newcastle, not to recognize differences of race and creed wherever it could be helped.
Judge Gale was a man of high principle and ever bore an unblemished moral character. Once in his early career at the bar he was forced by the then prevailing customs of society to fight a duel. His antagonist was Sir James Stuart, who had quarreled with him in court and Mr. Gale was severely wounded. It was an event which, we believe, he profoundly regretted, and gladly saw the better day dawn when men ran no risk of forfeiting their position as gentlemen by refusing to shoot, or be shot at, in order to redress real or fancied insults. He was a scrupulously just man, most methodical and punctual in business matters. There were in his writings great care, and precision and clearness of language. In his letters, too, and even in signing his name, the same trait was observable. He often used to condemn the stupid custom of men who signed their names with a flourish, yet so illegibly that no one could read, but only guess at, the word intended. He was not ostentatious of his charities, yet they were not lacking. Some years before his demise he made a gift of land to Bishop’s College, Lennoxville, and during the last months of his life, when age and illness were day by day wearing himout, he found relief for his own distress in aiding to relieve that of the needy and afflicted.
With him passed away one more of those men, who link the creative past, in which were laid the foundations of our civilization, with the bustling present and of whom the generation of today knows naught; of men more proud and precise in their manners than we are; and of such rectitude and sense of honor, that we feel deeply the loss of the influence of their example. A loyal subject, a learned and upright judge, a kind, true, steadfast friend, was lost to the community in Judge Gale.
Dr. Rollo Campbell, of whom it was said that no man ever spoke ill, was the son of Dr. Francis W. Campbell and was born in Montreal on the 6th of June, 1864. His life record covered a comparatively brief span. He was educated under private tutors and in Bishop’s College, where he pursued his professional course, being graduated from that institution at Lennoxville, P. Q., with honors in the class of 1886, at which time the M. D. degree was conferred upon him. His early professional experience came to him as interne in the Western Hospital at Montreal, where he remained for a year, gaining the wide knowledge and training that only hospital practice can bring. He then went to Europe, pursuing his studies in London and in Edinburgh. Upon returning to his native land he located in Montreal for practice and it was not long before he had established an enviable reputation as a conscientious, capable physician of untiring energy, thoroughly devoted to his profession and ever ready to do a kindness to those in need of his services. He was especially interested in surgery and his researches along that line were broad and varied.
From the time of his graduation Dr. Campbell was on the teaching staff of Bishop’s College, first as demonstrator of anatomy, to which he was appointed in 1897, and later as professor of surgery. For many years he was on the consulting staff of the Montreal Dispensary and was one of the assistant surgeons of the Western Hospital, in which institution he was greatly interested. He was likewise an examiner for the New York Life Insurance Company.
A feature in his professional connections was his service as surgeon for seventeen years of the Fifth Royal Scots of Canada, in which regiment he was very popular. At one time he was president of Bishop’s Medical College Graduates’ Society and he was physician to several fraternal societies. He also belonged to the Montreal Medico-Chirurgical Society and along more strictly social lines he was connected with the Metropolitan Club, the Montreal Military Institute and the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association. Of the latter he was a life member and was captain of the Bicycle Club of that organization.
Dr. Campbell was married in Montreal in 1892 in St. Paul’s Presbyterian church to Miss Marion May Fletcher, a daughter of Henry Fletcher, who for thirty years was tide surveyor of the port of Montreal, and his wife, whose maiden name was Margaret Ann McInnes. Dr. and Mrs. Campbell became parents of two children: Gladys Agnes and Edith Margaret. The family circlewas broken by the hand of death when on the 31st of May, 1904, Dr. Campbell passed away. Speaking of him at this time a fellow graduate of Bishop’s College said: “He was a fine fellow. I think I can safely say that I never heard anyone speak ill of him. He was kind and thoughtful and devoted himself to his work. In fact, I fear that he worked too hard on account of that conscientiousness which would not allow of his neglecting any seeming duty. He will be greatly missed, not only by his fellow practitioners, but by all who knew him and respected him.”
While Robert Kurczyn Lovell entered upon a business already established, he has displayed the enterprise and determination which are among his salient characteristics in the methods which he has followed in conducting his business affairs. Montreal numbers him among her native sons, but he comes of Irish and German ancestry. He is the eldest son of the late John Lovell, who was a prominent publisher of Montreal from 1835 until his death in 1893. His mother is Mrs. Sarah Lovell, a daughter of N. P. M. Kurczyn, who was a German merchant of Montreal.
