Part 64

=Johnston, Hon. James William=, Judge in Equity, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. The late Judge Johnston was by descent a Scotchman, and by birth a West Indian. His grandfather, Dr. Lewis Johnston, was born in Scotland, and claimed to be entitled to the now long dormant title of Marquis of Annandale, but never pressed his claim in the courts. He married Laleah Peyton, a lady of Huguenot descent, and settled in Savannah, Georgia, then a British colony, where he owned an estate called Annandale. Previous to the rebellion, Dr. Johnston filled the office of president of the council and treasurer of the colony of Georgia. On the breaking out of the revolutionary war his sons all entered the British army and fought on the side of the king. His eldest son, William Martin Johnston, the father of Judge Johnston, held the rank of captain of the New York volunteers in the year 1775. He was engaged in the defence of Savannah, was at the capture of Fort Montgomery on the Hudson, and took part in various other engagements during the war. At its close Dr. Johnston returned to Scotland, and Captain Johnston, who had lost all his property in consequence of espousing the cause of Britain, studied medicine, and graduated in the University of Edinburgh. He married Elizabeth Lichtenstein, the only daughter of Captain John Lichtenstein, of the noble and ancient Austrian family of that name. Captain Johnston subsequently removed to Kingston in the island of Jamaica, where his son James was born on the 29th of August, 1792. He was early sent to Scotland for his education, and was placed under the care of the late Rev. Dr. Duncan, of Ruthwell. The family afterwards settled permanently in Nova Scotia. James William Johnston studied law in Annapolis in the office of Thomas Ritchie, afterwards one of the judges of the Common Pleas, and was admitted to the bar in 1815. He commenced the practice of his profession in Kentville, the shire town of Kings county, but shortly after removed to Halifax and entered into partnership with Simon Bradstreet Robie, at that time the leading practitioner in the province. Mr. Johnston rose rapidly in his profession, and soon attained the highest rank, which he continued to hold unchallenged until his elevation to the bench of the Supreme Court. In cross-examination he displayed peculiar tact and skill, extracting from the most reluctant and perverse witness the minutest facts within his knowledge. Among the intellectual features that marked his professional career may be noted a strong and comprehensive grasp, a memory that seemed ever obedient to his will, together with a rapidity of perception, that gave wonderful readiness at repartee, seizing like lightning on the mistakes or unwise or weak arguments of an opponent, and turning them to the disadvantage of the opposite side, and to the manifest advantage of his own. This mental superiority, aided as it was by untiring perseverance and industry, was alone sufficient to win the highest honours of the bar. Few, if any, of Mr. Johnston’s forensic efforts have been preserved; but in cases where the battle was to be fought against wrong and oppression, he was especially powerful; rising to the occasion his bursts of impassioned eloquence swept with the force of a tornado carrying all before it. In the year 1835 Mr. Johnston was appointed solicitor-general of the province, which office was then non-political; but in the year 1838, at the earnest solicitation of Sir Colin Campbell, then lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia, he entered the Legislative Council and commenced his political life, and at once became the acknowledged leader of the Conservative party. On the elevation of the Hon. S. G. W. Archibald to the Court of Chancery as master of the rolls in 1843, Mr. Johnston was appointed attorney-general, and at the general election held in that year, resigned his seat in the Legislative Council, and stood for the important county of Annapolis, for which he was returned by a large majority, and which constituency he continued uninterruptedly to represent in the House of Assembly until 1863, when he took his seat on the bench. One of the first acts he placed on the statute book was the Simultaneous Polling Act, which provided for the holding of elections throughout the province on one and the same day, instead of being as theretofore held at different times, and the polls moved round in different places in each constituency, entailing large additional expense and much loss of time. He also successfully advocated the introduction of denominational colleges, and their partial endowment by the state. Hon. Mr. Johnston was one of the delegates selected to meet Lord Durham, the high commissioner for settling the difficulties in Canada, and to confer with him on the contemplated changes in colonial government. Hon. Mr. Johnston might justly have claimed the honour of being the first statesman who in the halls of legislature advocated the union or confederation of the North American colonies. In the year 1854, on the floor of the Nova Scotia House of Assembly, in a speech which for breadth of conception, deep research, fervent patriotism, and glowing eloquence, has rarely been equalled, and which by many has been considered his greatest effort, Hon. Mr. Johnston moved:—

That the union of the British North American provinces on just principles, while calculated to perpetuate their connection with the parent state, would promote their advancement and prosperity, increase their strength and influence, and elevate their position.

