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

about eighteen months he taught young Canada in Barriefield school. A more lucrative situation offering as purser on board a steamer plying between Kingston and Cape Vincent, Mr. Dunnet bade farewell to the scholastic profession, and since then has devoted his attention to mercantile pursuits. He began business in Toronto as “Briggs & Dunnet,” in 1880, and six years afterwards Mr. Briggs retired, leaving Mr. Dunnet sole partner. Since then the business has steadily increased, so much so that in February, 1887, he took into partnership Malcolm McPherson, and these two are now the members forming the firm of Dunnet, McPherson & Co., hat and fur manufacturers, Front street, Toronto. Mr. Dunnet is in politics a staunch Reformer, and in religion may be classed among the Liberal-Christians. He was married in June, 1875, to Jessie McCammon, daughter of Robert McCammon, of Kingston, Ontario. * * * * * =Doutre, Joseph=, Q.C., Montreal.—The late Mr. Doutre was born at Beauharnois, in 1825, educated at Montreal College, and admitted to the bar in 1847. The history of his life is that of the struggles of his countrymen for civil and religious liberty, and is therefore of more than personal interest. His ancestors were from the old province of Roussillon, in the department of Pyrenées-Orientales. His grandfather came from the immediate neighborhood of Perpignan, and had hardly arrived in Canada when the country passed under the dominion of England. In 1844, at the age of eighteen, his first work, a romance of five hundred pages, entitled “Les Fiancés de 1812” (The Betrothed of 1812), was published. He was an early adherent of the Institut Canadien, and ever since the warm friend of that institution, which obtained its charter under his presidency. As soon as _L’Avenir_ newspaper had taken a fair start, in 1848, Mr. Doutre became one of its contributors. He was a liberal contributor to the press, and most of the journals of the province have at times published contributions from him. In 1848 he published “Le Frère et la Sœur,” which was afterwards republished in Paris. In 1851 he was the author of the laureate essay paid for by the late Hon. Mr. de Boucherville, on “The Best Means of Spending Time in the Interests of the Family and the Country.” In 1852 was published “Le Sauvage du Canada.” To these should be added a series of biographical essays on the most prominent political men of that date, which appeared in _L’Avenir_. As one of the secretaries of the association formed in 1849 for the colonisation of the townships, he was instrumental in starting the first settlements of Roxton and its vicinity. In 1853 Mr. Doutre took the direction of the great struggle for the abolition of the feudal tenure, and by means of meetings held throughout the country, and diligence and care in the preparation of practical measures, the agitation came to a crisis at the general election of 1854, when the parliament, filled with moderate abolitionists, passed a law which did away with this mediæval system of land tenure, to the mutual satisfaction both of the seigneurs and tenants. Another campaign began immediately after, for making the legislative council elective, instead of being nominated by the Crown, and a law was passed to this effect in 1856, at which time Mr. Doutre was requested to stand as candidate for the division of Salaberry, but he was defeated. In 1858 there commenced, in a decided manner on the part of the Roman Catholic bishop of Montreal, the long looming work of destruction against everything which gave manifestation of life in the minds of educated Catholics. Mr. Doutre stood foremost in the hand-to-hand battle which followed, and the victory was a painful one, being achieved in the face of the conscientious opposition of many friends. In 1861 he accepted, under party pressure, the candidature of Laprairie, which resulted in another defeat. This election, however, had the good effect of drawing attention to the evil system of two days polling, as it was evident that his first day’s majority had been upset by large sums of money being brought into play upon the second day. This is the last time we find the subject of our remarks in the arena of politics. He subsequently devoted himself entirely to his profession. In 1863 he became Queen’s counsel. In 1866 he delivered a lecture before the Institut Canadien, on “The Charters of Canada,” a remarkably concise and complete synopsis of the political constitution of the country under the French government. In the same year he was entrusted with the defence of Lamirande, the French banking defaulter, whose extradition was sought for before our courts. After the kidnapping of the man, when he was about to be released, he followed up the demand for his restoration to the jurisdiction of our courts, through the Foreign Office, in London, to a point when the British and French governments were very seriously out of