Lewis, William James, M.D., Hillsborough, M.P.P. for Albert county, New Brunswick, was born in 1830, in Hillsborough, N.B. He is the eldest son of the Hon. John Lewis, member of the Legislative Council of New Brunswick, and Lavinia Lewis. His father’s ancestors emigrated from Wales about 1750, and settled in New York. Being United Empire loyalists, they left the United States at the close of the revolutionary war in 1783, and took up their abode in Moncton, New Brunswick, where a good many of their descendants are still to be found. His mother’s ancestors came from Londonderry, Ireland, over a hundred years ago and settled in the Maritime provinces. Mr. Lewis was first educated in the common schools of the parish where he was born, and afterwards at Sackville Academy, Westmoreland county, New Brunswick. Having chosen the medical profession, he went over to Scotland and studied medicine at the Glasgow University, where he graduated with honors in 1855, and also at the College of Surgeons in Edinburgh in May of the same year. On his return to Hillsborough he began the practice of his profession, and has continued there ever since, having built up a lucrative business. For the last twenty-five years he has held the position of coroner for Albert county. In 1878 he entered political life, and was at the general election of that year returned as a member of the House of Assembly of New Brunswick; re-elected at the general election of 1882, and again at the general election of 1886. In 1882 he was sworn in a member of the Executive Council, and took office without a portfolio in the Harrington-Landry administration, but resigned with his colleagues in February, 1883. In politics, Dr. Lewis is a Liberal-Conservative; and in religion, following in the footsteps of his parents, his sympathies are with the Baptist church. He has been twice married; first, in 1877, to Melissa, daughter of Richard E. Steever, postmaster of Hillsborough. She died in October, 1882, without issue. He was again married in August, 1885, to Catharine Duffy, daughter of the late John Duffy, of Hillsborough, N.B., and has issue a daughter.
Daly, Thomas Mayne, M.P., Barrister, Brandon, Manitoba, was born on the 16th August, 1852, at Stratford, Ontario. He is the second son of the late Thomas Mayne Daly, by his wife Helen McLaren Ferguson, a native of Crieff, Perthshire, Scotland, who came to Canada in 1844 with her father, the late Peter Ferguson, of Stratford, architect. He is a grandson of the late Lieut.-Colonel I. C. W. Daly, who settled in Stratford in 1832, and who was for many years after agent of the Canada Company, and also of the Bank of Upper Canada in Stratford. He was a member of the first council of the district of Huron in 1842, and he was also the first mayor of Stratford (1858). He died on the 1st April, 1878, in the eighty-third year of his age, being at the time of his death the oldest militia officer, magistrate and coroner in the whole of the country formerly comprising the old Huron district, and now comprising the counties of Huron, Perth and Bruce. The history of the last half century of his life is very intimately connected with the history of the old “Huron Tract.” Thomas Mayne Daly, the father of the subject of our sketch, was born at Hamilton, Ontario, in 1827, and died at Stratford 5th March, 1885. He was educated at Upper Canada College, Toronto. He entered public life in 1848, being elected in that year as a district councillor from Downie, in the Huron district. In 1850 he was elected first reeve of North East Hope, and was mayor of Stratford during the years 1869, and 1876-77 and ’78. He was the first representative sent to the Legislative Assembly of Canada from the county of Perth after its organization as a separate county in 1854. He was again elected in 1857, over the Hon. Wm. McDougall. He was defeated at the general election, 1861, by the Hon. M. H. Foley, but that gentleman having been also elected for South Waterloo, he resigned his seat for Perth, and at the election which followed Mr. Daly was returned in opposition to the late Robert Macfarlane, who, however, defeated him at the next general election. At the first election after confederation, the county being then divided into two ridings, Mr. Daly unsuccessfully opposed James Redford for North Perth; but at the general election in 1872 he defeated Mr. Redford, and was government “whip” during the celebrated “Pacific Scandal” session at Ottawa, and the mover of the adjournment of the debate the night previous to the resignation of the Macdonald-Cartier administration. Mr. Daly in 1874 was elected for North Perth to the Ontario legislature, and sat out the term of the second parliament. Having been defeated for the local legislature at the general provincial elections of 1875, he was tendered the Conservative nomination for North Perth at the general Dominion election in 1878, but declined for private reasons, and then retired from public life. Thomas Mayne Daly, the subject of our sketch, received his education at the Upper Canada College in Toronto. Having adopted law as a profession he was admitted to the Ontario bar in Michaelmas term, 1876, and began practice in the city of Stratford, Ontario, on 10th January, 1877, and continued until May, 1881, when he removed to Manitoba, and took up his residence in Brandon in that province, on the 18th July, 1881. Here he has resided ever since, and is now the senior member of the firm of Daly & Coldwell, barristers, etc. Mr. Daly was among the pioneer settlers of Brandon; and was the returning officer at the first general election held in the district for the local legislature in October, 1881, and was also returning officer for the first municipal election in the county of Brandon in December of the same year. In 1882 he was elected the first mayor of the city of Brandon; and was re-elected to the same office in 1884. He was chairman of the Western Judicial District Board of Manitoba, 1884. He is a bencher of the Law Society of Manitoba, and a member of the Protestant Board of Education of that province. He was president of the first Conservative Association formed in Brandon in July, 1882; is now vice-president for Selkirk of the Conservative Union of Manitoba, and president of the Liberal-Conservative Association of the county of Brandon. During Mr. Daly’s residence in Ontario he took an active part in public affairs, and was for several years quartermaster of the 28th Perth battalion of militia, and retired from the service in 1881 with the rank of captain. He occupied the office of president of the Young Men’s Conservative Association, which was formed in Stratford in 1878, and during the years 1880-81 he held a seat in the town council of Stratford; and was a member of, and subsequently became the chairman of, the school board of that place. In politics Mr. Daly is a Liberal-Conservative, and in religion an adherent of the Church of England. He was married on the 4th of June, 1879, at Stratford, Ontario, to Margaret Annabella, eldest daughter of P. R. Jarvis.
