Hingston, William Hales, M.D., L.R.C.S. (Edinburgh), D.C.L., Montreal, was born at Hinchinbrook, province of Quebec, on the 29th June, 1829. His father, Lieut.-Colonel S. J. Hingston, formerly of her Majesty’s 100th Regiment, which did good service during the war of 1812-14, came to Canada with his regiment, of which he was then adjutant. In 1819, when his regiment was disbanded, he received from Lord Dalhousie command of the militia force of the county of Huntingdon, which he organized, taking up his residence on the bank of the Chateauguay river. Subsequently Sir James Kemp gave Colonel Hingston command of the militia of the county of Beauharnois. He was wounded at the battle of Chippewa, and died in 1830, when his son, William Hales Hingston, the subject of our sketch, was eighteen months old. The Hingstons are an old Irish family, and are related to the Cotters, of Cork, the elder Latouches, of Dublin, and the Hales family. At the age of fifteen, having received his primary education at the school in his native place, W. H. Hingston entered the Montreal College, where, at the end of the first year, he carried off three first and two second prizes out of a possible five. Subsequently he spent a couple of years in the study of pharmacy, and then entered McGill College, where he graduated in medicine, in 1851. He went at once to Edinburgh, where he obtained the diploma of the Royal College of Surgeons. While in Europe he spent most of his time in hospitals, and brought back diplomas from France, Prussia, Austria, and Bavaria, in addition to that from Scotland. One, the membership of the Imperial Leopold Academy, was the first ever obtained by a Canadian, the late Sir William Logan being the next recipient. Dr. Hingston began practice in Montreal, where he soon succeeded in building up a clientèle, surgery being his leading and special branch. In 1867 he again visited Europe, and, when there, on the invitation of Sir James Simpson, successfully performed, in Edinburgh, a difficult surgical operation on one of Sir James’ patients, and was afterwards qualified by that far-famed physician as “that distinguished American surgeon lately among us.” Soon after beginning practice in Montreal, Dr. Hingston was appointed surgeon to the Hotel-Dieu Hospital, where he had a large field for the exercise of his art. There he has since given daily clinical instruction in surgery. A recent number of a Montreal medical journal mentions some of the operations he was the first to perform in Canada: excision of the knee; removal of the womb; removal of the kidney; excision of the tongue and lower jaw, etc. Dr. Hingston was one of the organizers of McGill University Society, which secured to the alumni the appointment of convocation fellows. When Bishop’s College Medical School was organized, he was named professor of surgery and clinical surgery, and afterwards dean of faculty; but soon resigned the professorships. He was one of the resuscitators of the Medico-Chirurgical Society of Montreal, and was its president many times. He was the first secretary of the Dominion Medical Association, and afterwards its president. He was chosen by the international council to represent Canada at the International Medical Congress, held in Philadelphia, in 1876, and was offered the same honor at Washington, in 1887, but preferred to remain representative in surgery. He has been, for many years, a governor of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the province of Quebec, and is now its president. He is consulting physician to several dispensaries, and to the Hospital for Women, of which he was one of the founders. He organized the first board of health in the Dominion, and has long been a faithful worker in behalf of the sanitary interests of Montreal. On three different occasions he had been urged to permit his name to be submitted as a candidate for the mayoralty, but declined. However, in 1875, at the unanimous request of his professional brethren, he consented, and was chosen chief magistrate by a majority of nearly ten to one over his opponent, and, as he stated at the time, “without having spent one moment of time, or one shilling of money, to obtain a position which no one should seek, but which, coming, as it did, no one was at liberty to decline.” He was re-elected the following year by acclamation. A third term was offered him, but that he declined. The period of Dr. Hingston’s mayoralty was one of grave interest and anxiety to the order-loving citizens of