Part 100

=Barbeau, Henri Jacques=, Montreal, is descended from an old and distinguished French-Canadian family, allied to the de Noyons and the de Rainvilles. The first of M. Barbeau’s ancestors to come to Canada was the Sieur Jean Barbeau-Boisdoré, who was born at St. Vivien-du-Pont, parish of Xaintes, France, in 1666. Having taken to a military career, the Sieur Jean joined the troops of the marine, and at the age of twenty his name appears on the roll of the Sieur de St. Cirque’s company, then stationed in Canada. This progenitor of the Canadian branch of the Barbeau family married, at Boucherville, Mdlle. Marie de Noyon, and left many descendants, who to-day occupy prominent and influential positions in the Quebec province. Mr. H. J. Barbeau was born at Laprairie in 1832, of the marriage of Edmund Henry Barbeau, merchant, and Sophie Bourassa, a daughter of captain Bourassa. His father having died at an early age, young Barbeau’s education was undertaken by his grandfather, the late Lieutenant-Colonel Louis Barbeau-Boisdoré, notary, of Laprairie, who died in 1864, at the ripe age of eighty. Colonel Barbeau-Boisdoré married Mary Powell, niece of Edmund Henry, who for many years had control of Colonel Christie’s vast seigneuries in the neighborhood of Lake Champlain, and afterwards became government agent for the seigneurie of Laprairie, and notary for the district. This gentleman inherited the military instincts of his ancestors, and when the war of 1812 broke out, he was among the first to offer his services to the Canadian government in resisting the invasion of the country. He served as a lieutenant in the campaigns of 1812-13, and from 1830 to 1840 held higher commands, dying in 1864 with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Mr. H. J. Barbeau, the subject of the present sketch, has almost exclusively devoted himself to commercial pursuits. He received a good commercial education, under Mr. H. O’Regan, whom the Jesuit Fathers had made parish teacher at Laprairie, then under their ecclesiastical supervision. Young Barbeau commenced his commercial life at Laprairie, where he held a clerkship, and gave promise of attaining success in business. In 1852 he came to Montreal, and held responsible positions in several of the wholesale houses of the city until 1858, when, having acquired the necessary experience, he went into business for a while on his own account at St. Hyacinthe. Later on he held positions as insurance agent, appraiser for the Trust and Loan Company, and official assignee. In 1870 he was appointed to the management of a branch of the Merchant’s Bank, which was then opened for the first time at St. Hyacinthe. Five years later, the Savings Bank having established a series of branch offices in Montreal, Mr. Barbeau was offered the management of one of them, a position which he accepted and held till 1879, when he was called to succeed his brother, Mr. E. J. Barbeau, as general manager of the Montreal City and District Savings Bank. Mr. E. J. Barbeau, it may be said, was for thirty years the able manager of the Savings Bank, and now retired, to be succeeded by the subject of this sketch. In this new position of responsibility as a banker, Mr. Barbeau has evinced the same judgment, prudence and foresight which has always characterised his own business transactions, marked the character of his earlier career, and won for him success in all his enterprises, with the good opinion of those with whom he came in contact. In 1859 Mr. Barbeau married Josephine Varin, daughter of J. B. Varin, notary, and late member for Laprairie. Eleven children were born of this union, of whom seven survive. It may here be added, that Mr. Varin, whose high character and profound legal attainments are well known, married Hermine, daughter of the late Jean Moïse Raymond, who in his day was a prominent merchant, and member for l’Assomption, and a grand-daughter of M. Jean Raymond, for many years member for Laprairie.

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=Pope, Percy William Thomas=, Assistant Receiver-General, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, eldest son of the Hon. James Colledge Pope and Eliza Dalrymple, his wife, was born at Summerside, Prince Edward Island, on the 8th May, 1856. He was educated at the Prince of Wales College, in Charlottetown. During his early life he was employed in the management of large ship-building and fishing industries in the western portion of the island. In 1882 he emigrated to the North-West Territories, and was one of the earliest settlers who located upon the site of the present town of Regina, the capital of Assiniboia. After the advent of the Canada Pacific Railroad, he engaged in the lumber business, importing the first manufactured lumber ever brought into that district. When, in the fall of 1882, the growth of the town rendered some form of civic organization desirable, he was elected one of three commissioners to represent the settlers’ interests. Mr. Pope remained there until the summer of 1883, when the position of assistant receiver-general, Charlottetown, rendered vacant by the retirement of the Hon. Joseph Pope, was offered to him by the government. This office he accepted, returned to his native island, and has since resided in Charlottetown. In religion, he is a member of the Church of England. In politics, a Conservative. He was married on the 15th day of April, 1882, to Mary Louise, second daughter of John Macgowan, by whom he has issue a son and two daughters.