Borden, Frederick William, B.A., M.D., M.P., Canning, Nova Scotia, was born on the 14th May, 1847, at Canard, Kings county, N.S. His father, Jonathan Borden, M.D. (whose great grandfather, Samuel Borden, was one of the original grantees of the township of Cornwallis, in the reign of King George III., A.D. 1764), practised medicine at Canard for thirty years. Maria Frances Brown, his mother, was a descendant on the maternal side from the family of Major Dennison, one of the agents from Connecticut who in May, 1759, visited the districts of Grand Pré and Canard, in Kings county, from which the Acadians had been expatriated, with a view to re-settling the said districts with a colony from that state. Her brother, Dr. E. L. Brown, sat in the legislature of Nova Scotia from 1847 till 1859, and from 1863 till 1871, having been defeated in 1859 by another brother, J. L. Brown, who held the seat until 1863. Both parents are dead. Mr. Borden graduated in arts at the University of King’s College, Windsor, N.S., in June, 1866, and at Harvard University in medicine in July, 1868. He was a member of King’s College University Rifle Corps; was appointed assistant surgeon of the 68th battalion active militia 22nd October, 1869, surgeon on the 22nd October, 1879, and principal medical officer of the brigade camp at Aldershot in September, 1887. Dr. Borden has been agent of the Bank of Nova Scotia at Canning since September, 1882. He was elected to represent Kings county in the House of Commons at Ottawa in February, 1874; and re-elected in September, 1875. He was an unsuccessful candidate in June, 1882, but was again elected in February, 1887, by a majority of 448 votes. The doctor has practised his profession (medicine) continuously at Canning since September, 1869, whither he had removed from Canard (the old homestead), about four miles distant. He married, first, Julia Maude Clarke, on 1st October, 1873. She died April 2nd, 1880. He married again, on June 12th, 1884, Bessie Blanche Clarke, daughter of John H. Clarke, of Canning, N.S. Her mother’s maiden name was Elizabeth Tupper, and she was a daughter of Augustus Tupper, who contested Kings county several times unsuccessfully for a seat in the Nova Scotian Assembly, and who was an uncle of Sir Charles Tupper.
Silver, William Chamberlain, President of the Chamber of Commerce, Halifax, Nova Scotia, was born at Halifax, Nova Scotia, on December 3rd, 1814. He is a son of William Nyren Silver, of Port Lee, Hampshire, of the Silvers of Ropley, Whitechurch, Southampton, England; and of Elizabeth Chamberlain, whose family left New England at the close of the revolutionary war. Mr. Silver received his education at the Halifax Academy. When only twenty years of age he served as a colour sergeant in the Light Infantry volunteers, and participated in the military display held in honour of the coronation of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, in 1838. He went early into business, and only of late years relaxed his habit of constant application, so far as to spend the summer months with his family, at a beautiful spot about six miles from Halifax, known as River Bank, overlooking a long reach of Little Salmon River, a stream well stocked with sea trout and salmon. This place was for a long time the country seat of his father, and here Mr. Silver, when young, naturally developed a strong penchant for the “gentle art,” and became a devoted disciple of Izaak Walton. Although he has taken a close interest in politics, and been repeatedly pressed to accept nominations for the Local and Dominion legislatures, as well as for the mayoralty of his native city, yet, in consequence of lack of robust health, and the heavy demands on his time of other public and private duties, he has invariably declined. Mr. Silver, throughout the whole course of his life, has incessantly laboured in the ranks of the temperance reformers, and his name has stood prominent in every fresh effort to advance a cause he has so much at heart. He joined the order of the Sons of Temperance soon after its introduction into Nova Scotia, and in 1882 the brotherhood conferred upon him the office of grand worthy patriarch of the Grand Division of Nova Scotia. He has served as president of the Halifax School Association, an association which carried to a successful issue the object for which it was formed, viz., the establishment of a public high school, the elevation of the standard of education in the city schools, and the securing of equal rights to all in the educational system. For many years he was vice-president of the Halifax Chamber of Commerce, and as chairman of the Internal Trade Committee, he, with others, took an active part in urging the government to base the tariff of the Intercolonial Railway Company on principles adapted to national development, as distinguished from trade principles. Mr. Silver also served as chairman of the Joint Committee of Citizens and the Chamber of Commerce, whose urgent representations to the government of the great importance of extending the Intercolonial Railway to a more central point of the city than the Richmond terminus, of the necessity for building a deep water terminus and grain elevator, and of landing the British mails at Halifax instead of Portland, contributed largely to the accomplishment of these objects. Since 1884 Mr. Silver has been president of the Chamber of Commerce. For many years he acted as treasurer, and is now president of the Halifax Western Agricultural Society, and