While building up a commercial enterprise of large and profitable proportions, Mr. Robertson always found time to devote to public duties and the promotion of the general welfare. Joining the St. Andrew’s Society in 1857 he served as treasurer in 1862 and 1863, second vice president in 1864 and 1865, first vice president in 1868 and president during 1869 and 1870. In 1876 he was president of the Dominion Board of Trade and in that and the following year was also president of the Montreal Board of Trade. He had the honor of being chosen the first president of the Dominion Commercial Travelers’ Association, and thus he figured prominently among the men who were most active in commercial pursuits. He himself extended his efforts as a business man with the passing years and became president of the Royal Canadian Insurance Company in 1876, in which position he continued until his death, while from its formation in 1880 until his demise he was president of the Bell Telephone Company of Canada.
His public service was of a varied character and embraced connection with charitable and benevolent objects, with public works and with movements having to do with general progress and improvement. In 1872 Mr. Robertson became one of the governors of the Montreal General Hospital and later was elected and served successively as treasurer, vice president and president. In 1879 he was elected chairman of the board of harbor commissioners for Montreal and remained in that position until his death. His name figured also in connection with military activities, beginning in 1861, when, during the Trent excitement he was gazetted first lieutenant and quartermaster of the Montreal Light Infantry. Many tangible evidences of his devotion to the public welfare may be cited. He familiarized himself with all the details of the management of the General Hospital and was greatly interested in the proposal to enlarge it, so that in 1886 upon a trip to England he consulted some of the best architects of that country concerning the subject and brought back with him plans for the proposed extension. The deepening of the ship channel between Montreal and Quebec was a project which awakened his strong and hearty enthusiasm, and he frequently said that when he saw the completion of the plan he would retire from the active duties of chairman of the board, well satisfied. He was of a nervous temperament, possessed marked energy and was a tireless worker, and before his health became impaired he was actively and helpfully interested in the movement for the improvement of the harbor and the prevention of damages by flood. During the great flood of 1885 he was making a tour through the submerged district in a canoe, propelled by one of the oldest river men. His companion of that occasion testified to the deep interest he took in the poor people of the district. He left the harbor commissioners’ office with forty or fifty dollars in his pocket and when he returned he had not enough cash to pay the boatman, having given all to the flood sufferers. This is but one incident of his generous spirit, which was constantly manifested. He was of a most charitable disposition but he gave in a quiet, unassuming manner, following the mandate not to let the left hand know what the right hand doeth. Again and again his gifts of charity were known only to the recipients.
On the 19th of April, 1850, in Scotland, Mr. Robertson was married to Miss Agnes Bow, a daughter of the late Alexander Bow, of Glasgow, and they became parents of ten children, four sons and six daughters, of whom the sons and four daughters are still living, six being residents of Montreal, while one daughter and one son reside on the Pacific coast.
At the time of his death, which occurred March 29, 1890, Mr. Robertson was chairman of the harbor commission and his associates in that work, as also those in other relations of life, entertained for him the highest regard. In politics he was conservative and in church connection a Presbyterian. In his Christian faith was found the root of a well spent, honorable life, reaching out along many lines for the benefit of his fellowmen. The world is better for his having lived and his memory remains as a blessed benediction to those who knew him. Mrs. Robertson survived her husband for nine years, passing away suddenly in her beautiful home, Elmbank, Dorchester Street West, on the 6th of July, 1899, mourned by a large circle of old friends.
REV. JOSEPH GUILLAUME LAURENT FORBES.
Rev. Joseph Guillaume Laurent Forbes, bishop of Joliette, was formerly the spiritual director of the thirty-nine hundred families which make up the great French-Canadian parish of St. Jean Baptiste in Montreal, a position of responsibility as well as one of power and importance among the Catholic people of the city. This responsibility rested upon the shoulders of a conscientious, capable and God-fearing man and the power was used wisely and humbly, so that Father Forbes has become an important force in the conservation and propagation of the doctrines which he teaches and professes. He is a native of the province of Quebec, born in Isle Perrot, near Montreal, August 10, 1865, a son of John and Octavie (Léger) Forbes, both natives of Vaudreuil. The Forbes family was founded in Canada in 1757 and representatives of the Léger family came to Quebec with the first French colonists in 1608. Both parents are still living, the father having retired from active life.
Rev. Guillaume Forbes acquired his early education in the kindergarten at the Nazareth Asylum in charge of the Grey Nuns in Montreal and was afterward a student at the Catholic Commercial Academy of this city. He was graduated from Montreal College with the class of 1882 and from the Seminary of Philosophy in 1884. He finished the course in the College of Theology in 1887 and was ordained to the Roman Catholic priesthood March 17, 1888. Immediately afterward he was sent as curate to Caughnawaga, where he did excellent work among the Iroquois Indians. He held his original position until 1892 and was then given the direction of the Caughnawaga mission, serving until 1903. In that year he was appointed parish priest of the Church of St. Anne de Bellevue, in the province of Quebec, and he there remained until 1911, when he was appointed rector of St. Jean Baptiste church in Montreal. The parish of St. Jean de Baptiste in Montreal is one of the largest and most important French-Canadian congregations in the city, and its rector holds a very responsible position and one which makes him a great individual force in Catholic circles. The original church building was burned June 27, 1911, and is now being replaced at a cost of three hundred thousand dollars, the entire property being valued at five hundred thousand dollars. Father Forbes had four assistants, Rev. Joseph A. Lefevre, Rev. Charles A. de Lamirande, Rev. Auguste Paré and Rev. Hector Quesnel, and had spiritual jurisdiction over thirty-nine hundred families and nineteen thousand souls, all French-Canadians. He became very popular and widely beloved among the people of this congregation, who saw his simplicity of character, his greatness of heart, his earnestness and sincerity, and who recognized his administrative and business ability. On the 6th of August, 1913, Rev. Forbes was chosen by the Holy See to succeed the Rt. Rev. Alfred Archambeault as bishop of Joliette. He received the episcopal consecration in the cathedral of Joliette from the hands of His Grace, Monseigneur Bruchesi, archbishop of Montreal, on the 9th of October, 1913. A brother of Bishop Forbes, the Rev. Father John Forbes, of the White Fathers, after a stay of sixteen years in the mission fields of Africa, is since the year 1900 residing in Quebec, superior of the branch house of the Society of the White Fathers in Canada.
Bishop Forbes is profoundly learned in Indian dialects and is in addition an author of some note, his works being all of a religious character. Besides his original volumes he has edited and republished a Life of Catherine Tekakwitha and an Iroquois almanac for the years between 1899 and 1903.