And though before the union was consummated he had retired from public life, and was therefore in no way responsible for the details of the scheme, yet his advocacy of the measure on its broad basis tended in no slight degree to create and educate public opinion, and smoothed the way for those who eventually succeeded in effecting the important change in the constitution he was the first to advocate. In the year 1857 Hon. Mr. Johnston, then attorney-general and leader of the government, pursuant to a resolution passed in the House of Assembly, proceeded to England to adjust the differences that for years existed between the province and the General Mining Association, who, as assignees of the Duke of York, to whom they had been granted, claimed the exclusive right to the mines and minerals of Nova Scotia, and who, by virtue thereof, possessed a practical monopoly of the coal trade. After a protracted negotiation, a compromise was effected and an agreement entered into by which the General Mining Association ceded to the government all their right and title to, and over, all the unworked mines and minerals. Thus was a grievance of long standing amicably settled, and their right to the great wealth hidden in the bowels of the earth secured to the people of Nova Scotia. In the year 1863, after a labourious and active professional life, and a somewhat turbulent political career, Hon. Mr. Johnston accepted a seat on the bench as judge in Equity and judge of the Supreme Court. The duties of his office were discharged with assiduity and the strictest integrity, and his decisions were received by the bar as clear, logical, and exhaustive expositions of the law. In the summer of 1872, Hon. Mr. Johnston obtained leave of absence, and proceeded to the south of France in the hopes that a milder and more genial climate might remove a bronchial affection from which he was suffering, but the beneficial results anticipated did not follow. He was offered in the following year the lieutenant-governorship of his adopted country, vacant by the demise of the late Hon. Joseph Howe, but this position the state of his health compelled him to decline. Early in life Mr. Johnston connected himself with the Baptist Church, and to the end continued a member of that communion. For years he devoted his time, energies and talents to the advancement of that body, socially, politically and educationally. The Baptist Academy at Wolfville, as well as Acadia College, owe their existence in a large measure to his personal labours, influence, and untiring exertions both in parliament and out. Of the latter institution he was one of the first governors, and continued to hold the office uninterruptedly, by repeated re-elections, to the time of his death. He was several times elected president of the Baptist Convention of the Maritime provinces, who, on his leaving the country, marked their great appreciation of his character and their sense of their lasting obligations to him by the unanimous adoption of the following resolution:—

This convention, having learnt that the health of our esteemed brother, Hon. Judge Johnston, a member of the Board of Governors of Acadia College, has induced him to seek a residence in Europe, _Therefore resolve_ that we take this opportunity to tender to him the tribute which his high character, and long continued and important services in the cause of education seem to demand, by thus recording the sense we entertain of the value of those services, his devoted and consecrated talents, and of his great worth as a man, as a Christian gentleman, and especially as a Christian legislator and judge, the influence and grateful memory of which we trust will not be effaced; and although at his advanced age it may almost seem to be hoping against hope, yet this convention would still trust that a perfect restoration to health and strength may yet, in the good providence of God, return our valued brother, as well as his excellent lady, to their former position and relations in this country.

Hon. Mr. Johnston was twice married. His first wife was Amelia Elizabeth, daughter of the late William James Almon, surgeon, who was assistant surgeon to the Royal Artillery in New York, in June, 1776, and Rebecca Byles, granddaughter of the Rev. Dr. Byles, of Boston, Massachusetts. By her he had three sons, the eldest of whom is now the judge of the County Court for the metropolitan city and county of Halifax, and three daughters. Of these, two sons and one daughter are alive. His second wife was Louise, widow of the late Captain Wentworth, of the Royal Artillery, by whom he had one daughter and three sons; the daughter and two sons are living. Mr. Johnston’s physicians advised that his state of health would not permit of his return to Nova Scotia, and he determined to pass the winter of 1873 at Cheltenham, England, where, on the 21st day of November, in that year, at the ripe age of eighty-one years, and in the full possession of his mental faculties, he died, full of honours, leaving behind him a name untarnished, a character above reproach, and a reputation as a statesman, jurist and judge worthy of emulation by those who shall hereafter fill the places vacated by him.

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=Macdonald, Charles John=, Post Office Inspector for the Province of Nova Scotia, Halifax. Lieut.-Colonel Macdonald, the subject of this sketch, is of Scotch descent, his father, the late Robert Macdonald, having been a native of Dornoch, Sutherlandshire, Scotland, and for many years a resident of Halifax. Charles was born at Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the 4th April, 1841, and received his education at Dalhousie College. He studied law in the office of the Hon. J. S. D. Thompson (now minister of justice at Ottawa), and was called to the bar in 1872. In 1878 he presented himself for parliamentary honours, and was returned a member of the Nova Scotia legislature as representative of the city and county of Halifax, and occupied the position of member of the Executive Council in 1878 and 1879 without portfolio. Lieut.-Colonel Macdonald, commander of the 66th battalion Princess Louise Fusiliers, served as major in the Halifax Provincial battalion during the North-West rebellion, having had under his command a detachment of one hundred and eighty men from the 63rd Rifles and Halifax Garrison Artillery. He occupied the position of paymaster for the volunteers from 1872 to 1878; and has been an alderman of the city of Halifax; president of the North British Society; deputy grandmaster of the Grand Lodge of Freemasons; grand high priest of the Grand Chapter, and representative of the Grand Lodge of Ohio. In 1879 he was appointed to the office of inspector of post offices for the province of Nova Scotia, and this position he still occupies. In politics he leans towards Liberal-Conservatism, and in religion he is a Presbyterian. The colonel has been twice married—first to Mary Tamson, daughter of William Evans, and second to Annie, daughter of James McLearn.

