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In the preceding
chapters which treat of the lumber history of the Province of
Ontario, are many references to individuals; but the sequential
character of most of the narrative, which relates to timber and
lumber rather than to individuals, did not permit of specific
reference to many persons who were prominent in the lumber industry
and the operations of many of whom should have a place in any
history of the lumber industry in Canada. This chapter, therefore,
is devoted to a brief definition of the place of certain
individuals, firms and companies in the lumber development of
Ontario during the last hundred years. By no means all who should be
included are mentioned and to those an apology is perhaps due, but
the list includes those regarding whom data were immediately
available.
As in the chapter
devoted to the personnel of the Quebec industry, there is a certain
co-mingling of interests. The Ottawa Valley includes sections of
both Ontario and Quebec, the river forming, as it does, the boundary
line between the two provinces. Some Ottawa lumbermen have had their
chief holdings in Quebec waters, while some residing and having
mills on the Quebec side of the river have had timber holdings in
Ontario. From some standpoints the history of the Ottawa Valley,
without regard to provincial lines, would have been more desirable ;
but the plan of the work made most desirable the present
arrangement, which in this particular connection seems somewhat
arbitrary. For one who would secure a comprehensive view of the
Ottawa Valley as a whole it will be necessary to read the history of
both provinces and the account of the personnel of each.
THE WHITE FAMILY.
The town of
Pembroke, about one hundred and twenty miles up the river from
Ottawa, was founded in 1828 by Col. Peter White, a native of
Edinburgh, Scotland, who was for many years one of the principal
timber merchants of the Ottawa Valley. His sons have been actively
engaged in the lumber business and by their enterprise have done
much to build up their native town. Hon. Peter White, born at
Pembroke August 30, 1838, after receiving a business training from
an Ottawa mercantile firm, entered into partnership with his
brother, Andrew T. White, now deceased, as A. & P. White, and for
many years carried on an extensive lumber business which is still
continued under the firm name. Mr. White is known best, perhaps, as
an active politician. He was elected to Parliament in the
Conservative interest for North Renfrew in 1874 and, with the
exception of a brief interval, represented the constituency steadily
until 1896. He was chosen Speaker of the House in 1891 and held that
position during a parliamentary term, until 1896, in which year he
was defeated in the general election. He carried the constituency
again in 1904. Mr. White is a member of the Privy Council of Canada,
to which he was called in 1897. He is a director of the Pembroke
Lumber Company and is prominently identified with many local
commercial enterprises. His brother and business partner, Andrew T.
White, was also in public life and for some time represented North
Renfrew in the Ontario Legislature.
WILLIAM MOHR.
William Mohr, a
prominent figure in the early lumber trade of the Ottawa Valley,
died at his home in the township of Fitzroy, near Renfrew, Ontario,
in May, 1903, in the ninetieth year of his age. His operations were
confined to the square timber trade. He took many rafts to Quebec,
his transactions sometimes reaching 750,000 cubic feet in a season.
He operated on the Quyon, Bonnechere, Petawawa, Du Moine and
Madawaska rivers, where year after year he regularly made his trips
to the shanties.
BOYD CALDWELL & CO.
The late Boyd
Caldwell, of Lanark, Ontario, came to Canada from his native place
in Renfrewshire, Scotland, in 1821 with his parents, when only three
years of age. For about fifty years he was engaged in the export
timber business, but in 1867 became more extensively concerned in
the manufacture of woolen goods. Boyd Caldwell died in 1888. The
firm of Boyd Caldwell & Co., of which he was the founder, is still
extant, having recently been incorporated, with his son, Thomas Boyd
Caldwell, as president. In addition to its extensive woolen mills
the company operates a large planing and sawmill.
GILMOUR & CO.
Allan Gilmour, a
member of a family that in the early days was extensively engaged in
the square timber trade and is today prominently represented in
lumber manufacturing, was born in Lanarkshire, Scotland, August 23,
1816. In his early youth he went to Montreal, where he entered the
employ of William Ritchie & Co., wholesale merchants. In 1840 he and
his cousins, James, John and David Gilmour, assumed the business.