In the acquirement of his education Robert K. Lovell passed through consecutive grades to the high school. In 1867 he became connected with his father in business, becoming a partner in 1880 and so continuing until the latter’s death in July, 1893. The business was conducted under the same style until 1903 when it was incorporated. Since 1903 he has been president of the firm of John Lovell & Son, Ltd., publishers of Lovell’s Gazetteer of the Dominion of Canada and Newfoundland, Lovell’s Montreal Directory, Lovell’s Montreal Business Directory and numerous other publications. In all of his business affairs he never deviates from the highest standards. He is an Anglican in religious faith.
For over twenty years Major William O. H. Dodds has been connected with the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, being at present the assistant manager for Quebec and the maritime provinces. He was born in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, July 3, 1867, a son of the late Charles Dodds, a manufacturer of that province, who died in June, 1893. The mother of our subject, who was before her marriage Miss Agnes Smith, died in December, 1910.
William Dodds received his education in the Yarmouth high school and the Yarmouth Academy of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. He completed his school education in 1884 and then entered the employ of the Bank of Yarmouth, remaining with that institution until 1887. From 1887 to 1888 he assisted his father in the wholesale and retail dry-goods business, but in the latter year came to Montreal, entering the wholesale dry-goods trade, with which line he continued until1892. In that year he joined the staff of the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York as cashier and, rising through various positions, was made the assistant manager of the concern for Quebec and the maritime provinces, which office he yet holds. Mr. Dodds has also been one of the promoters of the Consumers’ Cotton Company.
On November 29, 1910, Mr. Dodds married Jean Hamilton Holt, eldest daughter of Robert W. Tyre, of Montreal. Mrs. Dodds is greatly interested in athletics and in 1911 was elected president of the Ladies’ Montreal Curling Club.
Major Dodds is also a well known amateur athlete. He was formerly president of the Canadian Amateur Athletic Union; is a member of the executive committee of the Amateur Skating Association of Canada; and was selected as one of the team of the Montreal Curling Club to proceed to Scotland in December, 1908, but was unable to go. He has long been in the volunteer military service, being formerly a captain in the Fifth Regiment, Royal Scots. He subsequently commanded the Third Battery, Montreal, and then organized the Twenty-first (Westmount) Battery, which he commanded from October 26, 1907, to April 9, 1910. He is now engaged in the reorganization of the First Regiment, Grenadier Guards of Canada. In January, 1906, Major Dodds was elected president of the Montreal Military Institute and is now councillor of the Boy Scout movement.
Mr. Dodds is a Presbyterian and gives his political support to the conservative party. He is a member of the Montreal Club, the Montreal Military Institute, the Montreal Curling Club, the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association, the Montreal Hunt Club, the St. James Club, the Royal Montreal Golf Club and others.
Isaie Prefontaine, no less highly esteemed for his business capacity and enterprise than for his public-spirited citizenship, has contributed along various lines to the welfare and progress of the city in which he makes his home. A native of Beloeil, he was born in 1861 and in the pursuit of his education attended Montreal College, from which he was graduated with honors. From the outset of his career he has made his labors count as factors in general progress and improvement. He has been a close student of conditions and problems of the time and along practical lines has worked for betterment.
He has taken a warm interest in the commercial development of the city and has been prominently identified with various bodies working toward that end. He was president of the Chamber of Commerce of Montreal for the year 1908-9 and for six years was president of the School of High Commercial Studies. In 1909 he became president of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce for the province of Quebec and was continued in that high and important office for three years. He has also been a member of the Board of Trade and has been a cordial cooperator in the movement for providingfacilities for specialized instruction and training of those engaged in manufacturing and other industrial pursuits.
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His wide research and investigation enable him to speak with authority upon many questions bearing upon the business condition of the city and its possibilities for progress along industrial and commercial lines. He is an idealist, whose methods are practical, and is a man of action rather than of theory.
In 1883 he married Miss Eliza Pigeon, a daughter of Olivier Pigeon, of Vercheres, Quebec. He belongs to both the Club St. Denis and the Canadian Club and in the city has a wide and favorable acquaintance. The Montreal Herald has termed him “a man of capacity and high character.”
Dr. Francis Wayland Campbell, practitioner, educator and editor of medical journals, winning distinction along each line, was born in Montreal on the 5th of November, 1837, a son of the late Rollo Campbell, at one time publisher of the Montreal Daily Pilot and a native of Perthshire, Scotland. Dr. Campbell’s more specifically literary education was obtained at Dutton Academy and the Baptist College, and in preparation for a professional career he studied medicine in McGill University, from which he was graduated with the M. D. degree in 1860. He at once located for practice in his native city, where he continued until his death. After the completion of his course at McGill he spent some time in study abroad, investigating the methods and watching the clinics of eminent physicians and surgeons of London, Dublin, Edinburgh and Glasgow. In 1861 he passed with high rank an examination before the Royal College of Physicians of London.
