Miller, John Stewart, Centreville, Ontario, Treasurer of the Township of Camden, M.P.P. for Addington, was born on the 17th September, 1844, in the township of Camden, county of Addington. He is the only son of Thomas Miller and Christina Madden. The family came originally from Ireland and settled in New England. During the revolutionary war they left that country and moved to Three Rivers, and subsequently, in 1790, took up their abode in the Bay of Quinté. He received his primary education in the schools of his native place, and then entered the Commercial College at Belleville, where he graduated in 1871. He then began farming on the homestead, lot No. 30, seventh concession of Camden, and here he continued his agricultural pursuits until 1886. In 1883 Mr. Miller began with a partner, business as a general merchant in the village of Centreville, and is still engaged in mercantile pursuits. He has taken a deep interest in military affairs, and in 1879 held the rank of lieutenant in the 48th battalion, and on the disbandment of this corps became attached to the 47th battalion. In 1875 he was appointed clerk of Camden township, and on resigning this office in 1886, received the appointment of treasurer of the same township, and this office he still holds. He joined the Orange Association in 1864, and served as county master in 1878-9. He became a member of Prince of Wales lodge, No. 146, of the Free and Accepted Masons in 1869; assisted in organizing Victoria lodge, No. 229, and was its master in 1870-71; and in 1883 he helped to organize Lorne lodge, No. 404, and was elected its first master, holding the office for three years. Mr. Miller has always taken an active interest in politics, and in 1880 was elected secretary-treasurer of the Liberal-Conservative Association of Addington. He presented himself in 1886 for parliamentary honors, and in December of the same year was elected to represent his native county in the Ontario legislature by a handsome majority over his opponent. In politics, as will be seen above, Mr. Miller is a Liberal-Conservative. His mother joined the Methodist church in 1828—who, by the way, is still alive, and a member of the same church—and the son is connected with the same religious body. He has been twice married; first, in 1871, to Carrie, second daughter of James Hawley. She died on the 24th February, 1874. He married, the second time, in 1877, Anne, eldest daughter of the late Robert Robertson, of Kingston.
Choquette, Philippe Auguste, LL.B., Advocate, Montmagny, Quebec province, M.P. for the county of Montmagny, was born on the 6th January, 1854, at Belœil, county of Verchères. His ancestors came from Amiens, Picardie, France, in 1643, and settled in Varennes, in the county where the subject of our sketch was born. His parents were Joseph Choquette, farmer, and Marie Thaïs Audet. He received his education at St. Hyacinthe College, and at Laval University, Quebec, and graduated B.C.L. from the latter institution in 1880, having previously taken the silver medal given by the governor-general, Lord Lorne. While he was prosecuting his studies at Laval, he acted as private secretary to the Hon. Honoré Mercier, then solicitor-general in the Joly administration, and now premier of Quebec province. He held, for about three years and a half, the position of book-keeper in a wholesale boot and shoe establishment in St. Hyacinthe before he began to study law. He then returned to Quebec in 1877, and entered the office of the Hon. François Langelier, M.P., and mayor of Quebec, to study law. After being admitted to the bar of Lower Canada in 1880, he removed to Montmagny, where he successfully practised his profession. Since 1877 he has been a contributor to L’Union, of St. Hyacinthe, and L’Electeur, of Quebec; and was publisher of La Sentinelle, a weekly paper at Montmagny, during the years 1883 and 1884. In 1878 he began to take an active part in politics; and in 1882 he ran for a seat in the House of Commons at Ottawa against A. C. P. R. Landry, the Conservative candidate, but was defeated by a majority of 120 votes. At the general election held in 1887 he again presented himself in opposition to Mr. Landry, and this time carried his election by a majority of 193 votes. Mr. Choquette has travelled through the principal parts of the United States. He has been secretary of the Reform Club of the county of Montmagny since 1881. In politics he is a strong Liberal, a free trader, in favor of commercial union, and would not object to annexation to the United States. He is an adherent of the Roman Catholic church, but objects to the clergy interfering and mixing in political contests. On the 29th August, 1883, he was married to Marie, daughter of A. Bender, prothonotary of the Superior Court, and granddaughter of the late Sir E. P. Taché baronet, A.D.C. to her Majesty the Queen, and one of the promoters of confederation.
