A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time by Rose

grandfather was one of the oldest settlers of Nicolet, having settled there in 1725. The subject of this sketch was educated at Nicolet College. He was elected, in 1860, for De La Vallière, and sat in the Legislative Council until the union. In 1867, he was appointed to the Legislative Council for life. He was a Liberal in politics. He was one of the patriots of 1837; and was charged with having cast bullets, but was not arrested. He was married, on the 20th January, 1835, to Julia, daughter of Dr. Calvin Alexander, a graduate of Harvard, and had issue as follows:—Rev. M. G. Proulx, of Nicolet College, and Revs. Edward and Stephen Proulx, of the Society of Jesus. * * * * * =Charlebois, Alphonse=, Contractor, Quebec, is well known throughout the Dominion as an extensive and successful undertaker of great public works. A French-Canadian, he is endowed with more than the ordinary energy and versatility of his race, and his career furnishes an apt illustration of the triumph of tact and pluck over adverse circumstances. He was not of the fortunate class who are said to come into the world with “a silver spoon in their mouth.” His parents were simple Lower Canadian _habitants_, and our subject was born of their marriage at the town of St. Henri, Hochelaga county, on the outskirts of Montreal, on the 15th December, 1841. His father, Arséne Charlebois, was a native of Pointe Claire, in Jacques Cartier county, P.Q., and his mother was Edwidge Chagnon, of Verchères, P.Q. On his father’s side he is closely related to the late Mr. Charlebois, M.P.P. for Laprairie; to the Rev. Mr. Charlebois, curé of Ste. Therese, and to the late Dr. Charlebois, of Bleury street, Montreal; and, on his mother’s, to the late Sir George Etienne Cartier, who owed his election for Verchères, then one of the most Liberal constituencies in Lower Canada (after his defeat in Montreal East by the present Chief Justice Sir A. A. Dorion), mainly to the exertions and influence of her brother, the late Paschal Chagnon, of Verchères. Young Charlebois was educated partly at the Christian Brothers’ School and partly at Maxwell’s Commercial School, both in Montreal, receiving a fair commercial training, in French and English. After leaving school he served about a year to the builder’s trade in Montreal, and then entered the hardware trade in that city as a clerk to the late Mr. Brewster, with whom he remained nine years down to 1865, when he bought out the business on the retirement of his employer. Two years later, he abandoned hardware, and boldly took up the lumber trade in Montreal, making advances to the lumberers on the Gatineau, and otherwise speculating in the great staple of the country with more or less success until 1872, when he took a new and still more enterprising departure. Since the days of the Hon. François Baby in Lower Canada, no French-Canadian had figured prominently as a public contractor. In that field, the English speaking element were virtually without competition. Mr. Charlebois pluckily resolved to enter it, and the results have more than justified this step on his part. He is to-day known from Halifax to Vancouver as a leading contractor, and the country is indebted to him for the successful execution of some of its most important public works. His first undertaking in this line was on the Lachine canal, and since then he has been connected with the contracts for the Dufferin improvements at Quebec, the graving dock at Levis, the Georgian Bay branch of the C.P.R., the construction of four sections of the same road in British Columbia, and the erection of the new parliament buildings at Quebec, and of the new departmental buildings on Wellington street, Ottawa. The two last mentioned structures remain as lasting monuments, as well to his taste and skill, as to his energy as a builder. He is a director of the Clemow syndicate for the construction of the Great North-Western Central Railway, Manitoba, and before his removal from Montreal to Quebec, which is now his residence, he was during three years an alderman, and afterwards, during four years, mayor of his native town of St. Henri. He belongs to the Roman Catholic faith, and during his residence in the Montreal district was elected people’s trustee for life of the Roman Catholic parish church of St. Henri. He has travelled exclusively in Canada and the United States, chiefly on business. In 1865 he married Marie Flore Charlotte Valois, daughter of the late Dr. Valois, of Pointe Claire, and at one time M.P. for the county of Jacques Cartier, P.Q., and by her has had issue four children, all of whom are still in their teens. * * * * * =Dupré, Rev. L. L.