Shortly afterward they engaged in the production of square timber
for the Quebec market, and in 1853 Allan Gilmour took up his
residence in Ottawa, which became the headquarters of Gilmour & Co.
The firm acquired large sawmills on the Gatineau, Blanche and North
Nation rivers, tributaries of the Ottawa, as well as steam mills at
Trenton, on the Bay of Quints. Allan Gilmour retired from business
in 1873 and died in 1895.
THE COOKS.
George J. Cook, of
the Cook & Bro. Lumber Company, was a brother of Herman H. Cook and
was bom August 22, 1824, in Williamsburg Township, Dundas County,
Ontario. He was all his life actively engaged in the lumber
business. His first operations, early in the ’40’s, were on the
Nation River, from which they were transferred to Belleville and
subsequently farther west. He was one of the first lumbermen to take
out board pine in the country lying between Toronto and Barrie. The
later operations of the company under his management have been in
the Algoma district, where it owns extensive limits. Mr. Cook died
August 21,1902, and was succeeded as president of the company by his
nephew, George W. Cook.
H. H. Cook is a son
of George Cook. He built a mill at Midland, Ontario, in 1872, and
during the next ten years built six others in various localities.
Mr. Cook is at the head of the Ontario Lumber Company, of Toronto,
and owns extensive limits on the French and Vermillion rivers.
THOMAS COLE.
The death of Thomas
Cole, of Westboro, Ontario, in 1904, removed one of the pioneer
lumbermen of the Ottawa Valley. Mr. Cole was bom in Devonshire,
England, in 1820. He went to Canada when still young, and was
attracted to the lumber business, first locating at Papi-neauville,
Quebec, taking out square timber. Some years later he became a
partner of the late James MacLaren, of Buckingham, Quebec, J. C.
Edwards and Daniel Cameron in a firm which acquired the Gilmour
timber and sawmill interests on the Nation River. The firm did
business at the North Nation mills until 1878, when, through the
death of Mr. Cameron, the firm wound up its affairs. Mr. Cole left a
wife, four sons and five daughters.
THE M’LACHLIN
FAMILY.
The founder of the
large lumbering business now carried on by McLachlin Bros, at
Arnprior, Renfrew County, Ontario, was Daniel McLachlin, one of the
pioneer lumbermen of the Ottawa Valley, who established it over
sixty years ago. He was an important factor in the public and
commercial life of his day and represented his constituency in the
Canadian Parliament.
In 1853 Daniel
McLachlin purchased the water powers at the mouth of the Madawaska
River and the land on which the town of Arnprior now stands, and in
1857 moved up from Ottawa to Arnprior with his family. In 1866 he
erected the first sawmill in that place to saw lumber for the
American market. In 1869 he retired from business, leaving the work
to be carried on by his three sons, Hugh, Frederick and Claude,
under the style of McLachlin Bros. He died in 1872.
During the last
quarter of a century McLachlin Bros, have cut an average of
60,000,000 feet per annum. The firm has operated for years on the
Madawaska, Bonnechere, Petawawa, Kippewa and Black rivers and other
tributaries of the Ottawa River, at present furnishing employment to
about a thousand men.
Claude McLachlin
died in New York April 19, 1903. He was the youngest son of Daniel
McLachlin and was born at Ottawa in 1854.
THE CHARLTON
BROTHERS.
Among the Canadian
lumbermen who during the last generation or so have risen to
prominence in public life, John Charlton, of Lynedoch, Norfolk
County, Ontario, is easily foremost. Mr. Charlton, though an
American by birth, is of British parentage. He was born in New York
State, February 3, 1829, and went with his family to Canada in 1849.
He established himself at Lynedoch and engaged extensively in
lumbering operations.