Méthot, Right Rev. Michel Edouard, A.M., D.D., Quebec, Domestic Prelate of his Holiness, also Professor of Literature at Laval University, and of Moral Theology at the Grand Seminary of Quebec, member of the Archiepiscopal Curia of Quebec, was born on the 28th July, 1826, in the parish of Ste. Croix, county of Lotbinière, province of Quebec. His parents were Joseph Méthot, farmer, and Marie Xavier Desrochers. In 1839 he entered the Little Seminary of Quebec, where he followed the literary and scientific course of that institution. In 1847, having completed a classical course of instruction, he entered the Grand Seminary of Quebec, and went through a course of theology, being admitted to the holy orders in 1849. It may truly be said that Monsignor Méthot has devoted his entire life to the education of the youth of his country, teaching at first in the Little Seminary of Quebec, and then successively at the Grand Seminary and at Laval University, where he gave a public course of literature. He was also prefect of studies for ten years at the Little Seminary, twice director of the Grand Seminary, librarian of Laval University, and lastly, superior of the Seminary and rector of the University for seven years. He was the first vice-rector of the branch of Laval University in Montreal, which positions he resigned at the end of the academic year 1886-7 owing to ill-health. He visited Europe twice, the first time in 1860, when he went to England, France, and Italy. Our readers need not be surprised if we tell them that Monsignor Méthot visited the principal institutions of learning, colleges, museums, the most celebrated libraries, and monuments of arts of those countries, his taste and eagerness for learning leading him to choose those attractions in preference to all others. In 1866, having obtained leave of absence to recuperate from the exhausting labor of teaching, he crossed the Atlantic a second time and passed a whole year in Belgium. Rest, however, consisted in further studies. On his arrival in Belgium he went to the Catholic University of Louvain and applied himself to the study of theology, scriptures, and ecclesiastical history in that celebrated institution of learning. He has contributed to the newspaper and periodical press of the Province of Quebec several articles, biographical sketches and literary essays, which will help the historian of the future to write accurately the history of our Dominion. Mgr. Méthot was elevated to the dignity of domestic prelate by his Holiness Pope Leo XIII. in 1887.
Cloran, Henry Joseph, B.C.L., Barrister, Montreal, was born in that city on the 8th May, 1855. His father and mother are both Irish. The former, Joseph Cloran, is a native of county Galway, and the latter, Ann Kennedy, is from county Limerick. Having received his primary education in the Christian Brothers’ School at home, and passed a year in the public schools of New York, he entered the Montreal College in 1868, where he made a complete and successful course of classical studies. On graduating from college in 1875, he left for Europe, where during three years he prosecuted a course of scientific, philosophical and theological studies in the celebrated college of St. Sulpice, in Paris. During his sojourn in Europe he visited Italy, Switzerland, France, England and Ireland, and returned to Canada strongly equipped for the combats of the future with an extensive stock of knowledge, and a precious ensemble of information on the Irish question and general European politics. On his return home, Mr. Cloran filled for a year a professorship of English literature in his alma mater, the Montreal College. He then took a course of law in the Universities of Laval and McGill, and graduated from the latter with the degree of B.C.L. He studied in the offices of the eminent legal firm of the late Edward Carter, Q.C.; Hon. R. Church, now judge of the Court of Queen’s Bench; and of Hon. J. A. Chapleau, ex-premier of Quebec, and now Secretary of State. At the close of his law studies, the editorship of the Montreal Post and of the True Witness became vacant in 1882 by the resignation of J. C. Fleming. This responsible and important position was offered to Mr. Cloran, who accepted, and then commenced a journalistic career which has been crowned with marked success. We have no need to dwell upon the cleverness, judgment and ability displayed by Mr. Cloran in the functions of editor, nor upon the success he achieved. The Post is the only Irish daily paper in America, and he made it the organ of Irish Canadian opinion, esteemed by friends and feared by foes. The articles from Mr. Cloran’s pen have been widely reproduced and commented on by the leading papers in Canada and the United States, and even in the European press. In 1886 when the board of directors wished to give the support of the Post to certain Tory candidates in the general provincial elections of that year, the young editor declined to obey their mandate, and rather than write a single line inconsistent with his convictions, he threw up the editorship of the paper. Mr. Cloran is a man of principle, and has on all occasions the courage of his convictions. There is no hypocrisy in his nature; he is at all times manly and