Cooke, Thomas Vincent, Moncton, New Brunswick, General Storekeeper of the Intercolonial Railway of Canada, was born at Pictou, Nova Scotia, August 6th, 1848. He is a son of Dr. William Edward Cooke and Euphemia Turnbull. Dr. Cooke was a son of Thomas Cooke, of Garryhill, county of Carlow, Ireland, and Mary Mallow. Miss Mallow was a daughter of John Mallow, mayor of Dublin, in the stirring days of ’98. Mr. Cooke, sen., came to Halifax when a boy, and studied medicine under the late Dr. Head of that city, and graduated at Jefferson College, Philadelphia. He married Miss Turnbull, a daughter of William Turnbull, ex-M.P. for the county of Richmond, Cape Breton, and shortly afterwards moved to Pictou and practised his profession in that town until his death in 1879. He was a man of the most kindly and genial disposition, and was widely known and universally beloved throughout the county of Pictou. His son, Thomas Vincent Cooke, the subject of this sketch, was educated at Pictou Academy and the Normal School, Truro, and studied medicine for a time under the late Dr. Samuel Muir, of Truro, but having a dislike for the medical profession, entered the service of the Nova Scotia Railway Company as clerk in the freight department at Richmond, Halifax, in January, 1865. On the opening of the line to Pictou in 1867, he was appointed agent at Pictou Landing. Was appointed agent at Truro in 1870, and reappointed at Pictou Landing in 1872. On the reorganization of the service in 1879, he was appointed assistant auditor of the Intercolonial Railway Company, and removed to Moncton, where he was appointed general storekeeper in October, 1880. Mr. Cooke has always taken a deep interest in Masonic matters. He joined the order in Truro in 1871, and is a past master of Cobuquid lodge, No. 37, Truro, and past high priest of Keith Chapter, Truro, and of St. John’s Chapter, Pictou, Royal Arch Masons. Holds past rank as past grand king of the Grand Chapter of Nova Scotia, and is representative of the Grand Chapter of Nevada in that body. Is eminent preceptor of Malta Preceptory of Knights Templar, Truro, under the Great Priory of Canada. He was married in 1867 to Annie Curry, daughter of Captain John Curry, of Pictou, N.S., and has one son and three daughters. He is a member of the Church of England.
Rottot, Jean Philippe, M.D., Montreal, was born at L’Assomption, county of L’Assomption, July 3rd, 1825. His grandfather, Pierre Rottot, who had been gazetted captain of the Canadian Voltigeurs in 1812, was killed at the battle of St. Régis, on the 20th October of the same year. After his death, his son, Pierre Rottot, the doctor’s father, was appointed lieutenant to the “Chasseurs Canadiens,” commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel de Courci, and was present at the different engagements which took place between the English and American troops during the war of 1812, among others at the expedition to the Salmon river, and at the battles of Plattsburg and Chrysler’s Farm. Dr. Rottot received his education at the College of Montreal. He studied medicine at the School of Medicine and Surgery of Montreal, and was admitted to practice on the 16th November, 1847. After practising a few years in the country, he took up his residence in Montreal. In 1856 he was elected, without opposition, a member of the City council of Montreal. At the expiration of his term of office he declined re-nomination, in order to devote himself wholly to his profession. About 1860 he was appointed physician to the Hôtel-Dieu, and professor of the School of Medicine and Surgery of Montreal, where he occupied successively the chairs of botany, toxicology, medical jurisprudence, and internal pathology. In 1872 he became editor-in-chief of L’Union Médicale du Canada, which was just being founded. He was president of the St. Jean Baptiste Society of Montreal in 1877 and 1878. About the same time he was elected president of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the province of Quebec. In 1878 he resigned his chair at the School of Medicine and Surgery, and was appointed professor of internal pathology and dean of the faculty of medicine of Laval University at Montreal. Dr. Rottot was one of the founders of the Notre Dame Hospital. During his medical career he has been the physician of the greater number of the charitable institutions of Montreal, and is at present physician to the reverend gentlemen of the Seminary of Saint Sulpice, and the reverend ladies of the General Hospital. Dr. Rottot was twice married; the first time to S. O’Leary, daughter of Dr. O’Leary, and the second time to the widow of N. Migneault, in his lifetime registrar of Chambly county. Mrs. Migneault is a sister of P. B. Benoit, ex-member of the House of Commons. By his first wife he had three children, the eldest of whom belongs to the order of the Reverend Jesuit Fathers, and is professor of philosophy in St. Mary’s College, Montreal.
