Taché, Eugene Etienne, Quebec, Assistant Commissioner of Crown Lands for the Province of Quebec, Provincial Land Surveyor for Upper and Lower Canada, and Architect, was born at St. Thomas, Montmagny county, on the 24th of October, 1836. His father was the Hon. Sir Etienne Paschal Taché, one of the fathers of confederation, and his mother, Sophie Morency. Mr. Taché, the subject of our sketch, was educated at the Seminary of Quebec, and at the Upper Canada College, Toronto. In 1862 he held a captain’s commission in the Chasseurs Canadiens in Quebec, and after his temporary removal to Ottawa, held for a time the position of lieutenant in the Civil Service Rifle Corps. He is also a captain in the sedentary militia of Quebec. In 1869 he received the appointment of assistant commissioner of Crown Lands for the province of Quebec, and this position he occupies now. As a surveyor, he has had considerable experience. For eighteen months, while studying this branch of his profession under Walter Shanley, C.E., he was engaged on the survey of the Ottawa Ship Canal. As an architect, too, he has done a good deal, having acted in this capacity in the erection of the Quebec parliamentary buildings, and the Quebec drill hall. He was also the designer of the handsome façades on the new court house, in Quebec. In the midst of his various duties he has devoted some time to travel, and in 1867 visited Britain, France, and Italy. He is the author of “Maps of the Province of Quebec,” of which he issued two editions, the first in 1870, and the second in 1880. In religion, Mr. Taché is a Roman Catholic. He has been twice married; first, in July, 1859, to O. Eleonore Bender, who died without issue; second, to Clara J. Duchesnay, daughter of the late Hon. Antoine Juchereau Duchesnay, senator. Five children have been born of this union.
Adams, Aaron A., Coaticook, province of Quebec.—Mr. Adams, who was born at Henniker, New Hampshire, United States, on the 2nd September, 1806, and died at Coaticook, on the 13th of August, 1887, at the ripe age of eighty-one years, came to Canada when only sixteen years of age, and made his home in the Eastern Townships. He went into trade in 1832, at Georgeville, then an important place, and removed to Barnston in 1837, where he continued to trade with the late M. W. Copp, and others until 1853. Then he took up his abode in Coaticook, then a straggling village of about a dozen houses. He traded here for some years in company with John Thornton, and was subsequently largely interested in mining operations, at the time it was very active in the townships. Of late years Mr. Adams’ private business was principally confined to farming. For the past fifty years scarcely any public enterprise, affecting the interests of this part of the townships, has been carried through without Mr. Adams’ active and cordial support. He was for many years a leader in municipal matters, and in perfecting Coaticook’s present municipal organization. He was a member of the first district council, and under the new order a member of Barnston Council, of which he was mayor for several years, and at different times warden of the county. He was a member of the first council of Coaticook and mayor, which office he held for several years of this first council, elected twenty-three years ago, only one member, A. K. Fox, now survives. Mr. Adams was an active promoter of the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railway, now operated by the Grand Trunk and connecting Montreal and Portland. He was also actively engaged in the Massawippi Valley road, now operated by the Passumpsic Company. The establishment of the Eastern Townships’ Bank was actively promoted by him. He was one of the first directors, and from 1880 to 1885 was vice-president of the institution. He was also for many years a director of the S. and S. Mutual Insurance Company. All local enterprises received active and substantial support from him. He was, from its foundation, a director of the flourishing industry, the Coaticook Knitting Company, of which he was vice-president at the time of his death. In religion, Mr. Adams was a Methodist, and most zealous and consistent in his belief and practice; he joined this church at an early age, and for many years was a class leader and Sunday school teacher in its service. Few men led a more active and useful life, and his death was greatly regretted by his numerous friends. He left a widow, two daughters, and two sons, namely: Mrs. Pomroy, of Compton; Mrs. Baker, of Haverhill, Mass.; A. F. Adams, of Coaticook; and George E. Adams, of Boston, United States.