=, Sorel, province of Quebec, was born in Sorel, in 1841, and educated at the Seminary of St. Hyacinthe, P.Q. In 1868, he was ordained a priest, and placed as vicar in the Roman Catholic cathedral. In 1873, he was called as vicar to his native town, and in 1875 was appointed to the important post of curé of Sorel. Sorel being the most considerable place in the Roman Catholic diocese of St. Hyacinthe, requires the unremitting exertions and oversight of the pastor, and no one could perform the duties more zealously and unremittingly than does the present worthy incumbent. The rev. father has, in addition to his special duties, assisted in many ways in promoting the material welfare of his native town. As an instance, it may be mentioned that in 1880, by his exertions amongst his parishioners subscriptions were raised to an amount sufficient to build a large addition to the general hospital of Richelieu county, rendering that institution much more comfortable for the patients, and more suitable to the growing requirements of the town. He was also mainly instrumental in furthering the erection of the new college building, which is acknowledged to be the finest structure of the kind in the province. Since his incumbency, he has had the former parish of St. Peter’s divided into three distinct parishes—St. Peter’s, Ste. Anne, and St. Joseph. The parish of Ste. Anne, of which parish Mr. Dupré is the curé, is quite a populous one, and through his active exertions, a commodious stone church was soon built in the parish, on one of the finest sites of the St. Lawrence. That the curé possesses very superior administrative abilities is sufficiently proved by the foregoing, and is further attested by the manner in which he performs his onerous ecclesiastical duties. He has a remarkable memory, is a fluent speaker, and as a pulpit orator is unequalled by few. He is an ardent admirer of art, which he patronises liberally, and is possessed of a considerable collection of valuable and rare books, engravings, etc., proving a literary and cultivated taste. He is much esteemed by his parishioners and by the community of Sorel generally. * * * * * =Tessier, Jules=, Barrister, Quebec, M.P.P. for Portneuf, is one of the most conspicuous and popular figures in the legal, political and social life of the ancient capital. His distinguished father, Hon. U. J. Tessier, is a judge of the Court of Queen’s Bench for the province of Quebec, and was formerly member for Portneuf in the Canadian parliament, commissioner of public works in the Macdonald-Sicotte administration, speaker of the Legislative Council before confederation, and at one time mayor of Quebec. Between the careers of the father and son there are many points of resemblance. The father was one of the most prominent members of the Quebec bar in his day; the son is a rising member of the same bar. The father represented Portneuf in the Canadian parliament; the son represents the same constituency in the Quebec legislature. Lastly, the father was a member of the city council and mayor of Quebec; the son to-day is one of the councillors for St. Louis ward of that city, and a prominent member of the civic body, though still quite a young man. He was born at Quebec, in 1852. His mother, now deceased, before her marriage, was a Miss Kelly, and a member of the Drapeau family, seigneurs of Rimouski. His maternal grandfather was of Irish extraction, but the remainder of his parentage is French-Canadian on both sides. Educated in the classics at the Quebec Seminary and the Jesuits’ College, Montreal, he afterwards studied law, and was called to the bar in 1874, and soon acquired a considerable practice, together with the confidence of the public and the esteem of his professional brethren. He is one of the editors of the ‘Quebec Law Reports.’ In politics, Mr. Tessier, like his father while in public life, is what is termed a moderate Liberal, but almost from his youth he has been actively identified with all the struggles of the Liberal party in the Quebec district. He was secretary of the National Convention held in 1880, and was elected president of the Quebec Liberal Club after its reorganization for the last provincial and federal electoral campaign, which office he still holds. As such, he was selected as the party’s candidate to oppose ex-Mayor Brousseau, of Quebec, in Portneuf county, for the Legislative Assembly of the province, at the general election of October, 1886, and defeated his adversary, who had been the sitting member, by a very heavy majority. In the house, he is recognized as one of the staunchest supporters of the Mercier government, and has proved himself a most useful member. To his exertions Quebec was mainly indebted for its selection for the holding of the Provincial Exhibition of 1887, which was so great a success. Mr. Tessier is a member of the Church of Rome; and for many years past one of the principal officers of the St. Jean Baptiste Society, of Quebec. He is a director of the Lake St. John Railway Company, and a member of the Provincial Board of Arts. He is married to a daughter of Edmund Barnard, the well-known Q.C., of Montreal, and his two sisters are the wives respectively of the Hon. Alexander Chauveau, who was solicitor-general in the Joly administration, and is now police judge at Quebec, and of Lieut.