A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time. Various
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business he had a capital of about $200.00, very small indeed, but he had himself earned this money, and therefore knew its value. Owing, perhaps, to his youth and inexperience, for many years his progress was very slow, he having made a good number of bad debts and unwise ventures, yet notwithstanding these drawbacks he managed to meet all his liabilities as they matured, and now the reflection that throughout his business career he has been able to meet every honourable obligation, affords him the greatest satisfaction. Since his removal from Bear River he has always lived in St. John. The changes or experiences that he has had are perhaps such as are common to men engaged in business for so long a period as thirty-six years, particularly during a time when railroads, steamships and telegraphs have wrought such great changes in the methods of business, and to which we may add the change resulting from the confederation of the provinces into the Dominion of Canada. When Mr. Turnbull was about twenty-four years of age he became a member of the order of Sons of Temperance, but after a few years he withdrew, not because he had ceased to believe in the soundness of total abstinence principles, but because he became so immersed in business that his mind seemed to be wholly absorbed by it, and he felt, owing perhaps to the limitation of his capacity, unable to keep up his interest in the organization. He has always been, and still is, a total abstainer, but is not at present associated with any society having for its object the dissemination of temperance principles. During his connection with the Sons of Temperance he held a number of offices in the division, and afterwards became its presiding officer; and still later a member of the Grand Division of the province of New Brunswick. In May, 1884, Mr. Turnbull was elected president of the St. John Protestant Orphan Asylum, and also a director of the Bank of New Brunswick, which positions he still holds. He, with about a dozen other persons, built a railway from Gibson (opposite Fredericton) to Edmundston, a distance of about one hundred and sixty miles, with branches in addition to Woodstock, N.B., and Fort Fairfield, Maine, and he continued to be connected with this enterprise until the road was sold in 1880 to a number of capitalists in Montreal. He is a member of the Board of Trade of the city of St. John. In 1883 he took a trip to the Old World, and spent some time abroad, visiting Britain, Germany, and Switzerland. Mr. Turnbull’s father was a Presbyterian of the old school, and of course the son was brought up in the same faith; but he now attends the Episcopal church with his family. He, however, is not a member of this or any other church, not that he objects to churches, but simply that his mind is unsettled as to what is really the orthodox doctrine of faith and practice. One thing is certain, however, Mr. Turnbull finds great pleasure in relieving the wants of the deserving poor, and in doing all the good he can to his fellow-men. He does not consider himself in any sense a politician, yet nevertheless he holds decided opinions on most of the political questions that now agitate the country. He is strongly opposed to what is known as the national policy, for he believes it wrings large sums in taxes from the pockets of the people, without its being able to give them in return any compensating advantages. He is also strongly opposed to the expenditure of large sums of money on public works of an unremunerative character, and on public works which exist, as he is satisfied many in Canada do, only by reason of sentiment or false pride. While he recognizes that free trade, in its entirety, owing to the enormous debt of the Dominion, is not now practicable, he holds that it is thoroughly sound in principle, and being so would work the greatest good to the greatest number of our people, he would therefore favour its adoption to as large an extent as might seem to be practicable. He believes in the fullest individual liberty and freedom, consistent with a just regard for the rights of others, and is in favour of all measures having for their object the elevation of the masses. He is, in its true sense, a Liberal, but with enough conservatism in his composition to cause him to oppose any change in the laws of our country that he did not feel firmly convinced would be for the better. Mr. Turnbull was married at Maugerville, Sunbury county, on June 6, 1854, to Julia Caroline, daughter of the late Calvin L. Hatheway, of that place. Mr. Hatheway was of loyalist stock, his father having taken a somewhat prominent part in the revolutionary war between Great Britain and the United States. Mr. Turnbull’s wife’s mother was a daughter of Lieutenant James Harrison, who was also a loyalist, and who came to this province from the United States. He has a family consisting of five children living, namely, three daughters and two sons.