In October, 1861, Dr. Campbell married Miss Agnes Stuart Rodger, of Greenock, Scotland, and in November returned with his bride to Canada, opening an office for practice in Montreal. Success came to him almost immediately because his equipment was good and because of his recognition of and marked devotion to the duties of the profession. He was offered the editorship of the hospital report department of the British-American Journal, accepted it and continued to serve in that connection until 1864, when the publication of the paper ceased. The Canada Medical Journal was soon afterward started and Dr. Campbell joined Dr. Fenwick in its editorial management, being thus associated from 1864 until 1872. In the meantime he had joined the medical faculty of Bishop’s College, whereupon Dr. Fenwick declined to associate with him any longer in the publication of the Canada Medical Journal. The result was the discontinuance of that paper. Dr. Campbell decided to contest the field with Dr. Fenwick, who began issuing the paper independently, the Campbell publication being known as the Canada Medical Record, of which he remained editor and proprietor until his demise. In 1872 Dr. Campbell joined Drs. David, Smallwood, Hingston and Trenholme in organizing the medical faculty of Bishop’s College, after which he was appointed professor of physiology and was elected by the faculty as their registrar. His writings were considered a valuable contributionto the literature of the profession and his publications were liberally patronized by those holding to the highest professional standards.
Dr. Campbell was a member of the volunteer militia from 1854 and in 1860 was appointed assistant surgeon of the First Battalion, Volunteer Rifles of Canada, now the First Battalion. He served with his regiment on the eastern frontier, being at Hemingford and at Durham during the Fenian raid in 1866. In the fall of that year he was promoted to the rank of surgeon of the regiment and again during the brief Fenian raid of 1871 was with his command at Pigeon Hill, at St. Armands and St. Johns. After being for a great many years surgeon of the Prince of Wales Rifles he was appointed, on the formation of the Regular Canadian Militia, to the office of surgeon of the Infantry School Corps at St. Johns, Province of Quebec, and held the position for nineteen years, being then retired at the age limit with the rank of surgeon lieutenant colonel. At that time the regiments were known and still are as the Royal Regiments Canadian Infantry. In 1894 he established the V. R. I. Magazine and became its first editor. Lennoxville conferred upon him the honorary degree of D. C. L. in 1895. Two years later his son, Dr. Rollo Campbell, was appointed demonstrator of anatomy in Bishop’s College. Another matter of interest and importance in the life record of Dr. Campbell was that he held for forty-three years the position of chief medical examiner for the New York Life Insurance Company at Montreal and his son, Dr. Rollo Campbell, was his assistant. He was honorary president of the Military Institute for several years and was one of the founders of the Western Hospital of Montreal. He was called the father of that institution and two years ago the hospital placed a very handsome bronze tablet to his memory in the institution. At the time of his death he was dean of the medical faculty of Bishop’s College at Montreal. His degrees were M. A., M. D. and L. R. C. P. of London. Honor and distinction came to him in many ways, and at all times he bore his honors with becoming modesty.
Dr. Campbell was a liberal conservative in politics. He belonged to the Montreal Military Institute and was a past master of the Victoria Lodge of Masons. Of scholarly attainments, finding keen pleasure in scientific research and actuated, too, by a broad humanitarian spirit, his professional service as practitioner, educator and writer was of marked value to the public and constituted a notable contribution to the world’s work in the field of medical and surgical progress.
Cleophas Edward Leclerc, who for fifteen years was a member of the board of notaries of Quebec, his home being in Montreal, his native city, was born September 26, 1844. Almost his entire life was passed in Montreal, where he supplemented his early education by a classical course in the College of Ste. Therese de Blainville in the district of Terrebonne. Having determined to become a notary public, he entered upon his professional studies under the direction of Mr. F. Des Bastien, registrar of the county of Vaudreuil, and was admitted to practice on the 15th of October, 1866. For fifteen years he was amember of the Quebec board of notaries and for three years was its vice president. He stood high in his profession, and the clientage afforded him came in recognition of his superior ability.
On the 16th of November, 1875, Mr. Leclerc was married to Miss Caroline Eliza Archambault of St. Hyacinthe, and they became the parents of six children: Robertine; Rene, who is managing director of the Credit-Canada, Limited; Achille; Alice, the wife of Arthur Hubour, who is engaged in the drug business at the corner of Demontigny and St. Denis Streets; Ovide; and Rita. Death came to Mr. Leclerc at his home at No. 655 St. Hubert Street on the 23d of November, 1912, when he was sixty-eight years of age. He was a man of fine personal appearance, his broad forehead indicating strong native intelligence. He was of dignified appearance and mien and looked at life from the standpoint of one who recognized its obligations and duties as well as its privileges and opportunities. He had an extensive circle of friends so that his death was deeply regretted by many outside his own household.
