Part 72

=McGee, Hon. Thomas D’Arcy=, B.C.L., M.R.I.A., was born on the 13th of April, 1825, at Carlingford, Ireland. His father, James McGee, was in the coast-guard service, and his mother was Dorcas Catharine Morgan, a daughter of a Dublin bookseller, who had been imprisoned and financially ruined by his participation in the conspiracy of 1798. Both on his father’s and his mother’s side he was descended from families remarkable for their devotion to the cause of Ireland. When he was eight years of age his family removed to Wexford, and shortly afterwards he suffered a heavy blow in the death of his mother. Of his father he was wont to speak as an honest, upright, religious man; but his mother he loved to describe as a woman of extraordinary elevation of mind, an enthusiastic lover of her country, its music, its legends, and its wealth of ancient lore. Herself a good musician and a fine singer, it was to the songs of her ancient race she rocked her children’s cradle, and from her dear voice her favorite son, the subject of our sketch, drank in his music. His passionate and inextinguishable love for the land of his birth, her story and her song, may be traced to the same source. He attended a day school in Wexford, obtaining there the only formal education he ever received. But the boyish years of the future statesman and historian were not passed in mean or frivolous pursuits. His love for poetry and for old-world lore grew with his growth, and by the age of seventeen he had read all that had come within his reach relating to the history of his own and other lands. He was a little over seventeen, and seeing little prospect of advancement at home, he, with one of his sisters, emigrated to America. After a short visit to his aunt in Providence, Rhode Island, he arrived in Boston, just at the time the “repeal movement” was in full strength amongst the Irish population of that city, warmly aided by some of the prominent public men of America of that day. He arrived in Boston in June, 1842, and on the 4th July he addressed the people. The eloquence of the boy-orator enchained the multitudes who heard him then, as the more finished speeches of his later years were wont “the applause of list’ning senates to command.” A day or two later he was offered and accepted a situation on the _Boston Pilot_, and became chief editor two years later. It was a critical period in the history of the Irish race in America; they were proscribed and persecuted on American soil, disgraceful riots occurring in Philadelphia, which resulted in the sacking and burning of two Catholic churches. With all the might of his eloquence, young McGee advocated the cause of his countrymen and coreligionists against the hostile party, the “Native Americans,” as they were called. This outburst of fanaticism soon subsided, but the popularity which the young Irish editor gained during the struggle continued to grow and flourish until O’Connell himself referred to his splendid editorials as the “inspired writings of a young exiled Irish boy in America.” He was invited by the proprietor of the Dublin _Freeman’s Journal_, the leading Irish paper, to become its editor. So at the age of twenty he took his place in the front rank of the Irish press. But the _Freeman_ was too moderate in its tone, so he accepted an offer from his friend, Charles Gavin Duffy, to assist him in editing _The Nation_, in conjunction with Thomas Davis, John Mitchell, and Thomas Devin Reilly. In such hands _The Nation_ became the organ of the “Young Ireland” party. The immediate result was the secession of the war party from the ranks of the National or Old Ireland party led by O’Connell. But the end came, and a sad end it was. The great “Liberator” died, while on foreign travel, a broken-hearted man. Famine had stricken the land, and the “Young Irelanders” were ripe for rebellion. McGee was one of those deputed to rouse the people to action, and after the delivery of a speech at Roundwood he was arrested, but soon after obtained his release. Nothing daunted by his first mishap, he agreed to go to Scotland, for the purpose of enlisting the sympathy of the Irish in the manufacturing towns, and obtaining their co-operation in the contemplated insurrection. He was in Scotland when the news reached him that the “rising” had been attempted in Ireland, and had signally failed—that some of the leaders had been arrested, and a reward offered for the apprehension of himself, and others who had effected their escape. He had been married less than a year before, and a fair young wife anxiously awaited his return. He succeeded in crossing in safety to Ireland, and in the far north was sheltered by Dr. Maginn, the bishop of Derry. Here he was visited by his wife, as he would not leave Ireland without seeing and bidding her farewell. He left Ireland in the disguise of a priest, and landed in Philadelphia on the 10th October, 1848, and on the 26th day of the same month appeared the first number of his New York _Nation_. Feeling sore at the utter failure of his party in Ireland, Mr. McGee threw the blame of the failure on the priesthood, which brought him in conflict with Bishop Hughes, who defended the Irish clergy, and as a consequence the New York _Nation_ never recovered the effect of this controversy. In 1850 he removed to Boston, and commenced the publication of the _American Celt_. During the first two years of the _Celt’s_ existence, it was characterized by nearly the same revolutionary ardor, but there came a time when the great strong mind of its editor began to soar above the clouds of passion and prejudice into the region of eternal truth. He began to see that the best way of raising his countrymen was not by impracticable utopian schemes of revolution, but by teaching them the best of their possibilities, to cultivate