harmony, when Lamirande solved the difficulty by surrendering all claims to further negotiations. In 1869, the refusal of the Roman Catholic authorities to bury Guibord, because he was a member of the Institut Canadien, brought Mr. Doutre face to face with the necessity of choosing between a direct contest with the authorities of his church or renouncing his right to belong to a literary society, which implied the right of any personal liberty of action. His choice in this matter entailed political ostracism, and imposed upon him the most arduous task of following the case in question from court to court, through all the degrees of jurisdiction in Canada, in order to obtain the burial of Guibord, and of continuing the same in England, where he went to argue before the Privy Council, not only without fee, but at daily expense, finally winning the case; and Guibord was buried in Côte des Neiges Cemetery by order of the Queen’s mandate. The Institut Canadien handed over its valuable library of eight thousand volumes to the Frazer Institute, and is now open gratuitously to the public. Mr. Doutre died on the 3rd of February, 1886, and was buried, at his own request, in Mount Royal Cemetery (Protestant), his remains being followed to the grave by the leading citizens of all denominations and nationalities. * * * * * =Thorne, William Henry=, Hardware Merchant, St. John, New Brunswick, was born on the 12th September, 1844, in St. John, N.B. His father, Edward L. Thorne, came from Granville, Nova Scotia, settled in St. John, in 1814, and was for many years one of the leading business men of that city. The members of the Thorne family who first settled in Granville, N.S., were of the old loyalist stock who left New York on the close of the revolutionary war and came over to the Maritime provinces. The mother of the subject of our sketch was Susan Scovil, and her parents settled in New Brunswick about the same time as the Thornes did in Nova Scotia, and belonged to the same body of loyalists who refused to sever their allegiance with the mother country. W. H. Thorne was educated at the Grammar School in St. John, and afterwards adopted the mercantile profession. He had several years’ experience as clerk with the firm of J. & F. Burpee & Co.; and commenced the hardware and metal business on his own account, in 1867. In 1873 he admitted R. O. Scovil as a partner. This gentleman having died in 1884, Mr. Thorne continued the business, taking into partnership, in 1885, two young men who had been in his employ for several years—namely, Arthur T. Thorne and T. Carlton Lee, and who are still members of the firm, and actively engaged in the business, under the style of W. H. Thorne & Co. The business of this firm has steadily grown until it is now amongst the largest in the Maritime provinces. The stock kept by it is the largest and best selected of its kind in the province, and their travellers may be daily met with in Quebec, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. Mr. Thorne, the head of the firm, takes a deep interest in everything that tends to advance the interests of his native city. He is a vice-president of the Board of Trade, and is connected with several other useful institutions. He is a progressive man, and may be classed among the Liberals; and in religious matters he is an adherent of the Episcopal church. * * * * * =Creelman, Hon. Samuel=, Round Bank, Upper Stewiacke, member of the Legislative Council of Nova Scotia, was born at Upper Stewiacke, Colchester county, Nova Scotia, 19th November, 1808. He is a son of William and Hannah (Tupper) Creelman, his father being the grandson of Samuel Creelman, who with his family emigrated from Newton Limavady, county of Londonderry, Ireland, in 1760. After residing for a time in Lunenburg and Halifax, he settled in Amherst, and at the time of the taking the census in 1872, was possessed of the largest stock of cattle owned in the township. Thence he removed to the locality now known as Princeport, Truro. His eldest son, Samuel, was one of the original grantees of the Upper Stewiacke grant, where he settled with his family in 1784, and where he died in 1834, aged 84 years. He became the possessor of sufficient land to furnish each of his six sons with a good sized farm on the river. Hannah Tupper, the mother of the subject of this sketch, was the great granddaughter of the late David Archibald, the eldest of the four Archibald brothers who emigrated to Truro from Londonderry, Ireland, by the way of New Hampshire, U.S. He was the first representative for Truro in the House of Assembly of Nova Scotia, and the first justice of the peace appointed in Truro. His name also stood at the head of the first list of Presbyterian elders in the Truro congregation. Her grandfathers, Colonel Robert Archibald and Eliakim Tupper, and Samuel Tupper, her father, all held the office of justice of the peace, and of elders in the Presbyterian Church. The Hon. Mr. Creelman