Always keenly
interested in social and political questions and a strong Liberal of
the old school by conviction, he took an active part in politics and
in 1872 was elected to the House of Commons for North Norfolk, a
seat which he retained throughout all political vicissitudes until
the last general election in 1904, when his failing health compelled
his retirement from politics. Though a keen partisan, he held
decided views of his own on many questions. He is the author of a
measure usually known as the “Charlton Act for the Protection of
Girls,” and devoted much attention to the advocacy of commercial
reciprocity between Canada and the United States. He was appointed
by the British government a member of the Joint High Commission
which met at Quebec in 1898 to arrange disputes and remove obstacles
to trade between the two countries. A volume of Mr. Charlton’s
speeches and addresses on various topics has been published.
Hon. William
Charlton, brother of John Charlton, is a native of Cattaraugus
County, New York. His earlier years were spent in Iowa, but in 1861
he made his home at Lynedoch, Ontario, and engaged in lumbering and
mercantile business. He attained a leading position in the locality
and took a prominent part in politics on the Liberal side. He was
elected to the Provincial Legislature of Ontario, for South Norfolk,
in 1891 and reelected in several following contests. His thorough
knowledge of the lumbering industry and the conditions prevailing in
the backwoods contributed greatly to his usefulness as a legislator.
In 1902 he was chosen Speaker of the House, occupying the position
until the defeat of his party in the general elections of 1904. Mr.
Charlton is a member of the firm of Pitts & Charlton, of Toronto.
WILLIAM MACKEY.
William Mackey was
a prominent figure for over a half century in the lumbering trade of
the Ottawa Valley. He came to Ottawa, then Bytown, from his native
country of Ireland in 1S42 and secured employment in the
construction of the first government slide built at the Chaudiere,
and was subsequently engaged in improvement work and lumbering on
the Upper Ottawa under Hon. James Skead. In 1850 he went into
business on his own account and about this time formed a partnership
with Neil Robertson which lasted for twenty years and was terminated
by Mr. Robertson’s death. Their early operations were conducted in
the Madawaska country at a time when the square timber trade was at
its height. They made money rapidly until the depression set in. In
addition to the square timber operations they had a sawmill on a
limit at Amable du Ford. When they experienced some reverses Mr.
Robertson wished to withdraw from milling operations and to give up
his share in the limit as an unprofitable venture. Mr. Mackey’s
faith in the future of the industry, however, was unshaken, and he
relieved his partner of any obligation as to this feature of their
business and secured the entire control of the Amable du Ford limit.
After the market recovered he took from the limit annually large
quantities of timber and eventually disposed of it for $65,000. Mr.
Mackey retired from active business in 1902 and sold out his limits
and other lumbering property to J. R. Booth for $655,000. He died a
few months afterward.
H. L. LOVERING.
H. L. Lovering, of
Coldwater, Ontario, of English birth, began lumbering in October,
1850, on the present site of Port Severn, at the mouth of the Severn
River. In 1852 he located at the head of Lake Superior and cut the
first board manufactured on the site of the present cities of Duluth
and Superior. In 1857, having returned to Ontario, he associated
himself with A. R. Christie, of Port Severn. Since 1870 he has been
with the Georgian Bay Lumber Company.
JOHN R. BOOTH.
John R. Booth, of
Ottawa, Ontario, went there in 1852 and leased a small mill. He now
owns about 4,250 square miles of timber limits— sufficient timber
land to make a strip a mile wide reaching across Canada from the
Atlantic to the Pacific. In one of his mills 600,000 feet of lumber
is produced daily and between 1,500 and 1,600 men are given
employment directly or indirectly.
Mr. Booth built the
Canada Atlantic and the Ottawa, Arnprior & Parry Sound railways,
with 400 miles of main line and 100 miles of siding. He also founded
a line of steamers, built car shops and created other extensive
interests. In 1904 he erected a pulp mill at the Chaudiere. Mr.
Booth has also a distributing yard and planing mill at Burlington,
Vermont.
ALEXANDER FRASER.
