My Dearest Wife: The Private and Public Lives of James David Edgar and Matilda Ridout Edgar

My Dearest Wife

My Dearest Wife The Private and Public Lives of James David Edgar and Matilda Ridout Edgar

MAUD J. McLEAN ROBERT M. STAMP

NATURAL HERITAGE / NATURAL HISTORY INC. TORONTO

Coptright © 1998 Maud J. McLean and Robert M. Stamp. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, with the exception of brief extracts for the purpose of literary or scholarly review, may be reproduced in any form without the permission of the publisher. Published by Natural Heritage/Natural History Inc. P.O. Box 95, Station O, Toronto, Ontario M4A 2M8 First Edition Printed and bound in Canada by Hignell Printing Limited Edited by John Parry Design by Blanche Hamill, Norton Hamill Design Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Stamp, Robert M., 1937My dearest wife : the private and public lives of James Edgar and Matilda Ridout Edgar Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-896219-36-5 1. Edgar, J.D. Games David), 1841-1899. 2. Edgar, Matilda Ridout, Lady, 1844-1910. 3. Canada-Politics and government-19th century. 4. CanadaSocial conditions-19th century. 5. Canada. Parliament. House of CommonsSpeaker-Biography. 6. Women historians-Canada-Biography. I. McLean, MaudJ., 1924- . II. Title. FC506.E33S72 1998 971.05'092'2 F1033.E33S72 1998

THE CANADA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS SINCE 1957

C98-931045-0

LE CONSEIL DBS ARTS DU CANADA DEPUIS 1957

Natural Heritage/Natural History Inc. acknowledges the support received for its publishing program from the Canada Council Block Grant Program. We also acknowledge with gratitude the assistance of the Association for the Export of Canadian Books, Ottawa.

Contents

Preface

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7

1. Scottish Heritage and Quebec Boyhood 1841-1857 2. James and the Law 1858-1862

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13

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79

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3. Literature, Law, and Love 1863-1865

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46

4. The Ridouts of Upper Canada 1844-1865

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5. At Home with James and Matilda Edgar 1865-1867 6. Through Private Tragedy to Public Success 1867-1872 7. Member of Parliament 1872-1874

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8. Railways in the Wilderness 1874-1884 9. Return to Parliament 1885

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136

10. Authors in the House 1885-1893

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11. New Leader, New Policies 1885-1888 12. Family Matters 1888-1891

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752 •

772

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13. Waning Health, Waning Influence 1892-1896 14. Speaker of the House 1896-1899 15. Life after Death 1899-1910 Notes

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259

Selected Bibliography Illustration Credits Index

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282

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272 279

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204

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Preface

THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LIVES of James David Edgar and Matilda Ridout Edgar reveal much about late-nineteenth-century Toronto and the wider political culture of English-speaking Canada. Their marriage itself symbolized the increasingly complex nature of Toronto society, as an older generation of privilege—the Ridouts and other descendants of the Family Compact—increasingly gave way to a new generation of "outsiders" such as the Edgars, for which talent, rather than birth, provided the route to public careers, fame, and prominence. Drawing on their very different backgrounds, and strengthened by the love and stability that characterized their marriage, James and Matilda each provided leadership in several dimensions of Toronto's civic life. At the same time, each gave voice and character to emerging Canadian national institutions. James David Edgar (1841-1899) was essentially a self-made man. Born to proud though impoverished Scottish-immigrant parents in Quebec's Eastern Townships, he proved an apt student of law and literature in Toronto in the early 1860s. Following his call to the bar, he quickly established a reputation in bankruptcy and insolvency law, wrote and published several legal texts, and became senior partner in the Toronto law firm of Edgar and Malone. Conscious of Toronto's need for stronger transportation links, he promoted a rail line between the city and northern Ontario during the 1870s and was the driving force in building the Belt Line Railway through Toronto's suburbs in the early 1890s. Edgar's literary career began auspiciously at age twenty-one when he was elected president of the Ontario Literary Society. In subsequent years, he wrote two books of poetry,

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The White Stone Canoe (1885) and This Canada of Ours (1893), and a prose account of public life in Ottawa entitled Canada and Its Capital (1898). For his literary contributions, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. It was in politics, however, that James Edgar made his major contributions to public life. A lifelong Liberal, he was introduced to the rough and tumble of constituency politics by Globe publisher and politician George Brown at the time of Confederation, first sat in the House of Commons during the tumultuous year of 1873, served as party organizer for Ontario, was a confidant of dominion Liberal leaders Edward Blake and Wilfrid Laurier, helped define Liberal trade policy in the late 1880s, and ended his career as Speaker of the House of Commons following the victory of Laurier and the Liberals in 1896. His emphasis on English-French partnership helped move his party from its narrow Upper Canada Grit base to a broader liberal nationalism. His vision of greater Canadian autonomy with continued links to Britain foreshadowed the evolution of the Commonwealth. Matilda "Tillie" Ridout Edgar (1845-1910) embarked on her career as a historian when her youngest child was barely out of the nursery! Her books included Ten Years of Upper Canada in Peace and War (1890), General Brock (1904), and A Colonial Governor in Maryland (1912). She served as president of the Women's Canadian Historical Society of Toronto and was one of Canada's first female historians to earn the respect of her male academic colleagues. She made her most important contribution to Canadian life, however, as president of the National Council of Women of Canada from 1906 until her death. The private domestic life of James and Tillie Edgar was as interesting and significant as their various public roles. Whenever politics took James to Ottawa, he wrote to Tillie at least once a day, sometimes two or three times if the House of Commons sat late into the evening. While these letters contain fascinating details about national politics, they also show a loving partnership that grew stronger over the years. Surprisingly, during this period of male dominance, the correspondence also reveals a balanced marital relationship in which each helped the other find professional fulfilment as writer, politician, historian, or civic leader.

Preface

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In this warm and loving family environment, eight Edgar children matured to adulthood and launched their own successful lives. Eldest son James "Jamie" Frederic followed his father into law, while the second surviving son, Pelham, extended his father's literary interests as a distinguished professor of English at Victoria College, University of Toronto. Eldest daughter Maud was co-founder and long-time headmistress of Miss Edgar's and Miss Cramp's School, a private Montreal girls' school, which continues to rank highly today. Maud Edgar's career first caught the attention of her niece, Maud McLean, a daughter of her sister Marjorie Edgar and Keith Hicks. When granddaughter Maud first began her research at the Archives of Ontario in the mid-1980s, she read the Edgar Family Papers to prepare a tribute to her aunt for the seventy-fifth anniversary of Miss Edgar's and Miss Cramp's School, only to discover that graduates of the school were planning their own anniversary publication. At the same time, Maud was becoming fascinated with the lives of her grandparents! Why not write about these two dynamic people? She found an old graduate thesis in history, entitled "The Public Career of Sir James David Edgar." Someone else had considered James Edgar an important figure. A mutual friend put McLean in touch with Robert M. Stamp, author of that thesis. Though Stamp had written little on Edgar since then, he had often thought of a biography and had become just as interested in Tillie Edgar. McLean and Stamp shared a common interest, found they worked well together, and decided to write a dual biography. McLean worked on the private and family lives, while Stamp concentrated on the public dimensions, but both were equally and continually involved throughout the many initial drafts and versions. They decided early on to use the "voices" of James and Tillie themselves—through their letters, writings, and speeches—to advance the narrative wherever possible. They rely above all on James's letters to his wife, which reveal so much of both their private and public worlds. We could not have been completed this project without the assistance of a host of friends and colleagues. We wish to thank June Gibson of the Archives of Ontario for introducing us to each other. Staff members at the Archives of Ontario, the Metropolitan Toronto Reference Library, the National Archives of Canada, the University of

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Calgary Library, and the University of Toronto Library proved knowledgeable, helpful, and courteous. Special thanks to Irene Dutton of Victoria University Library and to Susan Binnie, research coordinator for the Law Society of Upper Canada. The Ontario Arts Council provided a Writer's Grant to Maud McLean at the start of the project. Families, too, played a vital role in this book. Thanks go to many Edgar and Ridout cousins for information, insights, and memorabilia about their forebears. And to our spouses, John McLean and Arlene Stamp, for their patience, understanding, and contributions to the "Edgar project." Finally, our thanks to Barry Penhale and Heather Wakeling at Natural Heritage/Natural History Inc. for their assistance and encouragement in seeing our manuscript through to publication. MaudJ. McLean Robert M. Stamp

My Dearest Wife

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CHAPTER

I

Scottish Heritage and Quebec Boyhood 1841-1857

O! Sons of Scotland! love it well, Your sires its virtues knew; Be like your Thistle to the end, As staunch, as leal and true! - J.D. Edgar1

Two FORMATIVE INFLUENCES shaped the life of James David Edgar— his Scottish ancestry and his Quebec boyhood. He was born in the village of Hatley, Lower Canada (or Canada East), on August 10, 1841, the son of James and Grace Edgar, Scottish immigrants who had lived in the New World less than a year. "Baby Jamie" was named after his two Scots grandfathers—James Edgar, a Glasgow merchant, and the Revd David Fleming, a Church of Scotland cleric. The Edgars were an old Scottish family of Keithock in Forfarshire, now known as Angus. Various family members' support for the Jacobite rebellions of 1715 and 1745, however, jeopardized Edgar lands and incomes. James Edgar (Jamie's great-great-uncle) served as secretary to Prince James Stuart (the Old Pretender).2 The prince gave Edgar a much-treasured gold snuff-box that had once belonged to Mary Queen of Scots. Later Edgars treasured this and other "important Jacobite relics" such as "pastels, miniatures, pistols, ribbons and the like."3 The Edgars avoided having their lands confiscated by embracing

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The Edgar Family Estate "Keithock," near Brechin, Scotland.

Protestantism, but their continuing financial and moral support of the Jacobite cause drained the family fortunes. After the death of John Edgar Qamie's great-grandfather) in 1788, his heirs had to sell the Keithock estate. Jamie's grandfather James Edgar moved to Glasgow and worked as an import and export merchant in the West Indian trade. He seemed, however, to lack business skills and failed disastrously by the early 1820s, saved from debtor's prison only by the grudging intervention (with her own modest inheritance) of his wife, Anne Hamilton.4 Increasingly, the family's financial and religious tensions weighed heavily on their son James, young Jamie's father. Born in 1819, and trained as an engineer and draughtsman in Zurich, Switzerland, he was unable to find work in his chosen profession in Scotland, and a brief stint as a teacher had proved disappointing. By the 1830s, Anne, elder son John, and daughters Anne, Catherine, and Mary Caroline embraced Catholicism. Young James became further alienated when he became engaged to Grace Fleming of Carriden, Linlithgoshire, a daughter of the Revd David Fleming of the Church of Scotland. Throughout the 1830s, Scotland was awash in talk of emigration as a solution to Highland clearances and urban poverty.5 Twenty-yearold James Edgar set out alone from Glasgow late in 1839 on a sixmonth reconnaissance of North America, hoping for better conditions and a happier family life for him and his betrothed. In Stanstead County, Lower Canada, he purchased a 100-acre (40-ha)

EDGAR FAMILY TREE Katherine Forrester (1) = (d. 1683)

Alexander Edgar = Margaret Skinner 1676-1757

John Edgar = Katherine Ogilvie 1725-1788 Keithock estate sold in 1740, after his death

Thomas Edgar 1681-1760 Emigrated to New Jersey and founded American branch of the family

John '. ^dgar Catherin e Edgar James Edgar = Grace Fleming Mary Caroline Edgar 1816-1854 1818-1871 1819-1850 "Brother Became a nun b. 1821 Auguste" Looked after I her mother I 1 James David Edgar Elizabeth Catherine Edgar Grace Matilda Edgar 1844-1908 1841-1899 b.1846

Anne Edgar = J.G. Plomer of Cornwall b. 1815

Katherine

James Edgar 1688-1764 Lived in Rome as Secretary to exiled Prince James, Stuart claimant to throne

James Edgar = Anne Barbara Hamilton 1777-1841 1796-1866

Katherine Edgar = Bishop Jonathan Watson 1762-1845 Catherine Mary Watson 1801-188? "Miss Watson" or "Cousin Mary" of Montrose and Edinburgh

= (2) Elizabeth Guthrie David Edgar 1641-1722 (d. 1723) Bought Keithock from another branch of the family in 1679

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Marriage certificate of J.D. Edgar's parents, James Edgar and Grace Fleming, 1840.

farm with a small house. On his return home, he persuaded his fiancee to emigrate, and they wed on July 9, 1840, at her father's manse at Carriden. The newlyweds sailed from Glasgow to Quebec6 and thence journeyed to Stanstead County—typically, a three-day trip by river steamer or stage coach up the St Lawrence to Trois Rivieres, by ferry across to Nicolet on the south shore, then by coach south towards the American border. Stanstead County offered gentle rolling countryside, picturesque lakes and rivers, and marvellous vistas of the Green Mountains of Vermont to the south. Pioneered by Americans around

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the turn of the century, Stanstead now welcomed English and Scots brought out by the British American Land Company James and Grace proudly named their first home "Keithock." It was near Hatley (sometimes called East Hatley or Charleston), a small, Englishspeaking village east of Lake Massawippi.7 Death and birth both soon touched the young couple. James' father died at sea on June 9, 1841, on his way to visit his "plants in the wilderness."8 Since elder son John (now Brother Auguste) had renounced all family rights and inheritances on entering a Roman Catholic monastery, James now became head of the family, inheriting the Jacobite treasures that his mother held in trust, and little else. Barely two months later, Grace gave birth to James David Edgar on August 10, 1841. Unfortunately, little came of the farm—because of the two urban Scots' inadequate preparation and a collapse in the wheat economy— or of James's efforts to find work as an engineer, surveyor, or draftsman.9 The young family relied on financial help from James's widowed mother and other Scottish relatives. Meanwhile, a second child was born on June 13, 1844, christened Elizabeth Catherine and called Eliza. The following year, thoroughly discouraged, James and Grace sold the property and moved north to Lennoxville. Located at the confluence of the St Francis and Massawippi rivers and on coach roads leading to Sherbrooke, Montreal, and the American border, the bustling town housed close to five hundred anglophones10 Freed from farm demands, James spent much time dreaming up money-making schemes and even involved his mother as noted in this letter of December 12, 1845: "In all steam engines there is an immense loss of power and I am perfectly convinced that I can make a pound of fuel do at least twice as much work as in the best Steam Engines. If it should be successful the profits could not be told in thousands—only tens of thousands—and should any person upon seeing the plans be inclined to undertake the preliminary expenses of patents etc. I would be happy to give him one third of profits. I will give you a sketch of the plan, and next post will send you more full details and calculations in case you find anyone who would join me... Do not show this to anyone who will work it out for his own purposes..."

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Cemetery marker of James Edgar (1819-1850), father of James David Edgar, in Lennoxville, Quebec.

This scheme came to naught, however, as did all of James's attempts to find work as an engineer. He and Grace survived on the income from the sale of their farm and money from Scotland. A third child, Grace Matilda, arrived on November 18, 1846. James's letters home reveal a mixture of resigned defeat and naive optimism. "I have tried to get employment of some sort on our railway that is to be," he wrote to his mother in May 1848, but "there is no chance of employment this summer." Then he described another get-rich scheme—his spur-of-the-moment purchase of a 100-acre (40-ha) property near Lennoxville, with opportunities for field crops, timber sales, and eventual resale at a profit. Fortunately, the Edgars did not have to rely on this second farm experiment, for they came under the informal patronage of the Revd

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Title page from the Edgar family Bible, printed in 1672.

Lucius Doolittle, rector of St George's Church and founder of Lennoxville Grammar School, later Bishop's College School.11 In early 1846, Doolittle appointed James Edgar church warden. Three years later, again under Doolittle's aegis, Edgar started teaching at the grammar school. On July 10, 1849, he told his mother of a promotion: "Now at last after a good deal of delay I am appointed 2nd Master, The Rev. John Butler being First Master. From various circumstances their funds are at present very low and it is possible that

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Lennoxville Grammar school from an 1832 town sketch.

owing to the change of Masters the school may fall off for one or two quarters and consequently my salary is at present only £60 Currency but when the funds of the School afford it, it will be increased. You ask whether [cousin] Mary Watson's kindness has completely cleared me of debt. It has not perfectly but it has brought it to so small a sum that I can have no difficulty (to all human probability) in clearing off the remainder myself, probably in the course of a year. But I will perhaps be cramped for some little time longer. There is some chance of my getting a private class for Engineering which will eke out my salary and perhaps eventually lead to a Professorship of Civil Engineering in the College here..." Teaching proved difficult. Headmaster Butler suffered from illhealth and offered little leadership. Funds were scarce, truancy was endemic and applications were declining. Yet the school gave young Jamie Edgar his first formal education. Admitted sometime between June 1845 and September 1849, he boarded at the school-house during part of that period. James described school life for himself and Jamie in a letter of December 26, 1849, to his sister Catherine (Kate), then preparing to take her vows as a nun at St Mary's Priory in England: "I am now once more a dominie teaching the young ideas from 9 to 12 & from 1 1/2 to 4 on Mondays Tuesdays Thursdays and

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Fridays. On the Wednesdays and Saturdays I am only from 8 1/2 to 12 1/2... Poor Jamie is the youngest boy in the school, only 8—in his class there is one boy 1 year older and the others are 11-12 & 13 years old, but in his English and Arithmetic the little man is at the head of his class—he is a very dear little boy... I see that what I have said of Jamie might lead you to suppose that he was a sort of pattern boy—always well-behaved but he is far from that. He is much too fond of teasing his sisters and is extraordinary careless..." In finishing the letter, Grace spoke of her recent difficulties, but hinted at an improvement in Lennoxville and mentioned their renting a comfortable two-storey house. "We are beginning to have a pretty good society here with the professors and students of Bishop's College—& good books are getting plenty." As part of his warden's duties, James headed a committee to raise funds for a 240-kg (532-lb) bell. The campaign netted £36, the bell was duly installed and it was to be inaugurated on Easter Sunday, March 31, 1850. Sadly, by that date James Edgar lay very ill in his home not far from the church. The Revd Mr Scarth, an assistant at St George's, tells the story: "When Easter Morn came, Mr. Edgar lay a-dying. As the

Bishop's College, Lennoxville, 1846.

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morning began to dawn, the thought came into my heart, whether the ringing of the bell might too much agitate my dying friend. Just then I was called downstairs by the Sexton to inquire whether he should ring the bell. I bade him wait while I went up and tried to find what were Mr. Edgar's wishes. As I opened the door, I found his eyes fastened upon me and he at once said, "Are they going to ring the bell?" I answered, "Would you wish it?" He answered, "O, certainly." So I opened the window looking out on the church, and the bell rang out our Easter Thankfulness, while every heart in Lennoxville was filled with a great sorrow.12" Jamie's father died a few days later at thirty-one, after less than a decade in Canada. "Miss Charles" or "Charlie," the children's governess and a long-time family employee in Scotland, conveyed the sad news to his mother on April 10: "Dear James, after an illness often days, died on the 6th of April at qr to 7 a.m.—suffered little pain & died in peace with all Men, and assured of happiness, could you have seen the heavenly smile with which he departed, you would never wish to recall him to this world of sorrow—You remember his peevish manner when sick, in this final one he was like a gently simple, grateful child, no murmurs, but one continued strain of happy content. He had every attention that Man, or Woman could pay him, and a debt of gratitude we owe to the kind inhabitants of this place, besides all that, he had three Drs and an experienced nurse. Remember dear the Drs were not ignorant Yankees, they were Men of Education, two studied in Edinbr., and one in Glasgow. Nothing could have saved our dear James, his disease had been long growing on him, his liver had been long affected,—the last was inflamation of the Lungs—which was subdued, but exhaustion of the system prevented his rallying—The Drs. wished to examine him, and Grace was pleased they should do so, they found his whole right side affected, and the bowels beginning, and //it had been possible for him to survive, consumption must have been the consequence... The School Committee—as a mark of their regard for him, have offered to Mrs. Edgar to educate Jamie. James had insured

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his life for £500, some weeks ago he talked of giving it up, and had been careless in sending the Policy which had been asked for. Kind friends here, interested themselves in getting it carried on— and they almost feel assured when the Committee meets, the insurance will be allowed to proceed. Should it fail, Grace and family, will be in a sad state, she has nothing to go on with - but God is Good, I have no fear all will go well..." The insurance policy probably paid little, for in October 1852, cousin Mary Watson of Edinburgh wrote to Jonathan Edgar of Summit, NJ, that James' death left "a widow and three children with almost nothing." Grandmother Anne Edgar offered to help, but only if the children went to Catholic schools. Such a proposal was totally unacceptable to Grace, whose children had been baptized in the Church of England. She declined firmly and later severed relations with her mother-in-law. Grace then took matters into her own hands. She arranged to be formally appointed tutor for the three, though the boy remained in school for the 1850 fall term. At the end of the year, they all left for Hatley, where supportive friends awaited. On June 5, 1851, at St James Church, Hatley, Grace married the Revd John Carry.

Twenty-five-year-old John Carry was a Church of England clergyman. Born in Limerick, Ireland in 1826, at the age of sixteen he emigrated to Canada with his father. He studied arts and theology at Bishop's College (later Bishop's University) and in 1850 was ordained a deacon in February and priest on May 5. During his student days, Carry no doubt met both James and Grace Edgar through Lucius Doolittle and St George's Church, and he continued his friendship with the widow Grace through the winter of 1850—51. At the time of their wedding, Carry was six years younger than his bride and just sixteen years older than Jamie. Carry enjoyed a long and generally respected career in both the dioceses of Quebec and Toronto. He earned a bachelor of divinity degree from Bishop's in 1855 at one of its first convocations and later received an honorary doctorate from the institution.13 Yet in both his public and private life, his dark and violent qualitites made him a difficult human being. He demanded

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his own way in theological debates and family discussions and was not to be crossed! At first, domestic life appeared to proceed smoothly. Carry and his newly acquired family moved to Leeds, another small Englishspeaking community southwest of Quebec City. There Carry ministered in St James parish and as a travelling missionary priest through the more isolated regions of the diocese of Quebec. In the autumn of 1851, the children's lessons began at home, though soon Eliza attended a local school while Jamie went away to boarding school in Pointe-Levy (or Levis), across the St Lawrence from Quebec City. The entire family moved in 1855 to Pointe Levy,14 where Carry became rector of Holy Trinity Church, and fourteen-year-old Jamie attended the Academic Aubigny in Quebec. Jamie learned French rapidly and excelled in all subjects. Before his sixteenth birthday he was helping to instruct some of the younger pupils. "I had to teach French boys their spelling, arithmetic, catechism &c quite as much as English," he wrote to his Grandmother Edgar years later, "and I have not altogether forgotten what I learnt then." While commuting to school by ferry, Jamie met Louis Frechette. The two boys seemed to have little in common: Louis attended the Petit Seminaire de Quebec; one was a francophone native of PointeLevy and the other an anglophone newcomer; Louis was almost two years older than Jamie. Yet the two quickly became close pals and their friendship lasted throughout their lives.15 Through the Academic Aubigny and Louis Frechette, Jamie Edgar immersed himself in a rich and exciting cultural world. He gave up the comfort and familiarity of English-language schooling for the challenge of learning in French; he exchanged the village life of the Eastern Townships for a more sophisticated urban way of life; and he could contrast the restrained customs of a Scots-Canadian immigrant family with the more effervescent Frechettes. Together, his new friend and new school inspired in Jamie a love of French Canada and a lifelong interest in maintaining good English-French relations within the country. "It is no wonder that I admire the French literature of Quebec," he told the National Club of Montreal more than thirty years later, "when a romantic friendship of my boyhood was formed with Louis Frechette, which still continues."16 Through the mid-1850s, Jamie and Louis encouraged each other to write and read poetry. "Spring," Jamie's earliest poem to survive

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The Edgar family home, showing modern additions, in Lennoxville, Quebec.

(with "1853" pencilled in later) shows a youngster's fascination with nature: See yonder gurgling rivulets All messingers of spring And various other streamlets To us good news they bring. And this now budding poplar Which tells us all of mirth and that freezing filthy snow Is leaving all the earth. And then we see the little birds Come chirping to our door Which is the best and truest sign That winter is no more The moon now shows her silv'ry light The stars peep from their cov'ring, And night's dark shadows put to flight Which through the air were hov'ring.17 Family papers from this same period also contain a short story entitled "Anecdote of a Squirrel:" "I now begin to feel old age laying his hoary hand heavily

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upon me, and often think with sincere regret the many dangers I have fallen into by my too great reliance upon my own abilities; for in my youth I, instead of taking the advice of my more experienced counsellors, thought nobody could possibly be in the right unless they were of the same opinion as myself. For this reason I intend to relate the many misfortunes of my past life, and also viz: hoping that they may in some wise prevent my young readers from falling into so great a vice..." So graphic is Jamie's portrayal of the squirrel breaking a leg that the account might be autobiographical! Unfortunately, the story remains incomplete, ending abruptly with "just as they finished their work, a..."! At age eleven, Jamie began to correspond with his Scottish relations. In large, flowing handwriting, using paper ruled with lines to guide him, he first wrote to his maternal grandfather, the Revd David Fleming, on August 24, 1852: "I am quite ashamed at not having written to you before for I am now 11 years old, and it is time that I should begin to get acquainted with my friends in Scotland. Mamma often tells me about them, and about Carriden Manse, which I think must be such a pretty place, and have often wished to see it and its inmates; which I hope that I may be able to do someday. I go to school in Quebec, but at present I am at home for the holidays... I hope that you will answer this as soon as you can, for I would like very much to hear from you. Give my love to Grandmamma and all my Aunts and to Uncle David. I remain, your affectionate Grandson." During his mid-teens, Jamie tried to heal the family rift, corresponding first with Mary Watson, his father's cousin. A wealthy Edinburgh spinster in her mid-fifties, Mary was most interested in family history. She had helped Jamie's father get started in the New World; now she prepared to assist young Jamie with generous loans and outright gifts of money, as well as generous dollops of practical advice, as in this letter of January 11, 1856, from 6 Pitt Street: "...Having been under disadvantages in the way of education

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you must be rather behind in some things & will now require double diligence on your own part to make up the deficiency. I judge from your own letter which tho' not a long one has three words interlined as if you had not been giving your attention to what you were about. Those who write very rapidly sometimes omit words unconsciously but it is evident from the hand that you write slowly, consequently there is the less excuse for errors. I do not say this as scolding you but merely hint as to future improvement. I shall give what aid I can, seeing your grandmama seems resolved not to do it, save in such a way as no Protestant could accept, but then you must still depend on yourself for no one can help you unless you put forth all the energies of your own mind for your advancement. I never wish any young friend of mine to have a farthing to trust to, just a good education if possible & his own enthusiasm..." Later that year, as Jamie contemplated a mercantile career like his Grandfather Edgar, he heard again from Cousin Mary, who wrote on October 3: "In regard to what you say about a mercantile profession, I suppose it may do very well if you qualify yourself. I have sent Mr. Carry the means to enable you in the meantime to get the different branches you stand in need of, French, Arithmetic—and I sincerely hope you will give your earnest attention to them & to improve your writing. This last you are aware of is indispensible to get a situation but, as you know your deficiency in this respect I need not dwell on it." Jamie also re-established links with Grandmother Anne Edgar, who had recently settled in Aix-la-Chapelle (or Aachen) in France, where she lived with her youngest daughter, Mary Caroline (Gary or Carry). Anne remained a staunch Catholic, resentful of her daughterin-law's refusal to have the three children brought up in her faith. Jamie wrote to her twice during 1856 and got no reply; after a third letter, she agreed (January 29,1857) to correspond with her grandson: "I received a few days ago, your letter of the 18th Dec, and most gladly agree to your desire that we sh'd correspond, especially as this thin letter which I have now received, is written in a manner to make me recognize the son of your dear Father. Your two first letters were unlike ones which I wd have wished from

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his child—this was my reason for my not having answered a letter you wrote a year ago... What you tell me of your position is very sad humanly speaking, & had you all come to Scotland after the death of your dear Father, or later, been sent to be educated near me, it wd have been very different—but not understanding this was my earnest desire, I am by no means sure that it wd have been best for you! You may have to bless God for all your life that in its beginning you have had to rough it—With me, your character might have beome effeminate from too much care & indulgence... I wd like you sh'd write to me more particularly about your position, your plans, your hopes—have you any friends or acquaintances who are to give you an opening in the Mercantile career you have chosen... ...We are going to England & Scotland in the Spring, & if we sh'd chance to meet with any one who has connexions in your quarter, wd you like me to ask for introductions for you?..." Jamie's letters to his grandmother were wise beyond his years. On July 14, 1857, for example, he wrote: "I have been very long in answering your last kind letter, as I was waiting for the introductions which you promised me; but I suppose you have had more trouble than you expected in getting them. I thank you sincerely for the money you sent for Eliza; she is now attending a lady's school in the neighbourhood and I think is making rapid progress. You said it grieved you much that your G children should still persist in remaining away from you, notwithstanding their condition in Canada—As far as I am concerned you are indeed mistaken, for nothing could give me more pleasure than to see you and to remain with you for some time, at least— My reasons for not going to live with you at first were several, I of course did not like leaving Mama and my sisters, so young, and go to a foreign country; I can now see that it has been of some advantage to me to have remained here, as I have learned, nolens volens to rough it, and to take care of myself to some extent, which branch of education I would not likely have so soon attained had I lived at ease with you...

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At present I am of the opinion that Canada is the country above all others where application and ability will succeed, and although I would like very much to pay a visit to you all, I could not resign myself to the prospect of remaining in Europe all my life. If I had the neccessary funds at my command I wd make the trip next winter, as that would be the only time that I could leave without inconvenience." During the summer of 1857, sixteen-year-old Jamie changed his plans and settled on becoming a lawyer. No close relative had ever practised law, and his choice sat poorly with Mary Watson, who sent a letter to him dated October 2: "...I was I confess much disappointed to find that you had changed your mind as to your future pursuits....You say you had always wished to study Law, & only thought of business from the above reasons. Do you know anything about Law? did any Lawyer ever converse with you about it or give you an idea of the hard dry study it is, & how long it is before much can be made of it?...Law in any of its branches in this country requires a long apprenticeship first then is not lucrative unless to a comparatively small number. Have you the consciousness that you possess the requisite patience & determined perseverance to go on thru' all difficulties if once you do begin? If not, better not try." During the autumn of 1857, John Carry moved from the wellestablished diocese of Quebec to Christ Church, Woodbridge, in the new and expanding diocese of Toronto. Grace and the children remained in Pointe-Levy until she and her new-born son—Hugh Fleming Carry—proved strong enough for the long trek. In mid-January, the younger children developed whooping cough just before setting out, and baby Hugh died soon after the family reached Upper Canada. It was John Carry's sad duty to officiate at the burial service for his infant son in Woodbridge on January 29, 1858.

CHAPTER

2

James and the Law 1858-1862

"I am just at home for a few days, a Xmas vacation, from Georgetown, where I am with a private tutor studying for the scholarship etc. ..I shall, most fortunately, be able to enter the office of the best lawyer in Upper Canada the Hon. J. Hillyard Cameron, Q.C. D C L etc!..." —So wrote James to his aunt from Woodbridge on Christmas Eve 1858.1

THE PATH TO A LEGAL CAREER IN Upper Canada lay through work as an articled student in a law office and passage through bar admission examinations set by the Law Society of Upper Canada.2 Before James Edgar was eligible to become an articled law student, however, he needed a matriculation diploma. That in turn meant proficiency in Greek, Latin, mathematics, history, and geography. Since his earlier studies, except at the Academic Aubigny, had been sporadic, James worked with a private tutor in Georgetown, west of Woodbridge. The tutor was probably one of two Anglican clergymen whom John Carry knew—the Revd John MacKenzie, rector of St George's Church, a former school master and future inspector of grammar schools,3 or the Revd Charles Dade, who operated a private academy in his home. James' few brief months in Georgetown proved invaluable. It provided a welcome Monday-to-Friday respite from his increasingly dour

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The main entrance to Osgoode Hall, Toronto, ca. 1859.

and menacing home; it gave James confidence that he could thrive on his own, away from his stepfather's influence; and it got him through the matriculation examinations. Jas. D. Edgar (as he now signed his letters) could now embark on the next phase in his life, as an articled law student in Toronto. The Law Society of Upper Canada trained aspiring lawyers in both theoretical and practical work, then admitted them to practice after five years' successful study. While admission and program standards were tightened during the 1850s in response to public concerns over a surplus of lawyers, the program offered bright, hard-working young men lacking family connections a route into the province's legal elite.4 James had hurdled the Law Society's admission barriers; now he needed self-discipline to master his studies. It was a demanding program. In the early mornings, from Monday to Friday, students attended lectures at Osgoode Hall, the Law Society's headquarters on Queen Street West. There, usually for two hours each day, senior members of the Toronto bar lectured on contracts, executors and administrators, bills of exchange and promissory notes, agency, criminal law, pleading, evidence, partnership, mortgages, and torts.5 For their "term-keeping duties" or daily court attendance, usually for a year and a half, students attached themselves to Society-

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sponsored law clubs, where future lawyers studied political and legal issues, thus "promoting the growth of like notions about the social role of law and lawyers."6 In late evening, lawyers-to-be studied for periodic examinations conducted by the Law Society. After five years' successful application, candidates were "called to the bar" and duly certified as attorneys and barristers. As well, that period included "articling." Most mornings after lectures, Jamie hurried to the law offices of Cameron and Harman, locat- J.D. Edgar's law partner, John Hillyard ed in the Romaine Building at Cameron. Photo dated 1870. 87 King West. From the mid-1840s on, Hillyard Cameron enjoyed both a lucrative law practice and a prominent place in Conservative politics. He was a member of the legislative assembly of the United Province of Canada and solictor general for Upper Canada in 1846-47. He served on the first senate of the University of Toronto in 1850, was closely identified with Bishop Strachan in founding the Anglican Trinity College, and chaired the 1856 commission that consolidated provincial statutes. In 1859, the year Edgar began working in his office, Cameron was elected grand master of the Loyal Orange Lodge for Upper Canada; next year his peers elected him treasurer of the Law Society of Upper Canada—the association's senior legal position.7 As James toiled away, enjoying the aura of power and influence that surrounded his mentor, Hillyard Cameron soon found that he had one of the province's top legal students in his office. Edgar consistently obtained first-class honours in the scheduled law examinations, usually at or near the head of his class. In April 1859, just three months into his studies, he and two fellow students petitioned to have

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their examination schedule accelerated. Though the University of Toronto's Senate denied the petition, James very early made his name known within the profession. His finances remained precarious, however, forcing him to rely continually on assistance from Scottish relatives. And his sisters—fifteen year-old Eliza and twelve year-old Grace—were constantly on his mind, as he came to realize that he, not his stepfather, would be responsible for their welfare. On 31 August, 1859, he wrote to his grandmother: "I have been very busy at the Office, and using all my spare time to read up for an examination that I passed yesterday. Among the 43 who presented themselves eleven were rejected, and I think that I shall hold a very good position in the class list, as I passed at the head of all the Toronto men, and they generally hold first place. There was a fee often pounds which Miss Watson kindly gave in addition to what she regularly allows me... You very kindly spoke of giving me some pocket money to enable me to mix a little more in society, and I thank you most sincerely for your offer, but I shall try to cover all necessary expenses with my allowance from my kind cousin Miss W. and will gladly decline all aid towards myself, but wd accept with double gratitude whatever could be done for my dear sisters; I mean toward their education. They are seeing positively nothing in a country village, and learning about the same—and it is my ambition to obtain for them, in some way or other, at least one year each at some school in town. I cannot ever expect to have them both here at once, but alternately, Eliza first and then Grace. I shall try to make a little money in any possible way for that purpose, and there is a slight possibility tho' not much probability, of my getting a scholarship next February of £30, which would help wonderfully." With the demands of his office work and law studies, James somehow found the time to keep in touch with his many relatives, writing, for example, to his grandmother on 24 September: "You have doubtless heard of the death of poor Grandpa Fleming: he was very good and kind to us all and his letters to me

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were full of prudent & Christian advice and warnings, which I hope under God's blessing have not been without some good effect. He left a considerable sum at his death to be placed in trust for the use of Mr. Carry and Mama during her life, then the principal to be divided equally among all of her children. As 8 or 10 percent can be obtained out here with perfect security the interest alone will amount to over £100 per annum; but there is not the slightest chance, I fear, of Mr. C's applying any of it to my sisters' education. Altho' I hope, if I work very hard, to be able to practise in about 2 yrs and make enough money to support myself and send them to school, it will be almost too late for Eliza, who is taller than Mama now." James believed that Carry would use the bequest for his own young children—-Julia, Dora, Henry and George. He had heard rumours of trouble between Carry and his parishioners, and now it appeared that he was taking out his personal and professional frustrations on his stepdaughters, especially Eliza.