-Col. Duchesnay, deputy adjutant-general for the Quebec military district. * * * * * =Aikins, Hon. James Cox=, P.C., Lieut.-Governor of Manitoba and Keewatin Territory, was born in the township of Toronto, Peel county, Ontario, on the 30th of March, 1823. His father, the late James Aikins, emigrated from the county of Monaghan, Ireland, to Philadelphia, in 1816, and after a residence of four years there he removed to Upper Canada, and took up a quantity of land in the first concession north of the Dundas road, in the township of Toronto. The subject of our sketch was the eldest son, and was brought up on his father’s farm, and was early inured to the hardships of rural life in Canada in those primitive times. He united with the Methodist body at an early age. He attended the public schools in the neighborhood of his home, and afterwards spent some time at the Upper Canada Academy, at Cobourg, which subsequently developed into Victoria College and University. At the first collegiate examination, which was held in 1843, he figured as one of the merit students. After completing his education he settled down on a farm in the county of Peel, a few miles from his paternal homestead. In 1845, soon after leaving college, he married Mary Elizabeth Jane Somerset, the daughter of a neighboring yeoman. In 1851 he was tendered the nomination as the representative of his native constituency in the Legislative Assembly, and declined, but at the general election held in 1854, he offered himself as a candidate on the Reform side, in opposition to the sitting member, George Wright, and was elected. Upon taking his seat he recorded his first vote against the Hincks-Morin administration, and thus participated in bringing about the downfall of that ministry. He voted for the secularization of the clergy reserves, and his voice was occasionally heard in support of measures relating to public improvements. In the election of 1861, owing to his action on the county town question, which excited keen sectional opposition, he was defeated by the late Hon. John Hillyard Cameron. The following year he was elected a member of the Legislative Council for the Home Division, comprising the counties of Peel and Halton. He continued to sit in the council so long as that body had an existence; and when it was swept away by confederation he was called to the Senate of the Dominion. On the 9th of December, 1867, he accepted office in the government of Sir John A. Macdonald, as secretary of state, and has ever since been a follower of that statesman. During his tenure of office the Dominion lands bureau was established—which has since extended until it has become an independent department of state under control of the minister of the interior. The Public Lands Act of 1872, is another measure which dates from Mr. Aikins’ term of office. The disclosure with reference to the sale of the Pacific Railway charter resulted, in November, 1873, in the overthrowing of the government. Upon Sir John A. Macdonald’s return to power in October, 1878, he again accepted office as secretary of state, and retained that position until the month of November, 1880, when there was a readjustment of portfolios, and he became minister of inland revenue—which he held until his resignation, 23rd May, 1882. On the 22nd September, 1882, he was appointed lieutenant-governor of the province of Manitoba, and Keewatin Territory. He is major of the 3rd battalion Peel Militia, and chairman of the Manitoba and North-West Loan Company. * * * * * =Taschereau, Hon. Jean Thomas=, LL.D., Quebec, late Judge of the Supreme Court of the Dominion of Canada, is a gentleman, the simple mention of whose name recalls a family famous in the political annals of Lower Canada, and which has given more eminent men to the church and bench than probably any other in the country. It has almost passed into a proverb among the French Canadians of the province of Quebec that “there is always a Taschereau on the bench.” As a matter of fact, three generations of the family have been represented on it, and five Taschereaus in all have exercised the highest judicial functions in the province or in the dominion. In the case of our distinguished subject not only was he himself a judge, but his father before him was a judge, his son after him is a judge of the Superior Court of the province, and another of his relatives, the Hon. Elzear Taschereau, is at present one of the judges of the Supreme Court of the Dominion. Still another