Montreal, and it was well that the office of chief magistrate was, at the time of the Guibord affair especially, held by a gentleman of character, coolness, and judgment. He received the thanks of the Governor-General (Lord Dufferin) for his conduct on that occasion. When an epidemic of small pox reigned in Montreal, and the anti-vaccinators offered every opposition to vaccination, Dr. Hingston, as chairman of the board of health, under cover of “A few instructions to the vaccinators,” wrote a paper on the disputed points in controversy, which effectually silenced his opponents. This paper was distributed gratuitously by order of the city council of Montreal, and was freely quoted all over America, and attracted attention in Europe. Again, when in 1885, the province of Quebec was visited with an epidemic of small pox, the government called into existence a provincial board of health, with all necessary power. The subject of our notice was again named chairman, and so soon as efficient sanitary measures had been completed, Dr. Hingston visited Washington, and induced the authorities there to modify their quarantine regulations, which had interfered severely with commercial intercourse and freedom of travel. During his professional career he has contributed a number of articles to various medical periodicals, chiefly on surgery. A more considerable contribution to Canadian science was his work on the “Climate of Canada, and its relations to life and health.” which was published in 1885. No member of the medical profession in Canada has been more honored by scientific bodies. In addition to those already named, several of the state boards of medicine of the United States have elected him honorary member, and many American state medical societies have done so likewise; the British Association, for the Advancement of Science, chose him as vice-president; and within the past few months the British Medical Association elected him honorary member, and the president of council, Sir Walter Foster, thus announced his election: “Dr. Hingston is too well and too favourably known to the members of this Association to require the council to give reasons for selecting him for this honor. His reputation as a surgeon is not confined to Canada.” The College of Physicians and Surgeons of the province of Quebec, in noticing the last honor, ordered the following resolution to be transmitted to England: “The College of Physicians and Surgeons of the province of Quebec, has learned with pleasure of the honor conferred by the British Medical Association on their president, Dr. Hingston, whose reputation as a surgeon, whose labors in the cause of public health, and whose delicately honourable bearing towards his professional brethren, had already secured to him every honor the profession of this Dominion could confer.” In 1875, Dr. Hingston married Margaret Josephine, daughter of the Hon. D. A. Macdonald, formerly lieutenant-governor of the province of Ontario, and has three sons and one daughter.
Bergeron, Joseph Gédéon Horace, B.C.L., Advocate, Montreal, M.P. for Beauharnois, was born at Rigaud, province of Quebec, on the 13th October, 1854. He is a son of the late T. R. Bergeron, who was a notary at Rigaud. His mother was Léocadie Caroline Delphine, daughter of Gédéon Coursol, notary, of St. Andrew’s, uncle of C. J. Coursol, M.P. for Montreal East. Mr. Bergeron was educated at the Jesuits’ College in Montreal, where he took a partial classical course. He then entered the McGill University, where he graduated B.C.L. in March, 1877. He adopted law as a profession, and was called to the bar of the province of Quebec in July, 1877, and is now one of the law firm of Archambault, Lynch, Bergeron & Mignault, Montreal. In 1874 he entered the Military School at Montreal, where he took a second-class certificate and then joined the No. 1 cavalry troop. He is an active member of the St. Jean Baptiste Society in Montreal, having joined it in 1875; and in 1880 he became a member of the same society in Valleyfield. He entered political life in 1879, on the death of the then sitting member, Mr. Cayley, for Beauharnois, and was returned to the Dominion parliament. At the general election of 1882 he was re-elected by acclamation; and in 1887, at the general election of that year, he was once more sent to parliament to represent his old constituency in the House of Commons at Ottawa. He is a Liberal-Conservative in politics; and in religion is a member of the Roman Catholic church.