On Monday January 7, 1861, on the eve of his third year as a law student, James travelled to Woodbridge and learned details of an alleged assault by Carry on Eliza. Appalled, he decided to remove Eliza from the Carry household and find room and board for her in Toronto. Two days later he wrote his grandmother: "When I went home the other day I found that my eldest sister Eliza had that morning received outrageous, brutal and violent treatment from that cowardly beast John Carry, and there were circumstances too grossly indecent connected with it for me to mention particulars to you. He had come to town that day & met me after having done it, with a serene smile! Had I known of it I should have broken every bone in his body & I would do so the first time I see him only that I am bound as it were hand & foot by considerations of my Mother's personal safety afterwards & by the certain disgrace that wd follow him & drag his family with him. There was no actual provocation. He thought she had shut

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the door with a slam!! She had not done that. She is a delicate girl taller than her mother & he dragged her out of her bed in the morning, pounded her, threw the bed clothes downstairs & when she said she wd tell me he seized her by the hair & dashed her down & tho she attempted to push him off he continued to thrash her until Grace who has wonderful strength & courage & whom, I believe, he fears, interfered & made him stop. Oh! it makes me boil with rage—& you know his antecedents—since I have grown up he has been afraid of me, but his temper was aggravated by a recent quarrel he had with the larger part of his vestry & I was away, so he wreaked his vengeance on a poor helpless girl—if I had been there & he had done it, one of us would have been tried for manslaughter—he is as heavy a man as I am but I am more muscular & he is a coward. I instantly on hearing it when I went out said Eliza must leave next morning—my Mother said so too—that was Monday night—Carry was to come home on Tuesday night, but at Eliza's & Mama's request & entreaty to settle things—ways & means— in Toronto before she came, I started Tuesday (yesterday) afternoon & have this morning seen about a respectable boarding place and school—(cheaper than a boarding school)—where Eliza shall live..." To finance his sister's stay in Toronto, James left Cameron and Harman for a more lucrative articling position with another Toronto law office, Morphy and Walkem.8 "...I have today obtained a situation where I shall get £50 per an. & I have calculated Eliza's expenses, as well as what I can live on & with the £50 and what Miss Watson so kindly allows me we can barely be kept above water. I could not bear to ask Miss Watson for anything more, it wd be both ungrateful & unjust but I shall work, work, work to make money in some way or other and if you can possibly do anything for us, I need not ask it for I know you will. Something—even a little—just now wd be of great use as I have to borrow to get books for Eliza etc. She is to come with me on Sunday night when Carry is away from home; I must avoid him for a while (as we could not part peaceably) for my mother's

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sake as you know from what I have told you of his former doings her very life might not be safe. It is fortunate that I have to take my sister away now as my Mother's brother is there on a visit & will be able to protect her. I have not & cannot tell you other reasons, of a quieter perhaps but still as vile a nature as this outburst that render it imperatively necessary that my elder sister at least shd leave Carry's roof; it wd be indecent to speak of them: my mother & sisters have tried to conceal it from me, fearing a row, until this has occurred & I thank God that it will put a stop to such things for the future & also give my sister an education for she is to learn from good teachers in English Branches, Singing, Music and French. Dear poor girl it is hard for her to leave her home & mother, perhaps not to go back for a long time & driven away by the brutality of one who should be her protector—oh heavens, I shall not be able to keep my hands off him long. Rather than allow her to go back I shall starve myself..." Anne Edgar replied on 3 February with commiseration, praise for his actions, and money! But she also revived long-standing tensions: "We had a letter yesterday from Mary Watson—she promises in addition to the £50 she allows you yearly, to advance £50 for the present year —more if your salary be £50—Can you manage comfortably on £150 for the present year? I know nothing of the expense of living in Canada, & you must tell me frankly whether you can manage with that for yourself & sisters. She has been much shocked & surprised by the news we have given her. She knows your Mother has often complained of his violent temper, but as she had been in the habit of complaining of your dear father's temper, Mary concluded that she was the person chiefly at fault... I have just been thinking that perhaps you cd not by law remove Grace from that man's house except by getting her out of the country? Should such an emergency occur I give you leave to draw a bill on Mr. Church (but at six months date) to enable you to send both your sisters at once to me—get what scrip is necessary for the voyage & let them have money sufficient to pay their

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journey to your Aunt at Runcethorpe where they will be received with open arms until I get an opportunity to bring them here. My own Jamie—I have no wish to separate you & your sisters—but they are no worse knowing where a home can be found at any moment. You may have offers from Protestant connections, but their Grandmother will not contribute to their support if they are under another protection than their brother's. You and I, Jamie, only have the right! " Cousin Mary proposed that Grace live with her for a year or two in Edinburgh, but Anne Edgar balked. Religious tensions continued, and hostile letters flew between Aix-la-Chappele and Edinburgh. James tried (March 8) to calm the troubled waters: "Until I rec'd your kind letter and offer I was in a very anxious state of mind about Eliza's very own means of living. I had removed her without coming in contact with Carry, luckily for him, but after he came home he made a bedlam of the house & went on furiously, I believe; he treated my mother very badly, not with physical punishment now for I am a terror to him, but by abuse, anathemas & restrictions of her intercourse with us. I have not time just now to tell you all the particulars, but it ended in my humbling myself & for the sake of my mother & Grace (who begged for Mama's sake) I wrote a conciliatory letter to Carry. It gave me the greatest struggle & pain to do this & I never, never could have done it for myself, but I believe my poor mother looks years older with the trouble she has undergone. I should have gone out there & given Carry what he deserves only that would necessitate my mother's removal & give me the additional burden of her & 4 children. Even with this prospect I balanced a long time & my mother—It was a great struggle, but now I have had my triumph. Carry has too many reasons to desire his outward connection with me to be kept up for him not to seize the opportunity of making it up—he was beaten by my determined action & correctness & like all cowards gave in completely. I cd never have believed it that I shd have seen him, the bully & tyrant, come in with my mother like a whipped puppy & endeavour to appease me."

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Eliza's room and board, plus school fees and clothes, were more costly than James had anticipated, and his hoped-for salary turned out to be just £2 5. "I was under a wrong impression when I spoke of getting £50—it was contingent upon the removal of another. I hope by doing work after office hours in the Court of Chancery to make more than as much. It is very kind indeed of you when you can so ill afford it, to allow us £50 per an. my dearest Grandmother, you know how very grateful I & Eliza are. Your offer of a home to my two sisters is truly kind but Eliza is doing very well now here & you know that Mama is terribly suspicious of a religious change & I fear would never consent to Grace living with you. However Miss Watson asks & kindly offers to take Grace to live with her for a couple of years to complete her education & then you will be able to see her & have her on a visit often. I think it is the best thing we can do..." A week later (March 15), he wrote her at greater length and offered to mediate: "Miss Watson has been really extremely kind to me and to all of us: and I am sure she is prompted by the most generous and delicate motives in making the offer she has; for she knows that unless Grace were to go to you or her, we should not be able to remove her at present. She sees that my mother's consent to this living with you could with difficulty (if at all) be obtained, and that there can be no excuse or objection urged against Grace's living with her for a couple of years. There will be innumerable educational and other advantages for a girl residing in Edinburgh which poor Grace could hardly expect here—she in particular requires them all for Eliza has made considerable advancement & had acquired a great taste for reading before Miss Charles left us. I feel & am deeply grateful to you for the kindness of your offer to take them both to live with you, and for the trouble you have taken in their behalf... In your last letter, my Dearest Grandmother, you almost seemed to feel as if an impassible gulf was placed between portions of our family on account of religious doctrinal differences, as if all

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intercourse were as between aliens in thought and creed, and as if it was the object of some to thwart the good that would be done by others. But has not this cold, chilly, imaginary line melted away before the warmth of our natural affection; and have we not, bereaved mother and orphan son, met together to weep and to love over my dear father's grave? We may be in different portions of the globe and oceans may roll between us, that separation is nothing when we feel that our hearts are knit together... It is my present intention to inspect the ground pretty well before I take the matrimonial leap; and to tell you the truth I have seen no girl that I can sufficiently admire to make her the future recipient of the pearl necklace. The office I am in at present is a very hardworking one. I go at 9 and stay till half past three or four, & just about the time that most students are leaving the office I walk off to the Chancery Court & work away till dark, returning home generally with a good deal that must be ready for the next morning. But I am more than rewarded for this exertion in seeing the progress that Eliza is making at school, and in reflection upon the contrast when she drudged out her best days of girlhood with scarce any companions & no enjoyment. Eliza's schooling & board & dress etc. will cost a good deal, but I shall be well able to meet everything. I am confident, with the kind allowance from you & what I can make & save. I sincerely hope that we will not long be a drain upon you, when you have so many difficulties to contend with in your own affairs..." Grandmother Edgar was gradually reconciled to the plan, and Grace sailed for Scotland in August. After James put his sister on board ship at Quebec, he spent three weeks visiting former boyhood haunts in Lower Canada, as he told his grandmother on September 15: "I was very much delighted when I was down about Lennoxville & Hatley to see all my oldest friends—they all knew me at once, altho' some had not seen me for 11 years, from my great likeness to my dear father. At Quebec where I lived 4 years ago I was not recognized by anyone, but when I went among those who had known my father I was called Jamie Edgar at once. Two

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of his old servants, now wealthy farmers, have children christened Edgar. I had no idea of the love I bore for those old spots until I was a stranger to them—the hills & lakes & views are so beautiful. I visited that sacred spot where the remains of my father rest in hope, & plucked a wild flower from his grave which I send to his mother, knowing its value in my own case & believing you will prize it. Very strange to say only last night I dreamt I saw him as a spirit that cd listen to me & smile upon me but not speak. I told him how like the people thought I was to him & he smiled sweetly. I am at present working harder than I ever did before—I am in the office steadily all day & read at home to 12 at night, and from 6 a.m. to office hours. This is to last till the middle of November when there is an examination held by the Law society but not compulsory. Notice of it was only given 3 months ago & I only commenced one month ago to read for it and cd not get the books at first & then was in Lower Canada. There is a scholarship of £50 offered in my year, but I feel that I have not any chance for it against new men who began to read 2 months before I did & who have more time to read now—However it is a good thing to have some object which one can read at, & if possibly I shd gain it, it wd be a great distinction as well as assistance to me..." Eliza settled into her new life with James in Toronto, while Grace enjoyed Edinburgh. Grace apparently gave Mary Watson a somewhat less frightening description of the incident in Woodbridge, for his cousin wrote him on October 30: "I found out from Grace that one part of what you believed [Carry] guilty, was a mistake on your part & arose only from your great care of your sisters. I mean that there was no indelicacy on his part towards any of them farther than what his violent temper prompted, in going into their room to urge them to hurry in getting up. This tho' a harsh & uncivilised mode of action, as she explained it did quite away with the terrible feeling inspired by your view of it."

Determined to avoid John Carry over the holidays, James spent Christmas Day 1861 alone in his Toronto boarding-house. He reported to Grandmother Edgar on his term's work as a law student.

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Section of a map showing Toronto and the immediate region in the 1850s

"In my last I told you of my intention of going up for a 3rd year examination in Law—well I went up and altho' I did not succeed in my main object of taking a scholarship I did far far better than I had anticipated or had reason to expect. I was one of the 3 who took First Class Honours and when I consider the comparatively short time that I read for it and the formidable competition against me I am extremely well satisfied. In one work I failed completely as I had not taken more than a few days on it, but I was ahead in every other book. In November 1862 there will be an Exn in the 4th year and I hope very much to fail in noth-

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ing...This is Christmas Day—a Merry, Merry one to you both! It is I believe the first one I am apart from home & is not at all a merry one as I am left alone in a large boarding house to eat a very solemn Christmas dinner. By the by, the firm of Morphy & Walkem dissolved partnership with serious difficulties, I found it necessary to change my quarters. Mr. J. Hillyard Cameron (nowM.R) wished me to come back to his office as he was much pleased at the result of my Extn and as there are not nearly so many clerks there now. More remains for each to do, so I have made the move. I hope that I shall not find it necessary to leave Cameron and Harman's office till my time is up. Eliza is out with Mama spending the Xmas holidays and when

The Toronto office of John Hillyard Cameron was located in building on the right shown in this ca. 1859 photo. The view is of King St. West, south side, looking east from York to Bay Street.

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she comes in will go, I hope, to Mrs. Mercer's Boarding School, Government House, in order to give her a polish. I drew for £12.10 from Miss Watson on your a/c making £5 0 so far as I shall have to buy bed and bedding &c for Eliza for her new school and provide her with a suitable outfit. How grateful I am to you & Miss Watson. For myself I care nothing but when my sisters are doing well I feel perfectly happy." In June 1862, while living with Eliza at Catherine Mercer's boarding-house, at King and Peter streets, James wrote to Anne Edgar with more details on his Toronto life: "Eliza lives at Mrs. Mercer's still, altho Mrs M has given up school & keeps a few boarders. I am living with Eliza & she goes out to some classes and the masters comes in for others and give her their lessons as usual. Air & Mrs Grant are here too, with their 4 children. Captain Morrison also lives with us and is expecting Mrs. M. out from England soon. They are all extremely agreeable people and we make quite a happy family together. You may imagine that the house is large for us all to live in it, and it is in a very pleasant part of the town. Eliza has numerous advantages here— especially in being among refined & elegant people and making agreeable & valuable acquaintances. I only feel uncertain as to how long it may last. By summer I shall know whether I shall be fortunate enough to get an appointment as Deputy Clerk of the peace, which will not at all interfere with any legal studies, but may give me a salary large enough to keep Eliza still with me... Tomorrow I expect to start on a fishing expedition into a most romantic part of the country with Captn TWeedie of the Artillery & Capt Morrison. We shall live by day on the water & at night sleep under a tent, & anticipate some excellent sport... I almost forgot to say that I expect to draw the remainder of the £100 today—i.e. £25 which will carry Eliza on till the middle of summer. I feel regret & gratitude both,—regret that I should have to receive from you when I should much rather give you assistance—and the deepest gratitude for your kindness to my sister in this inestimable boon of education..."

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The young man remained so short of money, however, that his grand plans for Eliza's education had to be aborted. To Anne Edgar he reported on August 18, 1862: "So, as I could not run myself into debt, Eliza went home! Mr Carry has in the whole affair of Eliza's removal learnt a lesson, as I have told you before, that has made him afraid to act as formerly; and altho' coarse, vulgar, and disagreeable as usual, he behaves himself. It will do Eliza no harm to be out there for a while, as I think she is rather too young and fond of fun to be entirely among strangers yet... There are difficulties arising every day in the way of a young lawyer here, in the large number who are crowding into the profession—since this time 2 years ago 160 have commenced practising in Upper Canada; and they are continuing to enter in the same proportion—whereas 200 would be quite enough for the whole country! The only chance then is for those who have great talents or can endure the hardest labor. I shall not shrink from the latter and the former is to be tested when one stands before a Jury... We met with wonderful success on our fishing excursion—each catching 400 or 500 trout. But the night before last I had some better sport as I bagged a burglar. There were two but one escaped. I succeeded in catching the other & dragging him down to the house from where I had overtaken them after a sure struggle in which only my large frame saved me from discomfiture. I then rounded up Captn Morrison & we took him to the Police Station. I was fortunate in being a match for him—It was great fun..." His exams went well, as he told her on December 15: "The Examination that I expected to come off last month, did not find me as well prepared as I should like to have been and I came out but second best—beaten by a steady going unbrilliant fellow who injured his health & did not allow a solitary idea other than law to enter his indefatigable brain for a year. I left most of the work for the last 2 months & as ill luck would have it, just about 2 months before the extn I caught the measles from a friend of mine with whom I used to sit up when no one else would. I had

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a pretty sharp attack & 2 rather severe relapses from going out too soon—I was about ten weeks under medical care altogether and was a little afraid that I shd never be quite strong; but I am now, I fancy, stronger than ever." Through the autumn and early winter, he was also preparing for a heady round of public speaking. He had been invited to address a Toronto temperance rally on New Year's Day, lecture in Georgetown a week later, then deliver his inuagural address as president of the Ontario Literary Society in early February. Letters would reach him faster, he had proudly told his grandmother the previous June, if directed to "J D Edgar," as he was now known at the post office.

CHAPTER

3

Literature, Law and Love 1863-1865

"...I have also been asked to attend a mammoth Temperance Festival & make a speech at it (!) on New Year's day. An Honorable is to occupy the chair. I have consented, not from any strong conviction that total abstinence from liquor is admirable, but because it can do no harm to abhor excesses & it is a good means of advertizing." —J.D. Edgar1

BEYOND FAMILY AND FELLOW LAW STUDENTS, James Edgar found his first Toronto friends among the city's literary community. Less than five months after his arrival, on May 3 0, 1859, the seventeen year old addressed the Allegro Society on "The Advantages of a Literary and Debating Club." The author of "Spring" and "Anecdote of a Squirrel," the student who absorbed so much of other people's writing as he studied law, James had at last found an appreciative outlet for his literary interests. Over the next several years, before evening audiences at the St Lawrence Hall, the Mechanics' Institute, and at other Toronto venues, he took part in dozens of public debates and delivered a host of formal and informal talks. His lectures ranged widely from the historical "Pioneers of Upper Canada" and "Volunteers of Canada" to such esoteric topics as "The Universality of Pleasures and Taste" and "Shakespeare as a Philosopher." As 1863 dawned, he was busier than ever: a New Year's Day lecture to a "mammoth Temperance Festival"

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The Mechanics' Institute was an impressive public building at the corner of Church Street and Adelaide, Toronto. The building was occupied by the Toronto Public Library from 1883.

with "An Honourable" in the chair; a January 9 lecture in Georgetown on "Handmaids of Learning," repeated later in suburban Eglinton, Brampton, and Port Hope. Later that year, Edgar served as secretary of a committee arranging Toronto's celebrations of the Shakespeare Tercentenary. On February 5, 1863, he delivered his inaugural address as president of the recently founded Ontario Literary Society.2 The previous August (on the 18th) he had reported to Anne Edgar: "I have assiduously cultivated public speaking; and I don't know whether it is any proof of success, but I am 1st Vice President of the leading literary & debating society in the Province & have entire control of the affairs & hope to be President in December. There are over 200 members & I suppose about 50 barristers among them—and as I am only a student of 21 I am rather fortunate. Besides being useful as a school for eloquence this is useful as an advertisement, for the names of the leading men in our society are known all over the province & one acquires a little reputation in this way that generally is obtained after laboring for some time at the bar[...]" With a membership that included the cream of Toronto's business and professional elite, the Society came close to representing the "flower and promise of western Can. manhood."3 Edgar's lecture

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championed literary and debating societies as "secondary aids to education," where men could freely discuss literary, historical, political, or philosophical matters. Through debate, the mind was "toned to a healthy, manly vigor of thought, and the perceptions sharpened," the human voice was "attuned to its most perfect harmony, and taught to captivate the ear by its most potent spells," while the "faculties are quickened, ideas flow, and the tongue wags easily." Finally, by emphasizing intelligence rather than social standing, such societies were especially beneficial to "students of the liberal professions."4 Despite unfavourable weather and snowy streets, reported the Globe, a "tolerably large and very appreciative audience" showed up to hear the law student and budding author. "He was repeatedly applauded," continued the newspaper, in its first mention of this bright young man-about-town.5 Edgar's 2,500-word address was published by the Society as a nine-page pamphlet bearing the uninspiring title, "Inaugural Address." Cousin Mary Watson, always one of James's sternest critics, liked his remarks "very much, both in tone & expression & have no fault to find, but with one phrase, which to me appears too familiar for the address of a president—'The tongue wags easily'. In common conversation it would not be amiss, but is rather undignified in print." This literary world was but one of many urban diversions that beckoned to Edgar. During the 1850s, Toronto's population grew from about 30,000 to 45,000. With its busy harbour and new railways, its dominance in wholesale and retail trade, its growth in banking and finance, Toronto solidified its position as the pre-eminent urban centre for Upper Canada. While King Street remained the city's premier business address, Toronto was expanding northward. In 1857, for example, Thomas Gibbs Ridout laid the foundations for his mansion on Sherbourne Street north of Carlton.6 While North American in appearance and energy, Toronto's institutions remained British to the core. By urban standards of the day, it was "reasonably tidy and clean, and earnestly decent," writes historian J.M.S. Careless, "a colonial town, still, but by no means secluded, with real adornment, considerable wealth, and a generally thriving, solid citizenry,"7 where Edgar felt very much at home. Despite his family's Jacobite sympathies, James initially honed his political skills within the Loyal Orange Lodge. Fuelled by Protestant

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The title page of the Ontario Literary Society publication, 1863.

Irish immigration, and attracting many native-born Canadians, the Orange Order increased its Ontario membership from about 40,000 to 100,000 between 1850 and I860.8 The Woodbridge lodge attracted Jamie's chance boyhood acquaintance Nathaniel Clarke Wallace, later a grand master. The provincial grand master was John Hillyard Cameron. Due in large measure to Cameron's influence, Jamie briefly sampled the bigoted camaraderie and religious invective of Toronto's Orange culture, but he dared not mention it to his Catholic grandmother, nor to Cousin Mary. "It is well that Miss Watson does not know you are an Orangeman," Grace wrote from Edinburgh in 1862.

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"She abuses them at a great rate, she can't bear them, from King William down to the very colour orange."9 With new-found maturity and self-confidence, however, Edgar soon turned against the anti-Catholicism of the Orange Order. "Young as I was," he told the Toronto Mail many years later, "...it became only too apparent to me that the whole thing was an attempt to introduce religious prejudices into politics, and to implant in the soil of Canada for party political purposes the hideous strifes and traditional feuds that have so long been Ireland's curse." Edgar's early years in Quebec proved a stronger influence than extreme Protestantism. "In Canada we have too many differences of race, creed and language to be able to safely introduce other elements of discord," he argued. "It is not by the extension of an order that is regarded as a menace to large bodies of our fellow-citizens that we can promote the welfare of our country, but by earnestly trying to find a common ground of loyalty to Canada upon which Canadians of all creeds and of all races may heartily unite."10 In time, Edgar would find a more comfortable political home in the Upper Canada Reform party led by Globe editor George Brown. Meanwhile, James worked through his final year as an articled law student. In the spring of 1863, he switched firms once again, leaving Cameron and Harman for the office of Stephen Maule Jarvis at 19 Toronto Street. This may have reflected Edgar's growing disenchantment with Orange politics or—perhaps—the attraction of more money and the increased responsibility of managing Jarvis' chancery or equity business. Relying on general principles of justice to correct or supplement the ordinary law, equity law was not bound by common-law precedents and rested primarily on fairness.11 Equity appealed to a sensitive young man such as Edgar, for it offered a more flexible and discretionary approach to legal issues. Still, as he gained experience and prepared for his own bar admission exams, first for attorney and later for barrister, James continued to fret over his professional and financial future. He wrote Anne Edgar in February 1864: "I am in a very unpleasant state of uncertainty just now about my future prospects—the profession is intolerably over-crowded & although I am quite assured of getting a good practice in

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spite of them all, in time, there is the expense & misery of waiting for it. There is one little thing, however, I am sure of—the leading paper in Upper Canada—the Toronto Globe will give me £50 per an. as soon as I am through for acting as legal Editor & Reporter. The influence this will give me will be more valuable than the salary—& it will not take up much of my time. I shall in a fortnight find out from Mr. Jarvis on what terms we can arrange for the future. The Allowance which Miss Watson has so generously kept up for me for the last few years will now of course be at an end. The fees for my examination for Attorney in May will be about £75, this I have saved, and shall meet myself. But my barrister's fees in August will be over £20 and I cannot at present clearly see my way to pay them! However I may make more money than I expect before then."

James still balanced career aspirations with more immediate family concerns. John Carry continued to threaten and menace his mother and sisters, particularly after Grace returned from Scotland in the summer of 1863. When the family moved to Tullamore, a tiny hamlet northwest of Brampton whose congregation was added to Carry's rural circuit, distance made it easier for Carry to dominate the household and more difficult for James to visit. Then in March 1864, James received a most upsetting letter from Dr Gilbert—his mother's physician, neighbour, and old friend from Hatley12—concerning Carry's harsh treatment of his wife and family. James made a hasty trip to Tullamore and on the 27th reported to his grandmother: "On Sunday last, when Carry was preaching elsewhere, I went out to see my mother alone before thrashing him. I found her pale & haggard with fright & anxiety—The state of affairs as to Eliza was better and as to Mama worse than that letter from Dr. Gilbert would have led me to suppose. The treatment of my mother wd fully justify anything I might do to Carry, but the state of physical terror into which that brute has reduced my poor mother made my sisters implore me to think what he wd do to her & them after I left & they asked me for her sake to avoid an encounter. I laid down these conditions & considerations—

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1. That Eliza shd leave there for ever as soon as she can get ready. 2. That my mother sh'd faithfully inform me of Carry's conduct for the future. 3. That he should be informed of my visit & its objects hinted at, & that there had been a great improvement since Wednesday in his temper &c. I have had two letters from my mother during the past week, and the knowledge of my visit appears to have had a salutary effect, and he is again quite peaceable. The Morrisons and the Grants have invited Eliza in to stay with them, until I can make arrangements myself. They know Carry is cruel to her. For my poor mother's sake I trust the fool brute will behave himself but I fear a thrashing is only postponed." The visit of a Fleming cousin, newly emigrated to Canada, only aggravated the situation, as he told Mary Watson on April 17: "Saturday week I received a letter from Eliza saying that Grace Fleming had to leave the house on account of Carry's conduct & she would tell me about it on her way to her home. Her reasons for leaving were these—Carry had been scolding & frightening my mother about the children getting up a little late that morning & he held a large book over his wife's head with threats &c. Mama is in a very nervous state, could not stand this fright but rushed up stairs & threw herself on Eliza's bed, fainting. My sister Eliza, and cousin Grace ran for water & restoratives for her but Carry came up & told them to leave her alone; he slapped Eliza in the face & seized my cousin by the arm (blackening it) & put her out of the room. She called him "A miserable fool." This was the offence for which she was to leave. He confined her to her own room for a week & then she came in to Toronto. I gave her some money & left her at the station to go down to her own home & I went out to Tullamore." His mother had implored him to avoid violence, but he told her that if she did not want to see the row she must leave. Grace put on her coat and ran to Dr Gilbert's.

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A section of a map of Toronto ca. 1867 showing Osgoode Hall (1) and the Mechanics' Institute (2).

"I returned, went into the room where Carry was—the diningroom—said I wanted to speak to him & asked him into the study. He came, but my sisters had taken the key out of the door so I could not lock us in. He asked what it was? I told him I had seen my cousin, & asked him how he had dared to treat my mother & sisters as he had done. He stammered out something but in a moment he was at my feet & receiving as sound a thrashing as I thought appropriate. (When I went out with my mother, poor Grace had rushed through the field & up to her waist in a brook, gone over to the village & got 4 or 5 men to come & prevent anything too serious.) At this stage of the proceedings Carry bellowed so lustily that my sisters thought I was killing him & rushed in with the servants & the men & tried to pull me off Carry. I then found my hands full. Men & women were dragging at me & I had to keep a large powerful man who was struggling violently quiet. I required both hands to shake off the men, & I put my knee on Carry's head

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to keep him down, when he took the occasion to give me a bite on the leg & a slight nibble on my hand when I was making him let go. I then divided my attentions between his ribs & the people in the room—whom I made leave it & shut the door. After some farther application of my knuckles to his person, he prayed for mercy & said he would do anything I told him if I would spare his life! (I had informed him that I intended to kill him.) When he was thoroughly subdued I called Eliza in. I held his face down on the floor at her very feet & told him to apologize for having struck her & said insulting things to her. He did so. I then allowed him to sit on a chair. After this his abject cowardice was ridiculous." James continued to frighten and subdue his stepfather with a few staged tricks, letting his sisters know he was merely play-acting as he pretended to wield a dagger and appeared ready to kill the frightened man. Eliza and Grace joined in the fun, probably out of sheer relief that James was not in earnest. "It was all I could do to keep from laughing, but I was very tragic & said M-U-R-D-E-R in a very stagey voice with a fine effect. My lessons in elocution were as useftil as those I had taken in boxing. To shorten a long story, he prayed me to let my mother come back & he would treat her better than husband ever did before—He asked if I intended to take his children away I sd that wd depend upon his own behaviour—I suggested that he shd leave the country for a year—he said he would do anything... I took Eliza & Grace away with me & his youngest child over to Mama. The next morning he went to town, (to see the Bishop) and that night the Rural Dean came out to see Mama & myself & try & settle affairs. He explained that with all who know Carry's conduct it is thought that he is a little insane. I am sure he is quite sane, but requires to be looked after by me. The Dean said there would be some difficulty in getting leave, but there is a parish within 12 miles of Toronto, Thornhill whose rector will leave for a year on the 1st of May, & they would get it for Carry, if Mama will go back to him. She is rather afraid but I know she would be perfectly safe in doing so. As to the future, Grace I know prefers Canada & would like to be my housekeeper & be near

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Mama. As to Eliza I am a little more troubled until I get into practice in a year or two. My Attorney examination will come off about the middle of May, I shall go up and hope to get through." Edgar spent much of spring 1864 sorting out family concerns. Somehow he passed his bar admission examination for attorney in May, though he postponed his barrister's exams from August to November. He began to write a pamphlet on bankruptcy law. Yet his mother needed support in her move with John Carry to Holy Trinity Church in Thornhill, an older and wealthier parish, closer to Toronto. Plans for his sisters remained unsettled. Should he bring Grace into Toronto or encourage her to live with old family friends in Hatley? He considered sending Eliza to live with Mary Watson in Edinburgh, but a timely invitation arrived from distant cousins in New York, as he told his grandmother: "Eliza has of course accepted the invitation to New York and Miss Watson very generously gave me leave to draw £10 for her trip. Both she and Grace were well supplied with new clothes out of the £20 you sent... As far as I have gone I have done pretty well at law for one beginning alone; but the worst of it is that money may be carried, and not got for some months. I do a good deal for Mr. Jarvis—it may be better than if I were in partnership with him on the terms he proposed. Long vacation has commenced now and lasts till 21st August, but I have laid out a little work for myself during that time. Hitherto we had no Bankruptcy Courts in Canada, and a good deal of business will arise of that kind, of which I hope to get a share from publishing a book on the law and practice. I shall take great pains and make the book correct and creditable as far as it goes. I hope to be an authority in that branch some day. I have rented a good piano for Grace to keep her from getting rusty in playing, and I think she is very happy. I hope I shall be able to keep her with me, and I know I shall work hard to do so. My great struggle will be during that time the outlay is large and the returns come in very slowly. I am a little in arrears, but everyone seems to think that my prospects are good in the long run, and no one is unwilling to trust me...

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Mama is happy now at Thornhill and away from Tullamore. She has been in twice to see us. Carry is learning to behave himself at last. I sometimes feel rather low spirited from the pressure of immediate difficulties, but I feel that I shall be all right after my work begins to be remunerative. At any rate I have the extreme satisfaction of knowing that my mother and sisters are immeasurably better off in everyway than before..." The American cousins gave Eliza a pleasant summer and enjoyed seeing James in late August. This sojourn provided the tonic that sustained James through the second round of bar admission tests that autumn, where "students found the questions difficult and the atmosphere surrounding the examinations intimidating,"12 He sweated through his tests in commercial and maritime law, real property, equity jurisprudence, and criminal and tort law. He easily passed the exams and was called to the bar during Michaelmas term, Fall 1864. His name was duly entered beside the number 902 on the Barristers' Roll of the Law Society of Upper Canada. Through the summer and early autumn, he sought the best arrangement for his own practice. While many lawyers practised alone, Edgar saw financial and business advantages in a partnership with a more senior member of the bar. Should he remain with Stephen Jarvis, where he handled equity business? Or return to the powerful and well-connected John Hillyard Cameron? Or join William Bacon, a specialist in chancery and equity law? On July 7 he reported to his grandmother: "I have been waiting in vain for more than a month for a decision answer from a gentleman who spoke to me of forming a partnership, and being every day in hope of being able to give you that good news I deferred writing. The gentleman—a Mr. Bacon—is in a large practice and spoke to me as soon after I passed, but some one else just after that made him a very good offer, and he has been unable yet to decide which he will do."