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=Sullivan, Hon. William Wilfrid=, Charlottetown, Premier and Attorney-General of Prince Edward Island, and a member of the Provincial Parliament for the second district of Kings county, was born at New London, Prince Edward Island, on the 6th of December, 1843. His parents, William Sullivan and Mary McCarthy, both now deceased, were natives of the county Kerry, Ireland. Hon. Mr. Sullivan was educated at the Central Academy and St. Dunstan’s College, Charlottetown. He studied law with the Hon. Joseph Hensley, then attorney-general, and now one of the judges of the Supreme Court of Prince Edward Island. He was called to the bar of Prince Edward Island in Trinity Term, 1867, and became a partner of his preceptor, holding that connection until Mr. Hensley was appointed to the Supreme Court bench two years later. No client ever suffers at the hands of Mr. Sullivan for the want of close application to his cause. Possessed of much coolness, clear judgment and sterling good sense, and being candid and logical in his arguments, Mr. Sullivan never fails to make admirable points, or to favorably impress bench and jury. We learn from the “Historical Illustrated Atlas of Prince Edward Island” that Mr. Sullivan was appointed a Queen’s counsel by the government of Prince Edward Island in June, 1876, and by his excellency the governor-general of Canada, under letters-patent, on the 19th May, 1879; that he was one of the counsel for the government in the interests of the tenants before the Land Commissioners’ Court under “The Land Purchase Act, 1875.” Hon. Mr. Sullivan is head of the extensive law firm of Sullivan & Macneill, who do business in all the courts of the province and the Supreme Court of the Dominion; is a deputy judge of the Admiralty Court, and a notary public, and is president of the Board of Education; president of the Board of Trustees of the Prince Edward Island Hospital for the Insane, and a director of the Merchants’ Bank of Prince Edward Island, and a local director of the Canada Life Assurance Company. He first entered public life in 1872, when he was elected to represent the first district of Kings county. He was returned for his present seat at the general election in April, 1873, and again, by acclamation, the following month on being appointed to office. He was re-elected at the general elections of 1876, 1879, 1882, and again at the last general election, 1886. He was a member of the Executive Council from 22nd of April to June, 1872, when he resigned; was appointed to the Executive Council, with the office of solicitor-general, on the formation of the Pope administration, 18th April, 1873; resigned his seat in the Executive Council upon the resignation of the Conservative government, on the 4th of September, 1876; and was unanimously elected leader of the opposition at the meeting of the legislature on the 14th of March, 1877. On the 1st of March, 1879, Mr. Sullivan moved, in the House of Assembly, a resolution of non-confidence in the government, which, after a long and animated debate, was carried by a vote of nineteen to ten on the 6th of March, and the administration resigned the following day. Our subject was then invited by the lieutenant-governor, Sir Robert Hodgson, to form a government, and take the position of premier. He succeeded in forming an administration, and the government were sworn in on the 11th of March, 1879. He was elected leader of the government by the unanimous vote of his party in both branches of the legislature, and was appointed attorney and advocate general, and president of the Executive Council on the formation of the administration, which positions he has held continuously ever since. The House of Assembly was dissolved and a general election held on the 9th of April, 1879, when the government were sustained by a majority of twenty-six to four, being the largest support ever accorded to any administration in the island. Among other acts, Hon. Mr. Sullivan was chiefly instrumental in securing branch lines of railway to Souris and Tignish in 1872; assisted in carrying through the Island legislature terms of confederation in 1873; assisted in passing The Land Purchase Act, 1875, and other acts on the same subject in 1876; introduced and carried through the legislature An Act for Abolishing Imprisonment for Debt, in 1879, and The Jury Act, 1880, which provides for the trial of all civil cases by seven instead of twelve jurors, as well as many other measures of law reform, and acts for the general benefit of the province. The Hon. Mr. Sullivan has been, on several occasions, a delegate to Ottawa, on public business; and, in 1886, was a delegate to London, to lay before the Imperial government the case of Prince Edward Island, concerning the non-fulfilment of the terms of confederation, with regard to continuous steam communication between that province and the mainland of Canada. He declined a nomination for the House of Commons at the general elections in February, 1887. Hon. Mr. Sullivan has been premier for a longer period than any of his predecessors. As a leader he matures his measures thoroughly before submitting them to the house, hence his success in that position; his industry is unwearied; he clings with the utmost tenacity to the cause which he advocates, and never trusts the discharge of any parliamentary duty devolving upon himself to another. He is a thorough master of the English language, and speaks with exactness and precision. He is also extremely cautious, and takes good care not to get his party (the Conservatives) into deep water. Having a strong and determined will, once convinced that he is right, he pushes forward, with unflinching perseverance, and success almost invariably crowns his efforts. He was married at Charlottetown, on the 13th of August, 1872, to Alice Maude Mary, third daughter of John Fenton Newbery, B.A., of Oxford, and formerly of London, England, and Siena, Italy, and they have six children. The family are members of the Roman Catholic church. Their residence, “Brighton Villa,” adjoining Charlottetown, is a beautiful place.

