Glackmeyer, Charles, City Clerk, Montreal, was born in Montreal on the 22nd June, 1820. He is of German extraction, and belongs to a family noted for its longevity, his father, Frederick Glackmeyer, having died in 1875, aged eighty-four years. His mother was Sophie Roy Portelance, a French-Canadian lady, who died about 1854. His grandfather came to Canada as bandmaster with one of the British regiments, and settled in the city of Quebec, where he was a professor of and taught music for many years, and died at an advanced age. Charles was educated at the Montreal College, taking a full course, and afterwards studied law with Peltier and Bourret. In 1843 he was admitted to the bar, and after practising his profession for three years, entered the service of the City Corporation as assistant city clerk. This position he held until 1859, when he was elected city clerk, and this office he still holds. Mr. Glackmeyer is a model official, is rarely absent from his post, and one in whom the citizens have the fullest confidence, and whom they delight to honor. He is a member of the Roman Catholic church, and people who know him best speak most highly of his moral and religious character and the purity of the life he leads. On the 30th May, 1848, he was married to M. R. Josephine Duvernay, of Montreal, eldest daughter of Ludger Duvernay, founder of the Minerve newspaper, and of the St. Jean Baptiste Society of Montreal. The fruits of this marriage has been ten children, only three of whom now survive.
Gilpin, Edwin, jr., Deputy Commissioner of Public Works and Mines, and Chief Inspector of Mines for the Province of Nova Scotia, Halifax, was born at Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the 28th of October, 1850. His father, the Rev. Edwin Gilpin, D.D., is the senior canon of St. Luke’s Cathedral, and archdeacon of Nova Scotia (see sketch of Archdeacon Gilpin in another part of this volume), and his mother is Amelia McKay, daughter of the late Hon. Justice Haliburton. Edwin Gilpin received the rudiments of his education at the Halifax Grammar School, and then entered King’s College, Windsor, where he graduated A.B., in 1871. He then took the arts course, with special courses in mining, geology, and chemistry, and received the degree of A.M., in 1873, and at the same time won the “Welsford,” “General Williams,” and “Alumni” prizes. After leaving college he began the practical study of mining-engineering in Nova Scotia, and especially in the Albion collieries of the General Mining Association in Pictou county, and extended his observations in the leading mining districts in Great Britain. On the 1st of March, 1874, he was elected a fellow of the Geological Society of London, England; and in April, 1873, a member of the Nova Scotia Institute of Natural History. On the 21st of April, 1879, he was appointed by the government of Nova Scotia, inspector of mines for the province, which position he now occupies. In September, 1881, he was appointed a member and made secretary of the Board of Examiners of Colliery Officials; and in September, 1885, was elected a member of the American Institute of Mining Engineers. In October, 1886, he received the appointment of deputy commissioner of Public Works and Mines for the province. Mr. Gilpin is one of the original members of the Royal Society of Canada. For a number of years he has acted in the capacity of consulting engineer in the Maritime provinces, and has done good service to his county in this direction. He is the author of a popular work on the “Mines and Mineral Lands of Nova Scotia,” published in Halifax in 1883; and has also contributed valuable papers on the “Sub-marine Coal Fields of Cape Breton;” “Nova Scotia Iron Ores;” “The Manganese of Nova Scotia;” “The Carboniferous and Gold Fields of Nova Scotia;” “The Geology of Cape Breton;” and various other papers on the geology and economic mineralogy of Nova Scotia, which have been published in the Transactions of the following societies: The North of England Institute of Mining Engineers; The Geological Society of London; The Nova Scotia Natural History Institute; The Royal Society of Canada; and The American Institute of Mining Engineers. He has also written several annual reports to the government of Nova Scotia, on the progress and development of the Crown minerals of the province. Mr. Gilpin takes no particular part in politics; but in religious matters, he is a staunch adherent of the Church of England. He was married on June 29th, 1875, to Florence Ellen, daughter of Lewis Johnstone, surgeon, Albion Mines, Nova Scotia. Mrs. Gilpin’s father is a nephew of the late Equity Judge Johnstone, and provincial grand master of the Masonic order. Three children have been born of this union.
