Part 53

=McLeod, Hon. Neil=, M.A., Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Member of the Executive Council, M.P.P. for Charlottetown and Royalty, is of Scotch descent, and was born on the 15th December, 1842, at Uigg, Queens county, Prince Edward Island. His parents were Roderick McLeod and Flora McDonald. He was educated at Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, and received from that institution the degrees of B.A. and M.A. He chose law as a profession, and was called to the bar of Prince Edward Island in 1872. He is now a member of the well known firm of McLeod, Morson, and McQuarrie, with offices at Charlottetown and Summerside, P.E.I. Mr. McLeod was first elected to the House of Assembly at the general election in 1879; was sworn in a member of the Executive Council, and on the 11th March, of the same year, appointed provincial secretary and treasurer. This office he held until March, 1880, when he resigned, with the object of applying himself more closely to his professional duties, but still remained a member of the government without a portfolio. He was re-elected to the Assembly at the general election of 1882, and again at the last general election, and is now a member of the government. Hon. Mr. McLeod holds the position of chairman of the Poorhouse Commissioners, and is also a trustee of the Provincial Lunatic Asylum. In politics he is a Liberal-Conservative, and in religious matters he has, from youth up, been a member of the Baptist denomination. He stands high among his fellow citizens as a man of probity, intelligence and culture. In June, 1877, he was married to Adelia, only daughter of James Hayden, of Vernon River, Prince Edward Island.

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=Le May, Léon Pamphile=, _Homme de Lettres_, Quebec, Chief Librarian of the Legislative Assembly of Quebec, was born at Lotbinière, on the 5th of January, 1837. His ancestor was Michel Le May, or Le Mée, who came to Canada more than two centuries ago, from the diocese of Angers, France. He settled, in 1666, at Three Rivers, where he was a farmer, and in 1681, removed to Lotbinière. Some members of the family are still residing in the latter place. He had thirteen children, whose descendants are scattered over the Dominion and the United States. The father of our subject was Léon Le May, farmer and merchant; and his mother, Louise Anger. They had a family of fourteen children. Léon Pamphile Le May received his education at the Quebec Seminary, studied law for some time, and then went to the United States, in search of a fortune. At the end of two years he returned to Canada, and engaged himself as a clerk in a mercantile house, in Sherbrooke, Quebec province. He soon discovered that he had no taste for mercantile pursuits, and soon after we find him in Ottawa, invested with the cassock, and studying theology. In 1861, dyspepsia compelled him to leave the cloister. In 1862, he was given employment as a French translator in the Legislative Assembly, Quebec, at the same time resuming his legal studies. He was admitted to practice in 1865, and went to reside in his native place, Lotbinière. In 1872, he returned to Quebec, and took the position he occupies at the present time—chief librarian of the Legislative Assembly. As Mr. Le May is a “book-worm,” the employment is congenial to him. When a young man, he commenced writing for the press, and his writings at once attracted the notice of the _littérateurs_ of Canada, the United States and France. In 1865, he published his first work, “Essais Poétiques,” a volume of over 300 pages, which was cordially received, and placed him in the first rank. In 1870 appeared a translation of Longfellow’s “Evangeline,” which raised Mr. Le May to a high position among the Canadian poets. Longfellow sent a congratulatory letter to the poet, and ever afterwards treated him as a friend. The translation is looked upon as Mr. Le May’s master-piece, and he can safely rest his reputation on it. The pathetic story of the Acadian exiles is admirably told; the poet’s soul seems to have been invaded by the sorrow he is describing; in fact, he _lives_ his subject, while the harmony and flexibility of the verse leave nothing to be desired. There have appeared since that time, in the order mentioned: “Deux poèmes couronnés,” Quebec, 1870, for which the author received two gold medals; “Les Vengeances,” Poème, Quebec; “Les Vengeances,” drama in six acts; “Le Pèlerin de Sainte-Anne,” a novel, 2 vols., Quebec, 1877; “Picounoc, le Maudit,” a novel, 2 vols., Quebec, 1878; “Une Gerbe,” miscellaneous poetry, Quebec, 1879; “Fables Canadiennes,” 1 vol., Quebec, 1882; “L’affaire Sougraine,” novel, 1 vol., Quebec, 1884. The following criticism is from the pen of Louis Honoré Fréchette, the poet-laureate, whose works “Les Fleurs Boréales et les Oiseaux de Neige,” have been crowned by the French Academy. Mr. Fréchette, as is well known, is not tender, as a rule, to his brother poets and _confrères_: “It has not the booming of the mad torrent: it is the purling of a fountain on a mossy bed; it has not the roaring of the lion: it is the cooing of the dove; it has not the bold swoop of the eagle: it is the timid undulation of the cygnet.” Mr. Le May married, in 1863, Selima Robitaille, of Quebec, and they have twelve children, five sons and seven daughters.

