Our subject was the contemporary of such men as W. R. Callaway, widely known General Passenger Agent, Soo Line, Minneapolis, when he was agent at Paisley “in them days”, of Adam Brown, Hamilton’s postmaster, after whom a “Great Western” locomotive was named, W. K. Muir, W. J. Spicer, John Labatt and scores of others.
He was in his prime when a dozen United States railways competed vigorously for the traffic moving via Chicago and St. Paul during Manitoba’s first boom before the C.P.R.’s entry into Winnipeg in 1885.
Michigan Central
“THE NIAGARA FALLS ROUTE”
Mr. Quirk voluntarily resigned from G.T.R. service in 1905, enjoying the respect and favor of the Company’s officials as well as the friendship of the rank and file. He keeps in touch with the railway world, the trains and former associates by occasional jaunts around about, and he will wager his bonnet, his best jack-knife and even his boots, any day, that his watch regulates the sun’s movements. He is a collector of pictures, walking sticks and clocks, and must be a “freetrader” for at one time he was notorious as a bargainer and “unsight and unseen” artist.
If he likes you he will procure anything one desires from a dozen fresh eggs, a Latin recipe for rheumatic gout to a flagon of nut brown ale, and “Here’s the old spite to you all”.
The history of the Emerald Isle is in his book-case, her map is on his desk, and the Irishman’s ready answer still springs quick from the tongue of this lively, eighty-four year old colt, ex-conductor John Quirk.
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THE LUCK OF A LIGHT-HEARTED “LANDLUBBER”