Alexander Fraser,
of Ottawa, one of the leaders of the square timber trade, was the
son of Hugh Fraser, a Highlander who served in the War of 1812 and
afterward settled at a point near Ottawa, where Alexander was born
in 1830. He embarked in the lumbering industry and in 1853 took out
his first raft of square timber on Black River. His career was
successful from the start, and his operations rapidly increased
until during the ’70’s he had frequently a dozen or so rafts
simultaneously on the way to market. He was known from the
headwaters of the Ottawa to Quebec. He was a man of great energy and
determination of character, was possessed of a keen foresight and
sound business judgment and often by tacit consent was accorded a
leading part in the management of large enterprises in which he was
interested. He was one of the founders of the Bank of Ottawa, the
Lachine Rapids Hydraulic Company and the Ottawa Trust & Deposit
Company and was also heavily interested in the Upper Ottawa
Improvement Company and the Keewatin Lumber Company.
Mr. Fraser
sustained great reverses from time to time, but his strong financial
standing enabled him to bear them easily. In 1895, npon his
retirement from active business, his sons, J. B. and W. H. A.
Fraser, organized the Fraser Lumber Company. Mr. Fraser died June 1,
1903, aged seventy-three years.
HON. ERSKIXE H.
BRONSON.
Hon. Erskine Henry
Bronson, of Ottawa, was bom at Bolton, New York, in 1844. His
father, Henry Franklin Bronson, moved to Ottawa, then By town, in
1853, and built on Victoria Island, in the Ottawa River, the first
sawmill which shipped lumber from Ottawa to the American market. The
venture prospered and grew and many fortunes were made in the trade.
At the age of twenty-one the younger Bronson entered his father’s
business, familiarizing himself with all of its details. In 1867 he
was given an interest in the business, which was afterward
incorporated as the Bronson-Weston Lumber Company. The cut for
twenty years averaged 50,000,000 feet of lumber annually and one
season it amounted to 85,000,000. The mill went out of operation in
1898, but the company still owns large areas of timber lands. Mr.
Bronson is president of several industrial companies. He represented
Ottawa in the Provincial Legislature of Ontario between 1886 and
1898, and for some years was a member of the Liberal administration.
ROBERT STEWART.
Robert Stewart, of
Guelph, Ontario, located there in 1855, and is now the owner of one
of the largest plants in Ontario manufacturing sash, doors and trim.
THE M’ARTHUR BROS.
CO., LIMITED.
This concern was
composed originally of John, Alexander and Peter McArthur, of whom
only the latter survives. For nearly a half century they conducted a
manufacturing business in board pine, in western Canada and
Michigan. Their head office was in Toronto, with branches in
Montreal and Quebec. They held valuable timber limits in various
parts of Canada, and still have important interests in [this
respect, as well as others in gold, silver, lead and copper, both in
Canada and in the United States. The firm still manufactures timber
for the Quebec market, its product being handled by The McArthur
Export Company, in Quebec City. Its specialty, board pine, has been
always recognized as superior and is well known in all consuming
countries.
The eldest brother
of the family, Archibald McArthur, with his sons, is engaged, in a
limited way, in the manufacture of mixed varieties of square timber
for the Quebec market, at Lancaster, Glengarry County, Ontario,
where the Canadian branch of the family originated.
Under the name of
The McArthur Bros. Co., Limited, Peter McArthur conducts a large
enterprise in lumber in Detroit, Michigan.
THE RATHBUN
COMPANY.
Edward Wilkes
Rathbun, late president of the Rathbun Company, of Deseronto,
Ontario, was born in 1842 at Auburn, New York. During his youth his
father, Hugo B. Rathbun, left the United States to engage in the
lumbering industry in eastern Ontario. He started a small sawmill at
Mill Point, now the town of Deseronto, on the Bay of Quint6.
E. W. Rathbun,
after having received a first-class business training in New York,
joined his father. The industry soon attained large proportions and
expanded in many directions. In 1884 it was incorporated as the
Rathbun Company, with E. W. Rathbun as president. The company
established sawmill plants at Gravenhurst, Lindsay, Campbellford,
Tweed, Bancroft, Fenelon.Falls and Manitoulin Island. Other branches
of industry were added and operated from time to time as
auxiliaries, either by the Rathbun Company or other corporations
closely affiliated with it and controlled by Mr. Rathbun. These
included a sash and door factory doing a very large export trade,
charcoal kilns to utilize the byproducts of lumbering, cement works,
etc. The Rathbun Company is also in the lumber and coal carrying
trade, owns a dry dock and ship yard and has extensive car shops.