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When Bacon decided against him, Edgar entered a formal partnership with Stephen Jarvis. Immediately he was hired by the Toronto Globe as its legal reporter and editor at a salary of £50 a year. Soon he took over the legal editorship of the Montreal Trade Review and several other legal publications. James Edgar's 142-page The Insolvent Act of 1864, With Tariff, Notes, Forms, and a Full Index, was the first published work on a recent provincial statute. It covered voluntary assignment, compulsory liquidation, assignees, dividends, leases, appeal, fraud and fraudulent preferences, composition and discharge, and examination of the insolvent. Edgar hoped that it would provide county court judges with "some degree of uniformity in the practice" of the new law. Yet the venture was risky, especially for a neophyte. "To attempt a comment upon an act which has never been in operation, in the absence of decisions to guide its interpretation, and without the light of experience to display its defects or advantages," Edgar admitted, "is a hazardous undertaking." Yet while the "want of Rules to regulate the practice in Insolvency rendered the task more arduous and uncertain," their very absence provided "an additional reason for endeavouring to explain the provisions of the Act."13 The work proved an immediate success and quickly established its author's reputation in insolvency and bankruptcy law. When the statute was amended five years later, Edgar's The Insolvent Act of 1869 offered lengthier commentaries and incorporated recent decisions in Ontario courts and related cases from English courts. Later, The Insolvent Act of1815,,14 written with EH. Chrysler, provided a 219-page, comprehensive treatment of Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick law, along with the "very latest English cases" and even "some American ones." As 1864 drew to a close, with his career launched and a modicum of peace permeating the Carry household, James gave Grandmother Edgar on December 4 a detailed picture of life and dreams: "...The first day I was in court I was engaged in no less than four cases—a pretty good start. I borrowed the money necessary, and I have consolidated my loans, by paying them out of partnership money. Of course I get not a cent from the business until this amount is paid off out of my share in the profits. Meanwhile

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Title page of publication focusing on "The Insolvent Act of 1864" by James D. Edgar.

I am in rather a quandry—I must by some means raise a loan to give me an even start... It gave me a pleasant surprise to find that I came out with very high marks on the examination. In one subject—real property— I had always failed before, but out of a maximum of 100 on the real property paper I obtained 97 marks—whereas 50 would have

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been enough to pass me. I had determined to master the subject and I succeeded... Eliza is very comfortable here. She is in the best society in Toronto, and has friends who all show her kind attention. This you of course understand will give her a larger field for exercising a choice in the great matrimonial question... My partner, Mr. Jarvis, is a candidate for the Mayorality for 1865,1 am a great electioneer. I have been requested to stand for the position of "city father" in the largest ward—but I know better than to neglect my business for any thing of that kind just yet. In a very few years I shall be in parliament—meanwhile hard work."

Still, Eliza's future remained uncertain. James certainly hoped that her latest move to a boarding-house, run by Matilda Ann Ridout at 97 Bloor Street East, would offer her that "larger field." As he had told his grandmother on October 9: "I have arranged that she [Eliza] shall board with a lady who is the passe leader of the bon ton here—her husband was a wealthy banker but his sudden death some years ago left his affairs in a complicated state, and she now has a gentleman & his wife (a Q.C.) & a young lady boarding with her, & will kindly make room for Eliza."..."Mrs. Ridout has some very nice daughters at home & a couple of sons in the army—one who is a friend of mine & is at home just now, has recently entered the Staff College at Sandhurst, facile princeps as they say." The Sandhurst student, twenty-six-year-old Joseph Bramley Ridout, and his twenty-four-year-old brother, John Gibbs Ridout, a junior officer in the Royal Canadian Regiment, had introducted James Edgar to their family16 In practice, the home functioned more like an extended family than a conventional boarding-house. Widowed since 1861, with eleven children, Ridout ran a lively household, with older sons coming and going and a constant stream of callers for Juliana, twenty-two, and Matilda (Tillie), twenty. "Invited and uninvited, visitors dropped by their home almost daily," remarked a

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later writer, "many of them young bachelors attracted by a household of marriageable young women."17 With Eliza embarked on "the great matrimonial question," her brother considered his own plans. "Talking of matrimony," he wrote to his grandmother on December 4, "when I am suspected of any such object, I remark that I am already settled for life & have got two excellent housekeepers in my two sisters. But seriously—I shall be only too glad to linger in single blessedness for years to come if I can make my sisters happy." Yet within a very few weeks, James David Edgar was engaged to Matilda Ridout, an attractive, personable, bright young woman who was her widowed mother's good right hand. On February 5 1865 he announced to Aunt Caroline Edgar: "I have something highly important to communicate to you— and I hardly know how to begin to tell you that thefuture Mrs. J.D. Edgar has been selected! You may depend that it has been in no hasty boyish fancy, but in the perfect certainty that I was securing the best girl in Toronto. If anyone here was asked who is the most amiable, the cleverest, and one of the prettiest girls in Toronto, the answer would without a doubt, be 'Tillie Ridout.' " Tillie was probably James Edgar's first and only love. As an outsider to Toronto society, he lacked introductions to well-bred young ladies his own age. Nor would he be likely to meet young ladies through his all-male law classes and articling work. Only Eliza's boarding at Mrs Ridout's, and his own acquaintance with brothers Joseph and John, put him in touch with Matilda. On a rainy Toronto evening he sheltered Tillie under his umbrella. Yet he was certainly not her first suitor. As he continued to Aunt Caroline: "She has been loved and admired by everyone who knew her and more than once proposed to by officers and others, but fortunately for me none of them ever had the slightest encouragement until I appeared upon the scene, then veni, vedi, vici! I had a powerful ally, however, in Eliza who rejoices that I have made such a choice. You must know there is a Provincial Aristocracy in

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Toronto—formerly called The Family Compact—as they have all intermarried from their exclusiveness. Nearly all my friends belong to these families and after I am married to Miss Ridout I shall be a cousin to them all. A close connection with these families will do me no harm." As a young lawyer, Edgar faced several years of modest income, until his growing reputation might bring increasingly lucrative work. Meanwhile, he remained in debt; he continued to support his two sisters; and he was close to exhausting all his Scottish and continental European resources, while retaining only a moderate hope of any significant inheritance. Tillie had no prospect of property; besides, her widowed mother's economic plight left few liquid assets for any dowry. Yet her upper-class social background and genteel education, combined with her husband's professional status, meant that she could never join Victorian Toronto's workforce. Neither social status nor money drew the two together. "When we encounter young men passing up fat dowries to wed their heart's desire," suggests one family historian, "we know we're standing before romance."18 As they courted through the winter of 1864—65, they found themselves to be soulmates, sharing empathy, a sense of oneness, and (while they were probably too Victorian to admit it) an erotic bond. As their paths converged, they strove to "fashion a permanent relationship from love's volatile emotions," to "transform romantic love into lifelong intimacy."19 Though their engagement came quickly, they did not, he told Aunt Caroline, propose a hasty marriage: "You will no doubt be surprised at this announcement after the expression of my views upon the subject of matrimony a short time ago—but I could not risk the chance of losing such a wife by waiting too long. We are engaged and all her friends have assented, and in fact it has been so for 9 days. The most interesting topic in fashionable circles—but we do not expect to be married for 1 year."

CHAPTER

4

The Ridouts of Upper Canada 1844-1865

"Partly to interest the members of a family, and partly for the sake of preserving, for future historians of Canada, some additional records of a memorable time, the publication of these letters was taken in hand... The earlier letters are simple ones, written by school-boys to their father, with his replies; but so small was society in Upper Canada, that almost all the names mentioned are, in some way or other, interwoven with its history." —Matilda (Ridout) Edgar1

THE RIDOUT FAMILY was indeed "interwoven" with the history and society of Upper Canada. Matilda (called "Tillie" or "Tilly" to distinguish her from her mother) was born in Toronto on September 29, 1844, to Thomas Gibbs Ridout and Matilda Ann (Bramley) Ridout. She was the fifth child and second daughter in a family of six boys and five girls. Though bad times had "swept off a great deal," and the Ridouts were living in "very straitened" circumstances when Tillie became engaged to James Edgar in early 1865,2 her early childhood years were a marked contrast to those of her fiance. While James Edgar's parents were rather impoverished, middleclass immigrants in small-town Lower Canada, members of Tillie's family were prominent members of Toronto's business and social elite, part of Upper Canada's well-entrenched Family Compact.

RIDOUT FAMILY TREE MaiyHallett(l) =

George Ridout = (2)MaryGibbs 1701-1770 1715-1777 of Sherbourne, Dorsetshire

John Ridout Secretary to Governor Horatio Sharpe of Maryland

George Ridout 1791-1871

Mary 18271832

Thomas b. 1828

John Ridout b.1799 Killed in duel

John 18301832

Isabella (1) =

Thomas Ridout 1754^-1829 Surveyor-General of Upper Canada

(2) Mary Campbell 1771-1840

Anne Louise Sullivan (1) = Thomas Gibbs Ridout = (2) Matilda Ann Bramley d. 1832 1792-1861 1813-1881

Charles 18361906

John 18401912 Joseph 18381910

Matilda 18441910 Juliana 18421911

Louisa 18461882

Trevelyan 18561883

George b. 1852

Donald 18481893 Augusta 18501923

Laura 18531939

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While James's father eked out a marginal living as an inexperienced farmer, unemployed surveyor, and reluctant schoolmaster, Tillie's father served as cashier, or general manager, of the prestigious Bank of Upper Canada. While James wrestled with his father's death and a temperamental step-father, Tillie's domestic circle was a model of bliss and harmony. While family moves bounced her fiance from school to school, Tillie Ridout's education unfolded in a stable environment enriched by older siblings, governesses, and private schools.3 Even family correspondence differed—the Edgar' letters weighted down with money problems and perpetual gloom, the Ridouts' sparkled with witticisms and promises of "delights-everafter." Tillie's grandfather, Thomas Ridout Sr (1754 - 1829), planted the family in Upper Canada at the end of the eighteenth century. He left his boyhood home in Sherborne, Dorsetshire, in 1774 to join an elder half-brother in Annapolis, Maryland, where he traded in sugar, tobacco, and wine with France and the West Indies. In 1787, Thomas set off Studio portrait or Thomas Ridout, ^ , ., r for western T Matilda Ridout's grandfather. Kentucky, either for business reasons or to scout the region for possible settlement, but was captured by a band of Shawnee Indians in the Ohio River Valley. He was held prisoner for three months, then handed over to the British garrison at Fort Detroit. By the summer of 1788, he was at Montreal and decided to cast his lot in British North America. On May 26, 1789, following the death of his first wife, Isabella, Thomas married Mary Campbell, daughter of a United Empire Loyalist family. Soon afterward, he was appointed to the British army's commissariat department at Newark (Niagara-onthe-Lake). In 1797, Thomas and Mary Ridout moved to the new capital of Upper Canada at York. Over the next thirty years, Ridout held many

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top public positions: surveyor-general, sergeant-at-arms in the legislative assembly, registrar of York County, captain of the York Militia, clerk of the peace for the Home District, elected member of the assembly for the East Riding of York and Simcoe, appointed member of the legislative council, and member of the Clergy Reserve Corporation and the board of King's College (University of Toronto). Ridout was one of the "many middle and minor functionaries," wrote one biographer, "upon whose steady support and conservative views rested the growing power of the colonial oligarchy which has come to be known as the Family Compact."4 Yet the Ridouts were usually identified with the moderate or reform element of the Family Compact. "Their frequently independent views," concludes one writer, "were suspect to some of the other early established families."5 Tillie's father was Thomas Gibbs Ridout (1792 - 1861), the third son of Thomas and Mary. As befitted a son of the provincial elite, young Thomas attended John Strachan's highly regarded Cornwall Grammar School. Like his father before him, Thomas served with the British army's commissariat, during the War of 1812, gaining experience in handling large sums of money. Afterward he embarked on a banking career, and in January 1822, before his thirtieth birthday, he was appointed cashier (general manager) of the new Bank of Upper Canada, which long functioned unofficially as the bank of the Family Compact and the colonial administration.6 Once established as cashier, Ridout assumed his rightful place as a second-generation member of York's gentry. He speculated in city and country lands and in 1824 purchased a large property on the northern edge of town, with grandiose plans for building his "Sherborne" estate. The next year he married Louisa Sullivan and gained as brothers-in-law both Robert Baldwin and Robert Baldwin Sullivan, leaders of the moderate branch of the Family Compact. After Louisa and two of his three children died in an 1832 plague, Thomas wed Matilda Ann Bramley, a Yorkshire woman twenty years his junior.7 They had eleven children—Charles, born in 1836, then Joseph and John, Juliana and Matilda (Tillie), followed by six younger ones, in almost clockwork order, one approximately every two years. At the time of Tillie's birth in September 1844, the Ridouts lived above the Bank of Upper Canada building on the northeast corner of Duke (later Adelaide) and George streets. Constructed in the late

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1820s, the bank building was a handsome, two-storey stone structure. The first floor contained the banking hall, while the Ridouts lived on the second floor, using the basement as a kitchen.8 For Tillie's father, entering middle age, the 1840s brought increasing civic involvement. Ridout was provincial grand master of the Masonic Lodge in 1846, founding president of the Toronto Mechanics' Institute in 1847, and president of the St Andrew's Society in 1848. For Tillie's mother, the burdens of frequent child-bearing were at least partially offset by a life of relative ease, surrounded by servants and enhanced by frequent extended summer vacations away from the city. During those holidays, Thomas Ridout provided delightful records of activities to family members left behind. On July 20, 1846, he recorded: "The Children continue all quite well—and have no grief in them for anybody which is rather ungrateful —on Saturday at 2 o'clock James Small had a party of 25 children at Charles' farm including our 3 boys. He took them in the omnibus and at 4 o'clock I went down there also to see all right—they were amusing themselves in 3 skiffs on the Mill Pond—our boys however I found had obeyed orders and were ashore, in consequence of which I paddled them about myself one at a time as the boat was very small and leaky. My holydays begin today. The boys ride turn about to the field for the cows morning and evening each way. The Sisters of Charity get a large kettle full of milk every day—we have bought no butter since you left us, notwithstanding that buttered toast reigns paramount in kitchen and parlour morning & evening. Baby Tillie and Julia are quite happy..." By 1850, the second floor of the Bank of Upper Canada building could barely contain the Ridout clan. Besides six-year-old Tillie and the older children, the family now included Louisa, aged four, Donald, two, and baby Augusta. To house this growing family, and to allow business to expand, the Bank planned a residential addition along George Street to the north and hired the architectural partners Frederic Cumberland and Thomas Ridout, Jr—the cashier's brother-in-law and his eldest son, respectively9 Cumberland and Ridout

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designed and built a three-storey, yellow-brick structure, joined to the main building on the second floor by a wide panelled staircase. Tillie and her family moved into this addition in 1851. T.G. Ridout's personal fortune continued to improve. His annual salary as cashier jumped in 1853 from £750 to £1,000. He also held stock in various telegraph and railway companies, especially the Grand Trunk and the Great Western. He had offers from "several parties" for his large tract of land on Sherborne Street, on which he hoped to realize £16,000 to £20,000 but told his wife he was "in no hurry about it." In Port Hope, he laid out two new streets with seventy-six building lots and considered what to do about 100 acres along the lake, "where the Grand Trunk railway depot is to be." Should everything work out as planned, "then I fancy I shall not bother myself any more about the Bank."10 That summer, Mrs Ridout holidayed at Niagara-on-the-Lake with Tillie, then nine, and several of the other children. Thomas wrote to her from Toronto on June 21: "I am glad the children are so well pleased with their rides, and hope they are improving in health—has the whooping cough left them yet and how does Donald get along with the black waiters—has he scraped an acquaintance with any of them yet? I have made some improvements outside of the house and in the garden since you left—the pump yard and the small north yard are well gravelled—the garden walks are also all gravelled— and my melons & cucumbers are looking very well—so is the big grape vine—the onion square is weeded. In the field the Indian corn, squash and potatoes are all up and the peas are in blossom. We have plenty of lettuce, spinach and asparagus for all and shall have an enormous quantity of peas and beans this summer, at least a bushel and a half. The tomatoes and red peppers are planted out and I have about 300 cauliflower & broccoli doing well." Two years later, Matilda spent the summer at Swampscote, Massachusetts, with several of the children, including Tillie. She wrote affectionately to her husband ("My dearest Tom") from the Beach House Hotel on July 1:

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"The children are very happy—as to the rocks they climb all over them in the steepest parts I mean the four older ones do— Donald is a most determined bather and when the boys come I daresay he will soon have to swim. I shall be so glad when I have Charlie, as when they have their boat I shall go a good deal on the water... I am really afraid the children will not have a cap left to their backs by the time they get home they scramble about so—we took a short drive the other night but I don't intend taking another in a hurry their charges are so high. When the boys are down I want them to bring those two volumes with french plays written on their back—they will find them in the bookshelf. I happened to have one of Moliere's plays with me and it has amused them so much it is the best kind of french reading as it is all conversational." When Matilda and two of the older children visited English relatives in 1857, Thomas passed along the family news from Toronto: "The children are all well[.] Tilly and Laura have gone to school—we all breakfasted at 8 o'clock this morning—and as usual I counted heads. 3 & 3 makes 6 and 1 makes 7 and 2 makes 9. That being all that I have charge of. Trevelyan is as brisk as a bee—Laura has a slight cold this morning—but of no consequence Augusta is quite well so is Donald. He has Grantry and Freddy playing with him today—as it is a holiday at the school. John Small has sent Laura a draught and she is not so hoarse as she was in the morning." Despite the end of a speculative boom and a slide into moderate recession, Tillie's father engaged Frederic Cumberland to draw up plans for the long-anticipated Sherborne House. Substantially Italianate in style, it had a grand front porch featuring Corinthian columns with a balustrated balcony above and double front doors of heavy mahogany. A vestibule opened into a huge hall with a rich wood wainscot; all ceilings were 4.5 metres high. An archway to the right

The Ridouts of Upper Canada of the front entrance led to the drawing room, which opened in turn to a music room, dining-room, and sunroom. To the left lay a reception room, and behind it, a library. The grand staircase turned at a wide landing, leading to luxuriously appointed bedrooms and sitting-rooms on the second floor. Outside, behind wrought-iron gates, the grounds were landscaped with ornamental trees and shrubs, leading to stables and a carriage house.11 On May 30,1857, Thomas reported to Matilda:

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Thomas Gibbs Ridout, father of Matilda Ridout Edgar.

"Sherborne House progresses rapidly. The first story is nearly up—and it looks well in shape—none of the rooms appear too large. The Hall begins to make a grand appearance—it will be roofed in August and then I must take a rest for the money goes too fast." Sherborne House took several years to complete. No doubt its ballooning expenses, combined with the collapse of the land boom, depleted Ridout's capital, for he told his wife that year that he planned to sell his forty shares of Great Western Railway stock in hopes that it would "yield about £1050 sterling." He replenished his wine cellar with £47 worth of port wine, "direct from Cadiz," and urged Matilda to "buy yourself a first class gold watch—I do not like second rate anything." Now in his late sixties, Thomas Ridout delighted in his houseful of youngsters. Three more children had been born after the move into the new quarters behind the bank building—George in 1852, Laura the following year, and finally baby Trevelyan in 1856—for a total of eleven.

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"He was the kindest of fathers," Tillie wrote to a Scottish relative many years later. "As children we were indulged almost too much." Tillie in turn proved a great help to her father. On June 10, 1860, he wrote to his wife, attending a wedding in Quebec City: "Tilly keeps the kegs on the floor so that they are handy and does the marketing on the economical three penny system—she paid Mrs Hall yesterday £7 in full." Thomas believed that Tillie's admirable job earned her a vacation in Montreal; eight days later he wrote to Matilda: "Tillie has this day paid Mrs. Maddiford, and Samuel their wages, £19 and she will embark this afternoon on board the 'Kingston' steam boat for Montreal with the MacPhersons. I will take her down in the carriage, and will see them off at 1/2 past 4 o'clock. I have given her 20 dollars in gold for pocket money, she is in very great spirits at the thoughts of her trip. She says that she will leave all her accounts in good order and all bills paid except Coles, 9/5 which she has given me to discharge."

Bank of Upper Canada Building, Adelaide and George Streets, Toronto, ca. 1859.

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Tillie's accounts were in much better order than either her father's or the Bank's. During the boom of the early 1850s, Ridout— "an ambitious man, inclined to over optimism"12—led the Bank into large-scale investments in land, railways, and milling enterprises. As conditions worsened, however, the Bank found itself saddled with huge, often uncollectable debts, particularly from the Grand Trunk and Great Western. By 1860, Bank officials were assessing responsibility for the crisis. Ridout was initially hopeful, informing his wife on June 10 that "the Bank is in much better position than it has been for several months past so that I am no longer doubtful about its affairs which I cannot help saying pressed heavily upon my mind." But the situation steadily worsened. Perhaps Ridout and the Bank's president, William Proudfoot, were incapable of significant change. Conditioned by years of loose and casual business dealings, "they lacked the expertise and desire to systematize and rationalize the bank's modus operandi."13 In April 1861, sixty-eight-year-old Thomas Ridout was forced to resign. His successor, Robert Cassels, disclosed that the Bank had lost $1.5 million, or half its capital, as a result of imprudent railway and land speculation.14 Meanwhile, Ridout's own railway and land investments had turned sour. On June 19, he sold his incomplete Sherborne Villa for just $9,500, about half its estimated value only three years earlier.15 Devastated by his misfortunes, Ridout's physical and psychological health deteriorated rapidly and alarmingly. He died on July 29, 1861, the day before his Bank affairs were to be examined. His widow was left in near-desperate straits. Her husband's will bequeathed her a modest sum of just $4,160, much of which went to pay off debts. She had nine children still at home. Sherborne Villa was gone, and she and the children could no longer remain in Bank premises.16 Since most well-paid work was reserved for men, a widow like Matilda Ann Ridout could not move easily into the labour force. Nor was remarriage likely, since widows significantly outnumbered widowers, who tended to take younger women as their second wives17—as T.G. Ridout and his father had done. Matilda's solution was to keep the family together, rely on the older boys for some financial assistance, move to a more modest house at 97 Bloor Street East, and take in boarders or "paying guests."

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The widowed Matilda Ann Ridout and her eleven children.

Three years later, in the autumn of 1864, after Eliza Edgar began boarding at Mrs Ridout's, Eliza's brother James fell in love with Tillie Ridout, and within a few weeks the two young people became engaged to be married.

In March 1865, James's mother journeyed from Thornhill into Toronto to meet Tillie Ridout. Grace was now in her mid-forties, trapped in an abusive relationship with the Revd John Carry, saddled with four young children from that second marriage and with little hope of changing her life. She hoped that circumstances would turn out better for her son and his intended. As she wrote to James after her visit: "A dear sweet girl she seems to be—It seems a miracle to myself how I have from the first believed in her goodness—

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because you know I wd naturally in such a case be hard to please—they say most Mothers are—but I will believe in any amount of goodness in her and she loves you I know and she was "So glad to make you happy." And I pray to God you both may be happy Jamie, and love last, & it will, on to the end— And I do think you have a very good reason to expect happiness—for she (& I am sure you do too) looks upon the affair seriously & rationally & not with a foolish sentimental selffacedness. I could not but contrast her with what I was at her age—she seems to know so much of the world & of her own mind too—& yet withal there is such a serene & innocent look about her... Oh Jamie I hope you & Tillie will be a model couple and never quarrel—She asked me so simply "Are you sorry?" You surely told her how glad I was." Soon there was another family crisis. In a fit of rage, John Carry summarily banished his three stepchildren forever from his Thornhill home. James sheltered both Eliza and Grace in Toronto, where the three were soon boarding in larger (and more expensive) quarters. He wrote to his Aunt Caroline on April 27: "Do you know that I am very happy now with both Eliza and Grace living with me here as they are—how much better than to be separated hundreds of miles as we have been for the last year! We have a comfortable sitting room, a large bedroom for the girls and a smaller one for me. I pay half the rent of a piano for Grace, and we have our meals with Mr and Mrs Marling in whose [house] we are—a very respectable couple. For the rooms & board I pay £2-107 per week—with washing & piano rent &c it is as near as possible £12-107 per month or £150 per year. Then there is clothing and anything else which will bring my expenditures up to about £250 for the next year I expect. I am making at least that & I hope I will be soon getting in part of what I am making." His book on bankruptcy, he told his aunt, was proving a great help to his career:

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"My reputation as an authority on bankruptcy which my little book has given me is already bringing in a good many clients. I have another work in the stocks & I hope to have it launched in several months. It is a handbook of the law of wills & executors: I expect it to bring many clients. I am trying to lay a broad & sure foundation for a future practice that will be worth having. The inducements I have to work hard are multiplying & so is my desire to overcome obstacles." In May, he wrote to Aunt Caroline that "that unfortunate lunatic Carry was worrying poor Mam's life out with abuse of us, & he made a decree that unless we made overtures of peace to him she shd never see or write to us again! Talking this over with Mama and some friends, I came to the conclusion he has been out of his mind, and felt that I might treat him as such. So for Mama's sake Eliza, Grace & I wrote him that we were sorry for what had occurred, &c." On the twenty-first of the month he was able to tell Caroline: "How we roared with laughter over these epistles! But his answer gave us still more amusement—he forgave us! & said that by the suffering of the past year he had more than atoned for whatever we had against him—& wound up saying he would be glad to see any of us out there! I advised Grace—who has had the least ground of complaint against him—to go out & so she did for a couple of days—he was moody & sullen, but Mama was much happier. She now looks upon him as a monomaniac that requires humouring. In order to improve his health he has been advised to go up for a year to "Sault St. Mary" [sic] a half Indian Hudson's Bay post on Lake Superior, & we expect him to start this week & leave the family at Thornhill." Aunt Caroline was far more interested in Tillie Ridout than in John Carry, and on June 5 she begged her future niece directly for details: "Are you fair or dark? tell me the colour of your eyes and hair—are you tall or short? when I know all that with the help of

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your photograph I shall be able to imagine pretty nearly what you are like...Then tell me if you sing or play—or draw or paint. If you are fond of reading and what sort of books you like best. Tell me the names of some of your favourite books, that will give us a better idea of your tastes than anything else... Do you like country or town life? Do you employ yourself in household pursuits? Do you like gardening? Do you like work?...Mamma wants me to add one more question—Are you fond of animals? horses—dogs— birds? You may guess from our asking that we are—and a very particular question—do you like fan? And now my dear Tillie I must stop with our united kind love, believe me, your very affectionate aunt in hope Mary Caroline Edgar" Their engagement proved shorter than planned. On July 20 he let his aunt know: "Ten days ago or so I wrote you and spoke of an auspicious event that might take place this autumn—Well at the instigation mainly of Jarvis, who thought it better to get the thing over before the busiest time in the year, we have determined upon the 5th day of September! The house will all be ready & I have deferred my trip to New York until I can go there with Tillie. Jarvis has very kindly allowed me to draw in advance out of the firm enough to get the house ready & I shall have enough for our trip." Also, a new client augured changes in his professional life: "I have today been called upon by the Manager of the Mercantile Agency Association from Montreal with reference to my undertaking their legal business, which varies from £500 to £1000 per annum. They collect in Upper Canada over a million a year! I have been working for this for a year & he tells me today that he is almost certain to remove his business at once from the firm who have it, and if I will dissolve with Jarvis he will give it to me. At any rate I have his promise of the business on the first chance. I shall be the luckiest fellow in Canada if I get this, and although I shall be rather sorry to separate from Jarvis, it must be done in that case. Jarvis is not popular. I may have to raise the wind suddenly to settle with the firm, but I anticipate no difficulty in that."

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Tuesday, September 5, 1865, was exceptionally warm in Toronto, with temperatures in the mid-eighties Fahrenheit, for the wedding at St John's Church, Portland Street. Though neither bride nor groom was particularly religious, the young couple chose a church wedding without hesitation. Both had been baptized in the Church of England; both attended Sunday services, even if irregularly; and both accepted the church's traditional role as protector and preserver of ethical standards and family morality. Matilda's brief account of the wedding survives in her prayer book: "On 5th September 1865, at St. John's Church, Toronto, by Rev. A. Plowman, James David Edgar and Matilda Ridout were made man and wife, the former aged 24, the latter 20." The wedding party and a small number of guests enjoyed a few light refreshments. Eliza Edgar, conveyed details to her aunt and grandmother on the twelfth: "Last Tuesday morning was bright & very warm & we five, the bridegroom elect, Mama, Grace, Dora (Carry) & myself who all slept in Jamie's house the night before, were up early, and Jamie was not very much excited being able to eat a very hearty breakfast, though he did have to sit at a back window for half an hour "getting cool." Mr. Gradfenhurst, the first groomsman was a great deal more flustered. I, being a bridesmaid, went over to Mrs. Ridout's & saw the little bride who looked very nice in her rich soft dress of white corded silk. When we got to the church we found that the bridegroom was in a great state of impatience at our non- arrival—he had come a few minutes too soon. Tillie bore herself very well through the ceremony but poor old Jim was very nervous & nearly broke down—However I was the only one who made a complete goose of myself in the crying way, & well teased I was about it, the service seemed more solemn than ever before. There were about 25 or 30 guests there, and no wedding breakfast, but fruit of all kinds, the cake, & champagne—it was a very pleasant wedding, without any of the sadness that so often attends them. Mr. Cumberland who

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gave her away, made a speech & Jamie returned thanks for Mrs. Edgar & himself. She looked lovely as she stood there, smiling & blushing, with her veil thrown back, & just coming in a point over her forehead. They set off for New York amid showers of old shoes; for about twenty minutes before they started, you would see peeping out of every second persons pocket a very dilapidated old boot or shoe, where they all came from is an unfathomable mystery."

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Juliana Ridout, sister of Matilda (Tillie).

As in a traditional wedding trip, Mr and Mrs James David Edgar visited relatives and friends and James transacted business. But travel by train and steamship "separated the couple from their friends and relatives for an interlude of deepening emotional and erotic discovery," emphasizing "personal fulfilment as the great goal of married life."18 On September 27, as they settled into their own house at 32 Mercer Street, Toronto, James sent an account to his aunt: "...We went to New York first, via the Hudson River. You know, perhaps, how magnificent the scenery is on the Hudson— Tillie never saw it before & was delighted with it. She had never before been in New York either, and I showed her almost everything there worth seeing. We were asked out to Elizabeth (N.J.) to the Bakers and Tillie had an opportunity of seeing other Mrs. James Edgars. They were very kind to us & my little wife won all their hearts. Twenty five years ago, my father & mother had been there on their wedding trip!...

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We had a pleasant run by water to Boston, where Tillie has often been before when spending the summer months at the seashore. She knew intimately some very nice people there, who received us very kindly. We then went straight through to Niagara by rail without stopping—a distance of 520 miles—neither of us feeling tired after it. We stayed a couple of days at the Falls, and then came home to find the most cozy, snug, comfortable little house in Toronto ready for us."

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At Home with James and Matilda Edgar 1865-1867

"I am afraid of your accusing me of being "spooney" or I would tell you what a dear kind husband Jamie is and how happy I am. It is great fun having a nice house to look after and everything in it looks so pretty and fresh that it is quite a pleasure to look at our new possessions." — Matilda Edgar1

Their home was a modest, two-storey structure at 32 Mercer Street, on the north side between John and Peter streets, one block south of King Street. The Edgars' neighbours—mostly renters— were a cross-section of middle-class, mid-Victorian Toronto: wholesale traders and retail merchants, a tobacco manufacturer and a sail maker, a clergyman and another lawyer. Tillie described their first house in her September 1865 letter to Aunt Caroline Edgar: "There is just enough room in the house to make it "cozy" for two people. As you enter on the right hand side are two pretty sitting rooms connected by folding doors, the back one we use as a dining room—The paper is grey, and the woodwork is all painted white which makes it look nice and clean. Then the curtains are crimson with lace under ones, the furniture is also covered with crimson and the carpet has bunches of rosebuds on a grey ground. All our ornaments and we have no small supply, are

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The Church of St. John the Evangelist where James and Matilda were married in 1865.

gifts. We have the beginning of a nice library in this room in a well-filled bookcase, we both look forward to an unlimited supply of books in days to come. All day Jamie works hard at his office, and I amuse myself in different ways—I have begun to paint again. Latterly I have had no time at home to keep up my drawing, now I have plenty of spare hours at my disposal." In true Victorian style, Tillie cross-hatched the last part of her letter over the preceding lines to save paper and postage costs: "It is time I think to wake my tired husband and give him his

tea. Despite the financial predicaments of both families, Jim and Tillie had been able to furnish their first abode, as he told his aunt on September 27: "Few young people commence with more of the ornamental than we have—plate & china—quite as much as we can desire! Tillie is a capital housekeeper, and has everything so well cooked. We only keep one servant, but she lived for years as cook with a brother of Tillie's, and suits us very well.

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I wish you could see us some evening when I am sitting writing or reading & Tillie reading or doing some little work & afraid to interrupt my more weighty affairs by her chit-chat, until we catch each other both looking up to see how the other is getting on! In the morning we breakfast as early as 8. Dine at 6, or 6.30 if I am late at the office. Have tea brought up at 8 p.m. & get through work. We go to bed about eleven or twelve." From the beginning, the union showed strong indications of being a companionate marriage, with "husband and wife being friends sharing tasks and affection."2 Still, husband and wife had their separate spheres of public work and domestic duties, and the household revolved around James' working schedule. He was the lawyer, and his

Interior of St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church, Toronto, ca. 1867.

