was taken sick at his father’s house, and Peter took the mail to Kingston, where he received that from Toronto and carried it back to Montreal. At Montreal he took charge of the mail for the west, which had been accumulating for a month and weighed upwards of sixty pounds, and carried it to Kingston. He accomplished the whole trip, going and coming, of 430 miles on foot, in fourteen days, and this was in March, when the trail most of the way was through the forest and very difficult. He received for this service, from the Government the sum of fifteen dollars. Abel Cole, who was the youngest son of Adam Cole, died December 9, 1893, aged 88 years. His wife, Catherine Seaman, a grand-daughter of Caleb Seaman, died Nov. 2, 1893, aged 83 years, being one of the sons of Caleb Seaman who was with Lord Cornwallis at York Town. Wilmot Howard Cole, second son of Abel Cole, was educated at Brockville. He commenced mercantile business in 1855, and continued in the same until 1882. The old spirit of loyalty which he inherited, prompted him upon the organization of the Volunteer Militia of Canada in 1855, to become a member of the old “Brockville Rifle Company,” commanded by Major Smythe (later of the 100th Regiment, British Army). The late Col. James Crawford, William Fitzsimmons (a former postmaster of Brockville), the late Samuel Ross, William Morris, Thomas Camm and other business men of Brockville, shouldered their muskets and learned the drill at the same time. Wilmot Howard Cole filled every position in rank from private to colonel of battalion. In December, 1864, he went with the Brockville Rifle Company, as lieutenant, to Amherstburg, in the County of Essex, remaining there on duty until the following May. In November, 1865, the fear of a Fenian Raid was so strong in the vicinity of the River St. Lawrence, that the officers of the Brockville Rifle Company (who were at the time, the late Col. Crawford in command, Lieut. Cole, Lieut. Robert Bowie, and the late Lieut. Windeat), offered their services without pay, and to increase their company to 100 men to do duty for the protection of Brockville and vicinity, by drilling the men and mounting a heavy guard every night, with sentries posted in different parts of the town, the men only being paid twenty-five cents per day. The offer was accepted by the government and that duty performed until the ensuing March, when a large portion of the volunteer force were called out, and a provisional battalion formed at Brockville, under command of Col. Crawford, Lieut. Cole assuming command of the Brockville Rifle Company, with which he remained on duty until the next November, part of the time at Brockville and part at Cornwall. Again in 1870, as major of the 41st battalion, he was on duty at Cornwall during the Fenian excitement. On June 28, 1871, he was appointed to the command of the 41st battalion; on June 28, 1898, he resigned, having held the command for 27 years, and was a member of the active force for 43 years. In 1913 the Militia Department honored him with the full rank of Colonel. Col. Cole occupied various positions of trust and importance in the gift of his fellow-citizens. He was a member of the Town Council of Brockville for fourteen years; a director for many years, and president of the Johnstown Mutual Fire Insurance Company; a member of the Independent Order of Oddfellows for many years, filling various offices in the local lodge and also in the Grand lodge and Grand Encampment. He was chosen by his brethren to fill the position of Grand Master the year the Sovereign Grand Lodge met in Toronto, in September, 1880, who were entertained by their Ontario brethren. He always took an active part in everything that would advance the interests of his native town. In connection with the late Allan Turner, he worked for many years to obtain a system of waterworks for Brockville, and in 1881 they organized a company, consisting of Allan Turner, John McMullen, Thomas Gilmour, George A. Dana, and Wilmot H. Cole, to construct waterworks; and as a result of the efforts of these gentlemen, Brockville has now a most excellent system of water supply for all purposes. Colonel Cole was elected a member of the Legislature of the Province of Ontario for the Brockville riding, in the Liberal interest, at the general elections in 1875, and was a warm supporter of the Mowat Government. He received the appointment of Registrar for the County of Leeds in February, 1882. He was president of the Brockville Loan and Savings Company. Col. Cole was a member of the Methodist Church, and for over fifty years a trustee of the Wall Street Church in Brockville, and was looked upon by his fellow church members as ready to assist in carrying forward all enterprises for the benefit of the church. Col. Cole married Jane Adelaide, youngest daughter of the late Abram Philips, of New York. Their family consisted of four children, two sons and two daughters. The sons, following the