The stockholders are proprietors of the Bay of Quint6 railway,
eighty-four miles in length. These and other diversified industries
aid each other and have built up a flourishing industrial community.
The company owns about 350,000 acres of government timber limits in
addition to 60,000 acres of timbered land in fee simple.
Mr. Rathbun was a
firm believer in the necessity of conserving the forest as a
permanent source of supply, and the extensive limits under his
control were worked on economical principles with a view to avoiding
waste and preserving the younger growth of trees with an eye to
future requirements. He had made a close study of the question, and
was appointed a member of the Ontario Forestry Commission in 1897,
in which capacity he brought his practical experience as a lumberman
to bear upon the problems submitted. The report of this body had an
important influence upon the policy since pursued by the Government.
Mr. Rathbun, who
died November 24, 1903, was a many-sided man of tireless energy and
liberal culture, and took a keen, practical interest in all public
questions.
THE HUEDMAN FAMILY.
Robert Hurdman, of
Ottawa, was the youngest and surviving member of the original
Hurdman family, consisting of five brothers, William, Charles, John,
George and Robert, who were prominently identified for a half
century with the lumber trade of the Ottawa Valley. Their father was
Charles Hurdman, who emigrated from Ireland in 1818, and settled in
Hull Township.
Robert Hurdman was
born in 1830, and in connection with his brothers operated
extensively in the square timber trade on the Peta-wawa River,
Ontario, their first operations being in 1866. In 1872 limits were
purchased in the Kippewa district, and in 1879 they began to get out
logs on contract for the mill owners, in the same year forming the
partnership of Sherman, Lord & Hurdman. The firm operated the old
Crannell mill in the Chaudiere district, the logs being cut by the
Hurdmans on their limits. A limit was also purchased that year in
the Coulonge district. Several changes and reorganizations in the
personnel and style of the partnership subsequently took place. In
18S6 the name was R. Hurdman & Co., Mr. Hurdman acting as manager of
the mills. The concern afterward embraced other interests and in
1891 became the Buell, Orr, Hurdman Company. Mr. Hurdman, however,
had large lumbering interests outside of the company’s operations
and dealt extensively in timber limits, accumulating considerable
wealth. He entered into partnership with the Shepard & Morse Lumber
Company, of Boston, to operate his limit in the Kippewa district.
After the dissolution of this partnership he purchased limits from
the Bronson Company, at Deep River, which he sold to Fraser & Co. A
few years ago Mr. Hurdman bought from R. H. Flock & Co. the limits
at Ross Lake in the Kippewa district which he operated with the help
of his son until the time of his death. He died May 4, 1904, aged
seventy-four years.
HON. WILLIAM C.
EDWARDS.
Hon. William C.
Edwards, of Ottawa, is the son of William Edwards, who came from
England to Canada in 1820 and settled in Clarence Township, Russell
County, Ontario, where Senator Edwards was bom May 7, 1844. He
established in 1868 the firm of W. C. Edwards & Co., the
transactions of which have been large and successful. In addition to
his lumber interests Mr. Edwards devotes a good deal of attention to
stock raising and agriculture. Entering the political field as a
Liberal, he was elected to the House of Commons in 1887, and in 1903
was appointed a member of the Senate.
ROBERT LAIDLAW.
Robert Laidlaw, of
Toronto, has always been identified with the lumber industry, and in
1871, in partnership with Thomas Shortreed, purchased some timber in
Barrie Township, Simcoe County, Ontario, where he operated until the
timber was exhausted. In 1886 Mr. Laid-law established wholesale and
retail yards at Sarnia, Ontario, and Buffalo, New York. He is also a
member of the R. T. Jones Lumber Company of North Tonawanda, New
York.
GILLIES BROTHERS.