among them the acts of peace, and to raise themselves, by the ways of peaceful industry and enlightenment to the level of their more prosperous sister island. Some years after Mr. McGee transferred his publication office to Buffalo. Besides his editorial duties, he delivered lectures throughout the cities of the United States and Canada to crowded audiences. At a convention of leading Irishmen, convened in Buffalo by Mr. McGee, for the purpose of considering the subject of colonization on the broad prairies for his countrymen, instead of herding together in “tenement houses,” he was strongly urged by Canadian delegates to take up his abode in Montreal. After some negotiation on the subject, he sold out his interest in the _American Celt_, and removed with his family to Montreal, where he at once commenced the publication of a journal called _The New Era_. Before the end of his first year in Montreal he was elected as one of three members for Montreal, although his election had been warmly contested. It was not long before he began to make his mark in the legislative halls of his new country, and before the close of his first session, the Irish member for Montreal was recognized as one of the most popular men in Canada. Yet, at times, his early connection with the revolutionary party was made the subject of biting sarcasm. On one of these occasions, when being twitted with having been a “rebel” in former years, he replied: “It is true, I was a rebel in Ireland in 1848. I rebelled against the mis-government of my country by Russell and his school. I rebelled because I saw my countrymen starving before my eyes, while my country had her trade and commerce stolen from her. I rebelled against the Church establishment in Ireland; and there is not a liberal man in the community who would not have done as I did, if he were placed in my position, and followed the dictates of humanity.” About the year 1865 he was presented by his friends in Montreal and other cities with a handsome residence in one of the best localities in that city, as a mark of their esteem. In 1862 he accepted the office of president of the Executive Council, and also filled the office of provincial secretary. It was during this active time that he completed his “History of Ireland,” in two 12mo volumes. In 1865 Mr. McGee visited his native land, and while staying with his father in Wexford delivered a speech in that city on the condition of the Irish in America, which gave offence to his countrymen in the United States, as he took pains to show that a larger proportion of them became more demoralised and degraded in that country than in Canada. In 1867 he was sent to Paris by the Canadian Government as one of the commissioners from Canada to the great Exposition held in Paris. From there he went to Rome as one of a deputation from the Irish inhabitants of Montreal, on a question concerning the affairs of St. Patrick’s congregation in that city. In London he met, by previous appointment, some of his colleagues in the Canadian Cabinet, who had gone to England to lay before the imperial government the plan of the proposed union of the British provinces. In the important deliberation which followed he took a leading part. He was then minister of agriculture and emigration, which office he continued to hold up to the time when, in the summer of 1867, the confederation was at last effected. But with all his great and well deserved popularity, and the high position he had attained amongst the statesmen of the Dominion, he had made for himself bitter enemies by his open and consistent opposition to the Fenian movement, in which he saw no prospect of permanent good for Ireland. But it was in regard to Canada and their avowed intention of invading that country that he most severely denounced them. He rightly considered that it was a grievous wrong to invade a peaceful country like Canada, only nominally dependent on Great Britain, and where so many thousands of Irishmen were living happily and contentedly under just and equitable laws of the people’s own making. At the general election of 1867 he secured his seat, but only after a severe struggle, the Fenian element of his countrymen doing all in their power to secure his defeat. The victory, however, cost him dear, for the evil passions of the basest and most degraded of his countrymen had been excited against him, and he was thenceforth a doomed man. On the very night preceding his cruel murder he delivered one of the noblest speeches ever heard within the walls of a Canadian parliament on the subject of cementing the lately formed union of the provinces by bonds of mutual kindness and good-will. He had reached the door of his temporary home, when a lurking assassin stole from his place of concealment, and coming close behind, shot him through the head, causing instantaneous death. This was on the morning of April 7th, 1868. His body was removed to Montreal, where a public funeral was held, the streets along the procession being lined by regiments of the British army. St. Patrick’s Church, in which his obsequies were solemnised, was crowded with Protestants and other leading citizens to mourn over the great loss the country sustained by his death. McGee had outgrown long before his death the antipathy that many had to him on his arrival in Montreal. With the Montreal Caledonian Society especially he was a great favorite, and his orations at their concerts were the special feature of the evening. At their annual celebration of “Hallowe’en,” when it is customary to read prize poems on that old Scotch festival, of forty-six poems sent in competition on the Hallowe’en following his death, _thirty-seven_ contained some touching allusion to that sad event. From one of the poems to which prizes were awarded, we quote the following stanzas:—