Sicotte, Hon. Louis Victor, St. Hyacinthe, Quebec, one of the judges of the Superior Court of Quebec, is a son of Touissant Sicotte, of the parish of Ste. Famille, Boucherville, and was born at Boucherville, on the 6th of November, 1812. He was educated at St. Hyacinthe College. Our subject entered public life in 1852, representing the county of St. Hyacinthe in the Canadian parliament, and continued to do so for eleven years. The opening part of his political career was an exciting period in the history of the two provinces of Upper and Lower Canada—the questions of clergy reserves and the seignorial tenure being still unsettled; and in August, 1853, he was offered a seat in the Cabinet of the Hincks-Morin administration as commissioner of Crown lands, but he declined to accept it, because the government refused to proceed immediately to settle those two questions. Mr. Sicotte, by his writings on the question of the clergy reserves, extensively reproduced in the Upper Canada papers, was greatly instrumental in creating a powerful opinion to settle the question; the result was an overwhelming majority in parliament for the settlement of these two important matters. In 1854, Mr. Sicotte was chosen speaker, and held that honorable post till the dissolution in November, 1857. He was commissioner of Crown lands in the Taché-Macdonald government; and in 1858 became commissioner of public works in the Cartier-Macdonald administration, retiring from the government on the Ottawa question, in December of that year. In May, 1862, when the Sandfield Macdonald-Sicotte government was formed, our subject took the portfolio of attorney-general for Lower Canada, held that position until May, 1863; and was made judge of the Superior Court in the following September. In the year previous he was sent to England on public business, relating principally to the extension of communications with the North-West Territory, to realise what is now the Canadian Pacific Railway, and while there acted as commissioner on behalf of Canada at the international exhibition held in London. Before going on the bench, he held for a long time the presidency of the Board of Agriculture, and was also a member of the Council of Public Instruction, resigning the latter office when he accepted the judgeship. Judge Sicotte belongs to the Roman Catholic church, and people who have known him the longest and most intimately, credit him with having lived a blameless and eminently useful life. He was an intimate friend and coworker with Mr. Ludger D. Duvernay, and, with him, took the step towards the formation of the St. Jean Baptiste Society of Montreal. He was married, in 1837, to Margaret Amelia Starnes, daughter of Benjamin Starnes, of Montreal, and sister of Hon. Henry Starnes. They have ten children living. Judge Sicotte, after serving twenty-four years’ of judicial life, resigned in November, 1887, at the advanced age of seventy-five years, still strong and healthy, free and anxious for the study of the law, but outside of all litigation.
Thornton, John, Coaticook, President of the Cascade Narrow Fabric Company, province of Quebec, was born on the 3rd April, 1823, at Derby, Vermont. His father was John Thornton, and mother, Sally Lunt. His great-grandfather, on the paternal side, was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Mr. Thornton received his education in Derby, and came to Canada in 1840. He settled in Stanstead for about a year, when he removed to Barnston. Here he remained until 1855, when he moved to Coaticook, and there he has resided since, and done business as a general storekeeper. Being a public spirited gentleman, he was elected a councillor; then he held the office of mayor and warden of Stanstead county for two terms, and finally entered political life, and sat for eight years in the Quebec legislature, representing the county of Stanstead. He has been largely interested in the material prosperity of the district in which he resides. For a while he was one of the directors of the Magog Print Company, from which position he retired in 1885. He is now a director of the Coaticook Cotton Company; of the Coaticook Knitting Company; and is also president of the Cascade Narrow Fabric Company, the only concern in Canada where braids of all descriptions are manufactured. He is one of the directors of the Eastern Townships Bank, and president of the Coaticook Water Company. In politics Mr. Thornton is a Liberal-Conservative; and in religion an adherent of the Methodist church. He belongs to the order of Oddfellows. He has been twice married. In 1847 to Lucy Baldwin, of Barnston, province of Quebec, by whom he had two children, a son and daughter, who still survive; and again on the 17th of June, 1884. to A. H. Cleveland.