Bégin, Rev. Louis Nazaire, D.D., Principal of the Laval Normal School, Quebec, member of the Academy of the Arcades of Rome, and of the Royal Society of Canada, was born at Levis, on the 10th January, 1840. His father, Charles Bégin, farmer, died in August last, 1887, in his ninety-first year; his mother, Luce Paradis, died about eighteen months ago, in her eighty-second year. After attending the Levis Model School, then under the direction of M. N. Lacasse, at present a professor at the Laval Normal School, Rev. Abbé Bégin followed, for one year, the mathematical course of the Commercial College of St. Michel (Bellechasse). That course was ably given by Professor F. X. Toussaint. His parents sent him, in 1857, to the Little Seminary of Quebec, to follow the classical course of that institution. As he had already commenced to study Latin with M. Lacasse, he was enabled to terminate his course in five years, in 1862. He then obtained the degree of Bachelor of Arts at Laval University, and was the first to carry off the Prince of Wales prize. He resolved to adopt a religious life, and entered the Grand Seminary of Quebec, in September, 1862, where he studied theology, while teaching the class of syntax at the Little Seminary. The Seminary of Quebec was at that time thinking seriously about organizing a faculty of theology in connection with Laval University, and it was the earnest desire of the authorities that all the professors of that faculty should be educated in Rome itself. In May, 1863, his Eminence Cardinal Taschereau, then superior of the Seminary of Quebec, and rector of Laval University, proposed to Abbé Bégin to go and pass a few years in Rome, in order to study theology, take his degree, and then return to Quebec as professor of its university. This proposition was accepted, and on the 4th September of the same year, Abbé Bégin left Quebec to take his passage at Boston. He had as travelling companions Abbés Louis Pâquet and Benjamin Pâquet (now Domestic Prelate to his Holiness Leo XIII.), who were also sent to Rome to study the sacred science. Abbé Bégin was absent five years and returned to Quebec only in July, 1868. He followed the course of the Gregorian University of the Roman College, including dogmatic and moral theology, sacred scriptures, history of the church, canonic law, sacred oratory, and the Hebraic language. His professors were the Rev. Fathers Ballerini, Cardella, Sanguinetti, Patrizi, Angellini, Armellini, Tarquini and Franzelin; the two last named became, a short time afterwards, cardinals of the holy Roman Church, and died a short time ago. He received all the minor and major orders in Rome, and was ordained a priest in the Major Basilica of St. John de Latran on the 10th of June, 1865, by His Eminence Cardinal Vicar Patrizi. In the following year (1866), he succeeded in obtaining the degree of Doctor in Theology at the Gregorian University. The Seminary of Quebec granted the request of Abbé Bégin, and gave him permission to remain some time longer in Rome to make a special study of ecclesiastical history and Oriental languages: the Hebrew, the Chaldean, the Syriac, and the Arabic. The scholastic year 1866-67 was given to these interesting occupations. While at Rome he resided at the French Seminary, via Santa Chiara. After the great Roman festival in connection with the centenary of the death of St. Peter and the canonization of the saints, in 1867, he went to Innsbruck, in the Austrian Tyrol. During the summer holidays of the preceding years he had visited Italy, Savoy, Switzerland, Prussia, Belgium, and chiefly France, but he spent the summer of 1867 in studying the German language, so rich in scientific works on history and holy scripture. On the 30th September of the same year he started for Palestine, in order to get thoroughly acquainted,—as he had long desired,—with certain biblical and historical facts. He spent more than five months in this trip through Austria, Hungary, Roumania, Servia, Bulgaria, the two Turkeys, the islands of Tenedos, Lesbos, Rhodes and Cyprus, Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, Phœnicia, Palestine, Egypt, and Sicily. He then returned to Innsbruck to continue his studies in history and languages at the Catholic University, under the celebrated Professors Wenig, Jungmann, Hurter, Kobler, Nilles. He left Tyrol on the 2nd July, 1868, crossed France and England, and arrived at Quebec on the 27th of the same month, by the steamer Moravian, of the Allan line. He brought with him several Egyptian mummies and archæological curiosities he had acquired for the museum of the Catholic University of Quebec. In September he commenced to teach a portion of dogmatic theology and ecclesiastical history, as professor of the Faculty of Theology of Laval University. He taught from 1868 until 1884, having also, during the last seven or eight years, charge of the pupils of the University, or of those of the Little or Grand Seminary; he was also prefect of studies of the Little Seminary. During four or five winters he gave numerous public lectures at Laval University on the most controverted and interesting questions of the history of the Church. A select gathering filled the hall to hear these lectures given every week from the Christmas vacation till Easter. The first year (1870) he spoke about the prerogatives of Papacy, and refuted the objections raised, at the time of the Council of the Vatican, against the infallibility of the Pope, considered from an historical standpoint. These lectures were published in a volume of over 400 pages, entitled, “La Primauté et l’Infaillibilité des Souverains Pontifes.” In 1874 he published a second work entitled “La Sainte Ecriture et la Règle de Foi.” This work was translated into English: “The Bible and the Rule of Faith,” in 1875, and printed in London by Burns & Oates. In the same year (1874) an eulogy of Saint Thomas Aquinas was published. Abbé Bégin had delivered it at Saint Hyacinthe, in the church of the Rev. Dominican fathers, on the occasion of the sixth centennial anniversary of the death of Dr. Angélique. In 1875 he published another work entitled “Le Culte Catholique.” After passing six months (October, 1883, to April, 1884) at Pont Rouge, Portneuf county, to recruit his health, Abbé Bégin accompanied to Rome the Archbishop of Quebec, who was going to sustain the rights of Laval University and the division of the diocese of Three Rivers, before the Holy See. The voyage was prosperous, and lasted over seven months. On his return from Rome, on the first of Dec., 1884, he found his friend, Abbé Lagacé, dangerously ill. Death carried away, five days later, this distinguished priest, who had consecrated the best part of his sacerdotal career to the education of youth. Abbé Bégin was chosen by the Catholic Committee of the Council of Public Instruction to occupy the important post of principal of the Normal School, hitherto filled by Abbé Lagacé, and this choice was ratified by an order-in-council on the 22nd January, 1885. Since that time Abbé Bégin has fulfilled the functions of principal of the Normal School, comprising the department of male and female pupil teachers. Last year (1886) he published a small “Aide-Mémoire,” or “Chronologie de l’Histoire du Canada,” designed, as indicated by its name, to help the memory of pupils and facilitate their preparations to the examinations on the history of our country.