Sprague, Thomas Farmer, M.D., Woodstock, New Brunswick, was born on the 30th of August, 1856, at Brigus, island of Newfoundland. He is a son of the Rev. S. W. Sprague and Jean Manson Sprague. Thomas was educated at Mount Allison Academy, Sackville, New Brunswick, and at the Provincial Normal School. After leaving school he adopted the profession of teaching, which he successfully followed for some years, and then, in 1877, moved to the city of New York, and began the study of medicine. He entered the medical department of New York University, and successfully graduated in the spring of 1880 from this institution. Dr. Sprague then removed to Welsford, in New Brunswick, in April of the same year, and began the practice of his profession. He remained in that place for two years, and in June, 1882, went to Hartland, New Brunswick, where he stayed until June, 1883, and then took up his abode in Woodstock, county of Carleton, New Brunswick, where he has been successfully practising ever since. The doctor was brought up in the faith as taught by the Wesleyan Methodists—his father being a clergyman of that church—and he has seen no reason to change his religious belief since growing up into manhood. He married on the 17th of June, 1884, Loella Nourse, of Boston, Mass.
Gaynor, John Joseph, M.D., St. John, New Brunswick, was born of Irish parents, at Chatham, New Brunswick, on the 19th of March, 1854. They were educated Irish Catholics, his father being a native of the county Meath, and his mother of the county Clare, Ireland. They might well be classed as Irish-Americans, as they were both brought by their respective parents to this country while yet infants. Dr. Gaynor’s father, Thomas Gaynor, was educated at the Grammar School, Chatham; and his mother, Catharine Buckley, at a seminary for young ladies, conducted by a Mrs. Merry at Newcastle, New Brunswick. This privilege, so exceptional for Irish Catholics in those early days, was doubtless the reason which determined the doctor’s parents to bestow in turn a liberal education on their own offspring. On his father’s side Dr. Gaynor comes of the best blood of historic Meath, being a descendant of the same family that in the last century produced General Hand, of revolutionary fame as adjutant-general to Washington during the war of American Independence, and that in the present century gave birth to such eminent churchmen as the late Father Hand, founder of All Hallows College, Dublin, and the present patriotic Bishop of Meath, the illustrious Dr. Nulty. According to family tradition also, one of Dr. Gaynor’s ancestors fought under King James at the ill-fated battle of the Boyne, and was killed while defending the “Bridge of Slane.” His name, the same tradition says, was Thomas Gaynor. While on his father’s side Dr. Gaynor is thus descended from a liberty-loving race, on his mother’s side he is connected with that aristocratic class known in Ireland as “Castle Catholics.” His mother, who was born at Ferhill Castle, Blackwater, county Clare, was also closely allied by ties of blood to the famous fighting “Goughs of Clare,” whose name is historical through General Gough, of India fame. Dr. Gaynor is the eldest member of a family of twelve, eight of whom are still living. One of his brothers, the Rev. William C. Gaynor, is Roman Catholic pastor of Richmond, in Carleton county, New Brunswick. Father Gaynor is a writer of great power on theological questions, and is the author of “Papal Infallibility,” published in 1885, and of a Commentary in Latin on the Summa Theologica, of Thomas Aquinas, now in press in Paris. Another brother, P. A. Gaynor, is a member of a large lumbering house in Pennsylvania, and is now in the Redwood district of California, where he has established a branch firm. Dr. Gaynor was educated partly at St. Michael’s College, Chatham, and partly at St. Joseph’s College, Memramcook. In the former institution he studied mathematics and the exact sciences under the most distinguished teacher of his day in New Brunswick, Thomas Caulfield, M.A., of Trinity College, Dublin. His subsequent studies in logic and metaphysics were pursued at St. Joseph’s College, Memramcook. In this institution he taught the higher mathematics. It was here also that in 1877 he began the study of medicine under the preceptorship of Dr. H. E. Boissy, resident physician to St. Joseph’s, and leading medical practitioner among the Acadians of New Brunswick. From St. Joseph’s Dr. Gaynor went in 1878 to Buffalo, New York. There he attended the lectures in the medical department of Buffalo University. He followed also the different courses of the newly established College of Physicians and Surgeons in the same city. Graduating in 1881, after a four years’ course, he carried off the honours of his class, and