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wife, "a capital house keeper." They chose the house in part for its proximity to Toronto's downtown business core—about a ten-minute carriage ride or a twenty-minute walk. From home to office, James Edgar simply proceeded north to King Street, nine blocks east along that busy thoroughfare, then around the corner to the Whittemore Building at 19 Toronto Street, and the offices of Jarvis and Edgar. Unfortunately, James grew increasingly uncomfortable in his partnership and left it at the end of the year. "It was a step not taken without consideration and sound advice," Tillie informed Aunt Caroline, but "he found he was bringing more business than his share in the profits, besides that Jarvis has scarcely been in Toronto since our marriage and is deeply involved in all sorts of speculation." Edgar then placed his own advertisement in various trade journals: J.D, EDGAR BARRISTER AND ATTORNEY-AT-LAW, SOLICITOR IN CHANCERY AND BANKRUPTCY OFFICE No. 11 KING STREET WEST, TORONTO, SOUTH SIDE, NEAR YONGE STREET James Edgar's working life consisted of a daily round of client interviews, legal briefs, and court appearances, with countless hours of preparation and follow-up work at the office or at home.3 To earn extra money and to find outlets for his creative energy, he also lectured and wrote on legal subjects—regular articles for the Toronto Globe and other periodicals and several legal sections to an 1866 textbook, The British American Commercial Arithmetic.41 His major new publication, however, was his Manual for Oil Men and Dealers in Land, a new legal field that promised to expand as rapidly as southwestern Ontario's burgeoning oil industry. Edgar's sixty-nine-page manual discussed land titles and agreements to sell, leases and mortgages, wells, and rights-of-way to wells. It also included advertisements from

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Title page ofManual for Oil Men, a sample of Edgar's recognition of new opportunities for legal practice.

surveyors, land agents, and oil brokers, plus a "new and correct" map of the Lambton County oil district.5 Early in the new year, on January 6, Tillie brought Aunt Caroline up to date: "Jamie will remain [in practice] alone until he has the chance of a very good partnership which he is more likely to get than he was when he entered with Jarvis, he stands on a firmer footing now as a steady old married man! I can assure you he is quite the "Master" as the servant calls him, you w'd never imagine him to be so young. I think his hard work is not hurting him for he is

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looking & feeling well, in spite of late hours. He often writes till 1 o'clock in the morning but the only bad effects I see are a thinness of hair on his forehead and a few more wrinkles on his brow, but these add to his venerable appearance. Our Christmas & New Year's passed happily. The former day we spent at my Uncle's—Mr. Cumberland's—where we always now have our family gathering. Jamie is an addition since last Christmas. The last day of the year, my dear Mother gathered as many of her children as she could round her table. There were many vacant places now as four sons are absent—but two sonsin-law, are added." She added a postscript: "Among your questions you asked if I liked reading. I do most surely. Also drawing and painting. I am very fond of, and am now enjoying the treat of a few lessons from a good master here." James enclosed a note for his grandmother: "...So far I have every reason to congratulate myself, as my business has been remarkably good since the first of the month & if I do as well for the future I shall live well. I found out that Jarvis had appropriated to his own use moneys of a company to which he is Solicitor & that determined me at all hazards to break off from him immediately. I have done so although I am still a good deal in debt to the firm. I have of course taken away a great many debts that amount in all to more than I owe the firm but I fear I shall require to pay current expenses—but I hope I can meet anything with my hard work." Then came a surprise announcement: "Now my dear Grandmama I have a great secret to give you! You can use your own discretion about mentioning it to Aunt Gary but—ahem—there is every prospect of your being a Great Grandmama before anybody is half a year older! What would Tillie say if she thought I had told upon her!..."

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Unfortunately, Anne Edgar did not learn of Tillie's pregnancy, for she suffered a stroke and died on January 4, 1866, three days before Tillie and James's letter was mailed.

Despite his heavy work load and a reluctance to leave his pregnant wife, James travelled to Britain to help settle his grandmother's estate and assume his rightful place as head of the Edgar family. He sailed from New York on February 17, bound for Liverpool. He visited Cousin Mary Watson in Edinburgh, then travelled with Aunt Caroline to Glasgow and Cornwall (the home of another Edgar aunt, Katherine Plomer) to take possession of the family's Jacobite treasures. Finally, he crossed to Dublin to transact legal business and visit Captain George and Mrs Morrison, old friends from Toronto. He reported back to Aunt Caroline: "...I saw Church & Pyle & arranged matters. Church & I had a long talk over investments in Canada & I think I have hit upon a plan for doing a very great deal in that way. My friend Morrison alone wants me to invest several thousands for him. I have bought a beautiful lace dress—white—for Tillie here — from a woman from Limerick who makes it, on the strong recommendation of Mrs. M. It cost me only £3., & in any shop in Dublin wd have cost 8 guineas & in Canada I am sure £12. Mrs. M. has sent for Tillie a pretty lace handkerchief & for Eliza something else in the way of lace. Captain M. is going to see me off at Cork. They are dear old friends, really kind friends... I wish Cousin Mary wd send to me here any letters from Canada up to Thursday.—to me on board S S Asia—Queenstown to Boston—up to the closing of the Canadian mail on Saturday at 5 p.m. This letter is for both you & Cousin Mary—to be read & kept for you or sent on. As you wrote me a line I answer it to you, but both must appropriate the information. I had not time to go to say any more goodbyes on Monday morning—& I do not like saying them at any time. I shall never forget the pleasure of my seeing you both, I can only say that it has made more tangible & strong the love that was created for you by what I knew by letter & by kindness in deed as well as in word.

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My Dearest Wife I feel, now that I am on my way home, that I shall never leave my little wife again till death divides us. Am I not spoony?" James wrote again to his aunt on April 19 after arriving home:

"After a voyage distinguished by the absence of rough weather, if not by the speed of the ship, I reached Boston on Friday J.D. Edgar as a young married man. last, & Toronto on Saturday. There were about a hundred passengers and in spite of a little squeamishness I enjoyed myself—because, I think, I was on the way home—there's no place like it even if it is a small one... Tillie 's mother is quite strong again & my little wife who had kept in the best of health in my absence has been threatened with pleurisy since I came back & although much better requires nursing. She & Eliza send love & thanks for the presents & will write soon. Mama has been in & I have told her a great deal. Snuffbox & pearls safe, & my trunks were never opened... I have drawn on Church for £310—at 15 days after sight. I signed a bond for £400 to you when in Glasgow & you have made me feel so happy my dearest Aunt by clearing me by this advance. The £800 if it comes & does not hamper or inconvenience you in any way will be invaluable to me in business affairs. My business prospects look very good. I find two [law] books published of mine while I have been away, & after my two months of idleness begin to think that I must have worked pretty hard before I left. I am at it again, but feel in such excellent health & intend to take dumb-bell exercise."

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That spring the threat of attacks along the Canadian— American border from the Fenians, a group of antiBritish Irish Americans, stirred the blood of James Edgar and many other Torontonians. When a Fenian band crossed the Niagara River near Fort Erie and defeated a force of Canadian militiamen in early June,6 James hurried to the scene. He reported the drama to his aunt on June 24: "I went over to Fort Erie the other day to "the front" when the Fenians were exciting us and had a couple of days camp life, but when I crossed to Buffalo and ascertained that Matilda Edgar in the late 1860s. there would be no chance to get a shot at a "Finnegan" I came back. To be useful here I did a good deal to get up a night patrol, and collected more than three thousand dollars for the Volunteer Relief Fund...I did not happen to belong to any volunteer company so was a day late for the fight... Eliza is with us just now, but will go away next week to see some friends in anticipation, no doubt, of the arrival of someone else. Dear Till is bearing up remarkably well and can walk a couple of miles yet... Carry has come back for a time from the Sault—he talks of going there for four years. Since his return he has been quite rational, and is actually going to take Mama across to see Niagara Falls tomorrow." Tillie, in the final weeks of her pregnancy, wrote to Caroline Edgar on May 2 3:

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"Before I speak of anything else I must thank you for the pearls. They are a most lovely and valuable present and you may be sure I shall be very careful of them, and try and give them in as good order to another James Edgar's wife. Your other present I am going to expend gladly in a black silk dress, as I do not possess that useful article. And as they can be procured much better and more reasonably in England, my cousin is going to buy one there for me and send it out. I suppose by this time you have settled down again at Aix. Does not Jamie's hasty visit to you seem like a dream? I The writing desk brought to Canada am glad you have seen from Scotland by J.D. Edgar. him and know by personal experience what a dear good fellow he is. He is such a kind loving husband and I do indeed consider myself most fortunate in having him as my life long companion. I couldn't help laughing when Jamie produced from his trunk a pair of baby's shoes from Aunt Kate. Did he tell her that he expected the arrival of a little stranger who would be destitute of boots! Before I can get an answer to this I daresay I shall be a "Mamma," as if all goes well the baby will come about the first or second week in July—My Mamma is stitching its dresses with her sewing machine and last week my kind friend Lady Robinson, who is constantly making me nice presents, sent me two beautifully embroidered robes...

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You speak of your little garden—we can boast of one too though it is of very small dimensions. Jamie has quite a taste for gardening and out of very poor materials has made quite a pretty place. So I hope in the summer to have plenty of flowers. Jim is sitting by me writing an article for the newspaper. He sends his love to you... I think this will be my last letter to you before I am ill. I know you will think of me in my troubles.—and pray for me—I cannot help feeling sometimes a dread of what is coming so soon." Certainly her own mother, who herself had experienced eleven pregnancies, must have been a constant companion and confidante.7 Tillie's prayer-book records the baby's arrival and christening: "JAMES FREDERICK EDGAR WAS BORN IN MERCER ST. TORONTO ON FRIDAY JULY 6ra 1866 AT 8.30 AM. CHRISTENED AT ST. JOHN'S CHURCH BY REV. A. WILLIAMS ON SEPT. IND 1866. SPONSORS F.W. CUMBERLAND CAPT. GEORGE MORRISON & ELIZABETH FRANCES MACPHERSON." Tillie sent a letter to Aunt Caroline late in August (the twentyeighth): "Instead of feeling weak and frightened when my time came as I had expected, I felt indeed that promise verified "As thy days so shall thy thoughts be." I was most mercifully dealt with for I had less than the usual amount of suffering at the time and a most rapid recovery. You may imagine our delight when a real live boy baby made its appearance. I believe when the news was announced to Jim & Eliza downstairs they rushed crying into each others arms. You will wonder at Eliza being in the house but she was most unfortunately caught. All her arrangements were made to go away the following day, as she had always declared she would not be in the house at the time I was suffering, but I was taken ill sooner than I expected and as it was in the middle of the night she had to remain. I could barely help

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A section of a map of Toronto ca. 1867 showing the location of Edgar's new home on Mercer Street (1), James' office (2) and St. John's Church (3).

laughing in the midst of my pain when they told me she was downstairs shutting her ears and reiterating she would never never be married. Now for the son. He is unanimously pronounced a "splendid fellow." I do wish you could see him. He has thrived beautifully since his birth and is now considered a splendid fellow, so strongly built and more like a baby three months old than one six weeks. He has a well shaped head covered with soft dark hair, a fine forehead the same shape as his father's, at present his eyes are the

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darkest blue, most likely they will turn brown. They look black at night and are very bright. His nose is particularly pretty, everyone notes it, straight and prettily shaped and a very firm looking mouth and chin. He promises to be very tall as his limbs are long. It is quite a pleasure to wash and dress him as I do, he is so firm and enjoys a splash, and his bath so much." James also told his aunt (November 29) about his delight in his young son: "Our dear little son or as I call him—'Bubbins' is a source of delight to his Mother, Aunt & father. Poor chap was ill for a couple of weeks, but in a week has put on immense quantities of fat." Tillie enclosed a photograph and a glowing account: "This picture was taken a month ago when the young man was not quite four months old. It was the last day that he wore long dresses, now he is in short clothes and of course looks much older. You see he is a pretty chubby youngster, but of course it was impossible to get a very correct likeness of so young a baby... Baby is getting so sensible now. Every day makes a difference. At night when his papa comes home we undress the little fellow and let him kick about the bed without his clothes. He has learnt the great accomplishment of putting his toes into his mouth. Interesting details these, are they not? I am most fortunate in having an excellent nurse who takes very good care of him and makes the child very happy. We have a very happy little home here. Jamie is as good a husband as he was a lover and Baby completes our happiness." As well, their social life was looking up: "Toronto is going to be very gay this winter—it is quite a military station now, and of course there will be plenty of parties—I like going out occasionally—and Jim does not grumble at it now as he used to."

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And politics beckoned: "You will laugh when I tell you that the ambitious man is going to run as Alderman this year. He has a good chance of being elected and though there is not much honour in the post itself— still one has to be Alderman before becoming Mayor. And now he is almost portly enough for a City Father. Jim is in his element at an election, and it is so long since he took part in one that I fancy he is "blue moulded for want of a Satin..."

James Edgar possessed a strong public or political persona that demanded recognition beyond the domestic circle. Through 1866, he established his solo law practice, wrote his newspaper pieces and legal pamphlets, and collected for the Fenian Volunteer Relief Committee to aid families of militiamen killed or wounded in the attack. At year's end, with his law practice in order, his Manual for Oil Men attracting favourable attention, and the Fenian threat subsiding, he looked forward to a much more visible role as a candidate for city council. James had first considered running two years earlier. Successful in his 1864 bar admission examinations, and having just met Tillie, he felt ready to take on the world. James realized, however, that his chance of winning in the rough-and-tumble of Toronto civic politics was extremely slim. His immediate priorities lay in building his law practice and clearing his debts. By Christmas 1866, however, temptation proved too strong to resist. James Edgar, now twenty-five, had a family and an established practice, a growing reputation in chancery and bankruptcy law, and a public presence as secretary of the popular Volunteer Monument Fund, which proposed a memorial in Queen's Park to Canadians killed during the Fenian raids. So James decided to run as an aldermanic candidate for St George's Ward, southwest of the intersection of King and Yonge streets and surrounding 32 Mercer. Edgar enjoyed strong support from the Globe and its editor, George Brown. He was the newspaper's legal reporter and editor, overseeing coverage of the city's courts, and for some time he had been identified as one of Brown's bright young men, a go-getter in

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the city's Reform or Liberal political circles.8 Yet the Grand Trunk Railway urged its employees to vote against him, because of his links with Frederic Cumberland of the rival Northern Railway. The Conservative Toronto Leader flatly opposed Edgar, charging that his £160 assessment in combined annual residence and office rent was only half the minimum recently required for an alderman.9 In an exceptionally close race on January 7, Edgar captured the third and final seat by a mere thirteen votes over incumbent Richard Tinning. At city council's inaugural meeting on January 21, James found himself one of the "outs," fighting all evening with what the Globe called "the clique."10 Yet even before this session, the Leader had called for Edgar's removal because of insufficient property.11 In court, James argued that the new assessment regulations should not have taken effect for the 1867 election. Mr Justice Adam Wilson decided otherwise; he unseated Alderman Edgar and ordered a new election. Thus ended J.D. Edgar's brief career in civic politics, for he made the decision not to run again; nor did he ever contest another municipal election.

CHAPTER

6

Through Private Tragedy to Public Success 1867-1872

May our Dominion flourish then, A goodly land and free, Where Celt and Saxon, hand in hand, Hold sway from sea to sea; Strong arms shall guard our cherished homes, When darkest danger lowers, And with our life-blood we'll defend This Canada of ours. Fair Canada, Dear Canada, This Canada of Ours.1

WITH WORDS BY JAMES EDGAR and music by Tillie's cousin, Elizabeth Ridout, "This Canada of Ours" won first prize in a public competition for the "best Canadian National Song" during Confederation year, 1867. The piece was occasionally recited and sung over the next generation, though "by no means adopted as the National Air."2 Jim's son Pelham, a poet and literary critic, believed that it might have become a national anthem "had the music matched the verses in merit."3 In the end, however, any lack of reference to the country's French heritage doomed it to failure beside Adolphe-Basile Routhier (French lyrics), R. Stanley Weir (English lyrics) and Calixa Lavellee's (melody) composition of "O Canada."

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By spring 1867, the proposed confederation of British North America dominated the political thinking of Jim Edgar and the Upper Canadian Reformers. Party leader George Brown desperately needed a grand gathering of party members to solidify ranks and prepare for the new country's first national election, expected that summer. "There are lots of new men ready to join us," Brown wrote, "some of them very good men."4 One of the more prominent was James Edgar, who was elected on April 9 to be co-secretary of a provisional Central Executive Committee of the revitalized Reform Association of Upper Canada. Later that month, Edgar polled prominent party members on holding a Reform convention similar to the great one of 1859. On receiving favourable replies, he sent a general letter to local Reform organizations, calling for a June gathering in Toronto. On the morning of June 27, Edgar joined more than six hundred Reformers at the Music Hall on Church Street. As it was the home of the Mechanics' Institute, the building reminded Jim of his many public speeches and debates of earlier days. Now, however, while Brown and other Reform luminaries made the public speeches, Edgar worked behind the scenes as convention secretary and member of the credentials committee. At the end of the second day, he received a vote of thanks for his preliminary work in organizing the gathering.5 At the close of the convention, he was elected to a permanent Central Executive Committee and, as its secretary for the next nine years. Edgar served as de facto party organizer for Ontario. James actively campaigned for Reform interests in three constituencies during the summer election campaign. In East Toronto, he seconded nominations for W.T Atkins and James Stock for the new dominion and provincial houses, then watched unhappily as the Liberal-Convervative coalition candidates captured both seats. In West Toronto, he spoke in favour of John S. Macdonald and Adam Crooks, but again government men won both seats.6 Edgar's activities in suburban West York, a riding that included Woodbridge, provoked the greatest controversy. He and William Blain, another young Toronto lawyer, made several forays into West York in an unsuccessful attempt to secure the Reform nomination for a trusted Brown disciple. The Conservative Toronto Leader branded Edgar and Blain "suckling barristers" and "pet lambs and whippers-

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in of the anti-Union party." Edgar was particularly ridiculed as head of a "black-bottle brigade" that went from house to house with a mysterious bottle, "intending to steam up the honest yeomanry of West York with its contents."7 Most galling was the Toronto Telegraph's charge that Edgar was "in declared opposition" to Confederation.8 Yet he had championed a union of British North America as far back as an 1863 debate at the Mechanics' Institute; inspired by Confederation, he had penned "This Canada of Ours;" now he "was working in the ranks of my party in Ontario to James Frederick Edgar, born July 6, 1866. bring about Confederation."9 Election returns from across the country doomed James Edgar and his Reform colleagues to defeat. John A. Macdonald's LiberalConservative coalition won a clear majority of Ontario's eighty-two dominion seats, while his new-found ally, John Sandfield Macdonald, won a similar margin provincially. Later the Reformers would gradually identify with the Liberal party. Embarrassed in West York, and weary of electioneering, James needed a holiday. He joined his family and in-laws in Niagara Falls, as he told Aunt Caroline on July 22: "Tillie, Bubbins & nurse are over here for a fortnight & I come over to them for a few days whenever time permits. We are in rooms at a pretty village on the Canadian side, ten minutes walk from the horse shoe Fall... The other morning I got up early & went down to spear sturgeon underneath the Falls—a rather exciting sport. We cross in the ferry through the foam & have a peep at the Yankees—the

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fashionable world is all travelling and five or six hundred visit the hotels every day. Or, as we did today, we take our lunch and Tennyson & spend the heat of the day on the lovely shady island among the grand rapids above the Falls... Bubbins, as I said, is here. Brown as a berry, sturdy as a bull & feeding like a Cormorant on the products of our landlady's two cows. He is great fun... There is a goodly assembly of children here just now. Tillie's Mother & the younger brothers & sisters - Her sister Mrs. Boulton & 3bs (little Bs!) Mrs. Cumberland, her Aunt, & 3Cs" A postscript reads: "Tillie says I am not to let out any of her secrets, about a brother or sister for Bubbins — so I cannot say anymore!" Tillie mentioned her second pregnancy to Aunt Caroline a few weeks later: "I am so busy I have not time to think much of it—I am getting all [young] Jamie's winter things ready. He has always been dressed in white, but I am making him now coloured frocks, of braided french merino— warm petticoats, and jackets, etc. etc. Jim will have to work hard to supply the wants of such a rapidly increasing family—he is pretty hopeful about his business—it seems steadily increasing. Such a darling husband he is, it falls very seldom to the lot of women to be as perfectly happy as I am, he is happy too, I know, in his home— SO we have what is better than riches."

Harrie Hamilton Edgar (1867-1871), a photograph by W. Notman.

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Tillie gave birth uneventfully to Harrie Hamilton Edgar on November 17, 1867, but "was taken very ill" shortly afterward. "Wrong medicine was given," she told Aunt Caroline. "I had a relapse so it was fully a month before I got round again. I suffered much more than I did with Jamie. I suppose having another baby so soon ... and to make matters worse my bed broke down the very night I was confined and the fright and tumble brought about my illnesses." Tillie soon rebounded, however, and the following summer sent news to Aunt Gary on a steamy July 5: "It is almost impossible to do anything but breathe in the middle of the day ... Jim and I go out boating very often on the bay, knowing it's capital exercise for him. I forget whether I have written you since his new partnership? It is now Strong, Edgar, & Graham. The first named is an eminent Q.C. and they prophesy great things from the new firm. Jim is as good a husband as ever if not better and if anyone deserves to get on he does. We have had notice to quit our house as the landlord intends moving in himself—I think we shall move late in the autumn, but if possible not till the spring. We shall take care to get one large enough for Eliza, so she may not be under the disagreeable necessity of boarding." Strong, Edgar and Graham was one of Toronto's larger law firms, with offices in the Wellington Chambers, on Jordan Street in the heart of downtown Toronto. Richard Graham was a new lawyer, while James Edgar brought the firm substantial railway business (thanks to Frederic Cumberland and the Northern Railway) as well as work in bankruptcy and property law. Senior partner Samuel Strong boasted a solid reputation in chancery and equity law and was a queen's counsel and a bencher of the Law Society of Upper Canada.10 Meanwhile, the Edgars' landlord allowed them to remain at 32 Mercer Street for an additional rent of £15 a year, and to save for the extra expense, Tillie cut back from three servants to two. Early in the new year, on January 17, she brought Caroline Edgar up to date:

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"My old hubby is aging a little. He is a little balder, a little stouter, and has more lines in his face than when you saw him, but he is still a very presentable person. Jamie is handsomer than ever, and is such a bright clever boy. I wish you could see him. Harrie is very sweet, but not so pretty as he promised to be as a baby. He is walking now, but not talking; he is his father's pet. I am blessed with healthy children— the doctor is an unknown individual in this house." amuel enryS That£.spring the family's land- ^ " *°"g' ^ P**^ j Strong, Edgar and Graham. He later lord refused any more rental served as Chief Justice of Canada. extensions, and the Edgars put their furniture into storage and decamped to Aurora, north of Toronto, not too far from James' mother in Holland Landing and within commuting range of the city on the Northern Railway. Finally, on August 1, 1869, the Edgars moved into their new home on Bellevue Avenue, in a suburban development northwest of Dundas Street and Spadina Avenue—some distance from downtown but close to the countryside. Jamie and Harrie romped in the garden, their parents played croquet on the lawn, and a vegetable garden promised winter's potatoes. "The house is a queer looking gabled one," Tillie wrote to Aunt Gary in November, "but very comfortably arranged inside & will suit us very well until Jim is able to build one for himself." As for her husband, "For weeks he has scarcely given himself an hour's relaxation. His book occupied all his spare time first and now he is deep in parliamentary work. You will be glad to hear he is solicitor for a railway now and he is fighting hard for it before the House." She was busy, too: "After neglecting music for years I have taken it up again and now practise regularly, much to the delight of the two Jamies. The little monkey

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knows all the popular airs by name and asks for his favourite tunes whenever I sit down to the piano." Yet by the following March, they were moving again, disappointed by the cold, the expense of heating their home, and the distance of James's communting, to say nothing of rapid development in the area: "We have taken a very nice house in one of the pleasantest streets in Toronto, not in the heart of the town, but just a nice walk from the office. It is a three storey white brick house with bow windows—& large airy rooms. We shall have no garden, I am sorry to say, but it is near a public avenue which will be a nice place for the children to play in—& it is also near my dear mother; we expect to move next month." The Edgars settled into 183 John Street, just north of Queen and south of the park surrounding The Grange, W.H. Boulton's grand residence. John was a street of upper-middle-class professional families, and at least four other barristers resided in the same block. Among the first house guests were James' sister, Eliza, and her Scottish husband, William Wilkie. Tillie told Aunt Caroline that she wished that William "had a little of her vigor. They seem devotedly fond of each other." After their guests returned from a week at Niagara Falls, "we all including Jamie & Harrie went to Orillia, a pretty village on Lake Couchiching about 80 miles from here. We spent a few days boating, fishing, etc. Jamie much to his delight, caught his first fish, he has inherited his father's taste for the sport—wee Harrie looked on in admiration."

James Edgar was working at fever pitch for the Canada First movement, then publicizing and popularizing the Canadian west.11 During the winter of 1869—70, the armed resistance of Louis Riel and his Red River followers to annexation by the dominion gave Canada First a loaded issue around which to whip up enthusiasm. Bad enough that Riel's provisional government had executed Thomas Scott, an Ontario resident who had attempted to uphold the authority of the dominion government. In addition, Canada Firsters, Charles Mair and John Schultz, had been captured and apparently had avoided death only by escaping. Edgar and George Denison suggested giving Mair and Schultz

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heroes' welcomes at a public reception in Toronto. Canada First could denounce Riel for the murder of Scott and force Ottawa to send a military expedition against the rebels. At a secret meeting on April 2, some of the Conservative members cautioned against taking action until farther information was available and until Mair and Schultz had reported to Ottawa. Denison, however, argued for immediate action and, according to his memoirs, soon had the majority with him. Edgar then moved that the mayor be asked to call a public meeting to welcome George Taylor Denison III, (1839-1925) Mair and Schultz, which passed ca. 1870. Leader of the Canada First movement, Col. Denison was a noted without further discussion.12 soldier, author and police magistrate of Mair arrived in Toronto on Toronto, 1877-1921. Friday April 1, and Schultz was expected the following Tuesday. On Monday, Edgar helped persuade the mayor to call a public meeting for Wednesday the sixth. That gathering was scheduled for the St Lawrence Hall, but was moved outside when more than five thousand people turned out. Resolutions proposed by civic leaders and Canada First members would have welcomed the "refugees," condemned the murder of Scott, and urged Ottawa to act.13 Still, Edgar and the Reform faction of Canada First argued that the meeting had not gone far enough. Accordingly they called another meeting for April 9, and though the Leader contemptuously dismissed it as the work of the "Clear Grit Junta in this city," some seven thousand people turned out on Front Street to support resolutions condemning government policy.14 Much of Canada First's strategy was planned at meetings in George Denison's law office in Wellington Chambers, where

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Edgar's firm was also located. Since the original dozen members still called themselves the "Twelve Apostles," several alternative names were considered, before Denison learned that James Edgar had proposed a good name. He went to his neighhour's office and asked him what he had in mind. Edgar forgot his exact words but suggested "Canada before All" or "Canada First of All." Denison was satisfied. "That will do: Canada First." He went back to his own office and persuaded the others to adopt the name.15 Edgar and Canada First continued to George Brown (1818-1880), leader of

the Upper Canada Reform Party and publisher of the Toronto Globe.

exploit the situation. They supr J ^ t

1TTT1

1 ,

1

POTted C°lonel W^^V * ^med expedition to Red River, while

opposing amnesty for Riel and his followers; they secured the arrest of Riel's emisssaries to Ottawa on charges of murder, though the case was later dismissed for lack of evidence; they protested the introduction of Quebec law into the North West. To Edgar's embarrassment, however, publicity for a July 22 meeting took a decidedly pro-Orange, anti-French tone. Sympathetic to the political desires of French Canada, and having resigned from the Orange Order on principle, Edgar balked at such sentiments. When his turn came to speak, he eschewed any religious or racial bigotry and argued forcefully for the "prompt punishment of the perpetrators" of the Red River insurrection and of Scott's murder, "whether English, Scottish, Irish or French Canadians."16 Yet Edgar soon proved himself as culturally partisan as most Anglo-Protestant Torontonians. At a meeting at the Mechanics' Institute on August 3, Edgar spoke in favour of forming a Northwest Emigration Aid Society. The agency would assist young British and Ontario men to settle in the Canadian west, thus forestalling a "determined effort being made to import another element into the popu-

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J.D. Edgar's sister, Elizabeth, at the time of her wedding in 1869. She married W.P. Wilkie, Edinburgh barrister.

lation, whose political and national sympathies would be a bar to progress, and to the extension of a great Anglo-Saxon Dominion across the Continent."17 There was no doubt that he meant Frenchspeaking, Roman Catholic Quebec. Was he so caught up with Canada First's radical nationalism that he temporarily saw his Quebec brethren as a hindrance to national progress? Meanwhile, Edgar's law practice flourished and his family con-

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tinued to grow. In January 1871, Tillie wrote to Aunt Caroline: "Has any little bird whispered to you of the event that is to take place in this household very shortly? Maud, as Eliza always calls it, is on the way. We have been so long without a baby in the house that the little stranger is looked forward to with a great deal of pleasure. If it is only as pretty, healthy & intelligent as the other two I shall be quite satisfied!" Her husband was doing well: "as solicitor of the Muskoka Railway, he gets four hundred pounds a year, which is a permanent income. This is quite independent of his other law business which is mounting up. I shall be very glad when I can tell you that we have saved and invested money. I see a prospect of it now, I don't think it is in the Edgar blood to be very saving, but we live comfortably, and pay what we owe." He looked the part, too: "Jim is beginning to look like the heavy father of a family. I think he thoroughly enjoys his children & they idolize him." Neither Tillie's third pregnancy nor his own busy law practice kept James Edgar away from the Ontario election of March 1871. As provincial Reform organizer, he drummed up candidates, organized nominating meetings, campaigning actively in West Toronto and East Durham ridings, and ran himself as Reform candidate in Monck, a rural constituency in the Niagara Peninsula. On the hustings, Edgar denounced coalition government and urged a return to twoparty politics; he criticized the government for lavishing large sums of money on railway companies building lines in distant counties, while not giving Monck its fair share of the bounty; he denounced Ontario Premier Sandfield Macdonald's weak stand against Louis Riel and the "murderers" of Thomas Scott.18 Opposition to Edgar was led by the Toronto Leader, which vilified him as one of George Brown's "chancery brigade," a coterie of Toronto lawyers "forced" on rural constituencies. He was "Millionaire" Edgar, employing the tactics of "the Black Bottle Brigade on the electors of Monck."19 The race was exceptionally close. Monck Conservatives replaced their original candidate with Lachlin McCallum, the riding's dominion member. McCallum's local residency and higher profile, com-

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bined with the Leader's editorial efforts and Edgar's late entry, tipped the balance. On March 21, Edgar lost by just five votes—931 to 926.20 Yet the campaign lived on with Jim and Tillie through their new son, Oscar Pelham Edgar. "I remember my father telling me that he had promised to give his baby boy the name of the polling booth which gave him the most votes in the election," daughter Maud wrote years later. "Happily, it was Pelham [Township] and he was known by that name ever after."21 Meanwhile, Monck's Reformers refused to accept the election defeat as final. Edgar's short but spirited campaign had raised their morale, and they clamoured for a return match. They petitioned to have McCallum's victory declared invalid, arguing that a number of votes were bought with Conservative money. While waiting for the case to be heard, Edgar raised his local profile by addressing mammoth Reform "picnics" at Welland Port and Port Colborne.22 The election trial finally opened at Dunnville on August 22, but the presiding judge referred the case to a higher court, and after several postponements the case remained unsettled.

Tragedy struck the Edgar household that November. In the midst of excitement over the contested Monck election, the Edgars lost their son, Harrie, after a short childhood disease, just three days short of his fourth birthday. Tillie noted in her prayerbook just beneath the happy notation of birth and christening: "Harrie Hamilton Edgar died at Toronto, 183 John Street, Tue. 14th Nov. 1871, at 5:45 AM[.] Buried in St. James Cemetery[.]" It was three months before Tillie could share her grief with Caroline Edgar. On February 15, 1872, she wrote: "We were away for a fortnight at St. Catharine's, a place about 12 miles from Niagara Falls. Jamie had not been well & we thought change of air wd do him good. He came back quite fat & rosy & now continues, thank God, quite well. Jim & baby [Pelham] remained at home except that the former spent from Saturday to Monday with me each week — Baby was not allowed to leave home as he has had the whooping cough—he has not been out of doors since the middle of December, nor will he be able

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to go out until April. In spite of being a hot-house plant, he is thriving nicely—the cough is nearly over & it is leaving no bad effects. He is a dear little fellow, very pretty & winning, he has done much to comfort us in our trouble but nothing can make up for our darling Harrie. I think our loss grows greater every day. We think of him now as he was before his illness — so merry & sweet. Sometimes I can fancy I hear his voice—or his step—it is so hard to realize it is only fancy. It seems almost as if part of Jamie has gone with Harrie—the two were so much together—Well— it is only for a little while, this terrible separation... I enclose a photo of Jamie—you see he's growing a big boy— his face is not so fat as it appears in the picture still it is a good likeness. I am sending you also a cabinet portrait of him— a speaking likeness it has caught a thoughtful look that he often has. He is wise beyond his years on some things. I am teaching him now regularly & find him very quick. His great ambition just now is to be six years old & many are the wonderful things that he means to do when he arrives at that mature age ... Everything seems now very different to us from last year—I think Jim's ambition is buried in a little grave. I know life is different to us both." In December 1871, with the collapse of Sandfield Macdonald's government and the swearing in of the provincial Liberals, the Reform party decided that Edgar would be more valuable in Opposition ranks in Ottawa than on government back benches in Toronto. Accordingly, Monck's Reformers abandoned their provincial court battle and nominated Edgar for the coming 1872 national election. The Reformers entered the dominion campaign in a much stronger position than five years earlier. As Ontario party organizer, Edgar had spent much of the intervening period strengthening local constituency associations. Ontario was the main battleground for the summer campaign, with Monck one of its most bitterly contested ridings. The Conservatives again named McCallum and confidently predicted victory. And why not, since the riding had been gerry-mandered by the addition of the solidly Tory township of Dunn! Meanwhile, the Conservative press attacked Edgar with full

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force. To the Toronto Leader, he was the "representative of the once famous Chancery Brigade" and the "mere tool of a clique"; the St. Catharines Journal called him a "third-rate lawyer from Toronto."23 While Jim stumped the back roads of Monck, Tillie and the children holidayed again at nearby Niagara-on-the-Lake, whence she wrote to Aunt Caroline on August 13: "We are not at an hotel this summer but have rented a tiny cottage for the summer. The plan answers very well. The children are more comfortable, & I am quieter. We shut up our house in Toronto—& brought our three servants with us. Of course they have less to do than in town but I am glad to give them a little rest they are so good ... The children are improving every day. Jamie is looking stronger than he has ever done. He is so tanned. There is a nice beach near us where he plays & he goes in bathing nearly every day. Pelham has grown quite a big independent boy ... And now I must tell you a little secret which I have not told to anyone yet across the water. There is another baby on the way— I am expecting my confinement about the last of November so you see it is not very far off. Nobody knew in Toronto before I left except my Mother but now I can conceal it no longer. If it is a girl, I shall call it Maud Caroline so it shall be partly your namesake." Meanwhile, James Edgar travelled the back roads of Monck, speaking at numerous community halls in cross-roads hamlets. Angered by the gerry-mandering, Monck's Reformers now supported their outside candidate with enthusiasm. This time Edgar captured Monck by a slim margin of forty-one votes. At the age of thirty-one, James David Edgar had fulfilled his private vow, made eight years earlier, to become a member of the House of Commons

CHAPTER

7

Member of Parliament 1872-1874

"To fill a Canadian with pride in his country, and confidence in its future, shew him the noble pile of the national buildings as they tower and glitter in the setting sun, far above the foaming river. It may not be a logical ground for his patriotism, but it is a sentimental one, and it will influence his feelings and his actions when he goes back to his distant home, whether it be on the western prairie, on the shores of the Atlantic, or on the far-off Pacific Slope." —J.D. Edgar1

JAMES EDGAR WAITED SEVEN MONTHS following his August election victory to take his place in Ottawa. Time to consolidate his law practice, to see Tillie through her fourth pregnancy, to visit—all before Parliament opened in March 1873. His first priority was to find a new business arrangement, for the firm of Strong, Edgar and Graham dissolved with Samuel Strong's appointment to the Ontario Court of Chancery. Edgar quickly became senior partner with Frederick Fenton, continuing in the Wellington Chambers on Jordan Street; the firm became Edgar, Fenton and Ridout, after Tillie's brother John joined. While the partnership encompassed commercial, corporate, and real estate law, James increasingly concentrated on railway business, acting as solictor for the Northern Railway, a plum offered him by general manager Frederic Cumberland. Railway business certainly claimed top priority in November

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1872. Though Tillie was in the late stages of pregnancy, James left her in her mother's care while he and Cumberland travelled to Britain to court investors. From London, he wrote his aunt: "I should certainly have written you the moment I received the cable message on 3rd inst in these words 'Mother and daughter doing well.' Ever since then I have been anxious to hear more—but strangely no one has written." Maud Caroline had arrived safely on December 2. Tillie's mother also sent news to Aunt Caroline: "Tillie...is getting on very satisfactorily & baby, I think, will be pretty. At present she looks very much like her brother Jamie...Fortunately she lives within three doors of my house and spent the greater part of every day with me, and for the last fortnight I have always slept with her, her safety has removed a greater anxiety from my mind." James spent Christmas in Edinburgh with his recently widowed sister, Eliza Wilkie. He sent greetings home on Christmas Day: "Dear Eliza is looking rather better than I had expected. It is most extraordinary to see her in her widow's weeds—poor child. I think my visit is doing her good—although we both stand on the edge of a chasm that we cannot help sometimes looking into. She has told me all about William's end, & I have told her all about Harrie's—and we feel that we have got over the worst of our meeting, and try to be as jolly as it is possible to be..." He had met cousin Mary Watson; "Today I take my Xmas dinner with her at half past 5 & she I think does not like me to be taken away from Eliza while in Edinburgh." James Edgar sailed from Liverpool on January 2 3. He took his seat in the House of Commons on March 6, the opening day of the First Session of Canada's Second Parliament. No longer a parochial Upper Canada Reformer, Edgar was now part of an emerging national Liberal party led by Alexander Mackenzie. James was quick off the mark

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as a new member, joining the debate on the throne speech on March 12. "Mr. Edgar was glad to see something in the speech that would seem to encourage emigration, though he thought the Government might heretofore have done much more on the matter than they had done," reported the Globe. "If Canada only did what she ought an immense stream of emigration might be assured next year." Later in the session, he spoke in favour of a secret ballot for dominion elections, "to allow every person to vote J. David Edgar, M.P., May 1873. according to his convictions."2 Edgar's most valuable work during the 1873 session was as chief opposition whip. He was a natural choice—young, full of enthusiasm, and a proven organizer. And the Liberals needed a strong whip. Many members from the smaller provinces were not formally committed to either national party, and there were even rumblings of discontent among both the Ontario and Quebec government supporters. When the first recorded vote came on a charge of electoral corruption, the Conservative government emerged with a slender majority of sixteen— much less than John A. Macdonald had expected. The opposition was stronger, fiercer, and more able than during the First Parliament. The Pacific Scandal provided Edgar with his greatest test as party whip. Through the winter of 1872-73, the Globe protested that the government had handed over too much power to the Pacific railway company without obtaining parliamentary consent. By early March, the paper hinted that Conservative funds for the previous election had been supplied largely by individuals who were awarded railway contracts. Rumours circulated that the opposition was preparing a sensational attack on the railway scheme. The days passed, with Edgar lining up support, until Lucius Huntington rose on April 2 to lay his charges. Hugh Allan's Pacific

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Railway company was only nominally Canadian, Huntington argued, and Allan had received the charter for supplying campaign funds from his American backers to ministers during the election. All other business in the House now took second place. Edgar spoke occasionally, invoking precedents from Westminster to justify Liberal moves. Yet his main job lay behind the scenes in seeing that the opposition forces kept up their attack on the Macdonald ministry.