Anderson, Capt. Edward Brown, Sarnia, was born at Oakville, in the county of Halton, Ontario, on the 24th January, 1838. His father, Edward Anderson, was born at a farm known as “Stenrie’s Hill,” near the town of Moffat, in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, and died at Oakville, in December, 1840. His mother, Sarah Ann Williams, was born at Port Dover, Lake Erie shore, and died at Barrie, in January, 1878. Captain Anderson’s father having died before his son had reached his third year, very little schooling fell to his lot, as he was in consequence obliged to face the world at a very early age. When only about ten years old he commenced sailing on the lakes, and from that time to this he has steadily risen in his profession, and has now the proud satisfaction of knowing that he is considered second to none as an inland sea navigator and is in command of one of the finest steamers—the Alberta—of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, on Lake Superior. Previous to his taking charge of the Alberta he commanded for seven years the steamer Quebec, of the Beatty Sarnia & Lake Superior line, and for two years was captain of the Campana, of the Collingwood line, and for the last four years he has sailed the Alberta. Captain Anderson left Oakville in 1875, and took up his residence in Sarnia, where he has made his home ever since. In 1867 he joined the Freemasons, and since then has taken a deep interest in that ancient organization. He crossed the Atlantic and spent the winter of 1885-6 seeing the sights in Europe. The captain is a Presbyterian, and is a firm supporter of his church; but in politics he takes very little interest. In August, 1885 he was married to Lucretia Waggoner, whose parents at that time resided in Oakville, but in 1860 they removed to Ballard, Kentucky, where they both died.
Robb, Alexander, Iron Founder, Amherst, Nova Scotia, was born at Leicester, Cumberland county, Nova Scotia, on the 4th of March, 1827. His parents, Alexander Robb and Annie Brown, were natives of Bangor, Ireland, and settled in Nova Scotia a great many years ago. Alexander was only about eight years of age when he came to Amherst, and received his education in the public schools of the place. After leaving school he acquired a knowledge of the tin and sheet metal business. In 1848 he commenced business on his own account, and was among the first to introduce cast-iron stoves into the country. In 1866 he built a foundry and machine shops, and his business has grown steadily ever since, until his works, including salesroom and offices, now cover a space of about two acres. In outside industries, Mr. Robb has taken a great interest, having assisted in the development of the Boot and Shoe Tanning Company, which is now the most extensive manufactory of its kind in the province; and previous to his health breaking down in 1872, he was an active promoter of the Spring Hill collieries. Mr. Robb has always been a strong advocate of total abstinence, and has the honour of being one of the original members of the Amherst Division of the Sons of Temperance, the pioneer temperance organization in Nova Scotia. He took an active interest in the passage of the Free School Act for Nova Scotia, and was also an advocate of the confederation of the provinces. He had strong faith in the benefits to be derived from these measures for some years previous to their enactment, arising from a conversation he had had with the late Hon. Joseph Howe. Mr. Robb is a Presbyterian, and for the past twenty-five years has been a consistent member of that church. In 1855 he married Emeline Logan, daughter of David D. Logan, of Amherst Point, whose father, Hugh Logan, originally came from the North of Ireland, and was one of the first settlers of the county. His surviving children are:—David W. and Frederick B., who have managed the business of the firm of A. Robb & Sons since the failure of their father’s health in 1872; Walter R., who is associated with his father in farming and other private business; Maggie A. and Aubrey G., who are both at home, the latter still pursuing his studies. Mr. Robb has won for himself the character of being a man of perseverance and strict integrity, and is greatly respected by all who have the pleasure of his acquaintance.