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

Kent Northern Railway; takes a deep interest in Masonry, is a past master of St. Andrew’s Lodge, A. F. and A. M., Richibucto, New Brunswick, he is also a Royal Arch mason, and has been for a considerable time connected with the order of Oddfellows. On account of the hardships and exposure attending the practice of his profession in northern New Brunswick, he decided to remove to Windsor, Nova Scotia, which he did with his family in the autumn of 1882, where he at present resides in active practice. On the eve of departure to his new field of labour, he was presented with a very complimentary address, signed by the leading inhabitants of Richibucto and vicinity. The following are brief extracts:—“Your departure from Richibucto is deeply regretted by all classes in this community. The sixteen years spent in active work in our midst have made you personally acquainted with us all, and while your professional skill won our trust, and commanded our admiration, your sterling qualities, as a man, gained our enduring friendship. A broader field of labour may await you in your new home, and a more ample recompense favour your work, but you will search in vain for hearts more fervent in wishes for your welfare than those you leave behind in Richibucto.” Dr. Moody is a member of the Church of England, and has always taken an active part in church work, having held while in Richibucto the offices of church warden and delegate to the diocesan synod. He is at present a warden of Christ Church, and also a governor of the University of Kings College, Windsor, N.S. On the 9th of September, 1880, he was married to Augusta Whipple, second daughter of the late James H. Jones, of Digby, N.S. Their family consists of three children, one son and two daughters. * * * * * =Griffin, Martin J.=, Ottawa, Librarian of Parliament, was born in St. John’s, Newfoundland, August 7, 1847. He received his collegiate education in St. Mary’s College, Halifax, and studied for the Nova Scotia bar; first in the office of Hon. Wm. Miller, late speaker of the Senate; and later, in the office of Hon. James McDonald, now chief justice of Nova Scotia. He was most successful, being called, when only twenty-one, with a first-class certificate. From an early age he had shown decided talent for literature, and even before he became regularly connected with any public journal, he had contributed articles of various kinds to the press of Halifax, and had made some ambitious ventures in poetry and criticism for magazines in the United States. His ability secured for him a place on the staff of the Halifax _Chronicle_, for which he did good work while carrying on his studies. A year after his admission to the bar, that is to say in 1868, he became editor of the Halifax _Express_, which position he held until 1874. His writing during that period attracted wide attention, and marked him as the strongest journalistic champion of the Liberal-Conservative party in the province. His wide and accurate knowledge of public affairs caused him to be chosen as the assistant of the Hon. James McDonald, Q.C., the representative of Nova Scotia before the Fishery Commission, whose decision has since gone into history as the “Halifax Award.” His work in this direction was interrupted by an election contest, in 1874, in which he unsuccessfully sought election to the Nova Scotia House of Assembly. When the Conservatives came into power in the Dominion, in 1878, and Hon. James McDonald was sworn in as minister of justice, Mr. Griffin was appointed the minister’s private secretary, but resigned in three months to accept the offer of a position on the editorial staff of the Toronto _Mail_. His letters and despatches to the _Mail_, as well as the editorial articles which he contributed, were marked by the same vigorous and scholarly style which had brought him to the front in the Maritime provinces. It was but natural, therefore, that when a vacancy occurred in the chief editorship of this paper, Mr. Griffin should be called to fill it. This was in 1881. He carried the _Mail_, editorially, through the great campaign attending the general election in 1882, and it is only just to say, that the brilliant victory achieved by the Conservative party then, was due, in considerable degree, to the vigor and skill with which the chief representative journal of the party was managed by Mr. Griffin. On the death of Mr. Todd, who had so long and so well managed the library of parliament, it was decided to have a dual headship of the library, in keeping with the system of having both English and French as authorized languages, and Mr. Griffin was chosen as the fittest man for the high and responsible position of joint librarian. He was appointed in August, 1885. No man could be more faithful to any trust than Mr. Griffin has been in the management of the library, and few in any country could have brought to the work an equally wide knowledge of books. Mr. Griffin is above all else a scholar; but his long editorial experience has given him also a quickness of comprehension, and a systematising ability which fit him to be the adviser of legislators and writers in mastering questions with which they have to deal. Mr. Griffin was married in 1872 to Harriet Starrat, daughter of the late William Starrat, of Liverpool, N.S. * * * * * =Hingston, William Hales=, M.D., L.R.C.S. (Edinburgh), D.C.L., Montreal, was born at Hinchinbrook, province of Quebec, on the 29th June, 1829. His father, Lieut.