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=Berryman, Daniel Edgar=, M.D. C.M., and A.R.S. (Edin.), is a native of New Brunswick, having been born in the city of St. John, on the 16th of August, 1848. His father, John Berryman, sen., was born in 1798, in the parish of Castle Dowson, Antrim county, Ireland, where his ancestors, who came from Devonshire, England, with the army of Oliver Cromwell, settled in the seventeenth century. He emigrated to this country about the year 1816, and settled in St. John, and died on the 2nd January, 1880. His wife, the mother of the subject of this sketch, whom he married in February, 1826, was Maria Wade, grand-daughter of Colonel Ansley. Her father was a merchant in St. John, and her mother came as a child with her parents, who were U. E. loyalists when St. John was first settled. The dates and particulars of the family history were destroyed in the great fire of 1877. To this worthy couple were born a family of thirteen children, eight sons and five daughters, and of those nine still survive, and are filling important positions in various parts of the world. Daniel E., who was the youngest son, was educated at the High School of Edinburgh, under Drs. Bryce and Smidtz, and also at Acadia College, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, where he attended the art classes. In 1868 he again went to Edinburgh, and entered the university of that city as a medical student, and during the curriculum he took honours in several classes, besides receiving a special honorary diploma from the professor of midwifery and diseases of children (Simpson). Dr. Berryman was then appointed house surgeon to the Royal Infirmary, and also acted as private assistant for over a year to Sir Robert Christison, baronet, D.C.L., professor of materia medica, Sir Robert having at that time been physician to H.M. the Queen, for Scotland. He also acted as, and held the position of, hospital surgeon and physician, assistant to Dr. Joseph Bell, surgeon to the Eye and Ear Hospital, and was besides surgeon to the Edinburgh Maternity Hospital for nine months, and Hospital for Children, and held temporary appointments under Sir Joseph Lester and Doctors Gillespie, Saunders, and John H. Bennett; and also occupied the position of class assistant to Professor A. R. Simpson, professor of midwifery and diseases of children. On his return to his native city he began the practice of his profession, and has succeeded in building up a lucrative business. In 1880 he was appointed police surgeon for the city; in 1883 he was gazetted coroner; and in 1886 he was made a justice of the peace. Outside the practice of his profession, Dr. Berryman has devoted considerable time to other matters, and we find him occupying the position of member of the Canada Medical Society; St. John Medical Society; treasurer of the New Brunswick Medical Society; a provincial Medical Examiner; a member of the executive of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; the corresponding secretary of the St. John Agricultural Society; a member of the St. John Historical Society; a member of the order of Oddfellows, and a member of the Masonic fraternity. The doctor is a Liberal in politics, being corresponding secretary of the St. John Liberal Society, and in religious matters is an adherent of the Baptist church.

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=Bell, John Howatt=, M.A., Barrister, M.P.P. for the Fourth District of Prince, Summerside, Prince Edward Island, was born at Cape Traverse, Prince Edward Island, on the 13th December, 1846. His father, Walter Bell, emigrated from Dumfries, Scotland, in 1820, and settled at Cape Traverse. His mother was Elizabeth Howatt, daughter of Adam Howatt. Mr. Bell received his education at the Prince of Wales College, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, and at Albert University, Belleville, Ontario, at which latter institution he took the degrees of B.A. and M.A. He studied law as a profession with Thomas Ferguson, Q.C., Toronto, and was called to the bar of Ontario in 1874. He then went to Ottawa, and in partnership with R. A. Bradley, practised his profession for eight years in that city. In 1882 Mr. Bell removed to Emerson, Manitoba, and was admitted a member of the bar of Manitoba, in 1882, and practised in Emerson for two years. In 1884 he went to Prince Edward Island, and having passed the necessary examination, he became a member of the bar of that island, and has since resided at Summerside successfully engaged in his profession. At the last general election held in Prince Edward Island Mr. Bell was returned to represent the fourth electoral district of Prince in the island House of Assembly. In politics he is a Liberal, and in religion he belongs to the Presbyterian church. On the 7th July, 1882, he was married to Helen, daughter of Cornelius Howatt, of Summerside, P.E.I.