Though Ottawa proved politically exciting, it offered little intellectual stimulation once the House adjourned for the day. As a small city of less than 25,000 people, torn between its lumber-town past and its new life as a capital,3 Ottawa was disappointing for Edgar after cosmopolitan London, historic Edinburgh, and bustling Toronto. For him and many other MPs, Ottawa was a transient city of boardinghouses, restaurant meals and drinks at the Rideau Club. He felt lonely, for Tillie was nursing their baby daughter in Toronto and unable to get to Ottawa, even for weekend visits. James and Tillie began their long, loving practice of writing to each other once or twice a day whenever they were apart. From the House of Commons he wrote her on April 21, 1873: "Just received your welcome letter & no doubt you will receive mine of yesterday in the morning & this in the afternoon. This afternoon I made rather a good speech on a legal question. I worked hard at it yesterday & today at my room—but it is very lonely to go back there & see nobody—big or little—that I care a straw for. I am all right again." His letters to Tillie contain frequent references to his own physical well-being—a Victorian preoccupation, but also an indication that he was far from healthy. He was certainly an impressive-looking man, over six feet tall and of a strong, muscular build, but he found neither time nor inclination to exercise on a regular basis. He was also a hearty eater, perhaps too hearty, as he gradually put on weight. His letters contain many mentions of digestive disturbances, a general malaise and laryngitis—an occupational hazard for an active politician who misused his vocal cords!

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Frequent late-night sittings during the Pacific Scandal further sapped his energy. On May 15: "Things are mixed here politically. Whipping last night meant something for our fellows did not come into trim without an effort and besides I had to prevent the other side from knowing where we were. It was not until 30 of them had voted against the Govt. on the other side of the House that we knew we had them." The next day: "Huntingdon made a splendid speech & made Sir John abjectly admit he (H) was quite right & no doubt felt justified in his course! They are done for." Parliament adjourned on May 23, leaving Huntingdon's charges with a five-member committee. At a Reform picnic at Welland Port five weeks later, Alexander Mackenzie proudly told Edgar's constituents that "of all the young politicians in Canada, no one had rendered better service or promised better for the future than their representative in the House of Commons." Everyone on both sides of the House, added Mackenzie, "respected the member for Monck and his services were invaluable to his own party especially."4 With her husband busy with politics and legal affairs, Tillie continued as the family's principal correspondent with the outside world. Her handwriting is now elegant and stylish, self-assured, less large and flowing. On August 3 she filled Aunt Caroline in on the family: "It is puzzling me now to remember whether I sent you a photo of your little namesake, Maud Caroline—I intended to when I was distributing them among friends, but in case I didn't, I will send one tonight. It was taken when baby was five months old. I am sorry I did not wait until now, for she is so much larger and grows prettier all the time. She has been such a perfectly healthy baby, never a day ill, and is a piece of sunshine in the house. We are all very well, although we are remaining in town this summer—a very unusual thing for us to do. We take the children [on] short excursions though. Jamie is growing a fine active

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fellow, very fond of play and fishing. He has holidays until 1st September, and I am letting him ran wild as he learns quite fast enough in school time. Pelham is a duck, you hardly know him, for I think less has been said of him than of the others, but he is growing a most interesting child—so like our dear Harrie in every way, voice, manner, and little traits of character." And she mentioned politics too: "Jim is hard at work this summer with politics and law. One of his partners is at the seaside and the other, my brother Jack, is making preparations to be married in a few weeks—so of course Jim has to be in town looking after the business. There is great excitement now in the political world about what is called the 'Pacific Railway Scandal.' Suffice it to say that the party in power, under the leadership of Sir John A. Macdonald, is likely soon to lose the control of public affairs, when of course Jim's party will go in. I hope you will have the pleasure some day of seeing your nephew in print as a Minister—"Hon. James David Edgar" would look very well, would it not?" Six days later James filled in the space that Tillie left for him in the letter: "The leader of the Opposition is Mr. Mackenzie, a hardheaded Scot & particular friend of mine—he will be Premier in case of a change. Tomorrow I expect to arrive at the mature age of 32! Think of it!" The House was scheduled to reconvene on August 13 to receive the report on Huntington's charges. Early in July, however, the committee disbanded when it was found to be illegal for a parliamentary committee to accept evidence under oath. With no report to receive, Macdonald decided that Parliament's sole duty would be to meet and be prorogued, thus ending the session. Despite a tremendous uproar from the opposition, Governor General Lord Dufferin read the orders to prorogue.

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A section of map of Ottawa ca. 1874, showing the Parliament Buildings along the Ottawa River

Next day, Macdonald established a royal commission to investigate the charges in place of the disbanded committee and promised that the House would be recalled within ten weeks to consider its report. The Liberals spent those weeks whipping up public sympathy and enlisting support from new MPs. Edgar leaked details to Goldwin Smith, his new neighbour in The Grange, who worked the information into articles for the Canadian Monthly and National Review. James also travelled with Edward Blake to London, Ontario, to meet a train carrying Amor de Cosmos, BC premier and new ]VH> who just might be persuaded to vote against the government.5

Edgar and his friends smelled success in the air when Parliament reopened in October. The fall of the ministry was quite probable, provided that opposition members held together. Getting members to speak against the government was not difficult; as Liberal whip, James had "to do so much repressing of others that I dare not do anything in the debate myself." The hard part was to win over the fencesitters and make sure that they did not backslide. Though the pace remained hectic, he continued his daily letters to Tillie. On October 24 he told her: "We are tugging away with the

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Tories all the time. I am doing nothing else, and they have gained nothing upon us so far. Every day that they do not gain they are losing. They are offering all sorts of things." The plot thickened, and on Saturday the twenty-fifth he reported: "Today I breakfasted with Huntington & the Earl of Rosebery & went about along with the latter all forenoon. He is an extremely intelligent, able young man—about 27—and is undoubtedly out here on a confidential mission from the English Government on the subject of the Pacific Scandal. By his breakfasting with H. you can see he is not prejudiced against us, & when I tell you that we got along very well & I gave him an immense amount of information you may suppose the interview will do no harm. He is as great a radical as I am, & I daresay if I have any time I shall see something more of him. Prospects still serene for a victory next week. If we only could smash them I would be up in a week!" Twenty-six year-old Rosebery was on an extended, personal tour, studying North American approaches to social issues, before entering politics. He and Edgar, two self-styled "radicals," got along famously. After breakfast, Edgar showed him "over the House of Commons, the library and the lovers' walk which is right around the height on which the building is situated. He introduced me to Mr. Alpheus Todd the librarian, Mr. Mackenzie the leader of the Opposition and Mr. Blake its champion." In the evening, Rosebery sat between Edgar and Lucius Huntington at a small dinner party. The young British aristocrat left Ottawa remembering Edgar as "a gentlemanlike man."6 Even in this hectic period, James found time to write letters to his children, including a delightful example, dated October 26, to seven-year-old Jamie: "Your letter was very well written, and I was glad to hear that you were head of the prep and that the geography class is curly. I heard from Mama that you spent all your money on nuts. I heard a story once of a little boy who ate half a pound of nuts, and a tree grew out of his mouth the next time he went to sleep. I hope you have not eaten half a pound of nuts. If you keep ahead

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in geography I shall give you a present—perhaps it shall be a nutcracker. Kiss little Maud for me, and tell Pelham that I hope he does not eat too much bread and butter with butter on it. Your loving papa J.D.Edgar" Next evening, he wrote from the House while Revenue Minister Charles Tupper defended the Pacific Railway and the government: "We are in the thick and midst of the fray. Mackenzie has spoken fairly—& now it is 1/4 past 8 & Tupper is at it. I have just gone round our ranks & told them to remain in their places & make things lively for Tupper, & Huntington who succeeds him... Your letter has not yet come but I am writing this to say all is well & that we are now quite certain of beating them... Tupper has lost his temper & is again talking about "derisive cheers." He is about right. This letter is not as long as I may have written to you before, but I am so excited I cannot think of anything but this blessed debate which you will see in the Globe in the morning. This afternoon in the library I met Lady Macdonald & I am sorry for her—she says she will not go into the gallery during the debate—and is evidently distressed—but on looking up I see she is there." The next day he reported: "Last night we kept it up long after one o'clock, & I had to go down stairs with a few new allies after that. The state of affairs is better than ever—we are sure of 99 without Prince Edward— of whom we shall have 4—There are two others—probably 3 who will go with us on seeing we win. The Toronto mail is not yet in & it is 8 o'clock so I must send this off before hearing from you. Now do not miss again my dear, to send me every day a letter. Perhaps at the office they may have neglected to post it in time— see that they are talked to about it for the future... I fear the debate will be late tonight but the ventilation is much improved. I generally dine at the Club, with a little mess—

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J.H. Cameron, Holton, Cartwright, Macpherson, Kirkpatrick & several others—it is very comfortable." The pace in the House accelerated, and on the thirtieth he wrote: "It is half past 8 & just in time for the mail. I never was 1/2 so busy in my life & have to write this at another man's desk in order not to be disturbed about a dozen times. I would be most delighted if you could only wean Maud & come down. Tonight I don't think the debate will end till Monday or Tuesday. Things still look well but they are making awful efforts. I was rewarded last night by 2 letters from you after the House adjourned." James complained to Tillie that he was exhausted and homesick."! am interrupted every d—d moment & can not call an instant my own," he wrote on November 1st. "I do wish this was over & I was at home quietly again." Slowly but surely, the Liberals won additional supporters. By November 4, Edgar had his troops ready for a crucial vote, but it did not come, and there was still no sign of a formal division when the House adjourned at one-thirty in the morning. When he turned up at Mackenzie's Albert Street boarding-house an hour-and-a-half later, after a night-cap with some comrades, his leader was still awake. "Edgar sat down on the edge of the bed, and the two men speculated on what the dawn would bring. Both felt the hour of decision was at hand."7 The end came the next evening, with the prime minister's sudden resignation: "For several hours last night we were keeping ready for a division & it is a dreadful strain on me. I have received—(here I am interrupted & don't know what I was going to tell you) Since the above was written the Govt have resigned & Mackenzie is sent for—I have no news at all as yet. I can only say that an awful sense of relief has come over me—I have felt perfectly unnerved & ready to weep or do anything foolish since the result of my exertions was known. It is foolish to say my exertions—but really I am credited with an immense amount of effect upon the result; that is at any rate gratifying. I telegraphed you

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soon after the event & no doubt you have heard. Tell Jamie that the Grits have had a great battle with the Tories & have beaten them! I have asked [Newton] McKay, of Cape Breton, to come up & stay with me, if there is a short adjournment & he has agreed to do so. Please go to Hay & Co. & get some decent furniture for the spare room tomorrow in case he should come up with me tomorrow night. He is an extremely gentlemanly fellow... Talk about my election in Monck—it was nothing to this. Alexander Mackenzie ca. 1875. Prime However we will talk it all Minister of Canada, 1873-78. over. Mackenzie & Blake have disappeared since about 4 o'clock & it is now 8. I have not heard a word of what is going on. I hope a letter will come from you by this night's mail." Edgar was at the centre of events that evening. Many opposition members crossed the floor of the House to their new desks. Later in the Commons smoking room, knots of partying Liberals lustily sang: "Sir John is dead and gone forever" to the tune of "My Darling Clementine," while Mackenzie and Blake prepared party strategy.8 Then on November 7, the Globe announced the membership of Canada's first dominion Liberal cabinet. Prime Minister Mackenzie kept the Public Works portfolio for himself, with Edward Blake as president of the Council and Richard Cartwright as minister of finance. Sadly, there was no room in cabinet for young James Edgar. Mackenzie quickly dissolved Parliament and called an election for January 19,1874, to underscore his parliamentary victory with one at the polls. The Liberals swept sixty-four of Ontario's eighty-eight seats and increased their overall majority in the House. Unfortunately,

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James David Edgar, who had contributed so much to the defeat of Macdonald in the House, was "the only important Liberal from Ontario to suffer defeat."9 What happened in Monck remains a mystery. Edgar ran against Lachlin McCallum, the Conservative candidate whom he had defeated in 1872. Though busy with whipping duties, he had not neglected his constituents, repeatedly urging that the main southern terminus of the Welland Canal be at Port Maitland in Monck, rather than farther east at Port Colborne. During the campaign itself, he devoted his fall attention to Monck; not once was his presence recorded in support of Liberals elsewhere.10 Still, the vote went 1,354—1,320 against him. "Our victory is marred sadly by our loss of Monck or rather by our loss of yourself," Mackenzie wrote to Edgar. "I feel personally greatly grieved at your defeat. All our friends without exception feel the same." The prime minister and party leader promised Edgar to "soon find a seat for you in some place where you will not be exposed to the same treatment."11 Less than three weeks later, however, Mackenzie sent him to Victoria to renegotiate terms of the Pacific railway agreement with British Columbia.

CHAPTER

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Railways in the Wilderness 1874-1884

"No place I have ever seen at all approaches in beauty the site of Victoria. On the picturesque shores of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and possessing a beautiful little harbour of its own, it has every charm of a sea-side town. The slopes, the rocks, the trees, the drives, and the parks in the town and vicinity, are unequalled; but its greatest and unending charm is the view it commands of grand, majestic, snow-clad mountains...You cannot step out into the street without feeling yourself in the presence of those sublime and rugged peaks." —J.D. Edgar1

ON THE MORNING OF February 23, 1874, James and Tillie Edgar said goodbye to their young family, drove by carriage to the Grand Trunk station on Front Street and boarded a train for the west. James had twice crossed the Atlantic on private business; now he was off to Canada's Pacific coast as Ottawa's representative in difficult negotiations with the BC government. And for the first time since the children had arrived, Tillie joined her husband on an extended trip. Ironically, in order to reach Victoria, the Edgars had to cross the American west on the Union Pacific Railroad to San Francisco, then travel north by ship to Victoria. Tillie printed a note to her eightyear-old son Jamie from the BC capital:

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"YOU MUST LOOK ON THE MAP AND SEE WHERE WE ARE. AWAY ON THE PACIFIC OCEAN, ON V\NCOUVERS ISLAND. THERE ARE PLENTY OF WHALES NEAR HERE —I HAVE NOT SEEN ANY YET, BUT WE PASSED SOME IN OUR BOAT...

I HOPE PELHAM HAD A NICE PARTY ON HIS BIRTHDAY. TELL HIM I SEND HIM A KISS * THERE ARE LOTS OF INDIANS LIVING HERE. . .THERE ARE LOTS OF CHINESE TOO. WE HAVE A CHINESE BOY TO WAIT ON US AND HE CAN'T TALK ENGLISH BUT HE KNOWS WHAT WE MEAN IF WE MAKE SIGNS. THE CHINESE MEN HAVE LONG HAIR LIKE WOMEN AND THEY WEAR IT IN LONG PLAITS LIKE WOMEN. THEY LOOK NICE AND CLEAN AND WEAR NICE WHITE SOCKS AND FUNNY SHOES LIKE THIS — [pio ture of a small Chinese slipper] —THE CHINESE LADIES DRESS VERY GRANDLY."

While Tillie thought of the children, James reflected on the task ahead. Prime Minister Mackenzie had instructed Edgar to inform Victoria that Ottawa was "as anxious as possible to reach the object sought by all—the early construction of the railroad," but "we are advised by our engineers, that it is a physical impossibility to construct the road in the time provided by the terms of Union." Edgar should remind British Columbia that Ottawa had previously agreed to build the railway line to the Pacific coast only. "Any further extension may depend entirely on the spirit shown by themselves in assenting to reasonable extension of time or a modification of the terms originally agreed to." In other words, if Victoria proved willing to relent on the ten-year limit, then Ottawa might consent to an Island railway line. Unfortunately, however, Mackenzie did not want to commit Edgar to anything specific. "I want you clothed with the official standing but the Mission to be a general one," he wrote.2 And his rather vague letters to BC leaders avoided stating that Edgar was empowered to make a formal proposition for altering the railway clause. Edgar had to deal with a province that regarded the Terms of Union of 1871 as a solemn compact between sovereign governments, guaranteed by Britain, and not subject to change at the whims of political parties. On the eve of their arrival in Victoria, disgruntled British Columbians had forced moderate Premier Amor De Cosmos

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to resign when he dared suggest changes or any "relaxation" in the terms. His successor was George Anthony Walkem, who years earlier had welcomed young Edgar as an articling student in the Toronto law firm of Morphy and Walkem. While James finished his legal training in Toronto, Walkem had moved to British Columbia, built a prosperous law practice, and entered politics. Now he could drive a hard bargain.3 So negotiations began. When Edgar insisted that Ottawa could not complete the railway by 1881, Walkem attempted to gain maximum compensation, demanding a Vancouver Island terminus and dominion assistance for an Esquimalt drydock. In early May Edgar obtained Mackenzie's permission to offer a compromise. If British Columbia agreed to relax the ten-year limit, Ottawa would build a railway from Esquimalt to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island at once, pursue mainland surveys as vigorously as possible, erect a transcontinental telegraph line, and spend a minimum of $1.5 million annually within the province on the railway. These were generous terms, perhaps, but not acceptable to Walkem. His mainland constituents believed that the compromise favoured the Island, while Islanders were upset at the lack of firm guarantees for their Esquimalt drydock. Walkem concluded that Edgar's presence in Victoria was merely delaying a BC triumph. The premier suddenly asked Edgar for his "official authority for appearing in the role of an agent contracting for the Dominion of Canada."4 Indignant at such action, Mackenzie recalled Edgar and withdrew the offer. Edgar's mission had obviously failed. Had his own youth and inexperience left him ill-equipped to deal with the intricacies of BC politics? Did Mackenzie undermine the mission by remaining vague about Edgar's powers? More likely, the major problem was Walkem, who saw an opportunity to please both Island and mainland factions by fighting Ottawa.5 To Mackenzie, Walkem was no better than "a small village lawyer" who "would have found a congenial business home in the firm of Quirk Gammon & Snap, combining as he does a little of the peculiar qualities of all three."6 Yet Walkem persevered, holding out until August, when British pressure forced Ottawa to agree to an immediate start on an Island line and a pledge to complete the transcontinental railway by 1890.

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Before leaving Victoria, Edgar was nominated as the Liberal candidate for a dominion by-election in the rural Ontario riding of South Oxford. Determined to have Edgar in Ottawa, the party had persuaded the sitting member to resign and put forward Edgar's name for the nomination, though distance prevented him from campaigning personally. Many of South Oxford's Reformers, however, strongly preferred a local candidate, and it took ten ballots before the absent Edgar won the nomination. Encouraged by such a close fight, disgruntled Reformers nominated James Skinner as an Independent and persuaded the Conservatives to withdraw. On voting day, May 21, the very day the Edgars left Victoria, South Oxford elected Skinner with a 300-vote majority. Edgar's defeat, declared the Nation, "was not so much an expression of opinion against himself as a repudiation of the Globe." The newspaper and the party hierarchy were roundly criticized for "forcing" an outsider on Frederic William Cumberland (1820the local Reformers.7 1881), President of the Northern Railway While anxious to return to and J.D. Edgar's business associate. Parliament, Edgar was also poised to launch a new career as president of the Ontario and Pacific Junction Railway. Running from Gravenhurst to Lake Nipissing, the O&PJ would link Frederic Cumberland's Northern Railway with the proposed transcontinental line's eastern terminus and open up the Muskoka region for settlement.8 Immediately after arriving home from Victoria, James enlisted the support of the Globe and the Toronto Board of Trade and asked Toronto city council for $15,000 for preliminary surveys. For more than a year, the application bounced from finance committee to special committee to full council. Finally, in

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October 1875, Toronto voted $10,000 to assist with preliminary surveys, but refused any construction subsidy.9 An early start on the O&PJ thus depended on major assistance from either the provincial or the national government, both Liberal and both subsidizing railways. Fearing opposition if it favoured Edgar's company, Ontario offered $8,000 a mile for eighty miles (128 km) to "any persons" constructing a junction line—conditional on Ottawa's building a Georgian Bay branch of the transcontinental line.10 Edgar had even less success with Ottawa, which viewed any Toronto—Nipissing line as a provincial responsibility. Then in March 1876, Ottawa cancelled the Georgian Bay branch of the transcontinental line, thus nullifying any provincial subsidy. In December 1879, Charles Tupper, minister of railways in the new dominion Conservative government, met Toronto railway promoters seeking connections with the transcontinental line. Edgar presented the Pacific Junction as a provincial, even national, necessity. He reminded Tupper of provisions in the Pacific Railway Act for subsidies up to $12,000 a mile for branches connecting the eastern terminus of the Pacific route with existing Canadian lines. Tupper listened politely, but promised nothing more than to discuss the case with his cabinet colleagues. When the February 1880 speech from the throne failed to mention any aid for the O&PJ, the Globe predicted that Edgar's line would never receive a subsidy from a Conservative regime in Ottawa.11 During the 1880 session, however, the Ontario legislature agreed to a provisional subsidy of $8,000 a mile for the O&PJ. In June the Globe predicted that construction would soon begin from Gravenhurst to Lake Nipissing. Public meetings were held throughout Muskoka in support of the project. On September 21 Edgar visited Gravenhurst to inspect terminal and junction facilities. As survey parties pushed northward, an engineering crew examined terminal sites on Lake Nipissing. By early October, William Moberley, the company's chief engineer, had a large crew working near Gravenhurst. The Globe reported that the line had definitely been located as far as the south branch of the Muskoka River.12 Ottawa complicated matters in November, however, with news that the Canadian Pacific would construct its through line north of Lake Superior before its branch to Sault Ste Marie. Edgar preferred

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an early start on the Sault line in order to funnel Toronto-bound traffic on to the O&PJ as quickly as possible, and he realized that the resulting delay in revenue meant that the $8,000-per-mile provincial subsidy would not keep the company solvent.13 In February 1881, Edgar scrapped plans for a Gravenhurst—Lake Nipissing line and decided instead to build along the shores of Georgian Bay and Lake Huron directly to the Sault. Dominion support, however, would still not come easily, warned new Liberal leader Edward Blake, since both the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) and Quebec objected to a direct link between Toronto and the Sault.14 Edgar now believed that Cumberland's Northern Railway was not strong enough to counter the CPR juggernaut and that his only possible ally was the rival Grand Trunk. On February 25, Edgar offered the Grand Trunk two seats on a reconstituted O&PJ board of directors. Edgar's action hurt Cumberland deeply, for the two men had shared family life and business experiences for many years. Now it was all over. "The very companies and associates who have introduced him to railway life have now been sacrificed either to his ambition or his cupidity," Cumberland complained.15 Edgar and Cumberland began an all-out battle for control of traffic between Toronto and the west. Edgar's company, renamed the Ontario and Sault Ste. Marie Railway (O&SSM), received a provincial charter on March 4, 1881, the same day as Cumberland's Northern, NorthWestern and Sault Ste. Marie Railway received its dominion charter. The latter line drew first blood with a dominion subsidy of $6,000 per mile for construction from Gravenhurst north to Callander, then west to Sault Ste Marie.16 Afraid that Grand Trunk influence would carry western trade around Toronto, Oliver Mowat's provincial government offered just $2,850 a mile for 300 mi (480 km) to a "neutral" company containing representatives from all interested Ontario lines. The Mail blasted Edgar's company as "partisan to the core"; former allies such as the Toronto and Hamilton boards of trade withdrew their support. Still, 415 km of O&SSM surveys were completed by the end of 1881.17 In April 1882, as the Canadian Pacific planned its own branch line to the Sault, Edgar made a final, desperate appeal to Ottawa. He requested a subsidy of $5,000 a mile for a line from Gravenhurst to the CPR's Sault branch at Spanish River, or $6,000 a mile from

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Gravenhurst directly north to Callander, or both lines for a total of $1,235,000.18 Then in mid-May, Edgar abruptly resigned as president of the O&SSM and was replaced by a Grand Trunk representative. No explanation was given, though the Mail later claimed that Edgar sold out to the Grand Trunk for $15,000 cash.19 Certainly he realized the hopelessness of his case: failure to obtain government subsidies, loss of his earlier Toronto and Hamilton backers, only minimal support from the Globe. Edgar watched as the rival group, renamed the Northern and Pacific Junction Railway, opened between Gravenhurst and Callander in 1886.

During his tortuous and unsuccessful years as a railway promoter, Edgar maintained his stature among the Liberal hierarchy. In the spring of 1875, for example, he helped persuade Edward Blake to rejoin Mackenzie's cabinet.20 He spent much time in Ottawa, conferring with Mackenzie and lobbying members for his railway schemes. He wrote to Tillie from the Rideau Club on March 13, 1875: "As I did not write you yes-

terday I telegraphed you today & hope it is possible you may be on your way down here tonight. Your letter was long & interesting—write always in that way. If I had to write you from home it wd be interesting to tell of domestic items—what good would it be to tell you of how many talks I have had upon politics or railways? Tonight I have dined again with [Richard] Cartwright, we have been The Honourable Edward Blake, Q.C., as confidential as brothers. ^ So has Mackenzie been leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, with me—and as Mr. Blake 1879-1887.

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has chosen to raise technical objections to my railway bill, he may take care of his own politics... I have a good deal of politics to tell you when I get back that could not be written." In June 1875, Edgar campaigned in Monck, for the courts had unseated Lachlin McCallum on bribery charges and ordered a byelection. James was decidedly not enthusiastic about a fourth Monck campaign in as many years, or so he wrote to his wife from Welland Port on June 10: "I am perfectly disgusted & tired of this beastly work & continually think what a fool I have made of myself...I stayed last night at Mrs. Spears in Bartonville, and have driven down here to get letters &c. I do long to get home & get out of this contest—This tone is not because things are going wrong—they seem all right—but what is the good? Home is the place for me." Despite his cautious optimism, Edgar lost Monck by four votes. The Toronto Mail attacked him for failing as a diplomat in British Columbia and for trying to "milk the country dry" through the O&PJ. In the end, rural voters once again rejected a Toronto lawyer thrust on them by the party hierarchy.21 In the autumn, Edgar took a lengthy canoeing and fishing holiday through the Muskoka Lakes, including the rigours of several portages. "It is nothing to whip up a light birch-bark canoe," he wrote, "turn it upside down and balance it with a paddle stretched between the thwarts resting on each shoulder, and carry it a mile at a stretch."22 Along the way, he enjoyed the companionship of his halfbrother, Henry Carry, who was working in the north country. From "Huntsville Fairy Lake, Muskoka" he sent an account to Tillie on October 3: "I have made a plan to go 60 or 70 miles from here in canoes, and strike the road that leads from Rosseau to Nipissing about halfway between those places. On arriving at Orillia Thursday night Courtauld met me at the Station & insisted on my staying at their house overnight. Friday morning I bought $10 worth of Indian things... We reached Gravenhurst on Friday afternoon & I saw Henry Carry there. He looks very well & has very comfortable quar-

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ters...Not wishing to wait for the Steamer till evening I pushed on by a team yesterday—We drove 37 miles over horrible roads & reached here at ten o'clock last night. We had a snow storm on the way, & it took us three hours & and half to do the last 12 miles. We are now 61 miles north of Orillia. Two birch.bark canoes (one Henry's) are following us here today & if they come & if we can succeed in getting a couple of guides we will start off this afternoon although it is a Sunday. Sailors always like to start on Sunday for a voyage. I wish you would do up a change of thick underflannels in a thick brown paper parcel & direct it to me at Pratts Hotel, Rosseau, & send it by Vickers express as soon as you get this letter. I will want a change badly when I get to Rosseau. You can tell Jamie that night before last they were chasing a bear over the river near where I passed yesterday. I have seen both duck & partridges but have not had a shot at them yet. The day is bright but looks like rain again. I am growing a beard! This morning C. & I were out for a paddle on Fairy Lake. It is really worthy of the name. I hope to be able to send you another letter from Magnetawan on Wednesday. Write me a long letter to Rosseau - at Pratts Hotel. I had to buy a waterproof yesterday I forgot my own." Invigorated, James returned to work as secretary of the Ontario Reform Association. That autumn he focused on Toronto, where a stronger presence was needed to overcome the city's habit of voting Conservative. Within five months, he had put in place a new Reform constitution and a new executive. The following September, 1876, he opened a Reform Reading and Smoking Room to "rope in lots of Mechanics who are terrified at the aristocratic magnificence of the Tory palace on King Street." That summer, however, he had failed again to capture a dominion seat, losing a by-election in South Ontario constituency by a narrow fourteen-vote margin.23 While the Mail predicted that Edgar's reward for his nine year's work as party organizer might be the lieutenant-governorship of British Columbia,24 James eyed the North-West Territories, which then covered most of the west between Manitoba and British Columbia. In August 1876 he wrote to Mackenzie:

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"For some six months past I have been thinking a great deal about speaking to you as to what would be your opinion as to my fitness for the position of Lieutenant Governor of the North West. From the view I take of the policy of Canada in respect of opening these territories the office is no sinecure, but one where hard work is to be done. I am well aware that it requires a man who has not only judgement and energy but also a knowledge of legislation—for the functions are legislative as well as executive and it is not for me to judge whether I am qualified for that office. From a personal point of view I have considered the matter anxiously and I feel that if your policy be to make a most vigorous and determined effort for settlement and development in that region, then I would probably be wise to seek the position even if I made the West my home. I have been doing my share lately in helping to start party organizations, and I think I have no manifest party duty to perform at home. My prevailing motive, however, in making this application to you is that I am actuated by a most keen ambition to take an active part in the patriotic and enormous work that has fallen to your hands of opening up our great West to settlement and civilization.25" Mackenzie had other priorities. Besides his need to fill the NorthWest position, he wanted to discard a weak minister of the interior and strengthen his cabinet. So he dropped David Laird from the cabinet and named him lieutenant-governor of the Territories, made David Mills minister of the interior, and left James Edgar once more out in the cold.26 When politics turned sour, Edgar fell back on his thriving law practice. His growing reputation brought cases in commercial and corporate law, while political connections delivered interesting government work. For two years, James represented the Ontario government in its protracted legal battle to obtain possession of the Andrew Mercer estate in downtown Toronto.27 Meanwhile, James kept changing law partners. In 1875 Tillie's brother John Ridout left the firm, Charles Ritchie joined, and the new partnership of Edgar, Fenton and Ritchie moved to offices at 64 Adelaide Street East. The firm was renamed Edgar Ritchie and Howell in 1878, Edgar Ritchie

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and Malone two years later, and finally Edgar and Malone in 1883, when James Edgar and Elias Malone established their partnership, which was to last sixteen years, with offices in the Toronto General Trust Building at 27 Wellington Street East. As business flourished and income increased, James and Tillie joined the upper-middle-class exodus from the city's core to newer and more prestigious uptown addresses. In 1874 they moved into a new house at 36 Cloverhill or St Joseph Street. Four years later they purchased a house of their own at 113 Bloor West, along the city's northern boundary, where they spent the rest of their lives.28 They also bought "The Bungalow," a summer home at Roach's Point on Lake Simcoe, where Tillie and the children spent many idyllic weeks each summer. And more children arrived: William Wilkie (Willie), October 26, 1874; Katherine Beatrice (Bea), August 25, 1877; David Keithock (Keith), November 29, 1879; and Herbert Wedderlie (Bertie), June 20, 1883. While the traditional roles of dutiful wife and loving mother defined Tillie's life, politics continued to demand James's time. As the 1878 national election neared, Edgar weighed the possibilities of being a dominion or a provincial member in a long letter to Mackenzie: "My inclination would be, as you well know, to go into the Commons, but I am deterred by the fact that I have recently assumed the burden of a pretty big house, besides a pretty big little family that I must work for, and at the moment it's a serious question in my mind if I can afford the injury to my business caused by absence during the Session. I therefore offer no encouragement to the reformers of Monck who all seem to wish me to run there, nor to many friends in S. Ontario who say I would be renominated there if I chose... The local House does not seem to interfere with the business of Toronto lawyers and I may feel like dropping into Monck for that House if they desire me, although I have not said so to anyone. Mr. Mowat has often urged me to go in there and more than two years ago he offered me the first vacancy in his Cabinet if I would run for Monck when H. was unseated but I ran for the Commons instead and was beaten...29"

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Edgar bowed to the wishes of the party hierarchy, however, and allowed his name to stand in Monck—his fifth campaign there in seven years, and his fifth against Lachlin McCallum. On the hustings, James defended free trade, hoping to persuade Monck's agricultural voters that protection would benefit urban manufacturers at the expense of rural consumers. To advance his cause, he published a twenty-threepage pamphlet, "A Protest against the Increased Taxation Advocated by the Canadian Opposition as Their National Elias T. Malone, J.D. Edgar's law partner, Policy."30 It was to no avail, 1883-98. Photo ca. 1898. however, as Edgar lost by twenty-eight votes. "It will do you little good to condole with you," Mackenzie wrote, "and I am sure you will accept the situation philosophically as usual."31 Edgar was not alone among Liberals in defeat, as voters returned Macdonald's Conservatives to office. Two years later, Mackenzie stepped aside as Liberal leader in favour of Edward Blake. Edgar welcomed the opportunity to serve under a new figure whose intellect he respected and whose vision he admired. "There never was a leader in Canada who was greater, more brilliant, or more wonderful in intellectual power than Edward Blake," he told a Stouffville audience. The respect was mutual, as Edgar became one of Blake's unofficial lieutenants. Tory member Thomas White called Edgar "the power behind the throne"; John A. Macdonald labelled him Blake's "fidus Achates," or faithful Achilles.32 Edgar could be of much greater value, however, if he could win a seat in the general election, expected during 1882. This time the chosen riding was East York, and on December 1,1881, his name was put forward for the Liberal nomination. Many Reformers in the rid-

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ing's outlying townships, however, supported Alexander Mackenzie, who remained an MP following his resignation as party leader. James told the delegates that he would not let his name stand if his former chief truly needed a seat, though he believed that Mackenzie preferred to represent Lambton. The meeting voted by a margin of two to one for Mackenzie, who surprised Edgar the next morning by accepting the nomination.33 James was moving ever farther away from the House of Commons; now he could not even win a Liberal nomination. Still, Edgar and the party kept trying, and he concentrated next on Centre Toronto. Here the nomination went smoothly and unanimously, with Blake and Mackenzie appearing together in Edgar's support. James tried to fight the 1882 campaign on economic issues— the Liberals embraced low tariffs—but was forced to deal with the usual vicious charges from the Toronto Mail. The Conservative newspaper attacked Edgar's "pickings from the public treasury"—an alleged $6,000 from Ottawa for the BC mission, plus $10,000 from Ontario for the Andrew Mercer case. It branded him a "professional pirate" who liked to "fatten at the public crib." It dismissed him as a "briefless lawyer who has been living upon the Ontario and Dominion governments like a horse-leech for years," the "leavings of half a dozen constituencies, the Aunt Sally of the party, put up to be buttressed at, but always taken care of at the public cost when he loses."34 Whether because of tariffs or of Tory tirades, Edgar fell 198 votes short—his sixth consecutive election loss.35 Despite his defeats at the polls, he continued his visits to Ottawa to confer with Liberal leaders and to lobby ministers and departments on railway and business matters. On April 20, 1883, he sent a letter to Tillie: "This is 5.30 in the afternoon & I am writing in the Library. I found it snowing on arrival here—but this is a bright & pleasant day. We had our deputations from Ontario & Quebec waiting on Sir John & Sir Alexander [Mackenzie] yesterday—& with some chance of success...! think we will reach a result in a few days— but never if I had not come down. Blake looks well—I shook hands with Mackenzie who is frail.

