A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time by Rose
1870. He took an active part in agitating for the construction of the
3105 words | Chapter 94
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
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