-Colonel S. J. Hingston, formerly of her Majesty’s 100th Regiment, which did good service during the war of 1812-14, came to Canada with his regiment, of which he was then adjutant. In 1819, when his regiment was disbanded, he received from Lord Dalhousie command of the militia force of the county of Huntingdon, which he organized, taking up his residence on the bank of the Chateauguay river. Subsequently Sir James Kemp gave Colonel Hingston command of the militia of the county of Beauharnois. He was wounded at the battle of Chippewa, and died in 1830, when his son, William Hales Hingston, the subject of our sketch, was eighteen months old. The Hingstons are an old Irish family, and are related to the Cotters, of Cork, the elder Latouches, of Dublin, and the Hales family. At the age of fifteen, having received his primary education at the school in his native place, W. H. Hingston entered the Montreal College, where, at the end of the first year, he carried off three first and two second prizes out of a possible five. Subsequently he spent a couple of years in the study of pharmacy, and then entered McGill College, where he graduated in medicine, in 1851. He went at once to Edinburgh, where he obtained the diploma of the Royal College of Surgeons. While in Europe he spent most of his time in hospitals, and brought back diplomas from France, Prussia, Austria, and Bavaria, in addition to that from Scotland. One, the membership of the Imperial Leopold Academy, was the first ever obtained by a Canadian, the late Sir William Logan being the next recipient. Dr. Hingston began practice in Montreal, where he soon succeeded in building up a _clientèle_, surgery being his leading and special branch. In 1867 he again visited Europe, and, when there, on the invitation of Sir James Simpson, successfully performed, in Edinburgh, a difficult surgical operation on one of Sir James’ patients, and was afterwards qualified by that far-famed physician as “that distinguished American surgeon lately among us.” Soon after beginning practice in Montreal, Dr. Hingston was appointed surgeon to the Hotel-Dieu Hospital, where he had a large field for the exercise of his art. There he has since given daily clinical instruction in surgery. A recent number of a Montreal medical journal mentions some of the operations he was the first to perform in Canada: excision of the knee; removal of the womb; removal of the kidney; excision of the tongue and lower jaw, etc. Dr. Hingston was one of the organizers of McGill University Society, which secured to the _alumni_ the appointment of convocation fellows. When Bishop’s College Medical School was organized, he was named professor of surgery and clinical surgery, and afterwards dean of faculty; but soon resigned the professorships. He was one of the resuscitators of the Medico-Chirurgical Society of Montreal, and was its president many times. He was the first secretary of the Dominion Medical Association, and afterwards its president. He was chosen by the international council to represent Canada at the International Medical Congress, held in Philadelphia, in 1876, and was offered the same honor at Washington, in 1887, but preferred to remain representative in surgery. He has been, for many years, a governor of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the province of Quebec, and is now its president. He is consulting physician to several dispensaries, and to the Hospital for Women, of which he was one of the founders. He organized the first board of health in the Dominion, and has long been a faithful worker in behalf of the sanitary interests of Montreal. On three different occasions he had been urged to permit his name to be submitted as a candidate for the mayoralty, but declined. However, in 1875, at the unanimous request of his professional brethren, he consented, and was chosen chief magistrate by a majority of nearly ten to one over his opponent, and, as he stated at the time, “without having spent one moment of time, or one shilling of money, to obtain a position which no one should seek, but which, coming, as it did, no one was at liberty to decline.” He was re-elected the following year by acclamation. A third term was offered him, but that he declined. The period of Dr. Hingston’s mayoralty was one of grave interest and anxiety to the order-loving citizens of Montreal, and it was well that the office of chief magistrate was, at the time of the Guibord affair especially, held by a gentleman of character, coolness, and judgment. He received the thanks of the Governor-General (Lord Dufferin) for his conduct on that occasion. When an epidemic of small pox reigned in Montreal, and the anti-vaccinators offered every opposition to vaccination, Dr. Hingston, as chairman of the board of health, under cover of “A few instructions to the vaccinators,” wrote a paper on the disputed points in controversy, which effectually silenced his opponents. This paper was distributed gratuitously by order of the city council of Montreal, and was freely quoted all over America, and attracted attention in Europe. Again, when in 1885, the province of Quebec was visited with an epidemic of small pox, the government called into existence a provincial board of health, with all necessary power. The subject of our notice was again named chairman, and so soon as efficient sanitary measures had been completed, Dr. Hingston visited Washington, and induced the authorities there to modify their quarantine regulations, which had interfered severely with commercial intercourse and freedom of travel. During his professional career he has contributed a number of articles to various medical periodicals, chiefly on surgery. A more considerable contribution to Canadian science was his work on the “Climate of Canada, and its relations to life and health.” which was published in 1885. No member of the medical profession in Canada has been more honored by scientific bodies. In addition to those already named, several of the state boards of medicine of the United States have elected him honorary member, and many American state medical societies have done so likewise; the British Association, for the Advancement of Science, chose him as vice-president; and within the past few months the British Medical Association elected him honorary member, and the president of council, Sir Walter Foster, thus announced his election: “Dr. Hingston is too well and too favourably known to the members of this Association to require the council to give reasons for selecting him for this honor. His reputation as a surgeon is not confined to Canada.” The College of Physicians and Surgeons of the province of Quebec, in noticing the last honor, ordered the following resolution to be transmitted to England: “The College of Physicians and Surgeons