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=Murchie, James=, St. Stephen, ex-M.P.P. for Charlotte county, New Brunswick, and one of the leading merchants, lumber manufacturers, and ship owners of that county, is a native of St. Stephen, having been born on the 16th of August, 1813. His father, Andrew Murchie, was from Paisley, Scotland, and his mother, Janet Campbell, was a native of New Brunswick, and a daughter of Colin Campbell. James Murchie was educated at St. Stephen, and remained on his father’s farm until he became of age, and since that period has been engaged in manufacturing lumber on the St. Croix river, merchandising, and shipping, being one of the most extensive operators in those branches of industry in this valley. The firm of James Murchie and Sons has mills at Benton, Deer Lake, and Edmundston, on the New Brunswick Railway, as well as at Calais, Maine, and are cutting about 20,000,000 feet per annum. This firm also owns 200,000 acres of timber land, nearly half of it being in the province of Quebec, and about 38,000 in Maine, and the balance in New Brunswick. Mr. Murchie, who was a captain of militia in his younger days, is one of the oldest magistrates in this part of the country. He served for some years as school trustee, and has held, in fact, nearly all the local offices in the gift of the people, being painstaking and efficient in discharging the duties which he assumes. He represented Charlotte county in the House of Assembly from 1874 to 1878, being sent there by his Liberal-Conservative friends, and while in that legislative body secured the repeal of the Wild Land Tax Act, which had been attempted in vain by previous representatives from his county. He also carried other bills regarded as very important, and proved himself a diligent law as well as a lumber maker. He is one of the directors of the St. Stephen Bank; of two bridge corporations; the Calais Tug Boat Company, and other incorporated companies; vice-president of the New Brunswick and Canada Railway; president of the Frontier Steamboat Company; St. Croix Lloyds Insurance Company, and the St. Croix Cotton Mill Company. He was a leading force in engineering this last enterprise, giving several weeks’ time to getting the company organised, its capital ($500,000) taken, the site secured for the mill, the corner stone laid, &c. The last act mentioned was done by the Masonic order on the 24th June, 1881, and marked an epoch in the history of the town of Milltown, in which our subject resides, being the owner of the finest house in the place. This cotton mill is 517 feet long, 98 feet wide, and four stories above the basement, in addition to which are dye house, &c., which cover nearly two-thirds as much ground as the main building. The erection of this mill has converted one of the most squalid parts of the town into the most thrifty and industrious, and added from 800 to 1,000 inhabitants to the place. Mr. Murchie has done, and is doing, a great deal to encourage home industry, knowing that all such enterprises tend to increase the value of his own property as well as the prosperity of the country. It is a few such men as he—men of energy, push, and pluck—found in St. Stephen, Calais, and Milltown, that have built up this trinity of towns, and given them their present air of thriftiness. Milltown, the smallest of all, is just now probably the liveliest of the three. Mr. Murchie was also a leading stockholder and organiser in the Calais Shoe Factory, which employs 300 or 400 hands. He is a member and trustee of the Congregational Church, Milltown, which body has a house of worship which is a gem of architecture; and it is the impression of the community that no such elegant and costly structure could have been reared in the little town without both the shaping and the plethoric pocket of Mr. Murchie. He was first married, in 1836, to Mary Ann Grimmer, daughter of John Grimmer, late collector of customs, at St. Stephen. She died in 1857, leaving ten children. He was married the second time, in 1860, to Margaret Thorpe, daughter of Jackson Thorpe, of St. George, Charlotte county, having by her three children. She died in 1872. All of the children excepting one boy, who is at school, are settled in life. Five of the sons—John G., William A., James S., George A., and Henry S.—are in business with their father. The first, John G., ex-mayor of the city of Calais, is director of the Calais Tug Boat Company, and St. Croix Lloyds Insurance Company; the second, William A., is treasurer of the Calais Tug Boat Company, director of the Calais Shoe Factory and vice-consul of Brazil and the Argentine Republic. Two other sons, Charles F. and Horace B., are in the commission business on Wall Street, New York. His daughters are all married.