Wanless, John, M.D., Montreal.—This famed homœopathic physician is a Scotchman by birth, having been born at Perth road, Dundee, near St. Peter’s parish church, where the celebrated Rev. R. M. McCheyne was pastor, on May 26th, 1813. He is the second son of the late James Wanless, a man who was in his day very much respected by his fellow townspeople, and who for many years carried on business as a manufacturer of green cloth in Dundee. His mother, Agnes Sim, is still alive (August, 1887) at the age of ninety-six years, in full possession of her mental faculties, and can see to read without spectacles. Dr. Wanless much resembles this wonderful woman in many respects. Dr. Wanless’s father intended that his two sons should succeed him in his own business, but after his death, which took place when the doctor was only ten years old, the executors of the estate, when he had reached his thirteenth year, apprenticed him to Dr. James Johnston, one of themselves, a leading physician in Dundee. This gentleman having died shortly afterwards, James Hay, merchant and ship-owner, another of the executors, and one of the governors of the Dundee Royal Infirmary, discovering the boy’s aptitude for medical study, was induced to secure for him the position of dresser and clinical clerk in the above hospital, which for three years he filled to the entire satisfaction of the governors and medical men of the institution. While he was here he was a great favourite with the celebrated lithotomist, Dr. John Creighton, of Dundee, and this gentleman often asked young Wanless to assist him in his private operations, as well as in the hospital, and on the eve of his leaving to prosecute his studies in Edinburgh, he bore high testimony to his ability and diligence as a student, and as to his practical knowledge of his profession. It may be as well to mention here that young Wanless, like all other boys on the Scotch sea-board, was very fond of paddling in the water, and on several occasions narrowly escaped drowning. When about ten years of age he and some other boys were amusing themselves on some logs that had got adrift from the ship Horton, of Dundee, just arrived from America, and had floated up the river into a small bay, which at its mouth had a sort of pier with arches on it. While astride a piece of this timber it capsized, and our young hero was soon at the bottom of the river. On coming to the surface, he found himself immediatetly below a raft, and considering that his time had not yet come to be drowned, he struck out boldly from under, and gasping for breath, he was hauled on the raft by his terrified comrades. On getting ashore he dried his clothes and made for home; but his father nevertheless discovered that he had had a ducking, and gave him a sound thrashing and confined him in doors for some time for his boyish escapade. The doctor now thinks that if his father—who was a very loving man—had not been imbued with the idea that “he that spareth the rod hateth the child,” he would have done better had he given him some dry clothes, or sent him for a time to a warm bed. In 1831 John Wanless left Dundee and went to Edinburgh, as a student in the Royal College of Surgeons, under the then celebrated professors McIntosh, Liston, Lizars, Ferguson, and others, fellows of the college, all of whom are now gone to their final rest. During the college session of 1831, his friend, Mr. Hay, offered him the position of surgeon on board the whaling ship Thomas, which office he cheerfully accepted, although he was then only seventeen years of age. This good ship sailed from Dundee in March, 1832, and returned with a full cargo in time to permit the young surgeon to attend the opening of the college session of 1832-3. Subsequently during college vacation he went three times to Davis Straits in the same ship, and thereby greatly invigorated his previously rather slender physical frame. While on one of his whaling voyages he one day was out in a boat shooting loons, which are very numerous in Davis Straits, and a good many can be killed by one discharge from a gun. In the act of gathering the killed he espied a wounded bird at a short distance, and in his endeavour to reach it he leaned too far over the gunwale, lost his balance, and went head first into the Arctic sea. His shipmates were alarmed, and waited in dread suspense for some time, but at length he came up, holding on to the loon by one of its legs. The mate afterwards remarked “that the doctor should always be taken with the shooting parties, for he could dive for the wounded fellows.” It may be here mentioned that the doctor was a good swimmer, and as a youth practised swimming in the Tay at Dundee, and was in the habit, sometimes, of carrying younger boys on his back out into the stream, and then throwing them off; but before doing this, however, he always gave them instructions how to swim on their “own hook.” He has been known to swim for three miles on a stretch, resting occasionally on his back. At Pond’s Bay he one time fell out of a boat, while steering with a long oar, amongst a lot of whales. There were about fifty ships’ boats and their crews in a crack in the land ice, which extended about twenty miles from the shore, and in some places the rent was about one hundred yards wide. In this opening the whales were so numerous that the harpooners only selected the largest fish for capture. During