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I had a telegram from Baird of the Confedtn Life Co. & also saw a letter that McDonald has written to Senator McMaster, & they seem clear that I shall be a director so that is likely to take place. The members here are all homesick. I have met several good new men. I hope you are keeping quiet_& that all are well. I suppose I will not be sending you any other letters — as I go up on Saturday night so far as I know. I had a walk with Blake & a good long talk with him both yesterday & today. Kisses to all— perhaps Jamie will only accept a shake of the hand."

Still, Edgar's combative ambitions could be fulfilled only through a return to Ottawa. In 1884 the party chose West Ontario, a safe seat northeast of Toronto, and persuaded the riding's sitting member to resign. Next came a letter from Blake to the local Reform Association, urging that Edgar be nominated to fill the vacancy. Dissidents tried unsuccessfully to persuade a strong local resident to stand, then stayed home on July 23 and allowed Edgar the near-unanimous Liberal nomination.36 He divided his time between law office and campaign trail that summer. Jamie helped his father with legal work, while Tillie and the younger children spent their holidays at Roach's Point. He wrote them on July 27: "I am writing in the library just after a quiet tea with Jamie. We had some office work to do so Malone [Elias] came here in forenoon & took dinner with us... This being Sunday afternoon you will readily understand that I felt at quite a loss in your absence — but went out for a walk to Hugh Miller's & got boiled in the sun & quieted down for the day. I am going to give Cameron [J.H.] a letter signed "Old North York"—which you may see in tomorrow or Tuesday's Globe... I feel that I ought to have one of the little ones to pet—but, perhaps, I am all the kinder to [dogs] Rush & Peter. What a nuisance this election is. Am I never to have peace & rest & loafs with myfambly?" He reported to Tillie on August 17 on life in the city:

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"This is started in the library before breakfast which is not quite ready—being fixed for nine. Jim & Macdougall are down waiting. Mary has asked me to let her away in the morning on an excursion as it is Civic Holiday We will therefore get our own breakfasts. I will make Mary stay in the house today as I will try & run in to town on Wednesday—among other things to get your letters—not one of wh I have yet rec'd. Tell the children that there are 76 apples on a tree in our garden, and they are getting red & ripe—so that if they are not stolen, they will likely be ready when they get back. The blackberries too are beginning to turn. This very hot weather will give us some grapes I hope. The petunias are looking magnificent— altho there are rather too many of them. I am working hard at materials for my speeches & I hope today to have all in shape. I don't propose to let Mary answer the door bell at all today Last night I took Longfellow to bed & found the poem about the "Deering Woods." It is very pretty—and so are a number at the end of the book that I was not familiar with. I am sending up a number of bags to get potatoes from the Point Farm. It is now nearly 6 o'clock & I have not been disturbed all day—& have got all my material ready—a great deal more than I can use & more than I ever had before. I scarcely know how to begin or where to finish—& if I have no opponents at my meetings I will find it very slow... I have been so hard worked that I have not been at all restless tho' it is Sunday afternoon. I will take a walk this evening in the cool." Next day, a Monday, he again wrote to Tillie, who was now visiting some of her Ridout relations. "I am alone in my office as this is the Civic Holiday—and I go out to Uxbridge at 4. What has happened to you? No letter yet, and you shd have written me on return to hotel on 14th. Two mails have been delivered at the office too today. I hope nothing is wrong. I'll not hear from you till Wednesday. Jamie has gone off to Keswick & has taken Rush—I believe— who declined to return home when he saw Jamie's bundles going

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out—& he followed him down town in a most determined way. See today's Mail for an Editorial appealing to some independent Reformer to come out, & promising him 500 majority—I don't know what it means—a cartel I suppose. Well it will be hot & short if it comes." On official nomination day, August 22, neither Independent Liberal nor official Conservative was nominated to run against Edgar in West Ontario. The man who had fought so many tough battles and lost by so many exceedingly small margins won the seat by acclamation! "My best congratulations on yr election," wrote Blake. "I am very much relieved that it came by acclamation." The weary leader had much that he wanted to discuss with James as soon as they could meet. "We must get at the money & organization question at once."37 James wrote the next day to his wife: "I have just had a telegram from Jamie dated at Orillia—to say he is on a cruise & will be back at the Point on Wednesday— congratulating me. Just as well I did not go up expecting to see him. I do not know yet whether you received the news of my election? The World has a most bitter editorial on me this morning—I trace the hand of my old friend Gordon in it. All right, I am not a bit angry. Winning I laugh."

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"Mr. Edgar enquired, whether it is the intention of the Government to submit for consideration of the House during the present Session any proposals upon the subject of Federation of the Empire."1

QUESTION PERIOD, FEBRUARY 6, 1885, one week into the Third Session of Canada's Fifth Parliament, and J.D. Edgar was on his feet, badgering Prime Minister John A. Macdonald over Imperial Federation. Edgar had grown increasingly worried over the possible threat to Canadian autonomy posed by such a scheme. He had first raised the issue in campaign speeches and political pamphlets of the early 1880s;2 now his return to Parliament gave him a national forum to oppose publicly any reorganization of the British Empire that threatened Canada's freedom of action. James felt exhilarated to be back in the House of Commons after an eleven-year absence. He resumed his position as chief opposition whip and added the role of Liberal railway critic. He repeatedly attacked problems on the Canadian Pacific line west of Lake Nipissing, familiar from his Ontario & Pacific Junction experience. "Construction of this portion has been exceedingly bad," he told the House. "It was built in a wretched way; it was rushed through, in many respects, in an unfinished manner."3 Still, he looked forward to completion of the railway to British Columbia. "E.B. Osier kept me

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up till eleven talking CPR & trying to convince me it would be a great commercial success," he confided to Tillie. "For the sake of the country I hope it is true."4 Edgar's interest in copyright law was decidedly more esoteric. As an author and former president of the Ontario Literary Society, he had long been aware that both British copyright laws and American pirating practices hurt Canadian publishing. He must push for Canadian autonomy in this field as in so many others. On March 23, in his longest parliamentary speech of the session, he reviewed the sorry history of Canadian copyright and urged the government to press Britain to pass legislation enabling Canada to control its own copyright laws.5 It was a point he would raise annually over the next decade, with little success. Though energized by life on James D- EdSar' M-R ca-1885Parliament Hill, James missed his family and resumed his loving habit of writing daily to Tillie whenever they were apart. By early February, he was looking forward to his wife's visit: "I am counting the hours till you come. I think you should come Tuesday night if you cannot come sooner. Try Tuesday morning if possible...We have today had a great deal of organization work—& I am able to do quite my share of it." Tillie preserved some of her husband's letters by cutting them into several pieces and pasting them into scrapbooks created out of the pages of a Boys Own Annual. The pieces fit together as neat as a puzzle, and nothing appears to be missing! James's letter of February 25, for example, is preserved in three different-sized pieces: "I am very busy at CPR affairs—& I fear I am eating too much & not taking

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exercise—for I woke up with a parched mouth. I go to dine at Rideau Hall tonight—with about 40 other M.R's. Dear little Willie—I hope that he has got all well again. I send him something today with plan of the House &c. I have two committees this morning. I may go up on Friday night—cannot tell yet." Tillie's visits to Ottawa helped to bridge the Edgars' two worlds of public and private life, as did her social calls and "political" entertaining in Toronto. At 9 p.m. on March 5, James sent a letter to her: "I am writing while Blake is making his greatest speech of the session—on [the] Exchange Bank. He has just sat down & has torn the other side to pieces... I think you are right about giving a tea instead of a lunch— cheaper & just as good—but do give something. Don't forget to call on Mrs. Kingsmill & Mrs. Lount... My copyright speech will not come off till next week—& perhaps not till late—I will try & get ready fully, to be ready at any time—Desjardins told me he had seen some articles in tory french press in favour of my motion, (he is tory)" In his letters home, James described his Ottawa social life. On March 18, "I drove out to the Rideau tobogganing with [Louis] Davies & [Sydney] Fisher—& walked back," just in time to find a "note (friendly) from Mrs. Speaker [Mrs George Kirkpatrick] to ask me to 5 o'clock tea. I went & found a considerable number of ladies & gentlemen. Blakes, MacKenzies," etc. "The baby Speaker was brought in for exhibition. There were several good songs." Finally, "I have accepted an invitation to the Press dinner tomorrow night." At noon on March 22 he wrote: "The dinner was a good one. 26 sat down in the Dining room. Many more men than women. The table was very pretty—All the plates till we came to the dessert were silver. The candelabra were silver. The flowers were in glass dishes about the table—each one had smilax in it & flowers, roses &c put into the smilax...

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Centre Block of the Parliament Buildings (with crown) about 1880.

On Friday evening after I had written you, I was in the Library & Lady Macdonald was talking to Mrs. Sutherland & when I came past she stepped out & shook hands most warmly— & said in the most kittenish way that she was just going to say how glad she had been to see that I was elected—apologizing to Mrs. Sutherland for saying such a dreadful thing. Is she not rich? As Mrs. S. called her, she is an old "horse-marine." She had been going through the same nonsense with Mrs. S. about not calling as she had with you." Dining and partying, tobogganing and gossiping were all good sport but, by late March, Parliament's main concern was Louis Riel and the North-West Rebellion. Edgar and the Liberals now seized every opportunity to embarrass the Conservatives. "Macdonald's bad government," Edgar argued, "has brought on the trouble."6 As whip, James orchestrated the Liberal attack, looked for weak points in the government's position, and prepared material for colleagues to use in their own speeches.

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He informed his wife on 1 April: "I hear that the Govt has rec'd news of more massacres, & have told Blake who will press it, & we have agreed that he will press the Govt rigorously to take action in a way they have grossly neglected so far. We have had 2 opposition "cabinet" caucuses just the leaders—& I am glad to say I am included—& to my surprise Charlton & Patterson are not. There is nothing talked thoroughly here but Northwest. Blake is asking his questions—there will be a row. It is beginning. The Gov't will not answer Blake. They cannot." Though Edgar criticized the government for causing the uprising, he supported armed efforts to end it—including a military adventure for his eldest son, Jamie. Young James Frederick Edgar had earlier joined the Queen's Own Rifles militia as a part-time "weekend" soldier. When Ottawa ordered the regiment to mobilize for active service on March 28, Jamie put aside his law studies and reported for duty. He sent his first letter home from the Canadian Pacific troop train on April 7 as it rolled westward across what would become the Manitoba prairies: "I am now a full-fledged private in No. 2 Q.O.R. It is five minutes to seven o'clock p.m. and I have had nothing to eat since breakfast... The boys are all in first class spirits and were very glad to see me. They laughed at my white face, comparing it with their own sun-burnt faces. Mine will be as bad as the rest soon. Every station we pass is crowded with people who give us a good cheer. A man came aboard at Portage La Prairie with a hamper of cake, which I have just had a sample of. One of the fellows in my bunk has some grub with him so he'll give me some before I turn in. When we do, three of us will have the lower bunk and two the upper. I am in the lower. The fellows up above have a way of sitting with their feet rather close to a fellow's head, and every now and then I get a kick. I hope you and dear Mamma and all the little ones are well. Write often and send newspapers."

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The postscript added:

"Enclose me a lot of 3 cent postage stamps and some paper and envelopes as I forgot them. Mamma might sometime send me a parcel of eatables." Private Edgar and his regiment reached Swift Current on April 11 and set up camp on the prairie. Over the next two months, Jamie reported vivid details of military life to his father and to "Mamma and the little ones" at home. From the House of Commons, James forwarded notepaper, postage stamps, and newspapers free of charge; in Toronto, Tillie wrestled with the problem of sending food. James wrote to her on the eleventh: "It is almost useless to send food because it will not catch him till he gets back from Battleford for which place he starts today. However, if you can suggest any kind of grub that would be good for me to send him I will buy it and send it... You will be able to trace J's route on the Map I sent you. I am sending a large railway map to Pelham. He must take care of it as I think we will have it mounted on canvass & put up in the boys' room. Jamie has had a full taste of soldiering—I hope his poor feet have held out...send him a strong pair of boots too..." On April 13, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel William Otter, young Edgar and the Queen's Own Rifles left Swift Current for Battleford and the likelihood of action. This 206-mi (330-km) march across open prairie tested the regiment's citified recruits. Rain and sleet, frost and snow were frequent companions on the way. The countryside offered little in the way of wood for evening camp-fires or wild game for food. On the fifteenth Jamie wrote to his mother: "Our bill of fare today was—Breakfast—Hard-tack, very fat pork boiled with beans, & tea, cold—Dinner Hard-tack, corned beef (limited quantity) and cold tea. For Tea we will probably only have cold tea with our hard tack. This is actually the first day they

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have fed us well. We will be lucky if we do as well every day. I wish we would soon get en route, for I would like the QOR to be the first on the spot. Not likely we will have any fighting, tho' we all wish for it. However I wouldn't like to see any of our boys get killed." He added a postscript: "This is my last stamp." Three days after the Queen's Own reached Battleford, Edgar boasted to the House of Commons that "all Canadians have been filled with admiration at the extraordinary and brilliant march," adding that "all the country are interested in knowing how the troops have stood the extraordinary strain." Minister of Militia Adolphe Caron confirmed that the troops "have stood that wonderful march in a manner that really nobody could have expected from them."7 On April 28 Jamie wrote from Battleford: "You may miss me very much at home Mamma, but you can't miss me as much as I miss you all and home. I am not sorry I came, but I will be glad to get home when the time comes. Much to my disgust and I suppose your satisfaction, our Company is not likely to have any fighting. We were served out with boots yesterday and I got a pair that fit me very well. It was awfully good of you to make up a hamper to send, and it made my mouth water to read the list of things in it. I started to read them out to the boys, but it made them feel so bad that they started to fire things at me so I had to stop. Sometimes it makes us angry if anyone talks of good things to eat, other times we sit around and each one tries to suggest the most tempting dish. Roast beef & vegetables, deep apple pie & cream, homemade bread & butter & honey, tea or coffee and cream, in cups. Hold on, that'll do, I mustn't let my imagination run on too much. I'll tell you what—I'll know how to eat when I get home." Jamie saw no battlefield action as his unit was left behind when

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Otter led three hundred troops out of Battleford on May 1 to confront a Cree and Assiniboine force near Cut Knife Creek. While Jamie marked time, his father hammered the government on its management of the North-West, and his mother joined a Toronto committee to send food parcels to the troops. On May 9 Jamie wrote to his mother: "[What a pleasure to see your name] as one of the ladies who are getting up a load of luxuries for us. We need them. My Tea has just been brought to me consisting of tea. I have saved three hard tacks from Dinner, and one half slice of bread, which is the greatest luxury. We have some syrup in our tent for which we paid $2.50 a gallon. We bought 5 gallons. My tea is getting cold, must tackle it... Tell our cricketer Pelham that the QOR defeated Mounted

Map showing territory involved in the North-West Rebellion, 1885.

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Members of the Queen's Own Rifles on their return from the North-West. Photo taken at the C.P.R. North Toronto Station, July 23, 1885.

Police at a game of cricket—91 runs to 56. I have run short of money again as I paid my last cent having five handkerchiefs washed, 5 cents each. A reasonable charge." On May 12, General Frederick Middleton defeated the Metis forces at Batoche, and Riel surrendered three days later. "We don't know what may happen over the Riel matter," James wrote Tillie from Ottawa. "The Govt are likely to shilly shally over him instead of punishing him promptly." Two weeks later, Middleton led a small force out of Battleford in pursuit of Big Bear, the only important rebel leader still at large. Once again, Jamie's unit was left behind. Then on July 5, three days after Big Bear's surrender to the North-West Mounted Police, the Queen's Own left Battleford for Toronto. Jamie and his mates arrived at the North Toronto station late in the afternoon of July 23 to discover a city wild with excitement. Triumphal arches spanned the major streets. Welcoming addresses were scarcely heard above the noise of the cheering crowd. Tillie Edgar

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and ladies of the Volunteers' Supply Committee presented each returning soldier with a nosegay of flowers. With the Queen's Own silver bugle band playing "When Johnny Comes Marching Home," the regiment paraded down Yonge Street, then east along King to city hall. There the lieutenant-governor gave official greetings and a huge chorus of school children lustily sang "The Maple Leaf Forever," "Rule Britannia," and "God Save the Queen."8 Young Jamie hung up his uniform and soon went back to his law studies, and Tillie breathed a sigh of relief.

Following the surrender of Louis Riel and his Indian allies, James Edgar and the parliamentary Liberals focused on the government's Franchise Bill. They attacked Macdonald's proposed uniform franchise for dominion elections, arguing that each province should determine its own dominion franchise. From mid-April to early June, the House devoted most of its time to the bill, as the Liberals fought with everything in their power, as he explained to Tillie on April 27: "I write a line just now as I may be in the middle of the fight on Franchise after dinner. The Bill will go into Committee in a few minutes. When it will come out is a question of physical endurance. We are organized for a long fight. While I am writing we are into it—on the female suffrage question first. We went home by daylight again on Saturday morning. Tonight I am one of those who will get home at 2 o'clock. On Tuesday night I will begin at 2 am & so on..." Edgar played a major role in the Liberal attack, each day leading one of the three eight-hour shifts the party maintained on a roundthe-clock basis, and assuming control of general strategy whenever Blake was absent. "I was at it hammer & tongs in committee with Sir John," he reported to Tillie at the end of one day. On another occasion, James "called the party together & laid eleven amendments before them & they adopted all." Such sustained efforts took their toll. "The work was terribly wearisome," claimed fellow-Liberal Richard Cartwright, "and I much fear shortened the days of several of the leading participants in the fray."9

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On the first of May James wrote to Tillie: "Just 30 1/2 hours since we began to sit yesterday. We don't know yet whether the Gov't will surrender. If not I go to work from 2 am till 8 a.m. I may run home & lie down for a while before 2—as I have an alarm clock I brought for the purpose." This sitting continued non-stop from three p.m. on Thursday, April 30, till midnight on Saturday, May 2. The day after the battle ended, James reported to his wife: "We wound up our 57 hour session at exactly 12 o'clock last night with a brilliant speech from Blake. It is altogether the most wonderful parliamentary feat on record. The longest in England was 40 hours. We did not let the Govt pass one line of the Bill in that time—and we could have kept it up 24 hours longer if necessary. I slept till 8.30 this morning & am quite refreshed. Surely the country will be excited by our course & appreciate the enormity of the scheme. We drew a few speeches from the other side — and I spoke pretty freely as to the disastrous effect this wd have upon the loyalty of Ontario. For this Prof. Foster attacked me as unfurling the flag of secession—and I suppose I will have a general attack all round. I am satisfied—for I meant what I said & will stand by it." Finally, Liberal efforts, combined with Macdonald's anxiety over the approach of Louis RiePs trial in Regina, convinced the government to consider amendments. Once these amendments were accepted, the Liberals ceased their obstructionist tactics and allowed the measure to pass. On June 9 Edgar reported on the new atmosphere in the House: "Franchise Bill got through com. early today as far as the ordinary clauses are concerned—so we have got into ordinary Gov't business & Gov't are not ready for it. I don't know what we will have to do after dinner. Sir John...told me a story while we were waiting outside the door during prayers...Sir John said he felt 'No more d—d franchise bills for me'. Playful—isn't he?"10 Outdoor recreation provided periodic relief from the hectic House schedule. James Edgar and William Mulock spent one delightful

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Saturday trout-fishing near Old Chelsea in Quebec. "We caught over 5 dozen," he boasted. "We had a trout tea out there & plenty left."11 On another weekend, the Speaker of the House hosted a tennis party—"three nets in the lawn between the building & the Summer House & a tent erected close to his rooms so that the strawberries, ices & cool drinks cd be got out of the basement windows." James sought Tillie's advice on accepting the presidency of a cricket club: "How much is it likely to cost?" Or her support in declining an appointment to the Provincial Synod of the Anglican Church: "The qualification attached to it as to my church standing is fatal to my ambitions so I must decline." He relied on Tillie to supervise domestic matters in Toronto, such as selling the family's milk-cow and planting trees and garden seeds. The children were constantly on his mind. He fretted over missing Bertie's second birthday party. When sending home a gift of maple sugar, he instructed his wife to "break it up into pieces like marbles & feed it out gradually to the children" as "Papa's sugar." Throughout the long franchise debate, James longed to have Tillie with him in Ottawa, as he wrote on May 16: "You can pay me a visit for a few days, perhaps a week? You can lodge with me—& perhaps get breakfast here. At any rate we can get our meals either at The Russell or at the place where Mrs. MacKenzie is. I, of course, only want you here to make some sketches—there are beautiful views all about & the people are walking up & down the lovers walk & I don't see why we should not." Two days later, James asked her to "bring my summer flannels— the weather is melting" and the waistcoat for his thin dark grey coat. They will lunch and dine at the Russell Hotel. It is "so cheap that we will make money every day you stay here." He will meet her at the Ottawa station, and they will enjoy a few "honeymoon" days alone together. The weekend was delightful. They walked on "lovers walk" and dined royally at the Russell. They sketched and fished at Old Chelsea. After Tillie had returned home, James found a "frilled nightgown" in his cupboard. "What am I to do with it?" Later that spring, Tillie suffered problems with her eyes, perhaps fretting over inheriting a family tendency to a "crossed eye." Pictures of her as a young woman show her gazing at the camera in

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a straightforward manner, but in later photos she is usually looking down or to one side, apparently avoiding the camera lens. James sought to reassure her, writing on June 12: "So you think your eye requires fixing up with drops & vile stuff of that kind? For goodness sake do not try experiments with your eye—beyond keeping one covered sometimes to allow the other to work. I have not even thought of a divorce on a/c of your eye & I do not propose you shall take any risks with your sight... Tell Pelham that this morning I found myself one of 5 Grit MP's in [Committee Room] No. 6—It struck me they were extra big & I took down their heights. Not one was less than 6 feet and we averaged 6 ft, 2 & a half inches! How is that for high? The little men had not got up yet—This shews that early rising makes tall men."

The lengthy 1885 session kept James in Ottawa and required Tillie to oversee construction of a major addition to the family cottage at Roach's Point—more bedrooms and a second storey that led to a name change from "The Bungalow" to "The Pines."12 On May 15 James wrote to Tillie: "I hear from Taylor that the house is finished & I have written him to say that you will go up & see...I leave all in your hands. Enquire at Lefroy station about the fruit trees—shipped from Toronto on the 12th." On 14 June he advised: "As to staining the floor—can we not do this summer without it. I don't know if the floor is smooth enough for it—or what it will cost? You must ask Taylor & if it is only $2 or $3 he can do it. I have a rough sketch of the boat from Ellis, but I cannot decide yet about sail for her." Cottage life involved many details, as we can see from James's letter of July 6:

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"The Pines," the much enjoyed summer retreat at Roach's Point, Lake Simcoe, as shown in 1905.

"I have written to Ellis about getting seats in the boat. Tell Pelham I depend upon him to try & get the big boat ready— because I have written to the Sail man to send up the sails at once. Let him see Ellis about it—daily till it is done. Have you a bathing suit for me? Will you see that the bathing houses are put into thorough repair as I think I explained in letter to Taylor. Divide the larger one into 2—& put roof into good shape & batten up cracks with strips of board." Four days later: "I do envy you all—but I am thankful that you are so happy & comfortable. Today as I had an hour to spare I went out & bought a hammock like our large one. That can be for the children & we can keep the new one. I also bought the proper hooks to put up in the verandah to hang hammocks on. I got a rope for a swing too, & a hatchet to cut down trees in the wildwoods. Your figures as to Awning were very perplexing—but—I'll tell you what I have done. I have got 10 yards 30 inches wide. I have

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ordered it to be built 21/2 yards high—and that will give us 10 feet wide—which will shelter a hammock. I will bring all these things up when I go. I looked at a croquet set on Monday. Perhaps I will write to Malone to send up a set..." James also sent a copy of Catherine Parr TrailPs new book, Studies of Plant Life in Canada, to help the children identify flowers in the nearby fields and woods. He urged Tillie and twelveyear-old Maud to sketch and paint the flowers and plants. "This will fill the summer with a new interest—for all of us—& will keep up your painting. Don't let the children take the book out of the house." The House was prorogued in late July. James's return to 113 Bloor Street was fraught with misadventures. His letter to Tillie on the first of August reports the details: "The telephone to Yorkville was not in order yesterday so I cd not reach Maria, but she had received Eliza's trunk & my valise & might have known to expect me. At 1/2 past six I arrived very hot, to find house locked up. I got in at a cellar window, & with the iron bar of the furnace burst open door at top of stairs—& got myself a miserable supper. I found all the cows in the park had got in & destroyed the grapes & things generally—I nailed up the gate." James's sister Eliza made the Edgar house in Toronto her holiday headquarters that summer. His law firm also demanded time. Then his digestive system began acting up. On the eleventh he itemized his health complaints to his wife: "I am not very well—but have to be at the office as Garvie is too sick to come out at all. I saw Dr. Ross last night & this morning. I have ulcerations of the aesophagus—Pharyngitis—or something. It is very unpleasant as the porridge—all I had for breakfast—scraped all the way down through my chest...! certainly hope Jamie will be here on Wednesday—as we are greatly overworked." Finally, Eliza departed and James wrote to Tillie on August 13:

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"Eliza away today—Henry [Carry] was up & slept last night in James bed—& saw Eliza off. I was so tangled up with people in the office that I let the time pass to see her off*. I think she wd have been as well satisfied to stay till Saturday—but I don't know how Hannah wd have stood it. I do hope to get up on Saturday afternoon by the Muskoka Express. I want somebody to meet me. I hope & long for a little rest-rest-rest."

CHAPTER

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Authors in the House 1885-1893

Dark and solemn stand the pinetrees, And the hemlock casts its shadows, Where the forest spreads unbroken From the Great Lakes of the Hurons, To the Lakes of many Islands, To the waters of Muskoka. —J.D. Edgar1

JAMES EDGAR ALWAYS FOUND TIME for creative writing, despite the heavy demands of law, politics and family. He preserved his "Anecdote of a Squirrel" and other juvenile scribblings; he remained justifiably proud of "This Canada of Ours;" and he produced a steady stream of legal and political pamphlets from the mid-1860s on. Then in 1885, though the Riel Rebellion and the Franchise Bill demanded attention and family concerns swirled around Jamie's safety in the North-West, Edgar published "The White Stone Canoe: A Legend of the Ottawas," a 450-line narrative poem. Set in a legendary time in the Lakes region, the poem features a young Indian brave, Abeka, and his fiancee, Wabose. All the voices of the woodland, All the music of the waters, Every whisper of the breezes,

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Stirred the blood of young Abeka, When he wandered with his Wabose, Through the shadows of that forest, In the fullness of the summer, Breathing words of love and gladness. Alas! Wabose became ill and died on the very day of their marriage. From the hour she was buried, there was no more joy or peace for Abeka. War and hunting lost their charms; his heart was already dead within him. He wandered through the winter forests, bemoaning his lost love. Was there any hope for the future? But one thought was ever with him, But one wild desire possessed him; For the old men often told him, That by fasting and by dreaming, By forsaking all his kindred, By forgetting all his prowess, He might find the hidden pathway To the land of Souls and Shadows. This one purpose fired his fancy; Daily fasts and nightly vigils Gave him weird and mystic visions, Filling all his mind with wonder, Hope and wonder, strangely blended. So Abeka determined to follow this path that led southward to the land of Souls and Shadows. He gradually left behind the land of snow and ice and entered a countryside of blue skies and mild air, with flower-bedecked pathways and birdsong filling the air. Snowshoes, made with thongs of deerskin, Tightly stretched on frames of hardwood, Bore him lightly over snowdrifts, Marking all the paths behind him; Till the sunshine, growing stronger, Melted every trace of winter. And he heard the sweet birds singing,

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Saw the fragrant blossoms bursting, And the tender leaflets shewing Tips of green on all the branches. Now Abeka's footsteps quickened, For he saw a well worn pathway Through a grove of giant pine trees— Just as promised by traditions, Old traditions of his people, Coming from the distant ages, When the souls of the departed Held communion still with mortals. Finally Abeka reached a lodge, where the elderly Master of the Wigwam told him of Wabose. Kindly, then, he led Abeka, Seated him on couch of bearskin, Answered all his eager questions, Told him when his Wabose passed there, That she urgently entreated That she might return to wander Through the forests near Abeka, With the birds to warble to him, With the winds to breathe upon him; Sometimes, in his dreams to tell him All the love she lavished on him. Sadly had she learned the lessons Of her altered state and nature, Of her future life and duties. But one answer she had offered To all words of hope and promise— "Happiness comes not without him, "Joy sits only in his presence, "I will wait till he comes for me— "Send and tell him I am waiting..."

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The Master gave Abeka directions for his spiritual journey to meet Wabose in the land of Souls and Shadows. "But you cannot take your body; "Leave it with your bows and arrows, "Leave it with your dog and knapsack; "On returning you shall find them..." The freed traveller bounded forward. After a half-day's journey through a countryside growing ever more beautiful, Abeka reached the banks of a broad lake, in the centre of which stood a beautiful and magical island. At water's edge, he found a canoe made of "purest White Stone." As soon as he stepped into the canoe and began paddling, he spied Wabose, "his long lost one," paddling beside him in an identical canoe. She restrained his strong emotion By her smiles and warning gestures. Shining from her lovely features Glowed a radiancy of beauty, Pure and gentle as the moonlight, Clear and sparkling as the starlight. By her loving smile he knew her, By her eyes that oft had spoken More than falt'ring tongue could tell him. Then she, pointing towards the Island, Sighed to him to hasten thither. Underneath the crystal-clear water, Abeka and Wabose saw the remains of men and women who had perished. Others were struggling and sinking in the waves as they paddled onward. On the shore the two companions Found themselves in safety landed. Hand in hand they went together, Over flowery fields they wandered, Through the glades of leaf and blossom, Where the waterfalls made music,

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Young lovers Abeka and Wabose, from J.D. Edgar's "The White Stone Canoe," illustrated by W.D. Blatchly.