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=Morse, Hon. William Agnew Denny=, Amherst, Judge of Probate for Cumberland, Marshal in Court of Vice-Admiralty, Halifax, Chairman of the Liquor Licence Board, Judge of the County Courts of Pictou and Cumberland, and Revising Barrister, Halifax, was born on the 13th January, 1837, at Amherst, county of Cumberland, N.S. His father, the Hon. Shannon Morse, studied law with the Hon. Ames Botsford, of Westmoreland, who was one of the most distinguished men of his day in the Maritime provinces. He afterwards entered public life, and from 1819 to 1842 took a most active part in all the leading questions of these times, and for several years of this period he represented the town of Amherst in the local legislature. In 1842 he resigned his position in the Legislative Council, and retired into private life and devoted his time to the reclaiming and draining a large tract of marsh land, which operation, his son, Judge Morse, is now carrying on and completing. Judge Morse’s grandfather, A. Morse, settled on a tract of land granted by the Crown to his father (the judge’s great-grandfather). This gentleman had been an officer in the British army, serving under Lord Amherst (then Sir Jeffrey Amherst) during the French and Indian wars, which closed by Britain becoming possessed of the North American provinces, and in connection with Colonel F. W. Desbarres, Colonel Franklyn, Captains Gmelin and Gorham settled that beautiful and fertile tract of country situated at the head of the Bay of Fundy, and known by the French as Beaubassin. In an old document in the possession of Judge Morse, we find the following interesting record: “At the close of the war which accomplished the conquest of all the territories occupied by the French in North America, six individuals proposed, in concurrence with the intentions of his Majesty’s government, to carry on settlements in the then infant colony of Nova Scotia, praying suitable tracts of land for that purpose, and thereupon orders were passed which obtained for Joseph Morse and his associates 34,000 acres of land, in the town of Cumberland, 23rd day of November, 1763.” And under this grant Mr. Morse, and the four gentlemen alluded to above, laid the foundation of the first English settlement, formed after the expulsion of the French, which has grown in wealth and prosperity ever since. In the biography of Jos. Morse, written by his kinsman, the Rev. Dr. Morse, this tract of land is spoken of as having been granted him, to compensate him for his services and losses in the French and Indian wars. He died at Fort Lawrence, in Cumberland, and his cousin, Colonel Robert Morse, who, as colonel of the Engineers under Sir Guy Carleton, was the author of the “Report on Fortifications and Defences of Nova Scotia,” a document now deservedly ranked among the most interesting of the historical documents of our archives. Judge Morse’s mother, Augusta Agnew Kinnear was the grand-daughter of Andrew Kinnear, who commanded at Fort Cumberland in 1808, and was with Ames Botsford, the first members for the county of Westmoreland, who sat in the New Brunswick legislature after that province was separated from Nova Scotia. Judge Morse received his education at the private school taught by Dr. Hea, and at Sackville Academy, where he received a sound English and classical education. He afterwards studied law, and for years successfully practised his profession. He was then called to the bench, and appointed judge of Probate for Cumberland, and subsequently marshal in the Vice-Admiralty Court at Halifax, chairman of the Liquor Licence board, judge of the County Courts of Pictou and Cumberland, and revising barrister under the Dominion election law. Since his elevation to the bench, Judge Morse has ceased to hold the offices of marshall in the Vice-Admiralty Court and judge of Probates. Judge Morse takes quite an interest in agricultural matters, and has succeeded in reclaiming by ditching and draining large tracts of marsh land and adding haygrounds and increasing the taxable property of Cumberland, and is removing the obstructions from the River La Blanche, by which the tide waters of the Bay of Fundy are permitted to run up the marshes of Cumberland, and thereby convert, by drainage, bog lands into solid hay yielding lands, some of which are now producing two to three tons to the acre. In religious matters, Judge Morse is an adherent of the Church of England, and in politics leans to Reform principles. He was married on the 16th December, 1873, to Ella Frances Rebecca Boggs, whose family were among the first of the old Halifax U. E. loyalists who came from the United States, in 1780, on account of the rebellion.