Ah! wad that he was here the nicht, Whase tongue was like a faerie lute! But vain the wish: McGee! thy might Lies low in death—thy voice is mute. He’s gane, the noblest o’ us a’— Aboon a’ care o’ warldly fame; An’ wha se proud as he to ca’ Our Canada his hame?

The gentle maple weeps an’ waves Aboon our patriot-statesman’s heed; But if we prize the licht he gave, We’ll bury feuds of race and creed. For this he wrocht, for this he died; An’ for the luve we bear his name, Let’s live as brithers, side by side, In Canada, our hame.

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=Dunnet, Thomas=, Hat and Fur Manufacturer, Toronto, was born in the Royal burgh of Wick, Caithness-shire, Scotland, on the 21st April, 1847. His parents were William Dunnet and Janet Black, both natives of Caithness; and Mr. Dunnet carried on the saddling business for many years in Wick. He died about twelve years ago, and his widow is now a resident of Portobello, near Edinburgh. Young Dunnet received his education at the Free Church School in Wick, where he graduated. He then for a number of years acted as one of the teachers in the same school, and subsequently removed to the city of Aberdeen. Here he remained for about nine months as organization master in Charlotte street school. Feeling dissatisfied with the prospects in his native country, he determined to leave for America, and reached Kingston in Canada, in 1866. In the Limestone City he found employment as a teacher, and for about eighteen months he taught young Canada in Barriefield school. A more lucrative situation offering as purser on board a steamer plying between Kingston and Cape Vincent, Mr. Dunnet bade farewell to the scholastic profession, and since then has devoted his attention to mercantile pursuits. He began business in Toronto as “Briggs & Dunnet,” in 1880, and six years afterwards Mr. Briggs retired, leaving Mr. Dunnet sole partner. Since then the business has steadily increased, so much so that in February, 1887, he took into partnership Malcolm McPherson, and these two are now the members forming the firm of Dunnet, McPherson & Co., hat and fur manufacturers, Front street, Toronto. Mr. Dunnet is in politics a staunch Reformer, and in religion may be classed among the Liberal-Christians. He was married in June, 1875, to Jessie McCammon, daughter of Robert McCammon, of Kingston, Ontario.

