The political career of Samuel Leonard Tilley did not begin until the year that brought the work of Lemuel Allan Wilmot as a legislator to a close. Both were elected members of the House of Assembly in 1850, but in the following year Wilmot was elevated to the bench, so that the province lost his services as a political reformer just as a new man, who was destined to win as great a reputation as himself, was stepping on the stage. Samuel Leonard Tilley was born at Gagetown, on the St. John River, on May 8th, 1818, just thirty-five years after the landing of his royalist grandfather at St. John. He passed away seventy-eight years later, full of years and honours, having won the highest prizes that it was in the power of his native province to bestow.
OF LOYALIST STOCK
In these days, when a man becomes eminent an effort is usually made to trace his descent from distinguished ancestors, but most of the early inhabitants of New Brunswick were too careless in such matters to leave much material to the modern maker of pedigrees. Sir Leonard Tilley was unable to trace his descent beyond his great-grandfather, Samuel Tilley. At one time it was thought that his first ancestor in America was John Tilley, who came over in the Mayflower in 1620, but a closer search of the records of the Plymouth colony reveals the fact that John Tilley left no sons. But there were persons of the name of Tilley in the Massachusetts Bay colony as early as 1640, and there seems to be no doubt that Sir Leonard Tilley's ancestors had been long in America. They belonged to the respectable farming class which has given the Dominion of Canada and the United States so many of their most distinguished sons. Samuel Tilley, the great-grandfather of Sir Leonard, was a farmer on Long Island at the time of the American Revolution. His farm was then within the boundaries of the present borough of Brooklyn, and the curious in such matters can find the very lot upon which he resided laid down upon some of the ancient maps of that locality. At the time the British occupied Long Island, after the battle which took place there in the autumn of 1776, resulting in the defeat of the Americans, the Brooklyn farmers were called upon to provide cattle for the sustenance of the troops. Samuel Tilley, being a loyal man and a friend of the government, complied, and for this he was made the subject of attacks by the disloyal element among his neighbours, and in the course of time was compelled to seek shelter within the British lines. The occupation of Long Island by the British during the whole period of the war made it secure enough for Samuel Tilley, as well as for all loyal men who lived in the vicinity of Brooklyn; but when the war was over it became necessary for him to seek shelter in Nova Scotia, the acts of confiscation and banishment against the Loyalists being of the most severe character. Samuel Tilley came to New Brunswick with the spring fleet, which arrived in St. John in May, 1783, and was a grantee of Parrtown, which is now the city of St. John. He erected a house and store on King Street, on the south side, just to the east of Germain, and there commenced a business which he continued for several years. He died at St. John in the year 1815. His wife was Elizabeth Morgan, who survived him for many years and died in 1835, aged eighty-four years.
Sir Leonard Tilley was not born when his great-grandfather died, but had a clear recollection of his great-grandmother, who lived for about four years after he came to reside in St. John. James Tilley, the grandfather of Sir Leonard, was also a grantee of Parrtown, he having purchased for a trifling sum, when a boy, a lot on Princess Street, which had been drawn by some person who was anxious to dispose of it. James Tilley was a resident of Sunbury County and a magistrate there for a great many years, dying in the year 1851. Sir Leonard Tilley's father, Thomas Morgan Tilley, was born in 1790, and served his time with Israel Gove, who was a house-joiner and builder. He spent his early days as a lumberman, getting out ship timber, his operations being carried on mainly at Tantiwanty, in the rear of Upper Gagetown. He afterwards went into business at Gagetown, and kept a store there down to the time of his death, which took place in 1870. Sir Leonard's great-grandmother, on his father's side, was Mary Chase, of the Chase family of Massachusetts, she having come from Freetown, in that state. Sir Leonard's mother was Susan Ann Peters, daughter of William Peters, who was for many years a prominent farmer in Queens County, and a member of the legislative assembly. William Peters owned a large property and had one of the finest tracts of land possessed by any man in the province in his day. But he was unwise enough to sell it for the purpose of obtaining money with which to enter into lumbering with William Wilmot, the father of L. A. Wilmot, and, being unsuccessful in his operations, his whole fortune was swept away. The ancestors of William Peters were from New York state, from which they came with the rest of the Loyalists in 1783.
