Company Never Evicted a Settler.
Fred T. Griffin entered the company’s service in 1883 as a clerk in the land department, and seven years later succeeded L. A. Hamilton as land commissioner on the retirement of that gentleman who had initiated a generous policy and it was both his and his successor’s boast that the company had never evicted a settler, but had allowed many who had left the country for various reasons to return and re-occupy their farms as if nothing had ever happened. Mr. Griffin retired in 1917. H. L. Penny entered the audit department in 1881 as a clerk, and became general auditor in 1889. After thirty-three years arduous service he resigned in 1914 on account of ill health. George L. Wetmore was another old-timer, commencing his duties as foreman of construction in 1883. He became divisional engineer at several points on the north shore and St. John, N.B., and was pensioned in 1915. Geo. H. Shaw was with Robt. Kerr in Winnipeg for many years, and resigned to go with the C.N.R. W. B. Bulling, who ranks amongst the pioneers of the C.P.R., resigned some years ago and lives in Montreal. Sid Howard is another old-timer who quit railroading to enter commercial life. Ben Grier and Geo. L. Courtney were prominent in railway and steamship circles in Victoria, B.C., but both retired, and Ben is, or was, president of the local Board of Trade. John Corbett, who looked after the export freight for the C.P.R. in Montreal, resigned some years ago and is now living in Philadelphia. Eddie Fitzgerald, who when a lad was a messenger in the House of Commons, a coveted position in those days, became assistant chief purchasing agent of the company and on resigning became vice-chairman of the board of the Hudson’s Bay Company with headquarters at Winnipeg.
Amongst other prominent men connected with the C. P. R. were E. H. McHenry and W. F. Tye and John Sullivan, now of Winnipeg, where he was elected an alderman, and amongst the real original first ones was J. M. Egan, the general superintendent of the road of Winnipeg, who left to accept the presidency of the Central of Georgia Railway and the Seaboard Line, and is now farming not far from St. Louis, Mo.
Ed. James is another old-timer. He joined the C.P.R. in its earliest days, and from a telegraph operator rose until he became general superintendent, and afterwards accepted the general managership of the Canadian Northern, from which he resigned and is now living in Vancouver.
Col. E. W. P. Ramsay, who made a high record during the war, having been mentioned in despatches and honoured with a C.M.G., was an apprentice in the mechanical department in his youth and afterwards engineer of construction of Eastern lines—the building of the Lake Ontario shore line being one of his achievements. Charles W. Monserrat in 1889 was a draughtsman and later a bridge engineer. He had charge of the construction of the Quebec bridge, having left the service in 1910.