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=Morrow, John=, Toronto, Inspector of Inland Revenue for the District of Toronto, was born in the county of York, near Toronto, Ontario, in 1832. His father, James Morrow, came to Canada from the county of Cavan, Ireland, in 1819, and his mother, Miss McNeil, came from the same district in Ireland in 1824. The vessel in which she, her mother, and brother, embarked for America, suffered shipwreck on St. Paul’s island, at the mouth of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, when nearly all on board perished, including Mrs. McNeil. John Morrow was brought up on the farm possessed by his parents in York county, and received his primary education in the public school of the district, but when he was about sixteen years of age was induced by the late Dr. Ryerson to go to the Normal School in Toronto, and he attended its sessions during 1849-50-51, and then graduated. He took up teaching as a profession, and successfully taught school for about twelve years. In 1866 he was appointed by the Dominion government deputy collector of inland revenue for the Toronto division; in 1873 he was promoted to the collectorship; and in 1881 was appointed inspector of the Toronto district, which office he now satisfactorily fills. Mr. Morrow is an adherent of the Methodist church. He was married in 1855 to Miss Sankey, the eldest daughter of the late John Sankey, builder, of York county.

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=Meredith, Sir William Collis=, K.B., D.C.L., LL.D., Quebec, who for a great number of years occupied the position of Chief Justice of the Superior Court of the province of Quebec, was born in the city of Dublin, on 23rd May, 1812. His father was the Rev. Dr. Thomas Meredith, rector of Ardtrea, in the county of Tyrone, Ireland; and his mother, Eliza, daughter of the Very Rev. Richard Graves, D.D., dean of Ardagh. Rev. Dr. Thomas Meredith having died, his widow in 1824 married the Rev. Edward Burton, and came out to Canada with that gentleman, bringing with her four of her children by her first marriage, the eldest being William Collis, the subject of our sketch. The family settled at Rawdon, north of Montreal, where the Rev. Mr. Burton had a mission under the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Before leaving Ireland William had passed some years at Dr. Behan’s school in Wexford, and after his arrival in Canada his education was continued under the care of his step-father, who was a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin. He was also greatly aided and encouraged in his studies at this time by his mother, who was a woman of great culture and refinement, and possessed of great energy and force of character. Mr. Meredith’s legal studies were commenced in 1831, in the office of S. de Bleury, and continued in that of J. C. Grant, Q.C., Montreal, both advocates of eminence. He was admitted to the bar in December, 1836, and was made a Queen’s counsel in 1844. In the same year he was offered and declined the office of solicitor-general, and subsequently that of attorney-general; and in 1847, having been again offered the position of attorney-general, he once more declined that high position in the Draper administration. In December, 1849, Mr. Meredith was appointed a judge of the Superior Court of the Province of Quebec by the Lafontaine-Baldwin administration, and abandoned with some regret the practice of a profession to which he was greatly attached, leaving to his partner, Strachan Bethune, Q.C., and the late Hon. Judge Dunkin, we believe, the largest legal business which at that time had been brought together by a single professional firm in the Province of Quebec. At the earnest solicitation of the government of Canada (Sir George E. Cartier being then attorney-general), and in compliance with the wishes of the leading members of the Montreal bar, Judge Meredith consented to be removed from the Superior Court to the Court of Queen’s Bench—that being the Court of Appeal for the province—and this appointment was approved of by a unanimous resolution of the Quebec bar. While a member of this court, several of his judgments were highly spoken of by the lords of the Privy Council in England. Judge Meredith continued to occupy a seat in the Queen’s Bench until the death of the Hon. Edward Bowen, chief justice of the Superior Court in 1866, when he was appointed to that high office, which he held until 1884, when failing health forced him to resign the position which for so many years he had held, and the duties of which he discharged with his characteristic energy and ability to the entire satisfaction of the profession and the public. As far back as 1844 Judge Meredith was requested to accept the professorship of law in the University of McGill College, in Montreal, by the then principal, Chief Justice Vallières, but the pressure of his professional duties compelled him to refuse the proffered honour. In 1844 he received the honorary degree of D.C.L. from Lennoxville University, and eleven years afterwards (6th September, 1865), upon the nomination of the Lord Bishop of Quebec, he was unanimously elected chancellor of that university—but his judicial duties were such that he could not assume the responsibility of the office. In 1880 he received the honorary degree of LL.D. from Laval University, Quebec; and in the month of June, 1886, her most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria conferred upon him the honour of knighthood. In 1847 Judge Meredith was married to Sophia Naters, youngest daughter of the late Dr. W. E. Holmes, of Quebec, and the union has been blessed with a numerous family, of whom three sons and four daughters are still living.

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