A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time by Rose
1854. Mr. Unsworth left four sons, one of whom, Joseph, is
729 words | Chapter 160
superintendent of the government railway on Prince Edward Island. His
widow, still living in Sherbrooke, is the sister of the well-known
English composer, John Hatton, who died a couple of years ago, in
London. Mr. Belanger has only one child, a daughter, having lost two in
their infancy. Mr. Belanger’s motto is “Live and let live!” He stands up
for equal rights to all men, and is a thorough Canadian. In 1867, Mr.
Belanger’s father and family removed from Ste. Rosalie to Cookshire,
county of Compton, where he purchased a large farm, now carried on by
Mr. Belanger and his youngest brother. His father died two years ago,
much regretted by a large circle of friends.
* * * * *
=Berryman, John=, M.D., M.P.P., of St. John, N.B., is of Irish
extraction, his father, John Berryman, being a native of Antrim, who
emigrated to St. John, and married Miss Wade, a lady of U. E. Loyalist
parentage. Dr. Berryman was born in St. John, 9th December, 1828, and
received his early education at the grammar school in that city. After
leaving school he began life as a clerk in a flour store in St. John,
then in a hardware shop, and for a half year in a flouring mill owned by
his father. In 1848 he visited the West India Islands of Trinidad,
Jamaica, and Cuba; Santa Fe De Bogata and Rio Hacha in New Granada. In
1849 he built, in St. John, a steam meal mill for grinding corn, and ran
it until the fall of 1851, when he sold out and left for the Cape of
Good Hope, and subsequently Australia, where he resided for five years,
and carried on business as a miner, merchant, truckman, builder, and
carpenter. Having early manifested a strong bent for the profession of
medicine, after his return from Australia he entered upon a careful
course of studies, at first in St. John and afterwards at the University
of Edinburgh, where he assisted, in his professional labors, Professor
Sir J. Y. Simpson, and resided in his house for two years. It is part of
the course of a good student to engage in actual work either in the city
of Edinburgh or at the university. In this way a medical student
acquires in the rough duties of a city physician a practical knowledge
of the minutiæ of his arduous employment, which must afterwards be of
great service to him, especially when, as so often happens, he elects
his field of labor in some remote country town, or on the outskirts of
civilization, where books are not to be had, and consultations with
other physicians are necessarily few and far between. Students at
Edinburgh frequently attend to outside patients, furnish statistics of
mortality to the official registrars, and deliver lectures on
professional subjects. It so happened that Dr. Berryman’s fate cast him
very soon into a field of work which tested his practical knowledge and
his natural resources to the utmost. The war of the United States
rebellion broke out in 1861, and the demand for men and scientific skill
of all kinds, but particularly for skilled physicians, became enormous.
Dr. Berryman went to the front and tendered his services, which, being
accepted, found a large field. He was appointed by Surgeon-General
Hammond a member of an examining board in connection with Professors
Stillie, DeCosta, Weir, Mitchel, and Gross, of Philadelphia, and Dr.
Smith, an army surgeon, to decide what disposition should be made of the
three thousand soldiers under treatment in the hospital. He saw many
thrilling scenes in the field of battle and in the crowded war hospital.
In the rough exigencies of army life, and amid the countless horrible
cases which war engendered, he had an ample field for his abilities, and
at the same time had opportunities of perfecting himself as a surgeon in
most difficult and delicate surgical operations. The training so
acquired has been of inestimable value to him in his subsequent career
in St. John and elsewhere. After the war was over he settled down in his
native city and speedily worked up an extensive and lucrative practice.
There was a great demand for the services of an army doctor. He took an
interest in the volunteer movement, and served as surgeon of the
garrison artillery of St. John from 18th April, 1864, to September,
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