Alexander, Rev. Finlow, M.R.C.S., (England), and L.S.A., sub-Dean of Christ Church Cathedral, Fredericton, New Brunswick, was born on the 17th April, 1834, at Walkhampton, near Tavistock, Devonshire, England. He is a son of the late Rev. Daniel Alexander, M.A., vicar of Bickleigh, near Plymouth, England. The Rev. F. Alexander received his educational training at Mount Pleasant House Academy, Milbay Road, Plymouth, and subsequently at Marlborough College, in Wiltshire. After leaving school, in 1850, he entered on the study of medicine at the Middlesex Hospital, London; and in 1855 received the diploma of the Royal College of Surgeons, adding in 1857 that also of the Society of Apothecaries, Blackfriars Bridge, London. After visiting the East, in the employ, as a surgeon, of the Peninsular and Oriental Company, Mr. Alexander, in 1860, came to Canada, and engaged for three years in the practice of his profession, at Gore’s Landing, Ontario. In 1863 he married Anna Cecille, daughter of Thomas S. Gore, of Gore Mount, county Antrim, Ireland; and determining on taking holy orders, removed to Cobourg, Ontario, where he pursued the studies necessary to that end, under the direction of the Venerable Archdeacon Bethune, afterwards Bishop of Toronto. In February, 1866, Mr. Alexander was admitted to the diaconate by the Right Rev. Bishop Strachan; and in May, 1867 was ordained to the priesthood. He was appointed in the first place to the curacy of Port Hope, Ontario, in 1866; and in the following year was transferred, on the death of the rector, the Rev. Jonathan Shortt, D.D., to the curacy of Guelph, Ontario. This appointment he held until the resignation of the rector, the Venerable Archdeacon Palmer, in 1875. In the autumn of that year the offer was made to him by the bishop of the diocese of Fredericton, New Brunswick, now Metropolitan of Canada, of the position of sub-dean in his cathedral; this office he accepted and still (1887) retains.
Ross, Hon. David Alexander, Q.C., Barrister, “Westfield,” St. Foye Road, Quebec city, member of the Legislative Council of the province of Quebec, was born at Quebec, on the 12th March, 1819. His father was the late John Ross, who for many years filled the position of joint prothonotary of the King’s Bench, at Quebec. His mother, Margaret Ross, was a native of Prince Edward Island. His paternal grandfather, John Ross, who was born in Tain, Ross-shire, Scotland, with a number of other Highlanders, formed themselves into a volunteer company to fight during the French war only, and having been attached to the 78th Highland regiment, were among the brave men who in the pitchy darkness of the early morn of the 13th September, 1759, climbed, with the immortal Wolfe, the cliffs near Cape Diamond, Quebec, and won for Great Britain, on the Plains of Abraham, one of the finest possessions of the British Crown. Mr. Ross was severely wounded in the engagement; and after the conquest he became a citizen of Quebec, and commanded a company of militia in 1776, when Montgomery and Arnold attempted to retake Quebec, and did good service for the Crown. The Hon. Mr. Ross received a classical education in the school taught by the late Dr. Daniel Wilkie, and at the Seminary of Quebec, and then followed a course of civil and Roman law at the University of Laval. He is conversant with both languages. He adopted law as a profession; was called to the bar of Lower Canada in 1848, and appointed a Queen’s counsel in 1873. Being fully imbued with the spirit of his ancestors, he entered the Military College, and obtained a first-class certificate for company and battalion drill; and during the first Fenian invasion raised a company of fifty men, fully equipped, and ready to march to the frontier when called upon. He is now a lieutenant-colonel in the militia. He entered political life in 1878, and was returned to the Quebec legislature, at the general election of that year, for the county of Quebec, and sat for that constituency until the general election of 1881, when he withdrew from politics for a time. On the 8th March, 1878, he was sworn in a member of the Executive Council, and became attorney-general in the Joly administration, and held office until the 30th of October, 1879, when he resigned with his colleagues. In 1887 he was called to the Legislative Council of his native province, and was appointed a member of the Hon. Mr. Mercier’s cabinet, without a portfolio. The Hon. Mr. Ross is a director of the Lake St. John Railway. For several years he was president of the St. Andrew’s Society; of the Quebec Literary and Historical Society; of the Quebec Auxiliary Bible Society; and has been twice elected bâtonnier (president) of the Quebec bar. He has made himself very familiar with the Dominion of Canada, and has found time from his numerous duties to visit the United States of America, England, Scotland, France, Italy, Spain, Gibraltar, Sicily and Egypt, and upwards of fifty cities and towns. In politics Mr. Ross is a Liberal; and in religion an adherent of the Presbyterian church. He was married in March, 1872, to Harriet Ann Valentine, widow of the late James Gibb, in his lifetime one of the leading merchants of Quebec.