received a common school education in Stewiacke, and studied for one winter under the late James Ross, D.D., Dalhousie College, at West River. He resided with his father and labored on the farm until of age, when, owing to delicacy of health, he spent a winter, as above stated, and in the spring followed teaching for a time, when he then engaged in trade, in which he was moderately successful. After his marriage he engaged in agricultural pursuits, which he has since followed. In 1842 he was appointed a justice of the peace, and a trustee of Truro Academy. Shortly after entering political life, he was elected in 1847 to represent the county of Colchester in the Legislative Assembly of Nova Scotia and represented this constituency until 1851, when he was chosen for South Colchester, and from that year until 1855 he represented it, when he was defeated at the polls. He was financial secretary of the government from 1851 to 1856; and was appointed a member of the Legislative Council in 1860. He was leader of the opposition in the Assembly until the resignation of the Hill administration in 1878, when he accepted the portfolio of commissioner of public works and mines in the Thompson administration that followed. This office he held until the fall of the administration, which took place in 1882. At this time the Hon. Mr. Creelman was in London, England, as a delegate on behalf of his government, whose object was the carrying out an arrangement with a syndicate for consolidating the railways of Nova Scotia. The new government recalled him and appointed another delegate in his place, but shortly afterwards the scheme was abandoned. He was reappointed to the Legislative Council, in 1867. Hon. Mr. Creelman has been very active in promoting all measures for the advancement of education and temperance. He introduced the bill for the establishment of a Provincial Normal School; and was the chairman of the commission appointed by the government for the erection of the first Normal School building in Truro, in 1854. When financial secretary he supported the bill for the prohibition of the sale of intoxicating liquors, which was carried through the House of Assembly, but defeated in the Legislative Council. Here we may say that the Hon. Mr. Creelman is the oldest member of the Nova Scotia legislature, and that the Hon. Judge Henry is the only one now living (besides himself) who held a seat in it when he first entered it. He is a large shareholder in the Hopewell Woollen Mills Company, and was formerly the principal shareholder in the Mulgrave Woollen Company, Upper Stewiacke. In 1830 he joined a Temperance society, and has been a total abstainer ever since, and an earnest and efficient worker in the cause. In 1849 he became a Son of Temperance, and in 1868 was elected grand worthy patriarch of the Grand Division of Nova Scotia. He has been president of the Nova Scotia Alliance, and is a vice-president at present and a member of the National Division of the Sons of Temperance of North America, having been initiated in that body in 1871. In 1878 he occupied the position of president of the Sunday-school Convention for the Maritime Provinces, held at Truro. He is a life member of the Nova Scotia Bible Society, and a member of the Young Men’s Christian Association, Halifax. He has also been a member of the Historical Society of Halifax for some years past. In 1882 he visited London, Liverpool, and several cities in England; Edinburgh and Glasgow, in Scotland; Paris, in France; and Belfast, Newton Limavady and Derry, in Ireland. He and his father were both elected elders in the Presbyterian church in 1851. On several occasions Mr. Creelman has been sent as a delegate to the General Assembly of that church, and attended its meetings at Montreal, Ottawa, and Halifax; and he has also attended meetings of the Synod of the Maritime provinces in connection with the same religious body. He has been a Sabbath school teacher for over fifty years. Previous to confederation Hon. Mr. Creelman worked in union with the Liberal party, having for his associates Hon. Messrs. Howe, the Youngs, Archibald, Uniacke, etc., but since then he has become a Liberal-Conservative. Owing to the infirmities of age, especially defective hearing, he is now unable to take the very active part in the legislature and in other public bodies which he previously did. Round Bank, the farm on which he now resides, is within a mile of his birth place. When in government offices his residence was in Halifax. On the 11th February, 1834, he married Elizabeth Elliot Ellis, who still survives. She is the eldest daughter of the late John Ellis, whose father emigrated from the North of Ireland nearly 100 years ago. Her mother was the daughter of the late James Dechman, of Halifax, who came from Scotland many years ago. * * * * * =Hind, Professor Henry Youle=, M.A., Windsor, Nova Scotia, was born in Nottingham, England, on the 1st of June, 1823, and came to Canada in