The business of
Gillies Bros. Company, Limited, was founded in 1873, by James,
William, John and David Gillies, sons of the late John Gillies, who
at one time carried on extensive lumbering operations at Carleton
Place, Ontario, in partnership with Peter MacLaren. The Gillies
brothers bought a sawmill plant at Braeside, Ontario, which has been
enlarged and improved until at the present time they manufacture
about 40,000,000 feet of lumber yearly, in addition to their output
of shingles,*lath, etc., giving employment to about a thousand men
in the mills and the bush. They hold about one thousand miles of
timber limits, partly in Ontario and partly in Quebec, on the
Coulonge, Peta-wawa and Montreal rivers and Lake Temiscamingue. For
the last thirty-five years the greater portion of their output has
found a market in the United States. James Gillies is president of
the company and is also head of the John Gillies Estate Company,
manufacturer of gasoline launches and sawmill machinery at Carleton
Place.
GEORGE M’CORMACK.
George McCormack,
of Orillia, Ontario, was born October 12, 1850, at Lochaber, Ottawa
County, Quebec, of Irish and Scotch descents Having in his youth
acquired a thorough knowledge of the lumber trade in the-Ottawa
Valley, he transferred his operations to the then little known
region of Parry Sound, which offered a promising field. He displayed
much foresight and energy, and his trade rapidly extended. For many
years he was in partnership with the late Angus McLeod under the
name of McCormack & McLeod until the death of the latter in 1903. In
addition to his operations in northwestern Ontario, Mr. McCormack
has large interests in the lumber trade of British Columbia. He is a
Conservative in politics and takes an active part in public life. He
entered the House of Commons in 1896 as representative of the
Muskoka and Parry Sound district and was a member during two terms.
GEORGE H. PERLEY.
George H. Perley,
of Ottawa, is the son of William G. Perley, one of the pioneer
lumbermen of the Ottawa Valley. His native place is Lebanon, New
Hampshire, and the date of his birth September 12, 1857. His
business career began with his admission to the firm of Perley &
Pattee, of which his father was the senior partner. At present he is
head of the firm of G. H. Perley & Co., vice president of the Hull
Lumber Company, and is also actively concerned in other industrial
undertakings.
Mr. Perley is a
public-spirited citizen and has taken an active part in charitable
enterprises. He was chairman of the relief fund which distributed
nearly a million dollars to the sufferers of the Ottawa fire in
1900. In politics he is a Conservative and on three occasions was
nominated as candidate of that party for the House of Commons, being
returned in 1904 as member for Argenteuil, Quebec.
JOHN B. MILLER.
John B. Miller, of
Toronto, president of the Parry Sound Lumber Company, is a native of
Athens, Leeds County, Ontario, and was born July 26, 1862. His
father was John Clausin Miller, at one time Superintendent of Woods
and Forests for Ontario, and subsequently a lumber operator. At an
early age Mr. Miller was associated in the business with his father,
upon the death of whom in 1884 he succeeded to the presidency of the
Parry Sound Lumber Company, which does a very extensive business. He
is also largely interested in manufacturing, being joint owner of
the Poison Iron Works, of Toronto, and is a prominent figure in the
commercial life of the city. In February, 1905, he was elected
president of the Lumbermen’s Association of Ontario.
JOHN BERTRAM.
On November 28,
1904, Canada lost one of its foremost citizens in the person of John
Bertram, who died from an operation for appendicitis at his home in
Toronto. He was a man of splendid business ability and sterling
integrity. Though prominent in many other spheres of activity he
was, perhaps, more closely identified with the lumber industry than
with any other. He was a Scotchman by birth, and arrived in Canada
in 1860 when twenty-three years of age, settling at Peterboro,
Ontario, where he engaged in the hardware trade. He moved to
Toronto in 1878,
embarking in the wholesale branch of the business. About this time
he began extensive lumbering operations in connection with the
Collins Inlet Lumber Company, of which he was president, having
large limits on the Georgian Bay with sawmills at Collins Inlet.