Ingram, Andrew B., St. Thomas, M.P.P. for West Elgin, was born on 23rd April, 1851, at Strabane, county of Wentworth, Ontario, and is the second son of Thomas and Mary Ann Ingram, of that place. His paternal grandfather, Andrew Ingram, was a native of the county Tyrone, Ireland, and served his country for nineteen years under Lord Wellington, participating in the Peninsular campaign, as well as Quatre Bras and Waterloo. The subject of our sketch received a common school education at Morristown, Ontario, and his early youth was passed in agricultural pursuits. Becoming dissatisfied with a rural life, he bade adieu to the farm and proceeded to London, where his uncle, who was a resident of that city, prevailed upon him to learn a trade. Having selected that of a collarmaker, he served the usual apprenticeship, and in 1870 was duly accredited a journeyman. For some years he labored at the occupation of his choice. In August, 1879, he connected himself with the Canada Southern Railway, commencing at the foot of the ladder as brakeman, and by strict attention to the duties of that position, soon won the confidence of the officials, and was promoted to a conductorship. A place was then offered to him on the Wisconsin Central in a similar capacity, which he accepted, but owing to unforeseen circumstances, he resigned and returned to St. Thomas, when he entered the employ of the Grand Trunk Company, and faithfully performed the duties assigned him for about three years, when he was elected standard-bearer by the Conservatives of West Elgin, on the 15th July, 1886. When it came to the knowledge of his employers that he had been selected to contest West Elgin, they notified him to decline the honor or leave the service. After consulting his friends, he decided on the latter course, and entered into active politics. When the general elections were held on the 28th December, 1886, he was declared elected to represent West Elgin in the Ontario legislature, and has since served in the capacity of representative. Mr. Ingram took an active part in the formation of the St. Thomas Feather Bone Company, in which he is a stockholder, and which promises to become one of the leading enterprises in the city of his adoption. He joined Forest City lodge, I.O.O.F., London, on the 21st August, 1871, and remained an active worker in the same until the 5th November, 1877, when he took his withdrawal card. In 1881 he joined the Brakemen’s Benevolent Association of Canada and the United States, served as president one term, and was elected grand vice-president at a convention held in Brockville in March, 1882. On the 25th June, 1885, he joined Local Assembly Knights of Labor, St. Thomas; and in July of the same year attached himself to Headlight Assembly, No. 4,069. He served as master workman of the same for two terms; and was elected a member of District Assembly, No. 138, in which he holds the position of statistician. He was a delegate to the General Assembly convened at Richmond, Va., U.S., on 8th October, 1886. He originated the St. Thomas Trades and Labor Council in January, 1886, and was elected its first vice-president for the first term, president for the second term, and now fills the position of honorary president. He is also a member of the Independent Order of Foresters. Mr. Ingram has taken an active part in provincial, federal and municipal politics since confederation, in the counties of Wellington, Perth, Huron, Essex, and Elgin, and been a hard worker in various Conservative associations. He held a position of trust under the Clarke administration in Manitoba, and was one of the sheriff’s posse who arrested Andrew Nault and others for complicity in the murder of Thomas Scott. Although returned to parliament as a Liberal-Conservative, Mr. Ingram has ever in view and will support any measure brought forward that will advance the true interests of the toiling masses, who in him have an able and conscientious advocate, and who from actual experience is conversant with the disadvantages under which they labor. In religious matters he is an adherent of the Episcopal church. And to sum him up in a few words, is an able, honest man, who commands the respect of the community which he so ably represents. In 1882 he married Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Allen McIntyre, of Aberfoyle, whose great grandfather was the Earl of Home, a Scottish nobleman.
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