traditions of the family, entered the volunteer force very early. The elder, Eugene Maurice Cole, was bugler in the Brockville Rifle Company in 1866, and did duty with that company whenever on service; he subsequently became lieutenant, after which he resigned, having removed from Brockville. The youngest son, Capt. George Marshall Cole, was captain of No. 4 company, 41st battalion. The latest enterprise which Col. Cole had been connected with and will eventually benefit his native town more than all the others, was the Brockville, Westport and Sault Ste. Marie Railway. The idea of a railway from Brockville to Westport had been entertained, and a charter was procured, but nothing further was done, and after a time the charter expired. Subsequently, Eugene M. Cole, who was in business in New York City, and enjoyed commercial relations with gentlemen interested in building railways and other public works, conceived the idea that a line of railway from Brockville to Sault Ste. Marie would prove an advantageous route in many ways, and at the same time benefit his native town. After much labor in gathering statistical information, he laid the whole matter before his father, who had it brought before the leading men of the County of Leeds, and the proposition made that if the municipalities would bear the expense of preliminary survey and obtain the charter, and grant aid by way of bonus to the extent of $125,000, Eugene M. Cole would work up the scheme and obtain the capital and contractors to build at least the first section of the road to Westport. This was agreed to, the last bonus by-law being passed on July 15, 1885, and work on the construction of the railway commenced on January 13, 1886. Although ably assisted by many persons in the County of Leeds in connection with the enterprise, the credit of the inception of the scheme, and the labor in working it up materially and financially, belong to Eugene M. Cole. Colonel Cole died December 13, 1915, in his eighty-second year, being pre-deceased by his wife by about two months.
Scott, James Guthrie, the prominent railway manager of Quebec City, was born in that city on February 13, 1847, the son of Hugh Erskine Scott. His mother’s maiden name was Margaret Chillas. The family of the Scotts has filled an important place in the community since the days of Mr. Scott’s grandfather, who came from Scotland. Mr. Henry S. Scott, hardware merchant, was his uncle, and Mr. William C. Scott and Mr. Charles Scott, his brothers, all of whom took an active interest in the progress of the city, as has their distinguished relative. The latter received his early education at the Quebec High School. In his seventeenth year he had his first start in business in the offices of the Montmorency Lumber Mills, where he eventually became head of one of the departments. In 1879, he entered the service of the Quebec and Lake St. John Railway, becoming, in time, its general manager and assuming the onerous task of having that line completed as far as Chicoutimi and extended, under the name of the Great Northern, to Hawkesbury, Ont., across the Ottawa, a distance in all of five hundred miles. But for Mr. Scott’s supervisory tact and engineering skill, Quebec would hardly have become the important railway terminal that it now is, not only of the Canadian Northern System, but of the National Transcontinental. During the earlier operations of the Quebec and Lake St. John Railway, Mr. Scott and his Board of Directors organized a system of assisted colonization that peopled the parishes all along their line, as many as from ten to twelve thousand families being induced to take up homesteads in the districts opened up for settlement. For twenty-five years Mr. Scott was facile princeps in these beneficent operations; and it was only when the Canadian Northern Railway Company took over the properties supervised by him in 1908, that he decided to retire from office to take up other work involving the commercial advancement of his native city. In 1916 he was elected President of the Quebec Board of Trade, after many years of active service as one of its members, and is also President of the British Columbia Skeena Coal Company. For many years he has been a member of the Quebec Geographical Society and other associations; and his contemporaries can look back with satisfaction at the civic progress he awakened as a railway projector and business man, and the manufacturing centres he succeeded in locating from the time he undertook to complete the Lake St. John Railway. In June, 1908, upon his retirement from the management of the railway, he was given a banquet by the citizens of Quebec at the Chateau Frontenac, in recognition of the enterprising and successful work he had done while completing extensions north and west from the city, and at the same time was presented with testimonials of value. And in addition to the story of his life
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