was always an active promoter of the industrial and agricultural exhibitions held in Halifax from time to time. For about twenty years he has been treasurer of the Institute of Natural Science, a society whose useful work is well known, and whose valued publications are widely distributed through the scientific world. He has also filled the office of president of the St. George’s Society, and for some years was vice-president of the Halifax Library (eventually transferred to the city). For many years he has been president of the Halifax Medical Dispensary, and vice-president of the School for the Blind of the Maritime provinces. In politics he was a Conservative up to the time of confederation, when he joined the Liberals in opposing it. After the Hon. Joseph Howe’s return from England, when it became clear that repeal was impossible, he accepted the situation, and returned to the ranks of the Conservatives, but on the unearthing of the Pacific scandal he again changed sides. He took no part in the recent attempts to separate Nova Scotia from the confederation. Mr. Silver has travelled a good deal. In January, 1840, he sailed from Halifax for Liverpool in the barque Corsair, steam navigation at that date being still in its infancy. After a succession of heavy gales the ship was cast away near the mouth of the Mersey river, when Mr. Silver and the other passengers were saved by a lifeboat. On other occasions he has visited Europe with Mrs. Silver, and in 1879 spent part of the summer in that garden of England, the Isle of Wight. He has been a member of the Church of England from childhood, but has always been found working shoulder to shoulder for the common good with members of other religious bodies. He has acted as representative of the church, first in the Diocesan Church Society, and in later years both in the local and provincial synods, the latter of which holds its sessions in Montreal. Among other offices connected with church work, he filled the post of vice-president of the British and Foreign Bible Society; president of the Halifax Church Institute; vice-president of the Young Men’s Christian Association; chairman of the Church Endowment Fund; vice-president of the Alumni of King’s College; and governor of the same university. In 1885 he took part in an effort to confederate the colleges of Nova Scotia, which, however, failed to effect the object aimed at. Mr. Silver was married on the 2nd September, 1840, to Margaret Ann, daughter of Benjamin Etter, of “Bellevue,” Halifax, N.S. Mrs. Silver’s mother was the daughter of a loyalist (and also Mr. Silver’s mother). They left fortune and position in New England at the close of the war of independence to follow the British standard to Nova Scotia. Eight sons and five daughters were the fruit of this union, all of whom are still living save two. Three of his sons are associated with him in business; one, a graduate of Kings College and a LL.B. of Harvard University Law Faculty, is practising law in Halifax; and another is preparing for the medical profession at the University of Edinburgh. One of his daughters is the wife of John Y. Payzant, solicitor; another is married to Rev. John Morton, organizer of a most extensive and successful missionary enterprise in the island of Trinidad, British West Indies.
Murphy, Martin, Civil Engineer, Halifax, Nova Scotia, second son of Thomas Murphy, contractor, was born at Ballindaggin, near Enniscorthy, county Wexford, Ireland, on the 11th November, 1832. He received his education at the best schools in his native county; and having selected engineering as a profession, he has been employed without intermission as a civil engineer and contractor from 1852 to the present time. When only nineteen years, of age he joined the engineering staff of the late William Dargan, and continued in the same employment for eleven years. During this period his practice extended over the various public works of the time constructed by Mr. Dargan throughout Ireland. At the age of twenty-four he was engineer and manager of railway construction, and at thirty was resident engineer of the Dublin, Wicklow and Wexford Railway, then in operation to Enniscorthy, in which position he continued until he came to America in 1868. He was employed during 1869 and 1870 as engineer for extension of streets and sewerage in the city of Halifax; then for the next two years in making surveys for the extension of railways in Nova Scotia. For the next four years he was contractor on the Intercolonial Railway of Canada. He was appointed provincial government engineer for the province of Nova Scotia in 1876, a position which he still holds. In Nova Scotia he exercised supervision over the construction of the Western Counties, the Eastern Extension, and the Spring Hill and Parrsboro’ railways, now in operation, and the Nova Scotia Central and Maccan and Joggins railways, now being constructed. He was consulted by the colonial government of Newfoundland respecting railways. He has replaced nearly all the old wooden bridges of the province of Nova Scotia with permanent structures of stone, concrete and iron, and is now urging a system of road-making and maintenance. Mr. Murphy is a member of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers; a member of the council of the Institute of Natural Science of Nova Scotia; and also the author of several engineering papers. In 1861 he married Maria Agnes Buckley, youngest daughter of Cornelius Buckley, of Banteer, county Cork, Ireland.