of the province of Quebec, has learned with pleasure of the honor conferred by the British Medical Association on their president, Dr. Hingston, whose reputation as a surgeon, whose labors in the cause of public health, and whose delicately honourable bearing towards his professional brethren, had already secured to him every honor the profession of this Dominion could confer.” In 1875, Dr. Hingston married Margaret Josephine, daughter of the Hon. D. A. Macdonald, formerly lieutenant-governor of the province of Ontario, and has three sons and one daughter. * * * * * =Bergeron, Joseph Gédéon Horace=, B.C.L., Advocate, Montreal, M.P. for Beauharnois, was born at Rigaud, province of Quebec, on the 13th October, 1854. He is a son of the late T. R. Bergeron, who was a notary at Rigaud. His mother was Léocadie Caroline Delphine, daughter of Gédéon Coursol, notary, of St. Andrew’s, uncle of C. J. Coursol, M.P. for Montreal East. Mr. Bergeron was educated at the Jesuits’ College in Montreal, where he took a partial classical course. He then entered the McGill University, where he graduated B.C.L. in March, 1877. He adopted law as a profession, and was called to the bar of the province of Quebec in July, 1877, and is now one of the law firm of Archambault, Lynch, Bergeron & Mignault, Montreal. In 1874 he entered the Military School at Montreal, where he took a second-class certificate and then joined the No. 1 cavalry troop. He is an active member of the St. Jean Baptiste Society in Montreal, having joined it in 1875; and in 1880 he became a member of the same society in Valleyfield. He entered political life in 1879, on the death of the then sitting member, Mr. Cayley, for Beauharnois, and was returned to the Dominion parliament. At the general election of 1882 he was re-elected by acclamation; and in 1887, at the general election of that year, he was once more sent to parliament to represent his old constituency in the House of Commons at Ottawa. He is a Liberal-Conservative in politics; and in religion is a member of the Roman Catholic church. * * * * * =Sicotte, Hon. Louis Victor=, St. Hyacinthe, Quebec, one of the judges of the Superior Court of Quebec, is a son of Touissant Sicotte, of the parish of Ste. Famille, Boucherville, and was born at Boucherville, on the 6th of November, 1812. He was educated at St. Hyacinthe College. Our subject entered public life in 1852, representing the county of St. Hyacinthe in the Canadian parliament, and continued to do so for eleven years. The opening part of his political career was an exciting period in the history of the two provinces of Upper and Lower Canada—the questions of clergy reserves and the seignorial tenure being still unsettled; and in August, 1853, he was offered a seat in the Cabinet of the Hincks-Morin administration as commissioner of Crown lands, but he declined to accept it, because the government refused to proceed immediately to settle those two questions. Mr. Sicotte, by his writings on the question of the clergy reserves, extensively reproduced in the Upper Canada papers, was greatly instrumental in creating a powerful opinion to settle the question; the result was an overwhelming majority in parliament for the settlement of these two important matters. In 1854, Mr. Sicotte was chosen speaker, and held that honorable post till the dissolution in November, 1857. He was commissioner of Crown lands in the Taché-Macdonald government; and in 1858 became commissioner of public works in the Cartier-Macdonald administration, retiring from the government on the Ottawa question, in December of that year. In May, 1862, when the Sandfield Macdonald-Sicotte government was formed, our subject took the portfolio of attorney-general for Lower Canada, held that position until May, 1863; and was made judge of the Superior Court in the following September. In the year previous he was sent to England on public business, relating principally to the extension of communications with the North-West Territory, to realise what is now the Canadian Pacific Railway, and while there acted as commissioner on behalf of Canada at the international exhibition held in London. Before going on the bench, he held for a long time the presidency of the Board of Agriculture, and was also a member of the Council of Public Instruction, resigning the latter office when he accepted the judgeship. Judge Sicotte belongs to the Roman Catholic church, and people who have known him the longest and most intimately, credit him with having lived a blameless and eminently useful life. He was an intimate friend and coworker with Mr. Ludger D. Duvernay, and, with him, took the step towards the formation of the St. Jean Baptiste Society of Montreal. He was married, in 1837, to Margaret Amelia Starnes, daughter of Benjamin Starnes, of Montreal, and sister of Hon. Henry Starnes. They have ten children living. Judge Sicotte, after serving twenty-four years’ of judicial life, resigned in November, 1887, at the advanced age of seventy-five years, still strong and healthy, free and anxious for the study of the law, but outside of all litigation. * * * * * =Thornton, John=, Coaticook, President of the Cascade Narrow Fabric Company, province of Quebec, was born on the 3rd April, 1823, at Derby, Vermont. His father was John Thornton, and mother, Sally Lunt. His great-grandfather, on the paternal side, was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Mr. Thornton received his education in Derby, and came to Canada in 1840. He settled in Stanstead for about a year, when he removed to Barnston. Here he remained until 1855, when he moved to Coaticook, and there he has resided since, and done business as a general storekeeper. Being a public spirited gentleman, he was elected a councillor; then he held the office of mayor and warden of Stanstead county for two terms, and finally entered political life, and sat for eight years in the Quebec legislature, representing the county of Stanstead. He has been largely interested in the material prosperity of the district in which he resides. For a while he was one of the directors of the Magog Print Company, from which position he retired in