member of the family, Hon. Andrée Taschereau, now deceased, was resident judge of the Superior Court in the Kamouraska district, and one of the most eminent jurists of his day. Others again have held the office of sheriff of the Beauce district; one is now a prominent member of the bar of that district, and was the representative of Beauce county in the Canadian House of Commons during the last parliament; and one, Lieutenant-Colonel Taschereau, holds one of the most important military commands in the Quebec district. But the judicial, political, and military distinction of the Taschereau family is altogether eclipsed by the lustre conferred upon it by the fact that the first Canadian wearer of the Roman purple was selected from among its members. His Eminence, Cardinal Taschereau, Archbishop of Quebec, is a brother of our subject, and the “bright particular star” whose elevation to the exalted dignity of a Prince of the Roman Catholic church, has made the name of Taschereau famous all over the civilized world. The family is also one of the oldest and most distinguished in Lower Canada, its founder there being Thomas Jacques Taschereau, of Touraine, France, who was a son of Christopher Taschereau, King’s counsellor, director of the mint and treasurer of the city of Tours, and who came to New France towards the beginning of the last century, was appointed by the French viceroy as treasurer of the marine, and in 1736 obtained from the French Crown the grant of a valuable seigniory along the banks of the river Chaudière in Beauce, P.Q. Our subject’s father was the Hon. Jean Thomas Taschereau, senior, long a prominent member of the parliament of Lower Canada, and one of the advocates and champions of constitutional liberty in that province, who suffered imprisonment for their opinions in 1810. He was afterwards raised to the dignity of puisne judge of the Court of Queen’s Bench for his native province, and distinguished himself as an able and upright magistrate. Our subject was one of his sons by his wife, Maria Panet, daughter of the late Hon. Jean Panet, first speaker of the Lower Canadian House of Assembly (an office which he held for twenty consecutive years), and was born in the city of Quebec, on the 12th December, 1814. He was educated at the Quebec Seminary, where, like his brother, the present cardinal, he greatly distinguished himself in different branches, taking the leading prizes, especially for Latin, mathematics, etc. On the completion of his classical course, he studied law with two of the most eminent local practitioners of the day, Hon. Henry Black, afterwards judge of the Vice-Admiralty Court at Quebec, and Andrew Stuart, Q.C., afterwards Her Majesty’s solicitor-general for Lower Canada, and was called to the bar of that province in 1836, subsequently following several law courses in Paris, France. On his return to Canada, he opened a law office in the city of Quebec, and for the next twenty years practised his profession with success and distinction. In 1855, he was honored by Laval University with the title of LL.D., and in September of the same year he was called by the government to act as assistant judge of the Superior Court in the place of one of the regular judges of that court, during the sitting of the special court formed under the act to abolish feudal rights and seignorial dues in Lower Canada. Twice afterwards, in 1858 and in 1860, in which last mentioned year he was also created a Q.C., was he honored by a similar mark of the government’s appreciation, and in 1865 he was definitely appointed to the bench as a puisne judge of the Superior Court, as successor to the Hon. A. N. Morin, deceased. On the 11th February, 1873, he mounted another rung of the judicial ladder, being appointed puisne judge of the Court of Queen’s Bench for the province of Quebec, and some two years later on, the 8th October, 1875, he was elevated to the still more exalted position of puisne judge of the Supreme Court of the Dominion, which he retained until the 19th October, 1878, when he resigned on account of ill-health, and retired on his well-earned pension, after having served the public in all nineteen years on the bench as a judge. Our subject enjoyed to the utmost the confidence of the bar and the people, as well for his scrupulous and painstaking character, as for the almost invariable soundness of his decisions. It is needless to say that his religion is the Roman Catholic. In the spring of 1887, the Roman Pontiff, Leo XIII., conferred on him the decoration or cross of the Order of St. Gregory the Great. He has been twice married—firstly, in 1840, to Louise Adele, daughter of the late Hon. Amable Dionne, M.L.C., who died in 1861; and lastly in 1862, to Marie Josephine, daughter of the late Hon. R. E. Caron, second lieutenant-governor of the province of Quebec, and a