Mountain, George Jehoshaphat, second son of Dr. Jacob Mountain, first bishop of Quebec, and descendant of one of the Huguenots whom the persecutions of Louis the Fourteenth had driven out of France to take refuge in Norfolk, England, was born at Norwich, on the 27th of July, 1789. He was of Norman and Saxon descent, claiming kindred with Michael De Montaigne, the celebrated French essayist. At the age of seven years he commenced his Latin grammar, while residing with his father, at Woodfield, near Quebec. At sixteen he was sent to Little Easton, county of Essex, England, where he prepared to enter Trinity College, Cambridge. There he acquitted himself in such a manner as induced Dr. Monk, professor of Greek, one of his examiners, to recommend him as principal of a college in Nova Scotia, for which position he considered Mr. Mountain peculiarly fitted. On leaving Cambridge he returned to Quebec, and acted as secretary for his father while studying for the ministry. On the 2nd of August, 1812, he was ordained a deacon, and was appointed to assist the bishop’s chaplain, Rev. Salter Mountain. In 1814 he was admitted to the order of priest, and was appointed evening lecturer in the cathedral, and on the 2nd of August, in the same year, he was married to Mary Hume, third daughter of Deputy-General Commissary Thompson, and went to Nova Scotia, where he was appointed rector of Fredericton, and also chaplain of the troops and Legislative Council. After three years sojourn there he resigned, and returned to Quebec, and on his arrival was appointed bishop’s official and officiating clergyman of Quebec. He commenced life well; his earliest noticeable act was to establish intimate relations with the “Venerable Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and for Propagating the Gospel.” His second was to establish, at Quebec, national schools for boys and girls. Early in January, 1818, he commenced as a simple missionary, and afterward continued as archdeacon to visit the outlying portions of the diocese. Such work he found, to the end of his career, to be full of attraction and encouragement, for in heart and soul he was the beau ideal of a missionary. In 1819 he received the degree of D.D. from the Archbishop of Canterbury, and was appointed a member of the “Board for the Advancement of Learning in Canada.” In 1821 he became rector of Quebec and archdeacon of Lower Canada. In 1823 he was nominated honorary professor of divinity and principal of McGill College, Montreal. In 1825 he went to England, his chief object being to represent the claim of the Anglican church in the matter of the clergy reserves, and also to express his father’s wish to be relieved of a portion of the cares of his bishopric. The suggestion he made was that the diocese of Quebec, which covered nearly half a continent, should be divided into two parts, each to be a separate bishopric; or, if this proposition was not acceded to, he suggested that the Rev. Dr. Stewart be associated with his father in the administration of the See. These plans, however, were set at naught by the death of his father, which event occurred on the 18th of June, 1825, while he was yet absent in the motherland, and Rev. Dr. Stewart succeeded Rev. Jacob Mountain as Bishop of Quebec. Ten years passed slowly by, and in 1835 the archdeacon, the subject of our sketch, again went to England, his objects being the same as before—the settlement of the clergy reserve question, and the necessity of procuring further episcopal assistance in the diocese. Bishop Stewart had broken down, even as his predecessor had done before him, and was most anxious that the archdeacon, “whom he dearly loved and called his ‘right hand,’ should be appointed suffragan.” “This duty,” says his biographer, “the latter was more than disinclined to accept, for his desire from first to last was to serve, not to rule. He only yielded when Bishop Stewart emphatically declared he would have no one else.” He was consecrated coadjutor on the 14th of January, 1836, under the title of Bishop of Montreal. On the 22nd of September, Bishop Stewart went to England, and did not return, for, becoming weaker and weaker, he died in the following year. Thus, despite his wishes to the contrary, the subject of our sketch became the third bishop of the undivided diocese of Canada. Rev. George Jehoshaphat Mountain was a true and humble-minded Christian; all the events of his life go to prove this. While his devotion to the sick and suffering at Quebec, in 1832, when the cholera rushed like a cyclone from Grosse-Isle to the mainland, and hundreds of homes were made desolate, renders his name well worthy of record among the great and good of our land, and again his light shines before the world in 1847, when typhus fever, the result of the famine in Ireland, was imported into Canada. It is written: “The Anglican clergy, few in number, with devoted zeal, took their duty at Grosse-Isle week about, the bishop taking the first week. Most of the clergy sickened, and two of them died of the fever. The trial, we may imagine, was acute enough, for in the summer of 1847, upwards of five thousand interments took place at the immigrants’ station at Grosse-Isle. ‘No one liveth to himself or dieth to himself,’ wrote the heroic bishop. There was chivalry as well as gentleness in his nature which, like expressed virtue, communicated itself to all.” Bishop Mountain served his God as a minister of the gospel for fifty years, and died on the morning of the feast of the Epiphany, 1863, deeply respected and beloved.