Petrie, Robert
Ritchie, We Recall Many Leading Merchants In St. Peter Street, Notre Dame
Street And The Old Cul-De-Sac.
"Ebenezer Baird," we take to have been the progenitor of a well-remembered
Quebec Barrister, James E. Baird, Esq., the patron of our city member,
Jacques Malouin, Esquire.
George Pyke, a Halifax barrister, had settled here. He rose to occupy a
seat on the judicial bench.
Robert Harrower, was doubtless the father of Messrs. Robert, David and
Charles Harrower, of Trois Saumons, County of L'Islet. Honorable James
Irvine, in 1818, a member of the Legislative Council, was the grandfather
of the Hon. G. Irvine, of this city. The Hon. John Jones Ross, the present
Speaker of the Legislative Council, Quebec, traces back to the "James
Ross" of 1802, and the Hon. David Alex. Ross claims for his sire that
sturdy Volunteer of 1759, under Wolfe, "John Ross," who made a little
fortune; he resided at the house he purchased in 1765, near Palace Gate
within. He held a commission as a Captain in the British Militia in 1775,
under Colonel Le Maitre; we can recollect his scarlet uniform which he
wore in 1775, also worn in 1875, by his grandson, our worthy friend, Hon.
D. A. Ross, at the ball of the Centenary of the repulse of Brigadier-
General Richard Montgomery, 31st December, 1775. He had three sons, David
was Solicitor-General at Quebec; John was a lawyer also, and Prothonotary
at Quebec (the signer of the memorial of 1802); the third died young; of
three daughters, one was married to the Rev. Doctor Sparks, already
mentioned; a second was married to Mr. James Mitchell, A.C.G., and the
third to an army surgeon. John Ross, Sr., died at an advanced age. Charles
Grey Stewart, our Comptroller of Customs died in 1854; he was the father
of Messrs. McLean, Charles, Alexander, Robert and John Stewart, of Mrs.
William Price, of Mrs. William Phillips, of the Misses Ann and Eleanor
Stewart.
"Joanna George" the mother of an aged contemporary, Miss Elizabeth George,
and of [44] Miss Agnes George, the widow of the late Arch. Campbell, Esq.,
N.P., and grandmother of the present President of the St. Andrew's
Society, W. Darling Campbell, died about 1830.
"Maya Darling" was another daughter, and wife of Capt. Darling. "John
Burn," also one of the signers of the Memorial, and who afterwards settled
in Upper Canada, was the son of "Joanna George" by another marriage; the
eccentric and clever Quebec merchant, Mr. James George, was another son.
He was the first who suggested in 1822, a plan of the St. Charles River
Docks - the first who took up the subject of rendering the St. Lawrence
Rapids navigable higher than Montreal. The idea seemed so impracticable,
and what was still worse, so new, that the far-seeing Mr. George, was at
the time branded as non compos! and still for years the "Spartan,"
"Passport," "Champion" and other steamers have safely ran these rapids
daily every season!
James George had also suggested the practicability of Wooden Railways or
Tramways, with horses as locomotive power, forty years before the Civil
Engineer Hulburt built the Gosford Wooden Railway, with steam as
locomotive power.
"William Grant, of St. Roch's, after whom Grant street was called, was
member for the Upper Town of Quebec, during our two first Parliaments,
from 17th December, 1792, to 29th May, 1800, and from 9th January, 1805,
to period of his death at St. Roch in 1805. An enterprising and important
personage was the Hon. Wm. Grant, the Receiver General of the Province in
1770. He had married the widow of the third Baron de Longueuil.
"John Mure" represented the County of York (Vaudreuil) in three
Parliaments, from 9th January, 1805, to 26th February, 1810, and was
member for the Upper Town of Quebec, from 1810 to 1814. A man of
intelligence, he also, though a Presbyterian, became a benefactor to the
R. C. Church, having, in 1812, given to the R. C. parishioners of St.
Roch's, a site whereon to erect their church in that thriving suburb.
"John Blackwood" also represented the Upper Town in two Parliaments, from
9th April, 1809, to 20th February, 1810.
"Jane Sewell" was the wife of Stephen Sewell, Solicitor-General of Lower
Canada, brother to Chief Justice Sewell.
"Henrietta Sewell," one of the signers, survived ten years her husband,
the late Jonathan Sewell, Chief Justice for Lower Canada, who died in
Quebec in 1839. Chief Justice Sewell left a numerous progeny. [45]
"William Lindsay" was the father of the late William Burns Lindsay, for
years Clerk of the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada, and of our
venerable fellow-citizen, Errol Boyd Lindsay, Esq., Notary Public, now
more than four score years of age; he seems to have taken his surname from
Capt. Errol Boyd, in 1798, commander of the well remembered Quebec and
Montreal trader, the "Dunlop."
"William Smith," one of the last among the signers of the memorial, the
brother of Henrietta Smith, wife of Chief Justice Sewell, was the Hon.
William Smith, Clerk of the Legislative Council, and who, in 1815,
published his History of Canada, in two volumes, a standard work;
he was a descendant of the Hon. William Smith, a noted U. E. Loyalist, who
wrote the history of the State of New York, and landed at Quebec, 23rd
October, 1786. As a reward for his loyalty he had been made Chief Justice
of Lower Canada, 1st September, 1785; he died at Quebec, 6th December,
1793.
The names of six signers of the Memorial to the King, appear on the
list of the jury empanelled to try, in 1797, before Chief Justice Osgood,
David McLane for high treason, viz.: John Blackwood, John Crawford, David
Munro, John Mure, James Irvine, James Orkney. George Pyke was the Counsel
named ex officio, together with M. Franklin, to defend the misguided
Yankee.
The Jury stood thus; -
John Blackwood, James Irvine,
John Crawford, James Orkney,
John Painter, James Watson Goddard,
David Monro, Henry Cull,
John Mure, Robert Morrogh,
John Jones, George Symes.
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