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=Boire, Louis Henri Napoleon=, Manager of the Three Rivers Branch of the Banque d’Hochelaga, was born on the 17th of February, 1850, in the parish of St. Philippe, county of Laprairie, province of Quebec, of well-to-do parents. After attending for five or six years the country school of the place of his birth, he entered, at the age of twelve, the Montreal College, where he remained three years, after which he became a scholar in the Jacques Cartier Normal School in Montreal, where he followed the whole course of studies with a decided and marked success. Later on, in May, 1869, he was admitted to the study of medicine, but gave it up to enter on a business career; and for this purpose he became a student in the Montreal Business College, and after a few months he graduated from this institution. The following years, of which a few months were passed in Manitoba, he was employed as accountant or bookkeeper in Montreal mercantile houses, when, in September, 1874, he was appointed accountant in the Joliette branch of the Banque d’Hochelaga, and six months later, in March, 1875, he was made manager of the same branch. Here he remained until February, 1885, and was then appointed manager of the Three Rivers branch of the same bank, and in that town he has resided since. He was married in January, 1876, to M. Lea Cornellier, of Joliette, P.Q., daughter of the late E. Cornellier, a retired merchant.

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=Wade, Edward Harper=, Quebec, was born in 1846, in what was formerly known as “the good old town of Liverpool.” His father, Samuel Mosley Wade, and his grandfather, Samuel Wade, were long engaged as brokers in the cotton trade of that port, and his mother was a daughter of the late Richard Harper, of Low Hill, Liverpool. He received his commercial training in the office of Sharples, Jones & Co., who then carried on a large wholesale importing business in Quebec timber in connection with their Canadian house. His father having been lost at sea in the _Royal Charter_, when returning from a visit to Australia, he was apprenticed to the firm named, by his uncle and guardian, the late Thomas Wilson, a well-known Liverpool shipbuilder. Indentures were drawn up in the good old-fashioned style, binding the apprentice to five years’ service in consideration of being taught the trade and business of a timber merchant. This engagement was faithfully carried out on both sides, and every opportunity given for the acquisition of such knowledge of all timber mysteries as the Canada Dock Quay, or the town office of the firm, afforded; and the lesson of straightforward and truthful dealing and liberal fulfilment of all business obligations and promises was duly inculcated. After the expiration of the term named he remained three years with the firm, and was then transferred to the Quebec office of C. & J. Sharples & Co. The Quebec firm became John Sharples, Sons & Co., and the Liverpool house Henry Sharples, Son & Co., and all the senior partners had passed away before he left the employ at the end of 1877, having for several previous years travelled on contracting business in all parts of the United Kingdom, but especially in Ireland and North Wales, districts then largely importing Quebec goods. At that time this portion of the business seldom fell into such young hands, but the high standing and careful shipments of the firm served the young salesman well, and enabled him to continue and extend the connection of the house in the districts specially left to his care. Many little ports that are now entirely or almost altogether supplied from larger centres at that time imported several Quebec timber cargoes each year, and districts which now consume little besides pitch pine, spruce deals and Baltic goods were good customers for Canadian white pine, then commonly called yellow pine. At the end of 1877 he entered into business arrangements with the old and well-known Quebec firm of Roberts, Smith & Co. The parting between Messrs. Sharples and himself was characterized by the greatest good feeling on both sides, and the long connection left behind it a warm friendship that has never been disturbed in the slightest degree, even during the keen competition of the most trying selling seasons. His respect and esteem for all members of the family have always been strongly expressed, and their kindly feeling towards him has remained unchanged. For three years he continued as salesman with Roberts, Smith & Co., with a percentage on the profits of the business; and on Mr. Joseph Roberts retiring in 1880, he was taken into partnership by Mr. R. H. Smith, and the firm was continued under the style of Smith, Wade & Co. Taught by the sound judgment and thorough practical knowledge of timber and its classification and by the long experience of all points connected with Quebec contracting possessed by Mr. Roberts, and instructed in sound principles of finance, banking, and details of management by Mr. Smith, whose qualifications in this respect are so well known, the subject of our sketch obtained a thorough insight into the working of a Quebec shipping business as it should be carried on. Under such training it is not strange that he has established a character for reliability, that with him a promise is as faithfully carried out as a contract, and the spirit as well as the letter of the agreement always kept. For many years Mr. Roberts and Mr. Smith had entire charge of the Canadian supply to the English dockyards under admiralty contracts through Messrs. Chapman, of London. This was a most important business, including the annual supply of many large masts and spars of considerable value, such as are now only obtained from the Pacific coast. Mr. R. H. Smith retired at the end of last year, and Mr. H. T. Walcot, for nine years past a member of the firm of John Burstall & Co., has joined Mr. Wade in carrying on the business, under the same style, with the same staff, and upon the same lines. Shortly after his arrival in Canada, and during a political riot, Mr. Wade had a narrow escape with his life in rescuing from an infuriated mob an unfortunate man who, but for his interference, would probably have been killed. Except in such extreme cases he is an advocate of non-intervention, and of letting people manage their own affairs in their own way. The Canadian system of home rule is, in his opinion, the perfection of government. Although a firm believer in free trade, he readily admits that sometimes there are more important questions than any connected with the tariff, and believes it is essential to keep in power the best men in the country. Apart from his energy, enterprise, and thorough knowledge of that portion of the trade of which he is a worthy representative, much of Mr. Wade’s success is doubtless due to the genial and courteous manner which characterizes his intercourse with all sorts and conditions of men, and which has been the means of securing him hosts of friends and well-wishers. Mr. Wade was married in 1874 to Margaret, eldest daughter of John Simons, of Quebec, by whom he has five children.