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=Doutre, Joseph=, Q.C., Montreal.—The late Mr. Doutre was born at Beauharnois, in 1825, educated at Montreal College, and admitted to the bar in 1847. The history of his life is that of the struggles of his countrymen for civil and religious liberty, and is therefore of more than personal interest. His ancestors were from the old province of Roussillon, in the department of Pyrenées-Orientales. His grandfather came from the immediate neighborhood of Perpignan, and had hardly arrived in Canada when the country passed under the dominion of England. In 1844, at the age of eighteen, his first work, a romance of five hundred pages, entitled “Les Fiancés de 1812” (The Betrothed of 1812), was published. He was an early adherent of the Institut Canadien, and ever since the warm friend of that institution, which obtained its charter under his presidency. As soon as _L’Avenir_ newspaper had taken a fair start, in 1848, Mr. Doutre became one of its contributors. He was a liberal contributor to the press, and most of the journals of the province have at times published contributions from him. In 1848 he published “Le Frère et la Sœur,” which was afterwards republished in Paris. In 1851 he was the author of the laureate essay paid for by the late Hon. Mr. de Boucherville, on “The Best Means of Spending Time in the Interests of the Family and the Country.” In 1852 was published “Le Sauvage du Canada.” To these should be added a series of biographical essays on the most prominent political men of that date, which appeared in _L’Avenir_. As one of the secretaries of the association formed in 1849 for the colonisation of the townships, he was instrumental in starting the first settlements of Roxton and its vicinity. In 1853 Mr. Doutre took the direction of the great struggle for the abolition of the feudal tenure, and by means of meetings held throughout the country, and diligence and care in the preparation of practical measures, the agitation came to a crisis at the general election of 1854, when the parliament, filled with moderate abolitionists, passed a law which did away with this mediæval system of land tenure, to the mutual satisfaction both of the seigneurs and tenants. Another campaign began immediately after, for making the legislative council elective, instead of being nominated by the Crown, and a law was passed to this effect in 1856, at which time Mr. Doutre was requested to stand as candidate for the division of Salaberry, but he was defeated. In 1858 there commenced, in a decided manner on the part of the Roman Catholic bishop of Montreal, the long looming work of destruction against everything which gave manifestation of life in the minds of educated Catholics. Mr. Doutre stood foremost in the hand-to-hand battle which followed, and the victory was a painful one, being achieved in the face of the conscientious opposition of many friends. In 1861 he accepted, under party pressure, the candidature of Laprairie, which resulted in another defeat. This election, however, had the good effect of drawing attention to the evil system of two days polling, as it was evident that his first day’s majority had been upset by large sums of money being brought into play upon the second day. This is the last time we find the subject of our remarks in the arena of politics. He subsequently devoted himself entirely to his profession. In 1863 he became Queen’s counsel. In 1866 he delivered a lecture before the Institut Canadien, on “The Charters of Canada,” a remarkably concise and complete synopsis of the political constitution of the country under the French government. In the same year he was entrusted with the defence of Lamirande, the French banking defaulter, whose extradition was sought for before our courts. After the kidnapping of the man, when he was about to be released, he followed up the demand for his restoration to the jurisdiction of our courts, through the Foreign Office, in London, to a point when the British and French governments were very seriously out of harmony, when Lamirande solved the difficulty by surrendering all claims to further negotiations. In 1869, the refusal of the Roman Catholic authorities to bury Guibord, because he was a member of the Institut Canadien, brought Mr. Doutre face to face with the necessity of choosing between a direct contest with the authorities of his church or renouncing his right to belong to a literary society, which implied the right of any personal liberty of action. His choice in this matter entailed political ostracism, and imposed upon him the most arduous task of following the case in question from court to court, through all the degrees of jurisdiction in Canada, in order to obtain the burial of Guibord, and of continuing the same in England, where he went to argue before the Privy Council, not only without fee, but at daily expense, finally winning the case; and Guibord was buried in Côte des Neiges Cemetery by order of the Queen’s mandate. The Institut Canadien handed over its valuable library of eight thousand volumes to the Frazer Institute, and is now open gratuitously to the public. Mr. Doutre died on the 3rd of February, 1886, and was buried, at his own request, in Mount Royal Cemetery (Protestant), his remains being followed to the grave by the leading citizens of all denominations and nationalities.

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=Thorne, William Henry=, Hardware Merchant, St. John, New Brunswick, was born on the 12th September, 1844, in St. John, N.B. His father, Edward L. Thorne, came from Granville, Nova Scotia, settled in St. John, in 1814, and was for many years one of the leading business men of that city. The members of the Thorne family who first settled in Granville, N.S., were of the old loyalist stock who left New York on the close of the revolutionary war and came over to the Maritime provinces. The mother of the subject of our sketch was Susan Scovil, and her parents settled in New Brunswick about the same time as the Thornes did in Nova Scotia, and belonged to the same body of loyalists who refused to sever their allegiance with the mother country. W. H. Thorne was educated at the Grammar School in St. John, and afterwards adopted the mercantile profession. He had several years’ experience as clerk with the firm of J. & F. Burpee & Co.; and commenced the hardware and metal business on his own account, in 1867. In 1873 he admitted R. O. Scovil as a partner. This gentleman having died in 1884, Mr. Thorne continued the business, taking into partnership, in 1885, two young men who had been in his employ for several years—namely, Arthur T. Thorne and T. Carlton Lee, and who are still members of the firm, and actively engaged in the business, under the style of W. H. Thorne & Co. The business of this firm has steadily grown until it is now amongst the largest in the Maritime provinces. The stock kept by it is the largest and best selected of its kind in the province, and their travellers may be daily met with in Quebec, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. Mr. Thorne, the head of the firm, takes a deep interest in everything that tends to advance the interests of his native city. He is a vice-president of the Board of Trade, and is connected with several other useful institutions. He is a progressive man, and may be classed among the Liberals; and in religious matters he is an adherent of the Episcopal church.

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