EARLY EDUCATION
The house in Gagetown in which the future governor of New Brunswick and finance minister of Canada was born, is still standing and is now used as a hotel. Gagetown was at that period, and still is, one of the most beautiful places in New Brunswick. The river St. John flows in front of it, and Gagetown Creek, which is almost as wide as the river, laves its shores. The land in the vicinity is fertile, and fine old trees line the streets, giving an air of beauty and refinement to the locality. Sir Leonard was named after his uncle, Samuel Leonard Peters, and the latter was named after an English schoolmaster named Samuel Leonard, who was a great favourite with William Peters, the grandfather of the subject of this biography. Samuel Leonard, after leaving Gagetown, appears to have removed to Nova Scotia, and probably died in that province. When Sir Leonard was five years old he was sent to the Madras School in Gagetown, of which Samuel Babbitt was the teacher. He attended this school from 1823 until 1827, when the grammar school was instituted in Gagetown. The Madras school system was at that time in high favour with the people of the province, and these schools received large grants from the government, it being thought that this system was more advantageous than any other for the instruction of youth. This idea, however, did not prove to be universally correct, for in the course of a few years we find the legislature declaring that while they believed the Madras system suitable to towns and populous places, it did not answer so well in rural districts. Samuel Babbitt, the teacher of the Madras School, was clerk of the parish, and, according to the custom of that day, led the responses in church. The rector of Gagetown at this period was the Rev. Samuel Clark. The teacher of the local grammar school which young Tilley attended from 1827 to 1831 was William Jenkins, a graduate of Dublin University. Jenkins was a very severe man, and believed in the doctrine that he who spares the rod spoils the child, and Sir Leonard had a very vivid recollection of the vigour with which he applied the birch. He removed from Gagetown shortly after 1831, and took up his residence in Quebec, where he conducted a large school for many years, dying about the year 1863. Sir Leonard, after he had become a well-known political character and a member of the government of New Brunswick, had the pleasure of paying him a visit some time in 1858.
An interesting incident occurred in 1827, at the time young Tilley commenced to attend the grammar school. Sir Howard Douglas, who was then governor of New Brunswick, paid a visit to Gagetown and was the guest of Colonel Harry Peters, the speaker of the House of Assembly. While the governor and his host were walking through Gagetown, they met young Tilley and a son of Harry Peters returning from school, and the boys were introduced to His Excellency, who presented each of them with a Spanish quarter-dollar. Sir Leonard could remember and often spoke of the appearance of Sir Howard Douglas, dressed in a blue coat with brass buttons, a fine-looking gentleman, with a pleasant face and a kindly smile. Little thought the then governor of New Brunswick that the boy to whom he was speaking, a lad of nine years of age, would fifty years later sit in his own chair in the government house.
ENTERS ON BUSINESS LIFE
Young Tilley was not the kind of youth likely to be satisfied to reside all his life in Gagetown. Other boys of less ambition might be content to settle down on the farm and to fulfil their destinies within the comparatively limited sphere of action which that little town in Queens County afforded, but he had within him longings for a higher destiny than he was likely to attain as a resident of a rural district.
Young Tilley came to St. John in May, 1831, at the age of thirteen. He at once entered the drugstore of Dr. Henry Cook, as a clerk, it being the fashion of those times for medical men to have a dispensary in connection with their professional practice, so that they could give advice, and dispense their own prescriptions with equal facility. He continued as clerk with Dr. Cook until February, 1835, when he entered the service of William O. Smith, who, in later years, was mayor of St. John. It was while a clerk with Smith that Tilley became a member of the St. John Young Men's Debating Society, an organization which, if it has no other claim to the remembrance of posterity, at least has that of giving one distinguished statesman to British America, and a governor to New Brunswick. It was in this society that he made his first attempt at public speaking, and it may be said that from the very beginning he showed a remarkable aptitude for debate and public discussions.