straightforward. Animated by no prejudice, he bends and yields to none. His public opinions are also his private ones—a trait which is not always to be discovered in the character of public men. He is an ardent lover of fair play, and finds his pleasure in championing the cause of the weak and the wronged. An Irish Canadian, and an uncompromising Home Ruler, like all patriotic Irishmen, he ranks among the number of those broad and liberal minds who do not shut themselves up in the narrow circle of an exclusive programme. The cause of the half breeds of the North-West—which is, after all, the same in many respects as that of the Irish people—naturally found in Mr. Cloran a willing and earnest advocate. His attitude on the North-West and Riel questions was inspired by the purest and most patriotic of motives. Living in the midst of French Canadians, whose friend he is, and a patriot from a Canadian as well as an Irish standpoint, Mr. Cloran rightly believed he was consistent with himself in joining with them in the province of Quebec to defend provincial rights and autonomy. He finds, with much reason, that Home Rule, if it is good for Ireland, is equally good for Canada; and he has in consequence labored with all liberal minds for the cause of provincial autonomy, which is, in Canada, the condition necessary to ensure union and harmony among the different races, and consequently the condition essential to the future grandeur and prosperity of our country. Mr. Cloran’s public and political career began on the 16th November, 1885, when he was unanimously chosen at a meeting of citizens, jointly with George H. Duhamel, now the solicitor-general of the province, to fill the position of secretary to the national movement that was inaugurated to secure the defeat and overthrow of Sir John A. Macdonald’s government, for the mal-administration of the North-West Territories, and the execution of the leader of the half breeds. He took a prominent part in the historic mass meeting of fifty thousand people assembled, from all parts of the province, on the Champ de Mars, Montreal, where he distinguished himself at one bound as an orator capable of speaking in both the French and English languages. He went through the famous winter campaign of 1886, and during the late provincial elections he fought a brilliant and victorious battle in company with Messrs. Laurier, Mercier, Bellerose, Duhamel and Bergeron, which resulted in the final overthrow of the old Conservative government, and the general break-up of the Tory and “Bleu” party which had controlled the destinies of Quebec almost uninterruptedly since confederation. No one contributed more to the establishment of the National administration of Hon. Honoré Mercier in Quebec than Mr. Cloran. There was not a National candidate who made a vain appeal to him for assistance. Always in the breach, and always at the disposal of his friends, Mr. Cloran covered almost the entire province; he addressed mass meetings in over forty counties, and everywhere he appeared he won the esteem and the confidence of the people who heard him. In the short space of one year he became one of the most popular orators, and one of the political lights of the province. Mr. Cloran placed himself at the service of the Liberal party to fight out the election campaign in Ontario, and put down the “No Popery” brigade in favor of the Mowat administration, which carried the standard of honest government and of civil and religious liberty. He took an active part in the struggle in the counties of Glengarry, Stormont and Prescott, where the three Liberal candidates were elected by large majorities. In showing no hesitation to go to Ontario to assist the Liberal government of Mr. Mowat, Mr. Cloran and his Quebec friends contributed much towards giving its true signification to the National movement. They clearly proved thereby that in the minds of none of them there never was harbored the slightest thought of a war of races, as was pretended by the Tory press and speakers; that far from attempting to divide and separate the different races, they were, on the contrary, ready and willing to strengthen more firmly than ever the bonds that unite us from one end to the other of the Dominion, irrespective of race and creed. In the general elections of 1887 for the House of Commons at Ottawa, Mr. Cloran was selected by the Liberal party as their standard bearer for Montreal Centre, one of the largest and most important constituencies in the Dominion. Although defeated, he almost doubled the Liberal vote given in the election of 1882, and succeeded in reducing the previous majority of his opponent, J. J. Curran, Q.C., M.P., by some five hundred votes. Before becoming one of our most noted public men, Mr. Cloran had occasion, at different times, to give proof of his energy and ability in occupying honorary positions in a number of literary, athletic and national and other organisations to which he was called by the confidence and esteem of his fellow citizens. It was thus that he was elected president of the Catholic Young Men’s Society, of Montreal, in 1880 and 1881. He was chosen secretary of the Parnell Reception Committee, which was the grandest accorded the great Irish leader in his