He was eminently
successful as an operator, and was a noted advocate of forest
preservation. His own operations were conducted on economical
principles with an eye to the future productiveness of his limits,
and utilized to the best possible advantage not only the pine but
the hardwood growth. Owing to his practical knowledge of forest
conditions, of which he had made a life study, in 1897 he was
appointed a member of the Ontario Forestry Commission to report on
the subject of restoring and preserving the growth of white pine and
other timber trees upon lands in the Province which are not adapted
to agricultural purposes or to settlement. The valuable report of
this commission practically inaugurated a new era in forest
administration. Its recommendations were adopted by the Government,
and a large area of land was added to the forest reserves. He was an
active and valued member of the Canadian Forestry Association and
the author of several masterly papers on forestry subjects.
Mr. Bertram was
largely interested in the Bertram Engine Works Company, of Toronto,
of which he became president in 1900. His last field of public
usefulness was as chairman of the Dominion Transportation
Commission. He was appointed to that office October 27, 1903. Under
his leadership the commission had collected much valuable
information, when ill health terminated his tenure of office. A
widow and a family of seven survive him.
NATHANIEL DYMENT.
A lumber operator
since the time of his youth is Nathaniel Dyment, of Barrie, Ontario.
His first operations were in Ancaster and Beverly townships,
Wentworth County, and subsequently he built a number of mills on the
Great Western railway. In 1886 the firm of Mickle, Dyment & Son was
organized, with mills at Gravenhurst, Severn Bridge and Thessalon,
Ontario, with an annual output of 35,000,000 feet.
ELIHU STEWART.
Elihu Stewart,
Superintendent of Forestry for Canada, was born in Sombra, Lambton
County, Ontario, November 17, 1844. He was admitted as a Dominion
land surveyor in 1872, and was extensively engaged in Crown surveys
both in Ontario and the Northwest Territories. He resided for some
time in the town of Collingwood and took an active part in municipal
and political affairs. He was elected mayor of the town in 1896, and
during the same year unsuccessfully contested North Simcoe in the
interest of the Liberal party.
In 1899 he was
appointed Superintendent of Forestry, owing to his wide knowledge of
the requirements of the Northwest, where extensive operations in
tree planting have since been carried on under his direction with
the best results. Since the work has been undertaken its scope has
been greatly increased. During the years 1901-1904 upward of
3,200,000 trees, distributed by the Government, have been planted by
the farmers in the prairie country. Over half of these trees were
set out in 1904.
AUBREY WHITE.
Aubrey White,
Assistant Minister of Lands and Mines for Ontario, was born at
Lisonally House, Tyrone County, Ireland, March 19, 1845, and
received his education in that country. He came to Canada in 1862,
and for some years was engaged in the lumber business in the Muskoka
district. In 1876 he entered the service of the Government as a
forest ranger and some years later was appointed clerk of the Woods
and Forests Branch. Recommendations made by him to the Provincial
government resulted in the adoption of the fire-ranging system,
which was established in 1885, and, having subsequently been greatly
extended, has done much to check the ravages of forest fires.
In 1887 Mr. White
was advanced to the post which he now holds in what was then known
as the Department of Crown Lands. During successive administrations
he has taken a prominent part in the shaping and carrying out of
their timber policies and the effecting of such changes in the
regulations as were rendered necessary by the development of the
Province. Mr. White is a leading Free Mason and a prominent member
of the Canadian Forestry Association.
THOMAS SOUTHWORTH.
Thomas Southworth,
director of Forestry and Colonization for Ontario, was born in Leeds
County, Ontario, in 1855, of American parentage, and is a direct
descendant of one of the Pilgrims who came over in the Mayflower. He
was for many years engaged in journalism as editor and manager of
the Brockville Recorder. In 1895 he was appointed Clerk of Forestry.
Previous to his appointment the duties of the position had been
merely of an educational and advisory character, but, owing to the
growing urgency of the question, the scope of the office was greatly
enlarged and it was put upon a practical basis in connection with
administrative work. To the investigations undertaken by Mr.
Southworth, and the data and suggestions presented by the Bureau to
the Government, the establishment of the system of extensive forest
reserves in the wooded regions of New Ontario is mainly due. Mr.
Southworth was a member of the Royal Commission which in 1897
reported on the subject in favor of the setting apart of forest
reserves. Latterly he has been entrusted with the direction of
colonization movements in the newer parts of the Province. |