the excitement, and when passing another boat, the blade of one of their side oars unshipped the doctor’s steering oar while he was pushing it from him, and, losing his balance, he fell into the water. He however did not feel the least alarmed, but at once struck out for the ice, and, drying his clothes as well as he could, walked to his ship, which was anchored about two miles away, in the field ice, and soon found himself on deck, not much the worse for his ducking. In the spring of 1835, having passed his examination before the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, he returned to Dundee and married Margaret McDonald, the only daughter of Duncan McDonald, a well-known manufacturer of that town, and Margaret Rose, his wife. To Miss McDonald he had been betrothed for several years. He then became house surgeon in the Dundee Royal Infirmary, and having filled this position for about two years, gave it up, and entered into private practice, his office being in the same house in which he was born and married. In 1843 Dr. Wanless, accompanied by his wife, mother, brother, and sisters, with their husbands, emigrated to Canada, and ultimately settled in London, Ontario. While in this city the doctor built up a good practice, and as coroner for the city of London and county of Middlesex he was highly spoken of by the press for the luminous and logical way in which he presented evidence to his jurors. In 1849 he received his license from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Lower Canada. One day, in 1859, as he was walking along a street in London to visit a patient, he observed Dr. Bull, a homœopathist, give some pellets to a man who had fallen out of a two-story window. Having a prejudice against homœopathy, he accosted Dr. Bull in these words, “Don’t you think shame of yourself in giving that useless trash to a man in that condition?” Dr. Bull rose up, in a defensive attitude, and said, “I have always taken you for a sensible man, and instead of acting as you have done in your persecutions of us, why don’t you try to test our remedies according to the law of cure? I will give you some of our books to read, and also some of our medicines for that purpose.” Dr. Wanless accepted the offer, and took the books and medicines, thinking that he would be able to expose what he then thought was a humbug. After studying the principle of homœopathy for some time he gave the medicines to some of his patients, strictly according to the principles of homœopathy, beginning with some cases which had resisted the allopathic treatment under his own care, and that of some of the ablest men in the country, keeping a strict account of the symptoms and disease, and the symptoms and pathogenesy of what the medicine would produce on the healthy body, and after carefully testing this method of practice for nearly two years, he found that, instead of persecuting the homœopathists, he would have to become a homœopathist himself. After thorough conviction of its benefits to his patients, like Paul with the Christians, and in order to carry out the practice of homœopathy with more efficiency, he ceased from practice in London, and devoted himself to renewed study at the age of fifty years, and obtained the degree of Bachelor of Medicine from the University of Toronto in 1861, and the degree of Doctor in Medicine from the same University in the following year, 1862. He then, in order to have a wider field to labour in, went to Montreal (but before leaving having been complimented by the press of London upon his previous professional attainments), where he now resides, enjoying a good practice. In politics, as in medicine, Dr. Wanless has sought to conserve the good, and set aside the effete and worthless. Both in London and Montreal, by his spirited and able contributions to the press, he has done much to popularize homœopathy, and establish its prime tenets. He was instrumental in procuring an act of the Provincial parliament of Quebec, in favour of homœopathic education, and with power to grant licenses to those who had studied according to the curriculum specified by the act, and who had passed a satisfactory examination before the appointed board of examiners, as he always upheld that homœopaths, as well as allopaths, should be able to show that they possessed a thorough medical education and training. Dr. Wanless is nominal dean of the Faculty of the College of Homœopathic Physicians and Surgeons of Montreal, and professor of the practice of physic and one of the examiners of the college. He attained the license of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow in 1835; College of Physicians and Surgeons of Lower Canada in 1849; M.B. of the University of Toronto, 1861; M.D. of the University of Toronto in 1862, and is a member of the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario and Quebec. He has a son, Dr. John R. Wanless, who now practises in Dunedin, New Zealand. This gentleman is a graduate M.D.,C.M. of McGill University, Montreal, and, like his father, has adopted the homœopathic principle from conviction. In religion, as in politics and medicine, the doctor is thoroughly liberal, and belongs to the Congregational body of worshippers. He is broad in his views, giving liberty of opinion to all, and exhibits no desire to scold and burn those who differ from him, except to show them their error by fair reasoning.