Where the streamlet softly murmured, Sending to the birds above it Songs to match their sweetest singing. All the fragrance of the woodland,

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All the beauties of the forest, All its charms and all its secrets, Filled their hearts with joy unspoken. Cold and famine came not near them, For the balmy air sustained them, And they quaffed the spicy South wind... till they consumated their love "on couch of moss reclining." To Abeka and Wabose, the island was a beautiful and magical place, with no ice or chilly winds; no one shivered for want of warm clothes; no one suffered with hunger; no one mourned the dead in a land without graves and without wars. While one might live happily ever after here, Abeka was nevertheless persuaded to leave. So the Voice that reached Abeka Spoke to him with fullest meaning, "Go," it said, "back to your people, "Since your task is not accomplished. "To your people I will send you, "You shall be a chief among them, "Ruling them with love and wisdom. "For great purposes I made you — "These my messenger will show you, "When he gives you back your body, "So that you may guide your people, "So that you may lead them with you, "Safely to the Happy Island." Wabose, however, remained behind. "Go, but leave your Wabose with me; "She will wait your second coming, "Always young and always faithful, "Young and fair as when I called her "From the land of snows and forests." Abeka returned to his people to take up his duties as a chief.

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Tide page "The White Stone Canoe", 1885.

And he ruled his people wisely, So that he might take them with him, When he next should cross the water, In the bright canoe of White Stone, To the Island of the Blessed. "The White Stone Canoe" was inspired by two American writers. Edgar took his themes of lost love, journeys of self-discovery, dreamlike glimpses of the after-life, and personal denial from Henry Schoolcraft's "The Myth of Hiawatha," and from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's epic poem "The Song of Hiawatha," Edgar borrowed

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theme, poetic form, and even narrative detail."2 Edgar, however, set his version of the saga in Muskoka, the forested lakeland north of Toronto where he spent many enjoyable fishing and canoeing holidays. An 1877 camping expedition down the Severn River with sons Jamie and Pelham may have been the direct inspiration for the poem. Six-year-old Pelham was given the travelling pseudonym of "Ishnabi" or "Little Indian." Burned the appropriate colour by the sun and swathed in anti-mosquito grease, Pelham recorded that he was "conscious that I looked the part and lived up to my title."3 Publication of "The White Stone Canoe" brought more political taunts than critical acclaim. In January 1886, Edward Farrer, editor of the Conservative Toronto Mail, accused Edgar facetiously of writing some of the grosser Liberal campaign songs of the day, including the infamous "Ontario, Ontario!"—an anti-French, antiCatholic song that had severely embarrassed the Liberals in the 1882 election, and which included the lines: The traitor's hand is at thy throat, Ontario, Ontario! Then kill the tyrant with thy vote, Ontario, Ontario! Farrer also accused Edgar of penning a horrible bit of doggerel that poked fun at John A. Macdonald's tendency to fawn on the "hideous Bleus" of Quebec: You'd kiss their feet, you poor old sinner And think it's sweet, Like the master's dogs did after dinner.4 Edgar unwisely replied in the Globe with a verse entitled "Sad Flight of an Editor," supposedly attributed to "a Tory journalist" and clearly directed at Farrer: I am an able journalist, I'm ready to discuss Most any question one may name Except the Halfbreed muss;

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When that is on the carpet brought, I'd rather be away, — It kind o' sort o' doesn't seem To glorify John A.!

The Kidnappers. Grip, July 3, 1890.

Farrer responded by savaging Edgar as a serious writer, maintaining that Conservative newspapers, in the interests of encouraging a Canadian poet, had given Edgar's poems handsome treatment, perhaps even jeopardizing their own reputation for literary taste in so doing. "We warn him, however, that when he seeks to attribute the

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authorship of any of his works to Tory journalists, he commits an outrage upon the latter to which they will not submit meekly. They may overlook his ingratitude but they will never father his poetry."6 The spat quickly became a daily feature in the Toronto press. Next day, Edgar humorously admitted his sorrow that the Mail so often robbed the modest authors of Canadian political ballads of their proper laurels by attributing "Ontario, Ontario!" and others of the kind to his own pen.7 Farrer counter-attacked by charging that there were "one or two poems which Mr Edgar shall not repudiate," the most notorious being a certain Orange "grand epic:" July the First in Oldbridge Town There was a grievous battle And many a man lay on the ground, And the cannons they did rattle; A bullet from the Irish came And grazed our monarch's arum, The enemy swore that he was kilt, But it didn't do him any ha-rum. Edgar "knows he wrote this historical masterpiece," charged Farrer. "He threw it off in a moment of rapture whilst discharging the duties of fourth committeman of L.O.L. 24, Woodbridge" and "sang it for the first time one night in 1863, when the lodge, exhausted by labour, was engaged in the cheerful process of refreshment." Canadians should refuse to permit Edgar to disown it. "It is the only thing we now have to remember him by, except the Public Accounts."8 Such an embarrassing reminder of his youthful political indiscretions was enough for Edgar, and the "poetical" controversy disappeared from the columns of the daily press. Still, the furor concerning "Ontario, Ontario!" was not quite over. John Bengough kept the issue alive in Grip magazine with a cartoon that suggested Farrer himself as the author. Finally, almost forty years later, Hector Charlesworth claimed that Bengough himself had scribbled the derogatory verse, "one rainy afternoon at a committee meeting of Toronto Liberals in the grocery store of one John Macmillan, a local stalwart." Charlesworth rued the fact that Edgar "could not live it down," for "several prominent men...always believed

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Edgar to be the author."9 James, however, did extract a measure of revenge, for in 1890 he embarrassed Toronto's Tory leaders by helping persuade Farrer to leave the Mail and become editor of the Globe.

As James basked in the glow of his first book of poetry, Tillie waited out her final pregnancy. From her wedding day on September 5, 1865, until the birth of her ninth and last child, Marjorie Ogilivy Edgar, on July 31, 1886, Tillie had been pregnant nearly one-third of her married life! While James freely pursued his legal, political, and writing careers, his spouse devoted her life to bearing, nursing, and raising a houseful of children. She was a devoted mother who enjoyed her sons and daughters and delighted in describing their activities and accomplishments in letters to family members. She taught them their letters and arithmetic in such a way as to "make it an amusement."10 For twenty-one years, she accepted these roles as wife and mother as natural and normal, as had her own mother before her. Once baby Marjorie was weaned, however, she put forward her own plans and embarked on a career of historical research and writing. Her first book, published in 1890, was a collection of family letters entitled Ten Years of Upper Canada in Peace and War, 1805-1815.11 It features correspondence between her grandfather, Thomas Ridout, and his sons Thomas (her father) and George (her uncle), which describe life in the early nineteenth century and provide details of the War of 1812. Tillie's comments, explanations, and narrative make the volume the work of three generations of Ridouts, "all careful observers" who "could write with facility."12 Tillie approached her task with a double purpose—"partly to interest members of a family," she wrote in her introduction, and "partly for the sake of preserving, for future historians of Canada, some additional records of a memorable time." The letters, she believed, "give a faithful picture of an epoch of Canadian History, which, overshadowed as it was at the time by the great events then passing in Europe, has now a deeper significance for us Canadians than the contemporary triumphs of Salamanca and Waterloo." Ten Years of Upper Canada opens with a brief account of Grandfather Thomas Ridout's early life and his arrival in Upper Canada.

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Front page of a printed brochure featuring literary reviews of Matilda Edgar's "Ten Years of Upper Canada," 1890.

There are charming notes to and from his sons Thomas Gibbs and George, who attended John Strachan's Grammar School in Cornwall. "The earlier letters are simple ones," Tillie Ridout Edgar comments, "written by school-boys to their father, with his replies; but so small was society in Upper Canada, that almost all the names mentioned are, in some way or other, interwoven with its history." She adds her own thoughts and explanations and background detail, skilfully blending the letters into a narrative account of life in Upper Canada's Family Compact.

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Then the scene shifts, and the War of 1812 becomes Tillie's prime focus. "It is not intended in this chronicle to give a minute history of the war," she states, "which would include many other gallant fights on land and sea." She is modest about her work. Though she begins with the battle-field exploits and commissariat careers of George and Thomas, as revealed through their letters, she ends by providing a rich chronicle of the War of 1812 throughout Upper Canada and parts of Lower Canada. "There is much to be proud of in the War of 1812," she argues, "to inspire every Canadian with a feeling of pride in his country, and of grateful admiration for those who saved the land in its hour of need.. .Every home in the land gave husband, or brother, or son, to the country's service, and had it not been for the martial spirit aroused in the people, the efforts of the small body of regular soldiers then in Canada, would have been useless." For Ridout Edgar, the war was won by Canadian rather than British efforts. The final letter is from Thomas Gibbs Ridout, written from Cornwall in late February 1815. Tillie follows it with a brief account of her father's postwar career with the Bank of Upper Canada and ends with a generous obituary article from the Toronto Leader of 31 July 1861. "It has been a labour of love to collect these memorials of an honoured father," she writes. "Perhaps their publication may lead other descendants of the pioneers of this country to search in dusty boxes, and ancient desks, for other record of these 'days that are no more'." A forty-page appendix describes grandfather Ridout's captivity at the hands of the Shawanee Indians in the Ohio Valley in 1788 and includes his vocabulary of their language. Ridout "wrote" in a small diary, painstakingly inscribed in tea, on "pages" created from birchbark. Since Ridout Edgar was writing for Victorian readers, however, she exercised her full rights as editor and altered or even eliminated some of the more lurid details in her grandfather's account. She had to tread very carefully, for some of her Ridout relations were becoming uneasy over vague rumours surfacing as to Thomas' fathering an Indian child during his captivity! Critical response to Ten Years of Upper Canada was unanimously favourable. A commentator for the Women's Canadian Historical Society was impressed by Tillie's "sense of historical perspective, her

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easy mastery of detail, and her possession of a literary style that was at once limpid, nervous and strong." The press was equally enthusiastic. "The letters are the more valuable because of that time there are but few contemporary records preserved," wrote the Toronto World. "Mrs. Edgar could not have presented Canadians with a more fitting Christmas gift than this handsome volume," admitted the Toronto Mail, her husband's long-standing adversary. "The work unites the interest of biography and history," said the Christian Guardian. "A most valuable addition to the library of Canada," declared the Montreal Herald.1^ Her subject matter was unusual for a woman of the period. One reviewer stated that "history is not woman's domain in literature" and that the "natural sympathy and tenderness" of women "militate against excellence as historians." Why then did Tillie's first literary effort have such a military and historical emphasis? "Not because she consciously chose a non-traditional theme," suggests Erin Breault, "but because the Ridout letters were in her possession and provided a ready outlet for her literary energy."14 Breault considered Ten Years of Upper Canada "representative of the whig or nationalist school of historical writing, wherein the historian's objective was to celebrate Canada's achievements, such as winning the War of 1812, in order to further national consolidation." As historiographer Brook Taylor points out, many late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Canadian historians "turned to biography and the veneration of the nation's forefathers" in order to, in Ridout Edgar's words, "inspire every Canadian with a feeling of pride in his country, and of grateful admiration for those who saved the land in its hour of need."15 A century later, Tillie's work remains as a valuable contribution to the literature of early Upper Canada and the War of 1812. Throughout her research and writing of this volume, husband James had been an empathetic helpmate and an active promoter. He borrowed books for her from the Parliamentary Library in Ottawa and sent them home to Toronto. In the months following publication, he passed along comments from his Ottawa colleagues. Senator Allan "could not put it down till he had finished it," while Senator Gervan "told me he could not put it down." James also urged Tillie and her publisher, William Briggs, to be more forceful with the book's British co-publisher, T. Fisher Unwin. "You should at once agree to send another batch of 100 over to London," he wrote his wife in June

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1891. "Even if there is no profit for anyone here I think that favorable notices in England will help the sale here much." British press opinion was decidedly positive. "A noteworthy addition to the literature of early Canadian history," declared the Athenaeum; an "eminently readable volume," according to the Daily Telegraph; an "altogether readable volume" echoed the Observer. "A veritable contribution, not only to Canadian history, but to the social manners of the years over which the letters extend," concluded \heAcademy. Ridout Edgar's ability to combine good history and good literature appealed particularly to Gilbert Parker, a Canadian-born writer of historical fiction who had recently moved to Britain. "If any doubted of his heritage, of his worthy privileges as a citizen, this book should set him right," Parker wrote in Literary Opinion, for "before all, it is a record of young men's deeds in a young and stalwart land. One commends it as history, one approves it as literature." Parker was fulsome in his praise. "For years past no more important contribution has been made to Canadian literature. The description of the battle at Queenston Heights is a thrilling thing." Though the book contained old tales, they should be remembered. "In an hour when Canadian endurance is being tried by a fiscal war and tempted by the commercial advantages of annexation, the history of the forefathers of the country should not be forgotten; the Ridout letters would be read."16 The most cherished notice was a short, hand-written letter of June 28,1891, from four-time British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone to Ishbel, Lady Aberdeen, who later forwarded it to Tillie: "I have here for you & Aberdeen's perusal a book about Upper Canada. I would not have done it had it not been that you have such a deep and genuine interest in Canada. This is far & away the most interesting book I ever read about it. It has interesting English details and gives a noble account of the conduct of the thin U.C. population during the War of 1812." This was high praise from Gladstone, and it was warm-spirited generosity on Lady Aberdeen's part to forward the letter to Tillie. Two years later, the Aberdeens came to Ottawa as viceroy and vicereine; during their five-year stay, Ishbel would open a new chapter in Ridout Edgar's life by involving her in the work of the National Council of Women.

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Inspired by the success of their first published books, the Edgars continued to write. James's second book of poetry, This Canada of Ours, and Other Poems, published in 1893, links his patriotism and his love of landscape.17 "This Canada of Ours," now subtitled "ANational Song," was the obvious choice as the opening selection. Let other tongues in older lands Loud vaunt their claims to glory And chaunt in triumph of the past, Content to live in story.

THIS CANADA OF OURS AND OTHER POEMS

BY J.D.EDGAR,MP

TRONTO: WILLIAM BRINGGS, WESLEY BUILDINGS. HALFAX:S.F.HUESTIS

MONTEEAL:C.W.COATES.

1893.

Title page from "This Canada of Ours," a volume of J.D. Edgar's poetry.

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Tho' boasting no baronial halls, Nor ivy-crested towers, What past can match thy glorious youth, Fair Canada of ours? Fair Canada, Dear Canada, This Canada of Ours! He includes a second appeal to patriotism in "Arouse Ye, Brave Canadians!"—lines suggested by General Sir Isaac Brock's appeal to the people of Upper Canada at the opening of the War of 1812 and no doubt in Tillie's mind while she researched and wrote Ten Years of Upper Canada. Here James implies a connection between "true" hearts and a people whose "homes were in the forest made." Canadian arms are stout and strong, Canadian hearts are true; Your homes were in the forest made, Where pine and maple grew. A haughty foe is marching Your country to enthral; Arouse ye, brave Canadians, And answer to my call! Forests are ever-present in the poems. In "The Canadian Song Sparrow," undoubtedly the strongest in the collection, From the leafy maple ridges, From the thickets of the cedar, From the alders by the river, From the bending willow branches, From the hollows and the hillsides, Through the lone Canadian forest, Comes the melancholy music, Oft repeated, never changing " All-is-vanity-vanity-vanity." Where the farmer ploughs his farrow, Sowing seed with hope of harvest, In the orchards, white with blossom,

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In the early fields of clover, Comes the little brown-clad singer, Flitting in and out of bushes, Hiding well behind the fences, Piping forth his song of sadness, "Poor-hu-manity-manity-manity." "Canadian Camping Song" combines forests and lakes of the northern countryside: A white tent pitched by a glassy lake, Well under a shady tree, Or by rippling rills from the grand old hills, Is the summer home for me. "Keswick Bay" illustrates the soothing effect of the family's cottage on Lake Simcoe: O come from your briefs and your office, Break loose from those fetters to-day, For sweet as the breath of the Summer Are the breezes of Keswick Bay. Edgar also includes translations of Quebec poets. In "A Canadian Exile," he transposes Antoine Gerin-Lajoie's "Un Canadien Errant," a song composed shortly after the Rebellion of 1837, when so many French-Canadians were in exile. He takes "A Summer Night" from the French of his boyhood friend Louis Frechette: We wandered together, Louise, and you knew That the dreams of my heart were tender and true. "On the Saguenay" comes also from Frechette: The forest has spells to enchant me, The mountain has power to enthral: Yet the grace of a wayside blossom Can stir my heart deeper than all.

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Frechette and Edgar had travelled different paths since their boyhood days in Pointe-Levy and schooling in Quebec. While Edgar pursued "bourgeois" careers in law and politics and dallied in poetry, Frechette neglected his legal career and lived a semi-bohemian life as a highly regarded poet and radical Rouge pamphleteer.18 But the two remained on familiar terms, corresponding periodically—Frechette usually closing his letters with "ton vieil ami"—and dining together occasionally in Ottawa, Montreal, or Quebec. Frechette enjoyed both Edgar's translations—"better than the original," he once wrote in exaggeration—and his general poetic flair. "Feliciter sur ta jolie legende," he wrote when The White Stone Canoe was published. When This Canada of Ours appeared, he privately congratulated his old friend on "ton charmant volume." Frechette praised Edgar as a "poet of exceptional merit" in his "elevation of thought and charm of expression."19 Other than Frechette, however, critical reaction to Edgar's second volume of poetry was only modestly favourable. Edwin Arnold, an English poet and travel writer, was impressed with "the note of the paddle" throughout "The Canadian Camping Song."20 The Toronto News considered him "a Canadian who cares for his country," while the Mail admired his "note of rationality and lyric grace." The Quebec Chronicle thought "The White Stone Canoe" and "The Great Divide" "excellent bits of description," and "The Canadian Camping Song" "melodious and natural." Though "he is certainly not a great poet, he is still a very sweet singer." A century later, Edgar's poetry is largely forgotten. He is ignored in Ross Roy's survey of nineteenth-century Scottish-Canadian poets.21 He rates but a brief mention in the multi-volume Literary History of Canada as one of many "minor poets" who worked "within the conventions of the English poetic tradition." Still, Roy Daniells is impressed by "the predominance...of the Canadian terrain as a subject" among these late-nineteenth-century poets, as typified by Edgar in "The Canadian Song Sparrow."22 "Every resident in the northern and eastern counties of the Dominion has heard the note of the song sparrow in all the woods and fields through the early days of spring," writes Edgar in introducing the poem. "The Canadian Song Sparrow" took Edgar back to his boyhood years in Quebec and the family's difficulties in scraping a living from the soil. "The writer has distinctly recognized in the

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little song the melancholy sentiments indicated in these lines."23 Wilfrid Campbell, reviewing the 1893 collection for the Toronto Globe, summed up "The Canadian Song Sparrow" as "a genuine naturelyric" whose simple lines and truthful beauty "bespeak for themselves a place in our permanent Canadian literature."

CHAPTER

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New Leaders, New Policies 1885-1888

We wandered off together, We walked in dreamful ease, In mellow autumn weather, Past autumn-tinted trees; The breath of soft September Left fragrance in the air, And well do I remember, I thought you true as fair. —J.D. Edgar1

REFRESHED AFTER HIS HOLIDAY at Roach's Point, and energized by the publication of This Canada of Ours, and Other Poems, James Edgar was eager to return to political life. By autumn 1885, he feared that Louis Riel's trial might tear apart the Liberal party. "The feeling in Ontario is very strong against Riel," Edgar wrote to Wilfrid Laurier, and "a good many Reformers are decidedly in favour of hanging." Edgar argued that Tory strength in Ontario could be offset by rallying Quebec behind the Liberals. Quebec leaders "should be publicly committed to oppose the government if Riel is executed." Laurier was crucial to the party's success. "If you can give the movement the right direction," Edgar wrote to his Quebec colleague on November 16— the day Riel was hanged in Regina—"anything can be accomplished that we desire."2

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Quebec francophone politicians arranged a mass protest meeting on Montreal's Champs de Mars for Sunday November 22. Disappointed at Laurier's hesitancy, Edgar hurried to Montreal on the Friday to exploit the situation and forge links with Quebec leaders. He dined with prominent Liberals that evening and met with both Liberals and Conservatives on Saturday. He was present at the Champs de Mars on Sunday, though he told the Globe that he merely drove past in a carriage with a friend.3 Conservative newspapers bitterly attacked Edgar's presence in Montreal and a subsequent "deal" he allegedly made with Quebec Conservatives. The Toronto Mail charged that Edgar had committed the Liberals to granting immediate amnesty to the rebels and relief to the Metis, to respecting provincial rights, to paying Quebec one million dollars owed from Ottawa, and to providing state aid for emigration to the North-West. In return, Quebec leaders would aid the federal Liberals' attack on Conservative mismanagement in the North-West.4 No direct evidence exists that such terms were proposed or, if they were, that Edgar agreed to them, for he was in no position to commit his party. Edward Blake naturally denied any knowledge of "compacts" with Quebec Conservatives, though he privately supported Edgar's efforts to forge new alliances.5 James Edgar was proud of his actions and confident of his party's prospects when the House of Commons began its 1886 session on February 26. The obvious tactic was to blame the Macdonald ministry for the outbreak in the North-West. In that way most Ontario Liberals could be held to the party while leaving the gate open for any disaffected Quebec Bleus. With Parliament in session, the flow of letters between husband and wife resumed. On March 8 he wrote: "Tell [Jamie] to take all Blake's speeches on the N.W. which are on the floor behind the screen in my office & bring them up to my house for safe-keeping. We are going to have it hot and strong on & after Thursday on the Riel question. Keep to yourself absolutely anything you learned here about our tactics. I am very hard at work indeed every minute since you left & will go home & go to bed."

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Three days later: "We are in the middle of the Riel Debate...This is a grand thing for us. It is a grievance which you will see ventilated in tomorrow mornings Globe—and the sympathy of our people is running very strongly against the Government. I wish you were here. The galleries are packed—hundreds standing & hundreds cannot get in at all." The Conservative majority, however, blocked a Liberal amendment on government responsibility and narrowed the North-West question to the issue of Riel's execution. Edgar remained silent throughout the debate and concentrated instead on preparing the Liberal case and assigning speakers. Still, the Toronto Mail continued to blame Blake's misfortunes on Edgar's overtures to Quebec.6 On March 12, Clarke Wallace, Edgar's long-time antagonist J. D. Edgar in his mid-forties. from Woodbridge and West York, produced a series of alleged telegrams that implicated both Edgar and Blake in a pact to bring the "bolting Bleus" into the Liberal fold. Edgar denied the validity of the telegrams, "every word of which was pure fabrication." Not till the end of May did Wallace virtually admit that the telegrams were bogus.7 The long, often late-night sittings were a strain, as Edgar indicated on March 15: "I am desperately weary—I work very hard [in the] day & up to 12 o'clock—I have too much law work to do to be pleasant— & have my hands full otherwise with politics...! am very moder-

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ate in eating & drinking. I have not taken much to drink out of my cupboard. Tho' I took 2 lunches at home I have only taken one glass of whiskey and one pint of claret. Without exercise I cannot eat much." Tillie's continuing eye problems added to James's worries. So serious was her condition in the spring of 1886 that she decided to risk surgery, despite being five months pregnant. James went home to Toronto the third weekend in March to bolster her spirits before her operation. He had to return to Ottawa on the twenty-first and wrote anxiously the next day: "I hope you did not suffer, my dearest love, and that you will be rewarded by having perfectly restored sight. It was so very good of you to be so brave about letting me away. Do you know that I was nearly breaking down when I said goodbye to you all last night. You must give me a full & particular Matilda Edgar, ca. 1885. a/c of the operation even if you have to dictate it to Maud or Pelham." Her recuperation was long and arduous. "And so your poor eye suffers," James consoled her two weeks later. "Do be careful not to strain it or catch cold in it. You may have serious trouble if not careful." Meanwhile in the Commons, Edgar began attacking the Prince Albert Colonization Company as an example of Conservative landgranting policy and mismanagement of the North-West. "There is really a great sensation here about my impeachment of the P.A. Col. people," James wrote to Tillie on April 4. "I will be blackguarded furiously no doubt—but as the Duke of Wellington said in a similar occasion 'I don't care one d—n'." Next day, Edgar charged that John

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White, Conservative member for East Hastings, and J.C. Jamieson, editor of the Belleville Intelligencer, had unduly profited from their investment in the company through their association with Mackenzie Bowell, minister of customs, who was also owner of the Intelligencer and Jamieson's father-in-law. Edgar moved for a select committee of the House to investigate, but the government instead referred the charges to the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections.8 On April 5 James Edgar reported to his wife: "I had a great field day this afternoon. Really, the Com.[mittee]...will do very well—because Girouard is Chairman & he will be fair. I will prove the case clearly before any committee. John White is raging. He talks of clubbing me. I fear he will get hurt if he tries that style of argument." Edgar was confident. "We had a good time in my committee today," he wrote to Tillie on April 8. "I was prepared at all points." The committee's Tory majority, however, demanded that Edgar prove that he was "credibly" informed by naming the source of his information. When he refused, the committee whitewashed White and Bowell, mildly chastised Jamieson, and censured Edgar for laying charges that he was unable to prove. "They may be whipped in the vote in the House," James optimistically wrote his wife on May 18. "Girouard the chairman will kick against the report. There may be a chance for a big row in the House." The government, however, dared not ask the full House of Commons to adopt the report for fear of an adverse vote, and the issue died. Despite the thrill of verbal combat, Edgar missed his wife and children—the "rabbits." Pelham spent some time in Ottawa that spring, watching his father at work in the House and staying with his aunt and uncle, Tom and Jessie Ridout, at 86 Nepean Street. "It was very nice for me to see him here," James wrote. "It was a bit of home." Still, James longed for the rest of his family, as he wrote on April 17: "Last night was gorgeous here. The moon brilliant & the buildings grand. I did so wish that you were here to enjoy it—& indeed all the little rabbits too. It was grand at sunset in the Summer House—looking down at the river where the ice is breaking up, the mist on the

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Mountains & the glory of the sunset. I so want all the 'fambly' to see & enjoy it all." James passed along innumerable instructions for work to be done around the Toronto home, scoldings for not writing, and instructions for Jamie to watch his health. On 27 April he instructed: "I have got from Glen the names of some roses & am writing Lesslie to send some to Bloor street. As soon as they arrive, cut them down ruthlessly to 4 inches from the roots and plant them in the beds nearest the Summer House & farthest away from the lower end of the garden. Tell Jamie at once to take the pruning knife and cut down the few rose bushes that are already on the ground square off to 3 inches from the ground—cut off old & new wood clean." And on May 2: "I don't know what can have happened that no one of you all wrote me since Tuesday. I have had no letter either yesterday or today—but telegraphed you yesterday morning that unless Jamie [is] better he should give up his examination. I mean that it wd be ridiculous for him to hurt himself. If he is really seedy he had better go up to Roach's Point for a few days & busy himself with looking after the boats & garden & other engineering works. He could get board somewhere & stay in our house... You have no idea how distressed & anxious I am at not hearing from home when so many are not well. Your eyes seem to be doing splendidly. I have a good mind not to post this letter in time for the mail tonight—just as one evidence of my displeasure—but I won't do that." James was over-extending himself during committee hearings, for the next day he reported: "I am suffering since yesterday from a bilious attack—agueish—& diarrhea—& wd like to have stayed in all day—but had to be up to a caucus at 10 to 12.1 went back & tried to work up my White-Bowell argument which is expected on for sure tomorrow—but I felt awfully sick—I had to come up here & get Woodworth & Mitchell at work on Beatty's Bill. It is started now & we will have a vote on it today. I can hardly sit in my seat with pains in my tummy—but it will get better soon." On May 5, James bought "cholera medicine" from a druggist. Two days later he felt "middling if it were not for cramps." The fol-

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lowing week he was "bilious & seedy again." Relief came less from the medicine bottle than from recreational activities away from the House—occasional fishing expeditions to Old Chelsea and evenings with Ottawa's French-speaking literary elite. On May 20, for example, he reported: "After all I did go to the French Seance & got back to the House at 12... We had a very pleasant evening. Among the guests were Senator Pelletier, [Francois] Langelier & myself. The members are civil service people, well read & some well known writers—such as [Benjamin] Suite. They read various French extracts from reviews etc. & criticisms & discussed each. I of course spoke in English but I was able to follow enough to discuss all points. The President asked me to read an English selection so I picked Jean Mayhew & read Requiescat in pace after explaining what it was about & what I admired it for—I must say that it delighted them & was a happy thought. They all knew enough English to admire it. Those men tell me that they have lots of time in the evenings, have a good Library at hand & know one another well & find that every Wednesday evening they meet they learn a great deal & enjoy themselves." Meanwhile the session dragged on. "No present prospect of a close," James wrote to Tillie on May 27. "The feeling is getting hot & high & both sides fight over trifles." Next day, "I do not know if I can stand it any longer when I am so much wanted at the office." When Parliament was finally prorogued on June 2, James hurried back to Toronto to be with Tillie during the final weeks of her pregnancy. Baby Marjorie Ogilvy Edgar, born at home on July 31, 1886, was almost exactly twenty years younger than Jamie!

Christmas 1886 found the family gathered at 113 Bloor Street West. James, now forty-five, and Tillie, forty-one, proudly looked around the room at their loving and lively children. Twenty year-old Jamie was making excellent progress as an articled student in his

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father's law office. Pelham, fifteen, and Maud, fourteen, excelled in their studies at Upper Canada College and Bishop Strachan School, respectively. Then came Willie, twelve, Beatrice, nine, Keith, seven, Bertie, two, and baby Marjorie. Tillie praised them all in a long letter (January 2) to Caroline Edgar: "Willie is a thoughtful boy, very fond of reading—of poetry particularly, living a little in a world of his own and quite happy if allowed to curl himself up on a chair with a volume of Longfellow or Macaulay... He is also very fond in summer of collecting specimens and watching insects and is altogether of a reflective turn. I hope you like our two little sailor boys, Keith & Bertie. They are great friends. The former, some think, is the finest boy in the family. He is certainly a good looking honest faced fellow, very frank and affectionate. Bertie is all life and merriment—very naughty too sometimes, but a great pet. Baby [Marjorie] is much prettier than her photo which only presents her as a fat lump without expression. She is a thriving young monkey and gives very little trouble. I have had the same nurse for seven years and

A picnic at Roach's Point, Lake Simcoe. The Edgar summer home "The Pines" can be seen through the trees in background.

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she relieves me of a great deal of trouble in the nursery. We had a very happy Christmas gathering at our house. A dinner at 2 o'clock to which the Robertsons were invited—we sat down 15 counting the children—then at five there was a tea when the Thornes joined us and after that a Christmas Tree and a supper to which 24 sat down, for my brother George and his wife and children were added. Maud had been very busy for some time preparing surprises for all of us. She really shewed great talent for needlework — which is not inherited from her mother. Our dear Beatrice was made very happy by a doll's house— Jamie a set of Carlyle's work — Pelham a toboggan etc. Willie a printing press. Maud a silver watch & chain and the little ones games and picture books. We are indeed thankful to have them all so well and happy. Just now it seems almost too good to last. You would have liked to have seen the Master of the house— the dear husband and father, at the head of his table looking so handsome and contented. He works so hard—always. I wonder sometimes he does not get almost in despair at having such a number to provide for. But he takes great delight out of his babies and even the last wee newcomer gets a share of his petting. Jamie is now a great help and companion to his father and is a son to be proud of. They get on very well together and have a great many tastes in common — politics especially... The Dominion Elections have not yet come off—and Sir John Macdonald still reigns at Ottawa. However there is not much doubt that he is much weakened and probably before the summer Mr Blake, our leader, will be Premier. Then of course— there is a possibility of Jim being in his Cabinet—That means a good deal of discomfort even if honour is attached. — It will have to come some day I suppose—Tomorrow evening we have a gathering here of young Liberals a club to which Jamie belongs—to meet their leaders Mr Blake and Mowat." After months of speculation, Macdonald called an election for February 22, 1887. While James was no longer party secretary for Ontario, he was extremely busy drumming up candidates, speaking at nomination meetings, corresponding with local Reform stalwarts,

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Map showing constituency of West Ontario, 1887.

and distributing money and literature. Though he spent little time in his own constituency, West Ontario gave him a comfortable majority of 599. He also shared credit for an over-all increase in seats won by the Liberals. Still, old Sir John remained prime minister. For the 1887 session, which began on April 13, Edgar lodged at the Rideau Club on Wellington Street, directly across from the Parliament Buildings. "I am settled down very quietly," he wrote to his

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wife on April 24, "and have had ample time to think & plan & have worked a little too. The Club is delightful after the clang, clash, & clatter of the Russell [Hotel]." Still, the business of politics was demanding. "I am pegging away at several matters," James wrote two days later, "and have not an idle minute." One such issue was Imperial Federation, a jingoistic movement championed by George Denison and many of the old Canada First group. Edgar opposed any union with Great Britain and the other self-governing colonies. Imperial Federation, he told the Commons, would deprive Canada "of some of the rights of self-government which we value so highly."9 He campaigned instead for the extension of autonomy as Canada's logical and preferred destiny—Canada controlling its own copyright legislation, for example, or negotiating commercial treaties with foreign nations. On May 2 his wife heard from him: "I have just sat down after my speech on Imperial Federation and no word of reply was made—I did not feel at all nervous & my voice was good & the House was all attention. It was the plainest talk they can have & I am glad I did it."