Cimon, Hon. Marie Honorius Ernest, Fraserville, Rivière du Loup (en bas), a Puisne Judge of the Superior Court for the province of Quebec, was born at Murray Bay, province of Quebec, on the 30th March, 1848. He is a son of Cléophe Cimon, notary public of Murray Bay, who represented Charlevoix county in the Canadian Assembly from 1858 to 1861. His mother, Marie Caroline Langlois, was a sister of the late Jean Langlois, Q.C., a distinguished member of the bar of Quebec, who represented, for several years, the county of Montmorency in the House of Commons. Cléophe Cimon, the father of our sketch, was born at Murray Bay, January 30th, 1822, from the marriage of Hubert Cimon, by Angèle Simard dit Lombrette. Hubert Cimon, his grandfather, was born at l’Isle-Verte, province of Quebec, April 22nd, 1789, from the marriage of Jean Baptiste Cimon, by Marie Angélique Salomée Miville dit Dechéne, and died in Bay St. Paul, county of Charlevoix, August 27th, 1854. Jean Baptiste Cimon, his great-grandfather, was born July 20th, 1751, at Rivière Ouelle, province of Quebec, from the marriage of Jean François Cimon, by Marie Dorothée Gagnon. This Jean François Cimon (whose name was then written Simon) was his first ancestor who came alone from France to settle in Canada, about the year 1744, leaving his father, Joseph Simon, with Jeanne Lefeuvre, his mother, in the parish of St. Pée, Evêché de Coutance, province de Rouen, en Normandie, France, where they were living. Judge Cimon was educated at Ste. Anne de Lapocatière’s College, Seminary of Quebec, and Laval University, where he became a licentiate of law (LL.L.) in June, 1871. He was called to the bar of Lower Canada on the 12th July, 1871, and took up his residence in Chicoutimi (Saguenay), where he practised from July 16th, 1871, to July, 1882. He acted as Crown prosecutor in Chicoutimi from 1873 to 1882, and from 1871 to 1882 his services were retained in all the important cases brought before the courts of that district. He sat in the House of Commons for the united counties of Chicoutimi and Saguenay from 1874 to 1882 as a Conservative member. For eleven years he was an active promoter of all the public enterprises in the Saguenay and Lake St. John country; and to his efforts and energy are due the telegraphic line to Chicoutimi, the Marine Hospital, the deepening of the river Saguenay. Members of the then House of Commons well remember how strongly he advocated the Federal subsidy, granted in the session of 1882 to the Quebec and Lake St. John Railway, and the other important public works obtained by his influence for the Chicoutimi and Saguenay counties. He was mayor of the town of Chicoutimi from 1881 to 1882, and also president of the St. Jean Baptiste Society of Chicoutimi. He was appointed a Queen’s counsel in January, 1882, and elevated to the Bench on the 20th July, 1882, with residence at Perce, Gaspé county; but soon afterwards, in June, 1883, was transferred to Joliette, province of Quebec. He received the commission of revising officer for the county of Joliette in October, 1885, and resigned this situation in May, 1886. He resided in Joliette for three years; but since April, 1886, he has administered justice in the district of Kamouraska. The Hon. Mr. Cimon was the recipient of congratulatory addresses, when appointed a judge, from the citizens of Chicoutimi, the bar of Perce, and from the bar of Joliette and l’Assomption on his arrival. He also received a farewell and complimentary address on leaving Joliette, soon followed by a welcome address from the bar of Kamouraska. In religion, he is a Roman Catholic, as his ancestors were. He married, January 27, 1880, Marie Delphine, only daughter of the late Pierre Antoine Doucet, judge of the Sessions of the Peace, Quebec, by Marie Thérèse Delphine, eldest daughter of the late Hon. Judge Bruneau, of the Superior Court, her godfather, and niece and goddaughter of Olivette Doucet, the wife of the well-known historian, Robert Christie, of Quebec, who for over thirty years represented the county of Gaspé in the old Canadian Assembly.
de Cazes, Paul, Secretary of the Department of Public Instruction of the Province of Quebec, was born in Britanny, France, on the 17th June, 1841, and came to Canada in February, 1858. He is the son of Charles de Cazes, who arrived in Canada in 1855, and settled in the Eastern Townships, where he purchased considerable property near Danville. This gentleman was elected member for the counties of Richmond and Wolfe in 1861, and died in 1867, being the only Frenchman by birth who has been a member of the Canadian parliament. Paul de Cazes studied at Paris at L’Institution Loriol, a preparatory or training school for the navy, and at the Polytechnic School. He obtained a certificate from the Military School at Quebec in 1865. He edited Le Messager de Joliette, and Le Courier de St. Hyacinthe for some time. He also owned and edited La Nation, published at St. Hyacinthe; and was for five years a contributor to Le Monde, of Paris. He was admitted to the bar of Quebec in October, 1869, and practised law from that date until 1874 at St. Hyacinthe, in partnership with the Hon. H. Mercier, the present premier of the province of Quebec. In January, 1874, he was sent to Paris as agent for the Dominion, took part in the Paris Exposition of 1878, and was recalled in April, 1879. He was appointed an officer of the department of Public Instruction in April, 1880, and secretary of the same department in April, 1886. He was appointed a member of the Geographical Society of France in 1875, and member of the Royal Society of Canada at its formation. He was vice-president of the first section of the said Society from May, 1884, to May, 1886, and president of the same from May, 1886, to May, 1887, and he is a member of several other learned societies. He is the author of “Notes sur le Canada,” of which four editions have been printed, and of several essays and studies, published at various times in France and Canada. The papers contributed by him to the Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada are the following:—“Deux Points d’Histoire”; “La Frontière Nord de la Province de Quebec”; “La Langue que nous parlons.” In religion he is a member of the Roman Catholic church. He married, on the 3rd November, 1869, Hermine St. Denis, sister-in-law of the Hon. H. Mercier, premier of the province of Quebec.
Ratcliffe, Rev. John Hepburn, Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, St. Catharines, Ontario, was born in the township of East Whitby, county of Ontario, province of Ontario, on the 15th November, 1849. His parents, John Ratcliffe and Margaret Hepburn, were both born in Lanarkshire, Scotland, emigrated to Canada in the year 1833, and were among the pioneers of East Whitby. They belonged to that branch of the Presbyterian church known as the United Presbyterian church, which in 1861 united with the Free church, and formed the Canada Presbyterian church. At the age of fourteen, Hepburn Ratcliffe, their second son, the subject of our sketch, left the farm to engage in mercantile pursuits, but in the course of a few years was led to devote his life to the ministry of the Word. He entered Knox College in the autumn of 1869, and pursued his studies, first under the Rev. George Paxton Young, now the learned professor of metaphysics and ethics in Toronto University, and afterwards in the divinity classes, graduating in the spring of 1876. In October of the same year he was called to the pastoral charge of Ancaster and Alberton, and was ordained and inducted by the Presbytery of Hamilton on the 1st November. Here he continued to labor until May, 1883, when he became pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, St. Catharines, where he is now laboring, and is very much respected by his people. He was married on the 11th January, 1887, to Margaret Fletcher, of Toronto.