memorable visit to America seven years ago. He has filled the office of president of the Press Association of the province of Quebec. An amateur of Canadian sports, he is the president of the renowned Shamrock Lacrosse Club. A Home Ruler, he is president of the Montreal branch of the Irish National League. He was a delegate to the Irish National Convention at Chicago in 1886, where he distinguished himself by two eloquent speeches. He was chairman of the organisation that gave Michael Davitt, the father of the League, a reception which has never been surpassed for brilliancy and enthusiasm. He is first vice-president of the St. Patrick’s Society; and is a director of the Montreal Diocesan Colonization Society, under the presidency of his Grace Mgr. Fabre. At the convention of the Young Liberals of the Dominion, held last July, he was elected as the Irish representative from Quebec province on the executive committee. Mr. Cloran was also a delegate to the Central Trades and Labor Council, in the foundation of which he took an active part. Since his début in public life he has not ceased to interest himself in the welfare of the working classes. His pen and voice were always at their service. He was also the chief organiser of the immense popular demonstrations and receptions accorded to William O’Brien, M.P., editor of United Ireland, on the memorable occasion of the latter’s visit to Montreal. Having abandoned journalism, he prepared himself for the bar, and on the 7th July, 1887, after a severe and brilliant examination, he was admitted with honors to the practice of the law. Although still young in years Mr. Cloran has acquired much valuable experience, and, as has been seen, has played an honorable and influential rôle in society, and has rendered distinguished service to his country. Mr. Cloran married, in 1882, Agnes, the third daughter of Michael Donovan, a leading Irish citizen and business man of Montreal, and for years president of the St. Patrick’s Society, and of the Irish National League.
Edwards, William Cameron, Manufacturer of Lumber, Rockland, Ontario, M.P. for the county of Russell, was born in the township of Clarence, Russell county, in 1844. His father, William Edwards, was a native of Portsmouth, England, and came to Canada about 1820, and settled in Clarence township. Here, for a long period, he took a leading part in all movements intended for the advancement of the district in which he resided, and was for over twenty years reeve of the township. The mother of the subject of our sketch, Ann Cameron, was a native of Fort William, Scotland. William was educated in the Ottawa Grammar School, and when he had reached the age of nineteen was employed by Cameron & Edwards, lumbermen, of Thurso, and here he remained for a number of years. In 1868 he joined in a partnership with James Wood, and they, having built a small steam sawmill at Rockland, on the Ottawa river, commenced the lumber business under the firm name of W. C. Edwards & Co. The business having proved successful, in 1871 Cameron & Edwards gave up their establishment at Thurso, and threw in their lot with W. C. Edwards & Co., at Rockland. A large mill was then erected, and their business steadily increased. In 1875 a fire visited the locality, and unfortunately destroyed the whole premises of the firm, including mills, docks, buildings, plant, and indeed everything pertaining to the establishment, and besides a large stock of sawn lumber. And to add to this misfortune, the amount of their insurance did not cover one-third of the loss. Nothing daunted, the firm went to work, the same year, to rebuild, and in the spring of 1876 they were at work again. Since this time their business has largely increased, and the firm now give employment to a great number of hands. Previous to the opening of the mills at Rockland there were only two or three houses in the place; but to-day the village has a population of about fifteen hundred; is incorporated; and has a post office, telegraph office, stores, school house, churches, a good public hall, a division court, etc. Mr. Edwards has always been the sole manager of the firm’s business, and, as may be seen, has very successfully conducted its affairs. In 1866 he succeeded in forming the Thurso infantry company, and for three years, up to his leaving the village, was captain of this company. He has been for many years a justice of the peace, and has also been reeve of the village of Rockland. During the past four years he has been president of the County of Russell Agricultural Society, and has done considerable towards promoting the improvement of stock and the general advancement of agriculture in the county. He is a Liberal in politics, and in 1882 he unsuccessfully contested Russell for a seat in the House of Commons against Moss Kent Dickinson. Again at the last general election he entered the field, and was elected by a majority of 156 votes over C. H. McIntosh, who opposed him. Mr. Edwards is an adherent of the Baptist church. In 1885 he was married to Catherine M., eldest daughter of William Wilson, of Cumberland, Ontario, who for many years has been the leading business man of his township, and over twenty years its reeve, and a justice of the peace.