Prominent on the roll of leading business men of Montreal stands the name of George Caverhill, a merchant who for an extended period has been connected with commercial life and figures prominently in connection with corporate interests having to do with the business enterprise and consequent prosperous development of the city. He was born October 18, 1858, at Beauharnois, P. Q., and is of Scotch descent. His parents were Thomas and Elizabeth Spiers (Buchanan) Caverhill, the latter a representative of the Buchanan family of Lenny, while the former was a member of the border family of Caverhills, residents of Scotland from 1200.
In the attainment of his education George Caverhill attended successively the Montreal high school, the Galt Collegiate Institute and McGill University. From the outset of his business career he has been connected with mercantile interests. In 1877 he entered the employ of Crathern & Caverhill, of Montreal, and, later ambitious to engage in business on his own account, utilized the opportunities of becoming a partner in a wholesale hardware firm, his partners being his brother, the late Frank Caverhill, J. B. Learmont and T. H. Newman. The four organized the firm of Caverhill, Learmont & Company, wholesale hardware merchants of both Montreal and Winnipeg. This by no means indicates the scope of his investments and his activities. That he is today one of the most important business men of the province is indicated in the fact that he is vice president of the Montreal Loan & Mortgage Company, a director of the Dominion Iron & Steel Company, Canadian Cottons, Ltd., Montreal Trust Company, Montreal Light, Heat & Power Company, and is identified with a number of organizations to promote trade and business relations. In 1904 he was chosen president of the Montreal Metal & Hardware Association, was made first vice president of the Montreal Board of Trade in 1906 and its president in 1907.
In 1887 Mr. Caverhill was married to Miss Emily Margaret, daughter of John Caverhill. She takes active interest in philanthropical and charitable work and is a member of the general committee of the Victorian Order of Nurses. Together with her husband, she is a life governor of the Protestant Hospital for the Insane. Both Mr. and Mrs. Caverhill were presented to the late King Edward at Windsor Castle in June, 1905.
In addition to his previously mentioned activities, Mr. Caverhill is a governor of the Montreal General Hospital, and is a life member of St. Andrew’s Society of Montreal. He has a great love of animals and has won fully two hundred and sixty prizes with his kennel of skye terriers. Mr. Caverhill’s political allegiance is given to the liberal party, and in 1911 he opposed the Taft-Fielding reciprocity compact. Prominent in club circles, he holds membership with the Mount Royal, St. James, Canada, Canadian, Forest and Stream, Lachine Boating and Canoe, Montreal Hunt, Montreal Jockey, Montreal Polo, Reform, Royal Montreal Golf and Royal St. Lawrence Yacht Clubs, all of Montreal. He is a man of liberal culture and broad general information, having largely promoted his knowledge through extended travel in the East Indies, South America, Japan, Egypt, Greece and Italy. His opinions carry weight on all questions in which he has become deeply interested, and his interest in any plan or project is ever the source of activity in its support.
Louis Joseph Arthur Surveyer, one of the best known business men of Montreal, his ability and enterprise finding exemplification in his substantial success, was born May 16, 1841, in the town of Beauharnois, in the province of Quebec. His father was Dr. Joseph Surveyer, a well known physician of Beauharnois and surrounding parishes, and his mother bore the maiden name of Eugenie Duclos Decelles.
L. J. A. Surveyer was educated at St. Laurent College and entered upon his business career as a clerk in a general store in St. Johns, P. Q. After eighteen months he came to Montreal and entered the retail hardware store of Messrs. Ferrier & Company on Notre Dame Street. After nine months’ service in the employ of that firm they sold their business and Mr. Surveyer entered the employ of Mr. Thomas Davidson in his retail store, continuing in that employ for seven years. He was ambitious to engage in business on his own account and so wisely used his time and talent that he was now able with a capital of six hundred dollars to open a store of his own. His venture proved successful from the beginning and has been developed and built up to its present extensive proportions so that Mr. Surveyer is now ranked with the leading business men of the city.
In 1868 Mr. Surveyer married Miss Amelie Pelletier, who died thirteen months later. In 1873 he married Miss M. A. Hectorine Fabre, a daughter of the late E. R. Fabre, and the youngest sister of the late Archbishop Fabre. Of this union there were born eight children, seven of whom are living, as follows: Edward Fabre, a lawyer in Montreal, of whom there is furthermention in this work; Eugenie, now Mrs. N. K. Laflamme of Montreal; Arthur, of Surveyer & Frigon, consulting engineers; Paul, a lawyer in Montreal; Gustave, of Montreal; Marie; and Therese, now Mrs. Jules Faurnier of Montreal. Mr. Surveyer is a member of the Canadian Club and of the Alliance Nationale. There is found in his life history the strong proof of the fact that the road to opportunity is open to ambition and energy, and that it leads to the goal of success.