A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time. Various
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of Musquodoboit, and died in the 82nd year of his age. The subject of this brief sketch, having received a good English education in the common schools of the country, entered a printing office in the town of Pictou, and served a regular apprenticeship to the printing business. He, however, in compliance with the earnest wish of his parents, resumed his studies with a view to the ministry. He entered the Pictou Academy, where for two years he studied Latin, Greek, natural philosophy, and mathematics, under Professors Bell and Hay. About this time the Presbyterian church of Nova Scotia, for the purpose of training a native ministry, opened what was known as the West River Seminary, the head teacher of which was the Rev. James Ross, D.D., afterwards principal of Dalhousie College, Halifax. Mr. MacLeod was one of twelve students who entered the first year this institution was opened. Here he took the regular arts course of four years, and studied theology three years under Rev. John Keir, D.D., and Rev. James Smith, D.D. He was licensed in the spring of 1853, was called to the congregation of Richmond Bay during the following summer, and after taking another term in the Theological Hall, was ordained and inducted into the pastoral charge of the above named congregation on the 9th Nov., 1854, where he laboured with much success for nearly seven years. During the fourth year of his ministry he was married to Amelia Parker, daughter of Francis R. Parker, of Nova Scotia, who for many years was a member of the Provincial legislature. He was married to his present wife, Mrs. L. G. Taylor, in 1879. In 1860 Rev. Mr. MacLeod accepted a call to Newport, Hants county, Nova Scotia, where he continued to labour with acceptance and success for ten years. While in Newport he declined a call to Boston, Massachusetts, and in 1870 accepted one to New Glasgow, Pictou, Nova Scotia. But there being at this time four Presbyterian congregations in the small town of New Glasgow, and Rev. Mr. MacLeod, believing that his labours were more required elsewhere, accepted a call to his present charge, into which he was inducted on the 19th of July, 1871. His labours in this field have been crowned with a fair measure of success. On two different occasions additions of over one hundred and twenty, mostly young persons, were made to the communion roll. Mr. MacLeod is at present clerk of the presbytery. He has held that position for twenty-one years in the Presbytery of Prince Edward Island, and for seven years in the Presbytery of Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Sifton, Hon. John Wright, Brandon, Manitoba, was born in the township of London, county of Middlesex, Ontario, on the 10th August, 1833. He is the youngest son of Bamlet and Mary Sifton, who came from the county of Tipperary, Ireland, in 1832, and settled in London township. His ancestors on both sides were English. He received his education in the public and grammar schools of London. Up until 1860 he devoted his time to farming and other business, when he removed to Oil Springs, in Lambton county, and engaged in the oil business as producer and refiner. Here he purchased a large tract of oil lands immediately surrounding the famous gum beds, and afterwards sold them to an American company. This was the first foreign company that invested in Canadian oil property, and they continued to develop the resources of their territory until the enormous yield of oil at Petrolia made it impossible for them to successfully compete with this more productive locality. In 1870, Mr. Sifton removed to Paris, Brant county, with the object of having his children educated at the grammar school there; and in 1872, in company with his brother, contracted for and built forty miles of the track of the Canada Southern Railway. In 1873, he moved to London, and was appointed secretary of the Oil Association, and this office he held until the association ceased operations. In 1874, in company with two other gentlemen, whose interests he soon after bought out, he was awarded the contract for building and maintaining for five years a telegraph line from the city of Winnipeg to Fort Pelley, and clearing the track a hundred feet wide, for a distance of about three hundred miles, for the then contemplated Canadian Pacific Railway. Although this contract, when it was entered into, appeared to be one likely to give a fair profit, yet it afterwards turned out the opposite way. The fearful wet seasons of 1876, ’77, and ’78, flooded the country for forty miles east of Lake Manitoba, and sixty miles west along the line to, in some places, a depth of six feet, making it impossible to keep the line up, and as the Government refused to make any allowance for this, the loss was very great. Some idea may be formed of the difficulty of performing work in this country at that time, when we state that, one winter, provisions