An’ for the luve we bear his name,
Let’s live as brithers, side by side,
In Canada, our hame.
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.
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.
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.