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=Blanchet, Hon. Jean=, Q.C., Quebec, M.P.P. for the County of Beauce, was born in February, 1843, in St. François, county of Beauce, and is a descendant of one of the oldest settlers in La Nouvelle France. He is the son of C. Blanchet, N.P., of St. François de la Beauce, and a nephew of the Right Rev. Mgrs. Blanchet, bishops of Oregon and Vancouver respectively, whom we may truly call the pioneer apostles of evangelisation in British Columbia. This country is under a heavy debt of gratitude to the reverend prelates for the detailed descriptions and quaint narratives of their early travels in that far-off part of the Dominion, and the historian of the future will find an inexhaustible supply of materials in their memoirs. The subject of our sketch was educated at the College of Nicolet, and at the termination of his classical course of studies entered Laval University to follow the law course of that institution, attending the office of Bossé and Bossé at the same time. On the 3rd of October, 1863, he was admitted to the bar of Lower Canada, and in 1876 was appointed a Queen’s counsel by the government of the province of Quebec, and re-appointed as such by the Dominion Government, on the 11th October, 1880, it having been decided by the courts of law that the appointment of Queen’s counsels was _ultra vires_ of the provincial legislatures, and rested solely with the federal authorities. He is a member of the council of the bar, Quebec section. On his first presenting himself for parliamentary honours in his native county, at the general election of 1872, he was unsuccessful. In November, 1881, he, however, was elected by acclamation, and was sworn in as a member of the executive council on the 31st July, 1882, taking the portfolio of provincial secretary in the Mousseau administration. In 1884, he was again appointed to the same office, under the Ross administration, and accepted the same portfolio in January, 1887, under the Hon. L. O. Taillon, who resigned in the same month. He has been elected at the general election of 1886 by 187 majority. Hon. Mr. Blanchet is an honorary member of several societies. Among others, may be mentioned L’Athénée Louisianais, the Historical Society of Montreal, and the Geographical Society of Bordeaux, France; he is also president of the Asbestos Mining and Manufacturing Company of Canada, and the Artisans’ Permanent Building Society. In politics Hon. Mr. Blanchet is a Liberal-Conservative, and resides in Quebec, enjoying an extensive _clientèle_ in Quebec, Beauce, and Montmagny. He is a member of the law firm of Blanchet, Drouin and Dionne. He married on the 5th of August, 1878, Jeanie, daughter of General S. Seymour, of Albany, late state engineer of the state of New York, by whom he has issue two children, one son and one daughter.

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=Phillips, Rev. Caleb Thaddeus=, Minister of the Free Baptist Church, Woodstock, New Brunswick, was born at Wakefield, county of Carleton, N.B., on the 7th June, 1841. His father was Cornelius Ackerman Phillips, whose grandfather was one of the U. E. Loyalists; and his mother Frances Stevens, daughter of John Stevens and Mary Ackermann, and grand-daughter of Colonel Lawrence, a noted officer in the British army during the revolutionary war. Rev. Mr. Phillips received his education in his native parish and at Acadia College, Wolfville. He afterwards entered the ministry, and was for fourteen years in charge of the Sussex pastorate, in Kings county. Upon his resignation he was presented with a gold watch and an address from the citizens, and in 1884 took charge of the Free Baptist Church in Woodstock, N.B., of which he is the present pastor. He takes a deep interest in the temperance reform, and is a hard worker for the advancement of the Master’s kingdom on earth. He belongs to the fraternity of Freemasons, and is a member of Woodstock lodge. On the 8th October, 1870, he was married to Georgia, daughter of the Rev. Cyriac Cyrell Doucette, and has a family of four children.

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