Jones, Sir David, Brockville.—The late Sir David Jones, who was born in 1794, died on the 23rd August, 1838, at Brockville, Ontario, where he and his family long resided. Few men were more respected, and none could be held in higher estimation by his countrymen. He was an uncompromising supporter of British interests. On visiting England in 1835, as agent of the Brockville Loan and Trust Company, he received the honor of knighthood from His Majesty William IV., at Windsor Castle, being the first native of Ontario who had the honor of receiving so distinguished a mark of royal favor. Sir David died after an illness of only five days, and his early demise cast a gloom over his native place.
Kemble, William, Quebec.—This talented journalist was a native of Surrey, England, and a member of a distinguished mercantile family in London, one of whom, at the time of Mr. Kemble’s death, was a member of the Imperial parliament, for the county above mentioned. He was born in 1781, and died at Quebec, on the 25th February, 1845. While editing the Quebec Mercury, from 1823 to 1842, he greatly distinguished himself as a writer, and the spirit and raciness that characterized his writings will long be remembered by his confrères of the press. His talents were of a high order. He was also a generous contributor to many periodicals, including the then celebrated “Simmond’s Colonial Magazine,” of London, England.
McMicken, Hon. Gilbert, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Agent of the Commercial Union Assurance Company of London, England, is a native of England, having been born in London in 1813, but was from earliest infancy brought up in Glenluce, Wigtonshire, Scotland, of which country, his father was a native. He left Scotland in 1832, and landed at the port of Quebec on the 1st July of the same year. He proceeded to Montreal, and remained there about three weeks, and then went to Toronto (then Little York). From Toronto he removed, in September, to Chippewa, and engaged in the forwarding business. In July, 1838, he was appointed collector of customs, at Queenston, and subsequently held the same office at Suspension Bridge, near Niagara Falls. In 1851 was warden of the united counties of Lincoln and Welland; and was the first mayor of Clifton, and served for several subsequent terms in the same office. In 1857 Mr. McMicken entered the political field, and was elected to represent the county of Welland in the parliament of Canada, which he did for four years. In 1860 he moved to the county of Essex; and in 1864 was appointed stipendiary magistrate with jurisdiction over the whole Western Canada frontier, and in this capacity he successfully quieted frontier excitement, especially in the cities of Detroit and Buffalo, and afterwards received the special thanks of Lord Monck, the then governor-general of Canada, for his services on this occasion. He managed the extradition of Burley, for piracy on lake Erie; and also adjudicated upon and extradited the parties in the two celebrated express robbery cases of Reno and Anderson and of Morton and Thomson. He discovered and arranged the settlement of the disputed line of international boundary at the St. Clair flats canal. In 1865 Mr. McMicken was specially charged to watch over the Fenian movement in the United States in that year, and continued to do so until their last efforts at invasion failed in 1870. During these exciting times, and on the occasion of the murder of T. D’Arcy McGee, on Sparks street, Ottawa, he had committed to his care the government and parliament buildings in that city, and the persons of the members of the government and of parliament then at the capital; and protected, by convoy, the persons of Black, Richot and Scott, delegates from Manitoba, from the United States to Ottawa, during the first troubles in the North-West. In 1869 he was appointed to accompany his Royal Highness Prince Arthur, and his suite, with Governor-General Young, Lady Young, and Colonel Elphinstone, in their tour through Ontario, thence to Montreal, and then on to Ottawa, and for the valuable services rendered the party he received the special thanks of Prince Arthur, accompanied by a valuable souvenir. In 1871 he was made agent of the Dominion lands in Manitoba, and assistant receiver-general, Dominion auditor, manager of the Dominion savings banks, and immigration agent. In the same year he was instrumental in preventing a rising of the Metis when the Fenians offered to come over from the United States to help them. From 1874 to 1877 he was the acting inspector of the Manitoba Penitentiary, and in the latter year he retired from the government service on a pension, having served the Dominion faithfully and well. In 1879 he was elected to represent Cartier in the Manitoba legislature, was chosen speaker of that body, and retired from political life on the dissolution of the parliament in 1883. In 1879 he was appointed agent of the Commercial Union Assurance Company of London, England, and this position he still holds. Though greatly advanced in age, he is still hale and hearty, and a good many years of usefulness are still apparently before him. Hon Mr. McMicken married at Chippewa, on the 19th February, 1835, Ann Theresa, grand-daughter of Commodore Grant.