having ran out at one of Mr. Sifton’s camps, he had to send supplies by dog-trains 160 miles, and then have it carried on men’s backs, 60 miles further, making it to cost twelve cents per pound freight from Winnipeg to the camp, and at no time during the best part of the season could he deliver the same goods at their destination for less than five cents per pound freight. In 1875, the firm of Sifton, Ward & Co. were awarded the contracts for sections thirteen and fourteen of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and Mr. Sifton, the senior member of the firm, undertook charge of section fourteen, which commenced at Red River, and extended a distance of seventy-seven miles to Cross Lake. During this time he removed to Manitoba, settling at Selkirk, and here he remained until the completion of his telegraph and railroad contracts. The money involved in these two operations amounted to about a million and a half dollars. In 1879, he took up his abode in Winnipeg, where he purchased some real estate outside the city limits, and erected for himself a fine residence. Taking advantage of the “boom of 1881,” he sold out this property and moved to Brandon, where he now resides. Here he has invested a considerable sum of money in farming lands, and for four years succeeded in raising in each year from 10,000 to 18,000 bushels of grain. But the years of frost (1883, ’84, ’85) having made the raising of wheat or grain in large quantities a risky business, and the collapse in values of all kinds of property, especially real estate, have forced Mr. Sifton to suspend business operations in this direction for the present. However, from his experience of over twelve years in the North-West country, and a thorough practical knowledge of farming, he thinks that although extensive farming has been in the past, and may prove in the future from certain causes, a failure, when compared with Ontario, yet he is impressed with the idea that it cannot be equalled on this continent for fertility; always providing, however, that the present hindrances to its prosperity be removed. What Mr. Sifton wants for his country is fair competition in freights; the abolition of all monopoly; readjustment of our present tariff, so that it may have the same chance as Ontario; a reasonable homestead law that will not be changed every year, and pre-emptions at such a price that the settler can meet it in a reasonable time. If these concessions were made, he thinks the North-West would make such strides onward that the most sanguine of us would fail to realize. Mr. Sifton, during his busy life, has devoted time to other things besides purely business matters. In 1852, he became a member of the Order of the Sons of Temperance, and in 1854, he also joined the Good Templars, and has kept up his connection with these active temperance organizations to the present time. In 1867, he became one of the United Templars, and from 1876 to 1883 he acted in the capacity of president of their Grand Lodge in Manitoba. He was grand worthy chief templar of the Grand Lodge of Manitoba of the Independent Order of Good Templars in 1884, and is at present president of the Manitoban Branch of the Dominion Alliance for the suppression of the liquor traffic, and has been since its formation in 1879. He took the leading part in the contest for the Scott Act, when it was passed in the counties of Lisgar and Marquette. These counties extend over about three quarters of the old province of Manitoba. The act was carried by very large majorities—more than two to one voting in its favour; but on account of the vagueness of the meaning of some of its provisions in reference to counties in Manitoba, and the impossibility of getting it amended, it still remains a dead letter. In politics, Mr. Sifton is a Liberal. In 1878, he received the unanimous nomination of the Liberal party for the Commons for the county of Lisgar, and organized and carried on the campaign up to the memorable day, the 17th of September, 1878. The 18th being nomination day in Manitoba, and the news reaching there of the defeat of the Mackenzie government, his committee had a hurried meeting on the morning before nomination, and decided that it would be better for the county if he would withdraw, and allow a supporter of the Macdonald government to be elected by acclamation, and this he consented to do. In the fall of the same year he received the nomination for the Local House for the electoral division of St. Clemens, and was elected by a large majority, and on the assembling of the house he was elected speaker. During the sitting of this parliament a redistribution bill was passed, giving the new settlers something like fair representation, which they had not hitherto enjoyed. At the next general election he ran for one of the new electoral divisions, and was defeated. In 1881, when the province was enlarged, he ran for the division of Brandon and was elected. In the general election of 1883 he was defeated; and again at the last