sister of Sir A. R. Caron, Dominion minister of militia. He is the father of twelve children, ten of whom survive. His eldest son, Hon. Henri Thomas Taschereau, formerly Liberal M.P. for Montmagny, has been a judge of the Superior Court for the province of Quebec since 1878; and another son, by his second union, is now a rising member of the Quebec bar. * * * * * =Morin, Eusebe=, St. Hyacinthe, Quebec province, was born on the 14th of July, 1853. He is the son of François Morin, merchant, and Marguerite Maheux. At the age of ten years he entered the St. Hyacinthe Seminary, which he left after taking a classical course of education. At the age of sixteen years he entered as clerk with L. V. Sicotte, dry goods merchant, but after spending one year in this establishment he left, and entered into partnership with Mr. Lamoureux, and traded under the firm name of Lamoureux & Morin for about fifteen months, when he bought his partner out, and assumed the business himself. When he entered into this business, a friend lent him $800 to start with, and this money he honorably paid with interest about a year after he had received it. He continued alone in business until he was twenty-three years of age, in the meantime becoming the first merchant in St. Hyacinthe, in his line, thus proving what can be done by close attention to business. After this, and by the time he had reached his twenty-seventh year, he had established small wholesale and retail houses, trading under the various names of Morin & Lamothe, Morin & Dion, Morin & Robitaille, Morin & Brodeur, both in the city of St. Hyacinthe and the neighboring country. Being of delicate health, he was almost given up by the doctors, and was obliged to liquidate the firms in order to proceed to Europe for the benefit of his health. After an extensive tour through England, Scotland, Ireland, France and Italy, he returned to Canada with a large and varied assortment of European goods, and was thus enabled to re-establish his trade on a sound and more extensive basis than ever, creating the following firms:—Morin & Co., in the liquor trade; Morin & Laline, general store; Morin & Bergeron, dry goods, all in St. Hyacinthe, with a capital of $200,000, he being principal partner in all the above establishments. When thirty-two years of age, becoming tired of the retail trade, he sold to his partners his interest in all the stores he had established, with the object of embarking in real estate transactions, and in this he has proved equally successful. He has built one of the finest private residences in the city of St. Hyacinthe, and finds himself, at the age of thirty-three, the most important property owner in the county of St. Hyacinthe. He enjoys a good reputation, and his numerous partners and friends have reason to be thankful to him for his aid at various times. The city of St. Hyacinthe is also indebted to him for the erection of numerous blocks of magnificent stores, and several private residences. Although Mr. Morin is yet comparatively young, he is exceedingly popular in his district, and has been several times requested to enter public life, but has invariably declined, on the ground that he could be of greater use to his friends and the country at large, in promoting private and public enterprises. He is looked upon as the Vanderbilt of St. Hyacinthe. * * * * * =MacDowall, Day Hort=, Prince Albert, M.P. for Saskatchewan, North-West Territory, was born in 1850, at Carruth House, Renfrewshire, Scotland. He is the second son of Henry MacDowall, of Garthland, Renfrewshire, Scotland, _vide_ “Nesbitt’s Heraldry.” Mr. MacDowall was educated at Windlesham, Surrey, England, and Trinity College, Glenalmond, Scotland. He was a captain in the Renfrewshire Rifle Volunteers from 1872 to 1879. He accompanied Gen. Middleton’s force through the Northwest rebellion of 1885, and took charge of the party dispatched by the general through the rebel district from Humboldt to Prince Albert. He was a member of the North-West Council for the district of Lorne, from June, 1883, to October, 1885; and was returned to Parliament, as the member for Saskatchewan, at the general election in 1887. He is a Conservative in politics. He was married August 12th, 1884, to Alice Maude Blanchard, daughter of Charles Blanchard, Truro, N.S. He is a member of the Manitoba Club, Winnipeg; Wanderers’ Club, Pall Mall, London, Eng., and Rideau Club, Ottawa, Ont. * * * * * =Prévost, Oscar A.=, Brevet-Major, (late of the regiment Canadian artillery, then A and B batteries, permanent artillery), Quebec, was born in Montreal on the 9th of May, 1845. His father, Amable C. Prévost, was a descendant of an old French family of Anjou, (Prévost de la Boutèlière). He was a merchant of Montreal, very successful in business, leaving an estate of over half a million dollars. He died in February,