Boswell, George Morss Jukes, Q.C., Judge of the County Court of the United Counties of Northumberland and Durham, Cobourg, Ontario, was born at Gosport, England, in June, 1804. His father, John Boswell, of London, England, solicitor, was the youngest son of James Boswell, an officer in the Royal Navy, whose four elder brothers were also officers in the same service, and a descendant of the Boswells of Balmuto, Scotland, the elder branch of the family of the celebrated biographer. Judge Boswell, the subject of our sketch, was educated at the Grammar School, Buntingford, Herts, England, came to Canada in 1822, and was one of the earliest settlers in Cobourg. He was called to the bar in Michaelmas term, 1827, and is the premier Queen’s counsel in Canada, being the first created by commission in August, 1841. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the Upper Canada Assembly in 1836, but was returned at the first election after the union of Upper and Lower Canada, and sat from 1841 to 1844, in the then Parliament of Canada. While in parliament he took a prominent part in constitutional debate, was a staunch advocate of responsible government, and although a Conservative in principle, worked with the Reform party until constitutional government was conceded. During the discussion on this question, he forced Mr. Draper, then attorney-general, to admit the principle, “That if the government cannot command the majority of the house, so that its measures may be carried on harmoniously, if they do not find by the whole proceedings of the house that they have the confidence of a majority of its members, then that a dissolution of the house shall follow, or that the government resign.” This then settled this important question of responsible government, though dragged out of Attorney-General Draper against his will (see Cobourg Star, June 11th, 1841). Before accepting a judgeship, Mr. Boswell was one of the leading lawyers in Canada, and as such was specially retained to defend Hunter, Morrison, Montgomery, and others, who were tried for high treason in connection with the rebellion in 1837. The two former were acquitted. In 1845, he was appointed Judge of the County Court of the United Counties of Northumberland and Durham, and accepted superannuation in 1882. In 1837, he served under Colonel Ham as brigade major with the volunteers in suppressing the rebellion, and was on the frontier at Chippawa, at the time the rebels under McKenzie took possession of Navy Island. Judge Boswell was married first in 1829, to Susannah, daughter of James Radcliffe, by whom he had a numerous family; and last to Mary, daughter of the late Rev. Thomas Wrench, rector of St. Michael’s Church, Cornhill, London.
Ogilvie, Hon. Alexander Walker, Montreal, Lieutenant-Colonel, member of the Senate of Canada for Alma division, was born at St. Michael, near the city of Montreal, on the 7th of May, 1829. The Ogilvie family is descended from a younger brother of Gilchrist, Earl of Angus, a valiant soldier who in the thirteenth century was rewarded with the land of Ogilvie, in Banffshire, Scotland, and assumed the name of the estate. The family is celebrated in history for having long preserved the Crown and sceptre of Scotland from the hands of Oliver Cromwell. The parents of Senator Ogilvie came from Stirlingshire, Scotland, to Canada in 1800, and Mr. Ogilvie, sr., served his adopted country as a volunteer cavalry officer during the war of 1812-14 against the Americans; and took up arms against the so-called patriots during the Canadian rebellion of 1837-8. To this couple were born a large family of sons and daughters, and all have made their mark in the country. In 1854 Alexander and his brothers, John and William, founded the firm of A. W. Ogilvie & Co., as millers and dealers in grain, and built extensive mills on the banks of the canal at Montreal, now known as the Glenora mills. Since that time the business has grown to such dimensions that the firm’s mills and business operations are carried on at Montreal, Goderich, Seaforth, Winnipeg and other parts of the North-West, and they are now the most extensive millers in the Dominion. In 1874 Alexander retired from the business. In 1867 he first entered political life, and at the general election of that year he was chosen by acclamation to represent Montreal West in the Quebec legislature, when on the dissolution of the house in 1871 he declined re-nomination. He, however, was induced again to enter the political field in 1875, and was elected for his old seat. This he occupied until the legislature was dissolved in 1878, when he retired from local politics. On December 24, 1881, he was called to the Senate to represent the Alma division in that body. Senator Ogilvie has been an alderman for the city of Montreal, president of the Workingmen’s, Widows and Orphans’ Benefit Society, and of the St. Andrew’s Society, and a lieutenant-colonel of the Montreal Cavalry (now on the retired list). He is president of the St. Michael Road Company, chairman of the Montreal Turnpike Trust, and of the Montreal Board of Directors of the London (England) Guarantee Company, a director of the Sun Life Insurance Company, the Edwardsburg Starch Company, the Montreal Loan and Mortgage Company, and the Montreal Investment Company. He is also a justice of the peace. Senator Ogilvie is a Conservative in politics, and in religion is a Presbyterian. He is married to a daughter of the late William Leney, of Montreal, and has a family of four children, one son and three daughters.