Masson, Lt.-Colonel Louis François Roderique, ex-Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Quebec, was born at Terrebonne, on November 7th, 1833. He is the fourth son of Hon. Joseph Masson, a member of the Legislative Council of Canada, at the time of his death, and M. G. Sophie Raymond, of Laprairie. Mrs. Masson died in 1883, at Terrebonne, where she was buried. The ceremonies of her funeral were very impressive, the archbishop of Montreal officiating; the musical service, under the leadership of Professor Guillaume Couture, of Montreal, with a select choir of forty male voices, was the grandest ever performed in the country. Besides distributing a considerable fortune to her children and relatives, she left princely legacies to various charitable institutions, the Deaf Mute Institution of Montreal receiving for its share a sum of $20,000. The ancestors of Mr. Masson came to Canada very early, and settled originally in Saint Eustache. At the present time the ramifications of the family spread over the whole province of Quebec. The subject of our sketch was educated at the Jesuits’ College, Georgetown, Worcester, Mass., and at St. Hyacinthe, Quebec, where he completed his classical studies. During this period he travelled for two years through Europe and the Holy Land, in company with that distinguished scholar, Rev. Mr. Désaulniers, of St. Hyacinthe College. Their tour lasted twenty four months, and was productive of immense benefit to young Masson, both in a physical and mental point of view. At the conclusion of his classical course he entered the law office of the late Sir George Etienne Cartier, in Montreal, where he resided three years, and in November, 1859, he was admitted to the bar. He never, however, practised his profession. Since October, 1862, he has held a commission in the Canadian volunteer force. On August 21st, 1863, he was appointed brigade-major 8th military district of Lower Canada, doing active duty on the frontier during the first Fenian raid, March, 1866; and also during the second raid in the same year, and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel in 1867. Colonel Masson has held various offices in the municipality of his native town, and was mayor of Terrebonne in 1874. In 1867 he was first elected to parliament as representative for the county of Terrebonne, and at every subsequent election he was re-elected by acclamation. He is perhaps the most popular man in the province of Quebec among his constituents. He is a Conservative, and stands very high in the estimation of his chiefs. In 1873 he was offered a seat in the Macdonald cabinet, but declined; the outspoken views he held on the amnesty for political offences in Manitoba, and on the settlement of the New Brunswick mixed schools question, forbade his acceptance of the honour proffered, unless he should make a sacrifice of principles. He is in favour of a reciprocity treaty with the United States, provided Canada is able to get equitable terms; of a moderately protective tariff, and he always advocated the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway wholly on Canadian soil. In 1878, when the Mackenzie administration resigned, Mr. Masson, who was travelling in Europe, was offered a portfolio in the new cabinet, and he sailed immediately for Canada. On his arrival (19th October), he was sworn in a member of her Majesty’s Privy Council and minister of militia and defence. Under his energetic administration numerous improvements and useful changes were effected in the Canadian militia organization,—more especially the establishment of drill associations in educational institutions, the supply of military clothes from Canadian manufacture, the manufacturing in the country of gunpowder, cartridges, heavy guns, etc. For reasons of health he was forced to discontinue the arduous labours he had undertaken, and on the 16th January, 1880, he resigned his position of minister of militia and defence, and was appointed president of the Privy Council. Mr. Masson resigned his seat in the cabinet in 1880, and in 1882 was called to the Senate. In 1884 he was appointed a member of the Legislative Council of Quebec, and he held that position until the 7th November, 1884, when he resigned, to assume the duties of lieutenant-governor of the province of Quebec. In 1856 Col. Masson married Louise Rachel, eldest daughter of Lieut.-Col. Alexander Mackenzie, and granddaughter of Hon. Roderique Mackenzie, once a member of the Legislative Council of Canada, and a partner in the North-West Fur Company; by this marriage he had issue five children, three sons and two daughters. Mrs. Masson died, and in 1884 he married his second wife, Cécile Burroughs, eldest daughter of John H. Burroughs, prothonotary of the Supreme Court of Canada.
Belleau, Sir Narcisse, K.C.M.G., Q.C., ex-Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Quebec, was born on the 20th October, 1808, in the city of Quebec, where he was educated, and where he still resides. Shortly after leaving school he chose law as a profession, and soon built up a lucrative business. Being a public spirited gentleman, he took an active part in municipal affairs, and in 1860, when the Prince of Wales visited Canada, Mr. Belleau was mayor of Quebec, and on this auspicious occasion he had the honour of knighthood conferred upon him. He entered the Legislative Council in 1852, soon made his mark there, and in 1857 was elected speaker of that body. This elevated position he retained until 1862, when he received the appointment of minister of agriculture in the Cartier-Macdonald administration. In 1865 he was persuaded to undertake the responsible duties of premier and receiver-general, and held these important offices until appointed lieutenant-governor of the province of Quebec in 1867. Sir Narcisse took an active part in all the most celebrated trials at this time in contested election cases, and his voice was no insignificant one in all and more than peculiarly delicate questions which so frequently arose during the time he was speaker of the upper house before confederation. As a legal adviser in civil cases he had few compeers at the time of his practising in Quebec that were recognized as his equal, still less his superior. Though now well advanced in years he still possesses a large circle of friends inside and outside of politics, and is a gentleman highly respected in his native city. His excellency Señor Don Boniface de Blas, minister of foreign affairs, by order and in the name of his Majesty the King of Spain, for services rendered on the occasion of the projected invasion of Cuba by the filibusters, conferred upon him the dignity of commander and grand officer of the royal order of Isabella la Catolica, in 1872, and on the 24th May, 1879, he had the still higher honour conferred upon him of being made a knight commander of the order of St. Michael and St. George, by her Majesty Queen Victoria, at the hands of the Marquis of Lorne, late governor-general, in the presence of her Royal Highness the Princess Louise. Sir Narcisse Belleau, now an old man, can look back on his past record as barrister, mayor, speaker of the Legislative Council, minister of agriculture, receiver-general, premier and lieutenant-governor of his native province, with satisfaction—having filled these high offices with credit to himself and honour to his country—and enjoy the remainder of his days as a public benefactor and a humane sympathetic Christian gentleman should always be able to do. On the 15th September, 1835, Sir Narcisse was married to Mary, daughter of the late L. Gauvreau, at one time a member of the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada. There is no issue by the marriage.