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=Mackay, Norman E.=, M.D., C.M., M.R.C.S., Eng., etc., Surgeon Victoria General Hospital, Halifax, Nova Scotia, was born in Upper Settlement, Baddeck, Victoria county, Cape Breton, in March, 1851. His father was Neil Mackay, and mother Catharine McMillan. The family were among the first settlers in the district, and farmed a considerable portion of land. Dr. Mackay received his primary education in the Baddeck and Pictou academies, and for some time taught school. He then chose the medical profession, and in the winter of 1875-6 began to study with this end in view. He applied himself diligently to his allotted tasks, and in the second year was chosen prosector for his class. At the end of his third year he was awarded the prize for passing the best primary examination. In April, 1879, the Halifax Medical College conferred upon him the degree of M.D., C.M., and the University of Halifax, that of B.M. in May of the same year. After graduating, he began the practice of his profession with success at North Sydney, Cape Breton, and after residing in this place for a year, he removed to Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, where he remained for three years. In April, 1884, he was appointed surgeon to the Prince Edward Island Hospital. In 1883-4 he took a post graduate course in the London (England) hospitals and medical schools, and was admitted a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in January, 1884. He began to practice medicine in Halifax, N.S., in January, 1885, and was appointed surgeon to the Victoria General Hospital of that city in October of the same year. In January, 1886, he received the appointment of physician to the Halifax Dispensary; and in October following was elected a member of the Provincial Medical Board. In politics Dr. Mackay is a Liberal, and in religion a Presbyterian. He was married on the 9th July, 1884, to Isabella, eldest daughter of Lemuel Miller, principal of West Kent School, Charlottetown, P.E.I.

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=Proudfoot, Hon. William=, Justice of the Chancery Division of High Court of Justice of Ontario, Toronto, was born near Errol, a village in Perthshire, Scotland, on the 9th of November, 1823. He is the son of the late Rev. William Proudfoot, who for many years was superintendent of the Theological Institute of the United Presbyterian church, at London, Ontario. The Rev. Mr. Proudfoot was one of the earliest missionaries sent out to this country by the United Secession Church of Scotland, as it was then called, and reached Canada with his family in 1832, and after a few months spent in Toronto (then Little York), he removed to London, where he organized a church, in which he officiated until his death, in January, 1851. This old secession minister was a staunch Reformer, and naturally came under suspicion, when almost everybody who dared to differ from the dominant party during the troubles of 1837 was suspected. He, however, boldly met the aspersions of his political enemies, and secured himself from molestation. The subject of our sketch, the Hon. Vice-Chancellor Proudfoot, is the third son of this venerable minister, and he received his educational training under the paternal roof, never having entered a public institution of learning. Having resolved to adopt law as a profession, and having passed his preliminary examination before the Law Society of Upper Canada, Mr. Proudfoot entered the office of Blake & Morrison, barristers, Toronto, Mr. Blake afterwards becoming chancellor of Upper Canada, and Mr. Morrison a justice of the Court of Appeal, both now deceased, where he remained the five years prescribed as the period of study for an articled clerk, and during the Michaelmas term in 1849, he was called to the bar of Upper Canada. He then entered into partnership with the late Charles Jones, and practised his profession with this gentleman in Toronto until 1851, when he was appointed the first chancery-master and deputy-registrar at Hamilton. This appointment was rendered necessary by the thorough re-organization of the Equity Court, accomplished on the representation of chancellor W. H. Blake. After retaining this position for three years, Mr. Proudfoot, preferring to return to the active work of his profession, resigned his office, and entered into partnership with Freeman & Craigie, under the style of Freeman, Craigie & Proudfoot, barristers. This firm stood at the head of the Hamilton bar, and Mr. Proudfoot had charge of the equity practice. In 1862, he left the firm and practised with other partners until 1874, when he succeeded Vice-Chancellor Strong (who had been promoted to the Supreme Court) upon the bench. In 1872, he was appointed a Queen’s counsel by the Ontario government. Prior to his elevation to the bench, he was an active Reformer in politics; and he still remains true to the church of his fathers, as a member of a Presbyterian Church in Toronto. As a lawyer and judge, Hon. Mr. Proudfoot is deeply read, and continues still to be a devoted student of the great authorities on equity. Being very conversant with the Latin and French languages, he is well-grounded in the Roman and civil law, and his judgments are models of lucid expression and technical accuracy. He is, what is supposed still better, thoroughly judicial in the extent of his mind, and has proved himself a distinguished ornament to the Ontario bench. In 1853, Judge Proudfoot married Miss Thomson, a daughter of the late John Thomson, of Toronto, and by this lady he had a family of six children. She died in 1871. He married his second wife in 1875. She was Miss Cook, daughter of the late Adam Cook, of Hamilton, and she died in 1878, leaving one son.

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