And on May 5: "I am just driven off my feet with work at Franchise Forms & Parliamentary work, & have not had time to read even the Globe. I will try & shut down on so much work & take a larger share in House work. I would like to read up Govt Bills & fight them out more than I do, but chores outside of the House prevent it." Daughter Maud had her turn in Ottawa that spring, staying with her Uncle Tom and Aunt Jessie Ridout and acccompanying her father around Parliament Hill and to various social activities. Her father wrote home on May 27: "We had a horrible long sitting last night. I got to bed by daylight—& was up at Club at breakfast at 8.30 for I had 2 committees in the morning. I took Maud home last night soon after ten

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o'clock. She had been rather tired by the Reception but very well indeed today. She was here at 3 with [cousin] Tillie & just before six I sent them into the Library to wait a minute for me when Mr. Hickman got hold of me & I took him into my room & he kept me till 6.30—so I had to buy the girls some candies. The weather is wet and cold but I hope to take Maud, Tillie & Edith out to Old Chelsea tomorrow at 9.30. The other night I made quite a long speech, but found my voice was as good as I cd wish it. To my surprise I admit." In Toronto, Tillie was busy entertaining on James's behalf, and he worried about her, as he told her on May 31: "Poor old girl! you were not in a fit state to do so much hard work—& I fear you are not going to rest yourself enough. Did you talk much French to your French guests? I hope you are going in for the rest & the quinine that I prescribe. I am dosing myself and M[aud] with quinine & I feel the good of it." On June 7 he informed her: "I forgot to tell you that you & I are asked to a Garden Party at Rideau [Hall] on Friday afternoon. We accepted, but whether you go or I go will depend on circumstances of course. I am disgusted at finding that we are going to sit on Saturday for I had put my name down for a sleeping berth for Wednesday night—hoping to breakfast with you on Thursday—as the House does not sit on that day—& I wd have missed Friday." Edgar's main political concern during the 1887 session was Edward Blake's status as Liberal party chief. Blake had provided reluctant and indifferent leadership for years, several times threatening to resign. When the 1887 election resulted in another Liberal defeat, Blake again talked of leaving and finally sent his formal resignation to caucus on June 1. Who would succeed him? Premier Honore Mercier of Quebec thought that the party should "go first for [Ontario Premier Oliver] Mowat, next for Edgar," and then for Laurier. "It is something to be appreciated in one quarter at any rate!" James wrote to Tillie.10

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Yet Edgar harboured no illusions about the leadership. Neither his health nor his family ties could withstand the strains of leading a national party. Besides, he was essentially an organizer and a behindthe-scenes politician, who lacked the presence needed to inspire the country at large. Edgar believed that the key to the party's future lay with Quebec and Wilfrid Laurier, and he had suggested Laurier as a temporary leader two years earlier. Now, at a caucus meeting on June 7, Laurier's name was carried "with fair approval," though it was another two weeks before he accepted. "Allow me to salute you, and to vow true allegiance to you as my chief," Edgar wrote from Toronto the following day. "It is a great relief to have the matter settled—and your promotion is admirably received here."11 Edgar and Laurier shared common interests in politics and culture. Through the late 1870s and early 1880s, they frequently lunched together in Ottawa, where their talk often strayed into philosophy and theology.12 Although Laurier now was national party leader, he was not yet entirely trusted by some Ontario members, nor well known to the majority of the province's electorate. Not surprisingly, he asked Edgar for advice on Ontario affairs. "There are some subjects which must be treated, & which have to be treated in a rather delicate way," Laurier wrote in November 1887. "I want to have the benefit of your advice." At the same time, Laurier included Edgar in the "inner cabal" that hammered out Liberal strategy before each House of Commons session.13 Edgar was particularly helpful in shaping the party's trade policy during the late 1880s. After several years of high tariffs under Macdonald's "National Policy," critics began championing lower tariffs and closer commercial relations with the United States. In February 1887, even the pro-Conservative Toronto Mail supported trade reciprocity; through April and May, with yet another dominion election lost, the Globe presented almost daily editorials for a commercial or tariff-free union between Canada and the United States. Laurier saw commercial union as a bold measure to move the party forward again after three consecutive electoral defeats. In July, he began sounding out leading party members on commercial union; by August he started mentioning the idea in his public speeches.14

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James Edgar remained among the more timid Ontario Liberals who advocated a goslow policy on commercial union. "We must move onwards my dear Edgar," Laurier urged him. "The present purely negative policy will not avail." Laurier wrote to Cartwright in September, suggesting that he try to bring Edgar around. "Edgar and James Young are the only two men who have written me in absolutely uncompromising antagonism to commercial union. I wish you would see [Blake] & see Edgar as well, A youthful appearing Sir Wilfrid Laurier. & compare notes together." Photo ca. 1890. Despite such pressure, Edgar remained firm. "I see no reason to change my views," he wrote to Laurier.15 Edgar was finally spurred into action in mid-October when British politician Joseph Chamberlain asserted that "Canada knows perfectly well that Commercial Union with the United States means political separation from Great Britain." Edgar considered this an infringement on Canada's right to decide its own commercial future, and he poured forth his wrath in a letter to the Globe. "Surely a crisis has arisen in Canadian history," Edgar wrote in an exaggerated tone, "and a new struggle for our rights and self-government is at hand."16 Chamberlain's utterances prompted Edgar to correspond with Erastus Wiman, a Canadian-born New York business leader and writer at the vanguard of commercial union. In open letters, printed by both the Globe and the Mail over three weeks in November 1887, Edgar outlined proposals for "unrestricted reciprocity" instead of commercial union.17 To Edgar, commercial union meant abolishing customs houses along the Canadian—American border, setting common tariffs against the rest of the world, and pooling customs revenues. With

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unrestricted reciprocity, however, each nation would impose its separate tariff against other countries, and only goods of North American origin would pass freely over the border. Canada would still obtain all the advantages, while the difficulties of forming a common tariff and a revenue-pooling arrangement would disappear. Enthused with the Globe's support, Edgar wrote to Laurier that he believed "unrestricted reciprocity as distinguished from Commercial Union with uniform tariffs, will be as far as we can go as a party."18 And his views prevailed when party leaders met on the eve of the 1888 parliamentary session to determine trade policy. As he told Tillie on February 25: "We have arranged for unrestricted reciprocity instead of Coml Union. Mills & Laurier were for this latter but Cartwright, Weldon, Paterson & Davies were on my side—& all have agreed. Laughlin was for both or either. Of course we are to have our caucus on Tuesday—but that will be all right. We are working Laurier hard—we had several hours this morning on the trade question & 3 hours this afternoon on fisheries—& my previous analysis of the treaty helped me greatly. I could not be better satisfied than I am with my position in the party council. Our fellows are in good spirits & want extremely to fight." Edgar's published letters to Wiman proved crucial in shaping Liberal policy. "All our fellows (except Mills) approved of them," he wrote to his wife on 26 February, and "my policy as laid down there will be adopted by the party." Still, it had been a tough battle. "It was a blessing that Laurier was held back for he would have committed himself to Commercial Union." Cartwright led the Liberal attack when the House took up the trade question. He called for the "largest possible freedom of commercial intercourse" between the two countries, with "all articles manufactured in, or the natural products of either of the said countries" admitted "free of duty into the ports of the other." He made no mention of common tariffs against the rest of the world.19 Only Edgar among the leading Liberals did not take part in the ensuing debate, sidelined by a succession of illnesses during March and

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April—a severe cold, oppressive laryngitis, digestive problems, backaches, and a bout of lumbago. He was able to be present only to cast his vote in the early morning hours of April 7, when Cartwight's motion was defeated 124-67. In his letters to Tillie—herself suffering from neuralgia, nursing her youngest children through an outbreak of measles, and trying to find time for her writing—James provided details of ailments and medicines. "A heavy dose of pills which I took seems to be doing me good, but my voice is not back yet," he wrote on April 6. Three days later, "I coughed a great deal last night tho I put on both poultice & vaseline." On the eleventh he reported success with: "Mrs Johnson's remedy—1 Pint Gin, 1 1/2 oz spruce gum, 1 oz paregoric. I do not take it all in one dose—but a tablespoonful. I am going to keep what is left as a family remedy. I have a regular chemist's shop." But on the twentieth: "Very sick—aguish & wretched. About eleven I got to bed having just taken a hot lemonade & whisky at the club. I got into the blankets & heaped up clothes on the bed—& soon got into a perfect bath [of sweat] & kept in it till morning when I took a good dose of quinine." By April 26, it was a "crick in my back, which renders my motions in rising and sitting a little awkward." A few days later James writes that he "was advised to paint my back with iodine & I have tried to do so this morning—with results of great discoloration & no pain." Then, "I was pretty free from lumbago during the evening, but it is back a little today." After a long and difficult day on railway matters, "my poor back was shocking & I hobbled home very stiff." Then, "I have started a bottle of Warren's safe cure today—& I feel pretty well tonight." Poor health followed James from Ottawa to Toronto after the House was prorogued, but he resumed his law practice while his wife and younger children holidayed at Roach's Point. "I am not very well, but have to be at the office." This time it was "ulcerations of the aesophagus—Pharinitis—or something. It is very unpleasant and the porridge—all I had for breakfast—scraped all the way down through my chest." Regeneration came through political campaigning and a vacation

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James David Edgar, M.P. Photo June 1888.

at Roach's Point with Wilfrid and Zoe Laurier. Edgar took charge of his leader's extensive Ontario speaking tour in the summer of 1888— Laurier's first major venture into the heart of English-speaking Canada since becoming leader. "I would be obliged if you would give me some advice as to the tone of my remarks," Laurier asked his host in advance of the trip. "Reciprocity, of course, is to be the main subject. Are there, however, any other questions which I should refer to? In the peculiar position which I occupy, French, Catholic, is there anything which grates upon the feelings of some of your people & should I allude to this?"20 "Of course Unrestricted Reciprocity is the great thing, and the Debt is another," Edgar replied. "But the next important thing is for you to let it be seen that you are National and not Provincial, Canadian not French, a believer in Confederation and not a secessionist, loyal of course, fall of toleration for all religions. Patriotic generalizations which you can make so eloquently, will take well."21 The Lauriers were met at Toronto's Union Station at seven p.m., Saturday August 11, by James Edgar and a committee of the Toronto Young Men's Liberal Club. They drove directly to 113 Bloor Street West, where the Lauriers and Edgars spent a quiet Sunday together.

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Despite Zoe's shyness and her difficulties with English, she seemed to relax in the company of James and Tillie. On Monday, the two couples went by rail to Oakville, where Laurier gave the first of his campaign speeches. Tuesday, they travelled to Aurora, where James Mulock entertained them, then on to the Edgars' cottage at Roach's Point. After two days of rest, the two Liberal leaders embarked on a week-long speaking tour of the Lake Simcoe, Muskoka, and Parry Sound districts. Edgar introduced his new chief to rural and smalltown Ontario, while Laurier stressed the twin themes of closer Canadian—American economic relations and English—French harmony within the country.22 With the first part of his Ontario tour successfully behind him, Laurier bade farewell to Edgar and departed for the southwestern regions of the province.

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Family Matters 1888-1891

"The little rabbits are all well, but Bee who played out too much in the evening at a party. Marjory is particularly robust. She said to me last night —"Feel me, Papa, I am just a pudge" & so she is...We have made Pelham give up his work after University for this year & he is to keep in the open air all the time he can as his digestion had broken down."

JAMES' LETTER, WRITTEN NOVEMBER 4,1888, to his daughter Maud in Edinburgh, provides glimpses into the lives of several Edgar children. Baby Marjorie was certainly articulate for a two-year old. Elevenyear-old Beatrice (Bee) already attended evening parties. And Pelham, aged seventeen, was working with the Geological Survey of Canada in the BC interior. Maud, fifteen, was studying French and music in Edinburgh, living with her widowed aunt, Eliza Wilkie. Maud's French progressed well, but "stiff joints"—a form of arthritis—eventually kept her from farther piano studies. She next had a year of French and music at Miss Parson's School in Brussels and visited Great Aunt Caroline Edgar at Treves. With the younger children out of the nursery, Tillie concentrated on preparing her first book, Ten Years of Upper Canada, for publication. And when a new session of Parliament opened on January 31, 1889, James once again prepared for battle. Five days later he reported to his wife:

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"Only a short letter from you, but I nearly always get a business one from Jim [son Jamie]—who is looking after my land matters. I hope he is not sick—let him take Quinine, whenever he feels tired out. He is a great help to me & uses lots of judgment. It has been storming here for 24 hours. I am giving lots of important notices & we are going to have a fighting session." Edgar emphasized Canadian autonomy in copyright and trade relations during that session. In his crusade for stronger copyright legislation, he found an ally in John Thompson, minister of justice,1 though progress was limited. In pressing for a stronger Canadian role in international trade, Edgar helped shift Liberal trade policy away from reciprocity towards Canada's right to negotiate commercial treaties with foreign powers. He also resumed his familiar roles as chief opposition whip and railway critic. "I was as busy as a nailer in the R[ailway] Com[mittee]," he wrote to Tillie on March 12, "and had my own way there." Still, health problems persisted. "I got down [to Ottawa] with less trouble from my back than I expected," he informed his wife on March 19. "After fighting through a Com[mittee]. Meeting I went to my rooms & lay down with my belt on for 2 hours & it has made my back nearly well." Much to Edgar's regret, the 1889 and 1890 sessions exposed serious rifts in Canada's religious and linguistic duality. In March 1889, Conservative backbencher W.E. O'Brien moved that Parliament disallow the Jesuits' Estates Act. This Quebec provincial law provided financial compensation to the Jesuit Order for lands that the crown had confiscated after the British Conquest in 1759—60. Since Pope Leo XIII had served as arbitrator, the Orange Order violently opposed the settlement as a papist intrusion into Canadian affairs. Edgar was the first prominent Liberal publicly to oppose O'Brien's motion. Liberals must respect provincial rights and support the Conservative government against disallowance, he argued in a letter to the Globe.2 Caucus agreed, and only five Liberals joined eight Conservatives in support of the motion. Next year the attack shifted from religion to language. In February 1890, Orange firebrand Dalton McCarthy introduced a bill to abolish use of French in the legislature and courts of the North-West Territories. Justice Minister Thompson countered with an amend-

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ment that such matters be territorial responsibilities. The debate was intense, one of the greatest in Canadian parliamentary history, and Edgar joined it with relish. He went far beyond his party's traditional provincial-rights stance to argue the case for English—French partnership. "If this Confederation were torn to pieces by a war of races there would be no hope of any harmony among its scattered members," he told the House. "There would be no chance to build up a great Canadian nation." French-speaking Canadians could never be made into Anglo-Saxons. "What is more important to us is that by proper and fair treatment, we can keep the French people of this country true and loyal Canadians." Extremism would be fatal. "There is no country under the sun in which fanaticism in politics or bigotry in religion is more dangerous than in Canada."3 He dropped a note to his wife just afterward (February 20): "I have just sat down after a half hour speech. I began at a great disadvantage because Sir John had just sat down after a good speech & the house had been very full & was emptying. Yet I said what I wanted...! feel 3 times as well as I did an hour ago—while I had my speech on my stomach." When the vote came later that evening only a handful of extremists voted with McCarthy, and Thompson's amendment carried with an overwhelming majority. Edgar was proud that day to be a member of Parliament, "to have listened to a great debate like this. The questions which are before us., are those which underlie our national existence, and upon the peaceful settlement of these questions depends our hope for the future of Canada."4 A brief respite restored him, as he let his wife know on May 4:

"I took [David] Mills out to Old Chelsea yesterday afternoon. It poured rain soon after our start. But we went on & fished for an hour in the rain. Snow still in the hills—& in the lake from which the stream flows—so fish did not bite, but I got 6 nice ones & Mills 1 little one. We got practically dry in the little tavern & ate 4 fried eggs each & swallowed sundry drams— & got more wet coming home. I got to my lodging at 8 o'clock—made a good stiff horn of hot whiskey & went straight to bed & staid there for 12 hours. Took seidlitz powder & feel quite well now."

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Next year in Ottawa, James enjoyed the additional diversion of orchestrating his daughter Maud's social debut. With her studies in Edinburgh and Brussels completed, and her arthritic fingers precluding any musical career, Maud returned to Canada. Her father was close at hand and her mother down from Toronto, and so the national capital seemed ideal for the eighteen-year-old's "coming out." Tillie sent details to Aunt Caroline on May 14: "In the most approved style [Maud] was presented at the drawing room, went to a State dinner at the Governor's with her father & me and also went to the grand State Ball on Tuesday night. I was not able to wait over for it as I was anxious to get home to the children, but Maud had been invited to stay at a friend's house another week, so she was able to go to the Ball with her father. I have had a letter from her since & she seems to have enjoyed herself immensely. The aide de camp was sent especially to take her into the Drawing Room to join the Vice Regal party in their procession to the Ballroom & she had plenty of nice partners all evening. Her father said she looked her best. Her dress was white silk covered with white crepe & daisies. ...Maud...is going to try and enter our University. Pelham in the midst of his examinations., .has studied lately altogether more than I liked. He is looking wan & thin again and his eyes are like caverns...his ambition...to take a couple of years at a German or English university to fit himself for a professorship..." Tillie's six brothers and three sisters provided a stream of visiting Ridout aunts, uncles, and cousins, but contact seemed more difficult for James and his two sisters. The widowed Eliza never remarried and spent the rest of her life alone in Edinburgh, and though Grace and her husband, Richard Thorne, lived in Toronto, social contacts were limited to formal occasions. Among his Carry half-siblings, James kept in touch only with Henry. Nor did he remain close to his mother, given the long history of strained relations with his stepfather. After several years of parish life at Holland Landing, the Carrys moved to Trinity Church in Port Credit in 1873, then on to the Church of the Ascension in Port Perry in 1879. Carry fared well as a cleric during his later years and was awarded an

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honorary doctor of divinity degree from Bishop's University in 1883. He died just before Christmas 1890, struck down by a sudden heart attack while carrying the sacrament to a sick parishioner. "In personal character he was a warm hearted friend; a charming and most hospitable host," read his bishop's tribute, "a pure minded, fearlessly honest Christian gentleman." Still, his dark side had harmed his marriage and scarred his stepson's adolescence. "A man of war from his youth, he threw himself into the debate with all the impetuosity of an ardent temperament and the overcoming force of an impassioned eloquence."5

James Edgar easily won his West Ontario constituency in the March 1891 general election, though the Liberals once again failed to dislodge the Conservatives. When the new Parliament opened on April 9, Edgar and his colleagues focused on government scandal. The Liberals charged that Hector Langevin, minister of public works, and Thomas McGreevy, Langevin's brother-in-law and Conservative member for Quebec West, had secured government contracts for certain Quebec firms in exchange for campaign funds. While Israel Tarte received credit for presenting the Liberal case, Edgar played the major role in preparing and executing the charges. The case required his constant attention, even through the period of Maud's social debut. Through four months and 100 sittings, the committee amassed more than fifteen hundred pages of evidence and reports. The inquiry continued through the hot summer of 1891 and placed considerable strain on Edgar and on the other participants. "I was up till 1 o'clock with Tarte matters & now our counsel Geoffrion is becoming so well posted that I will have a rest," he wrote to Tillie on May 19. Ten days later: "I was very uneasy last night when Geoffrion told me that he would have to leave for home & asked me to take up the examination of Murphy—on most important matters—but Tarte was equal to making the attempt - tho' we had all to help him." In early July: "Don't be nervous. It is all right. We had a field day today." Later that month: "I just got back in time to prevent some friction which was going to be between Tarte & some friend." The case occupied his thoughts so much, he confessed to his wife, that "I can scarcely think of anything else just now." It was "little wonder...that Mr. Edgar's health broke down," the Globe later admitted.6

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Prime Minister Macdonald's illness made Edgar even more eager to press the case. On May 30 he told Tillie: "Just after I posted your letter the news came of Sir John's condition & the House adjourned. Poor old man seems still to be fighting off the end. The whole discussion is on his successor. The favourites are Tupper, Abbott & Thompson. Langevin will probably be left out of the new cabinet. We are likely to adjourn on Monday for a couple of weeks to give [the] new ministry time to be formed up. I will then go home of course & be happy." The next day: "There is a great flurry among the doves in the opposite cote. They are caucussing & caballing in an insane way. Fully 1/3 of the outsiders have claims to cabinet positions. If Sir John doesn't die in a day or two he will have half killed his party with suspense. They cd not stand his continuing presence when their mouths are watering for office. I have established a means of information which is highly useful & is quite reliable & I am able to keep Laurier posted as to names etc. which I cannot write about." Sir John died on the sixth of June, and Edgar reported to his wife on the twelfth: "I am having great fun watching cabinet making. Thompson was undoubtedly consulted—& is trying his hand but is having an awful time. I never saw such flushed & conceited men as were at the [Rideau] Club just now. Abbottf,] McCarthy, Haggart, etc. etc. I think Thompson will fail & I doubt if Abbott will try. Langevin I know is very sore today—as no one had spoken to him at all up to 5 o'clock. It is possible that Thompson is cabling to Tupper. On the whole the life of an oppositionist is the pleasantist today." Edgar occupied a strategic vantage point for viewing the turmoil. On June 1, he had moved from the Russell Hotel to the Victoria Chambers, a small residential hotel, where a fellow-lodger was John Abbott, the seventy-year-old senator chosen as Macdonald's successor. On June 14, James reported: "I am having perfect quiet in my room. It is about 18 feet square with a corner cut off—but with a recess curtained—for a wardrobe. Quite 14 ft high—or as high as our hall windows. Walls

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painted a dull yellow—one large engraving—a large mahogany chest of drawers & looking glass. A nice large table for writing— & a smaller one for books. Handsome carpet & comfortable arm chair & sofa—besides my lounge. There is a bath room on each floor. Hall porters on hand night & day, & a good elevator. Abbott has rooms here & we left for the Club at 9.15 for breakfast together. We had a great deal of talk. He says this premiership is the most distasteful work to him. He pumped me on the evidence against Langevin in the Tarte case. We discussed Thompson, both having a high opinion of him. We talked a good deal about the late Sir John... While Abbott seems to be taking things easily I don't believe he knows the snags he will strike before Tuesday. It is a good thing for us that they are keeping Langevin in his place for several reasons. But I don't see what else they can do. I know that it was the Tarte business alone that prevented the Governor from sending for Langevin..." Langevin remained at Public Works, however, when the new ministry was sworn in on June 16. Six days later, Edgar launched the Liberal attack. He charged that Langevin was so involved in "shady doings" that he "will probably take the hint and take a rest before long." Mackenzie Bowell (Customs) was nothing more than a "famous rider of the Protestant horse...whose seat is getting a little unsteady." Edgar Dewdney (Interior) would soon "be taking a rest too," though he expected J.G. Haggart (Postmaster General) "to hang on to the mail bags until he is turned out." Joseph Chapleau (Secretary of State) had "a lame leg from a political kick in which he indulged." C.H. Tupper (Marine and Fisheries) was as bad as any, though he looked "more innocent than all the rest put together." John Costigan (Inland Revenue) was "an ornament," while Adolphe Caron (Militia) was nothing but "a lady killer."7 Such an attack roused passions in the House. "I am told that Caron resents being called a lady killer," James chortled in a letter to his wife later that evening, while Haggart is "very sore at what I said of him & is calling me 'a poet.' What a warning to my boys!" Still, Langevin remained Edgar's primary target. James grilled the minister relentlessly before the Committee on Privileges and Elections.

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Had Langevin's department produced all documents as requested? Why was the minister stalling for time? Should the department's chief engineer be suspended while charges of improper conduct were hanging over him? Should Langevin himself follow the British precedent and resign while formal charges were pending? Finally in late August, the committee unanimously concluded that the charges against McGreevy had been amply proven, though dividing on party lines over Langevin's complicity. When the House began debating the report on September 21, Tarte spoke first for the Liberals and Edgar concluded by calling for Langevin's resignation. The House adopted the majority report and expelled McGreevy from its ranks; Langevin remained in the cabinet, though with greatly reduced stature and influence.

By September 1891, the most ambitious ventures of Edgar's business life—the Toronto Belt Line Railway Company and its associated Toronto Belt Line Land Corporation were in deep financial trouble. Eighteen months earlier, Edgar had led a group of investors in securing a charter for the railway.8 "I am President of a Railway Company to build a couple of suburban rapid transit lines around Toronto," James proudly wrote to his Aunt Caroline. "I am also considerably interested in land where the railway will run, and altogether it is a matter of very great business moment to me to press the enterprise to success." The railway proposed two circle routes, each with several stations. An eastern loop would use Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) tracks up the Don Valley, then angle northwest up a ravine, strike west along the northern border of Mount Pleasant Cemetery, cross Yonge Street, run through planned subdivisions north of present-day Forest Hill, continue west to the GTR at Caledonia Road, then return to the centre of the city via GTR tracks. Meanwhile, a western loop would run along the Lake Ontario shoreline to Swansea, north along the Humber River to Dundas Street, east to the GTR main line, and downtown on GTR tracks. By the spring of 1891, as Edgar orchestrated Maud's social debut and master-minded the McGreevy charges in Ottawa, a thousand men were at work on the belt line.9 But problems were already

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Company brochure of 1891 promoting the Belt Line Railway.

mounting. Edgar and his fellow-investors had grossly underestimated construction costs, which ballooned to $462,000. They failed to anticipate the difficult negotiations with the city over the Don Valley route—part of an early Don River "improvement" scheme. Finally, they were hit with legal suits over property acquisitions. "Belt Line matters are in bad shape," James wrote from Ottawa to Tillie at Lake Simcoe on July 23; "two new suits on hand." Next day, he was "off tonight for Toronto—not to see any body I care for (except Jim [Jamie]) but to get into Belt Line worries." The GTR came to Edgar's rescue. Even before work began, it leased the line for a fee that paid the costs of financing the construction loan. During the summer of 1891, it agreed to complete construction, purchase bonds and stock, and extend its lease to forty years.10 Once opened in 1892, the railway enjoyed a brief success. It become fashionable for the city's middle classes to take a Sundayafternoon trip on the Belt Line, while real estate brokers showed clients the fine building lots and even finer possibilities for land speculation along the route.

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The line's long-term success depended on rapid suburban development and a monopoly on transportation to the new subdivisions. Edgar's Toronto Belt Line Land Corporation advertised properties in Moore Park, Forest Hill, Fairbank, and Fairbank Junction. An economic recession of the early 1890s, however, postponed development of the new communities. Meanwhile, new and more vigorous owners of Toronto's city streetcar system, combined with early electrification of the North Yonge Street suburban "radial" line, provided the Belt Line steam railway with strong competition.11 There were too few customers and too many debts, and soon the Belt Line was headed for failure. When the land company followed the railway into decline, Edgar and his colleagues lost their investment. Financial panic struck the Edgar household during the spring of 1891, as railway construction costs mushroomed daily and law suits piled up. Family finances were so perilous that James and Tillie considered renting or selling their Bloor Street home. It was a large establishment, requiring four live-in servants, with high heating and maintenance costs and hefty tax bills. The older children were beginning to leave home, and perhaps a smaller house would suffice.

The Moore Park Station on the Toronto Belt Line Railway, dated June 22, 1912.

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One Sunday morning in May 1891 James sent instructions to his wife: "I yesterday answered the ad. in Telegram about the house. Please look for all such ads now. I gave no price—but a short description—& told them that if they wished to look at it to write me here. You had better get the papering done at once—a decent one—for the bedroom. Whether we sell or rent it had better be decent. Also let George whitewash (with glue in it) the woodwork of cellar & stairway." James implored Tillie to "keep down both cash expenditures & credit too." Meanwhile, important bills had to be paid, some other household accounts attended to, and short-term credit arranged. Would John Kay's King Street carpet and drapery emporium agree to reschedule payments? What interest rates could be obtained by refinancing their loans through the law office of WG. Shaw and A. Elliot or through G.A. Case's real estate firm? "Tell Jamie to see that the 1st instalments of my taxes are paid this week by office," James reminded his wife. Some negotiations were quite successful, as he told her on May 19: "I have had communication with John Kay & Sons & have got them to take a note at 2 months for the a/c of the estate—& have shared our other due bills. I have written to Shaw & Co. as to arranging 2 notes of theirs that come due shortly—paying part of course. So you see I am trying to finance temporarily. I have also written to Case to see what his Company will do about the mortgage on the house if I should get Christopher Robinson's lots on Beverly St.—Jim writes me against taking them in Exchange—but that depends upon what money I can get out of the exchange. Hoping to see you in 48 hours." Worries mounted and cash ran short. "I did not remember Jamie's birthday," James confessed in July. "He will have to pair off with me— & neither of us give one another presents this year till we see land." Nor could James afford a wedding present for Carry Moss, daughter of a Liberal colleague. "I perhaps should give something but I feel so terribly poor." In September, he scaled down a family excursion

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to the Forks of Credit. "I would like to take all the children of course—but don't quite think I can take any as it is trop chere." The Edgars rented out The Pines that summer, and Tillie and some of the younger children took a short vacation at Southgate House at Prouts Neck on the Maine coast. On the twenty-sixth of July, as the crisis eased, James wrote to his wife from Toronto: "There is a big roll of stuff to cover chairs tho' I thought the old covers good. I hear also that I have no chance of getting any breakfast in the morning because a new cooking stove is coming? It is not so great a saving to get you out of town after all—is it? I hope your sketching is going to be a serious work this summer— for I want some sea pictures to frame for my library—where I am writing this. Good night—Kiss the chicks." Mental stress, and the long parliamentary session, sapped James's health through spring and summer 1891. On May 18: "I have been up at the House since I was at the doctors & have been lying down, a good deal of the time, with my fur coat over me & I get tea & toast at the Restaurant...! got the Housekeeper here to get me a flannel of turpentine & goose grease & I am taking medicine every 4 hours & am improving. I certainly hope my voice will have come back to me, when I have to start the ball rolling." The health complaints continued. May 29: "I am tired & bilious & will take a pill tonight." July 28: "I have great muscular pains in front from my waist downward & it pains me to walk." He consulted two physicians within the Liberal caucus—Dr Philip Spohn of Simcoe East and Dr George Landerkin of Grey South—without relief. In early August, Jamie Edgar was on his way to a fishing holiday in Quebec and stopped off in Ottawa to see his father. With some alarm, he wrote on the fourth to his mother in Maine: "On arriving at Victoria Chambers I found Papa sick in bed. When he was in Toronto last he was complaining of a pain in the right side & as it was pretty bad yesterday he spoke to Dr. Spohn about it.

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The Doctor examined him and found a slight inflammation of the lining of the bowels & ordered him straight to bed to lie on his back & not move. I'll certainly not leave him in his present condition, in fact Dr. Spohn says I must stay, as it is absolutely necessary for him to remain perfectly still, & if I am with him I can look after him. There is no occasion for being alarmed as the one day's quiet & applications of turpentine has done him good. He doesn't feel ill enough to stay in bed, but he must stay there & my being here will make it less lonely. I'll be quite satisfied to put in my holidays here... Don't you think of coming up unless I write for you. Love to all." Papa James wrote the same day: "There was a pleasant surprise when Jamie walked into my room about 8 this morning—He stays till tomorrow afternoon when he goes on to Murray Bay—It is just on his route. He wanted to talk over Belt Line matters with me. I gave him his breakfast here in my sitting room in the most hospitable way... I think it decidedly foolish of the Dr to keep me in bed—but he is very prudent & says if I went round any more I might be laid up longer. I am lucky in having such cheerful rooms. I did not breakfast in bed today—only because a tumbler of milk was all I had. I think that an excellent plan to prevent any inflammation or fever. There may be a vote today & I shall miss it—not that I cd not go up perfectly well—but it wd jar me. It was that wretched bathe I took at Prouts Neck that gave me a cold." Tillie Edgar was alarmed enough to cancel the remainder of her holiday and hurry to her husband. She stayed three weeks, till James was partially back on his feet and considered himself ready for the rest of the session. On the first of September he reported to her: "I am feeling decidedly better today—but I am waiting about for a chance to speak about Copyright—& feel rather tired. I am not on the subcorn, to which the Tarte matter has been referred so it will be easier work for me after today. My digestion is better—I am very careful at the Club—no vegetables nor fruit—& I take a reasonable amount of

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shaving water to drink. I have ordered some more tonic here—& also spirits. I don't think it will hurt me to be here—if I do not work too much & I promise you to that effect." James's health varied through September. On the seventh: "I am busy for my country—& am feeling nearly myself again." The next day: "I thought I was perfectly well again but did a few hours hard work & will have to go to bed early as I am so tired." Once the session ended, Laurier begged Edgar to look after himself. "I hope that Mrs. Edgar will keep you away from your office & the cares of business all the time that will be found necessary to completely restore your health."12 That was just what Mrs Edgar had in mind, as she and her husband took a late-autumn holiday at a resort near Asheville, NC. Amid the upland beauty of the Great Smoky Mountains, the Edgars walked and golfed, read and wrote, and rested. Still, James could not leave public life completely behind. In Washington, DC, on the way south, he held private talks with President Benjamin Harrison and Secretary of State James Elaine on trade liberalization. While in Asheville, Edgar answered Andrew Carnegie's belittling remarks about Canadians as "puny, miserable colonists, dependent of another nation," who should submerge their petty nationhood in an American-dominated union of English-speaking peoples. "We are an autonomous Power, with vast areas, illimitable resources, and a sturdy population more than double that of the thirteen colonies when they became independent," he admonished the steel magnate (and patron of many Canadian libraries) in a letter published in the New York Tribune. As for a pan-anglophone league: "The first step is to bring about a liberal treaty of reciprocity between the United States and Canada. That surely would be in the business interest of the two countries, and would draw the people closer together by every commercial and social tie." Once the two peoples were better known to each other, Edgar hoped, no American would deign to call Canadians "puny, miserable colonists."13 His health somewhat restored, his fighting spirit aroused, James Edgar looked forward to the next year's parliamentary session.

CHAPTER

13

Waning Health, Waning Influence 1892-1896

"I am having rather a quiet time. Yesterday I staid in my room till 6 o'clock when I crept to the [Rideau] Club to dine. I had a biscuit for lunch—all I wanted as I had taken a big dose of castor oil the night before. I am painting my side diligently with iodine..." Thus wrote "Your loving husband, J.D. Edgar to "My Dearest Wife" on February 28, 1892.

OTTAWA LIFE AGAIN undermined Edgar's health once Parliament resumed in late February. One health concern followed another: stomach pains from jostling railway cars on the Toronto-Ottawa trip; a "fulness of blood in my head in the morning that comes from too much meat;" nightmares and insomnia. How much was stress? How much was linked to financial worries and how much to the demands of Parliament? On March 19 he wrote anxiously to Tillie: "I have dreams about judgments and executing & when I wake I find that it is not all nightmare. We can easily rent a house & we will probably be nearer together than ever in 10 rooms instead of 15.1 am corresponding with A.A. Murray & others to keep them quiet. Glad the carpets are saved...I got from Christopher Robinson some particulars about his lot on Beverly St that I wd have to take if he took my house—& perhaps it would suit me to do so if I cd borrow on it."

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Still worried over his health, though delighted to have daughter Maud in Ottawa that spring, Edgar tried to focus his political fire on Adolphe Caron, minister of militia. Evidence that Edgar had extracted from the previous year's investigation of McGreevy and Langevin suggested that Caron had used his influence to secure contracts for Quebec railways in return for political pay-offs. On April 4 James reported to his wife: "I have handed in my notice against Caron & my gentleman has been reading it—& while he tries to look smiling he is as red as a beet. I am in for a long fight & hope my health will hang out." On April 16, Edgar formally charged that Caron had diverted thousands of dollars of government railway subsidies into Conservative election funds between 1882 and 1891. The drama had commenced and Edgar's health suffered accordingly: "I have been bothered all day," he wrote Tillie on April 25, "by some of those wretched local pains—which I cannot account for. Perhaps it is like all the troubles of babies—wind—and may fold its tents like the Arabs—and not silently move away...Caron is having a fierce fight for life among his own side. It is hard to say how it will end." Edgar stepped up his attack when the Caron debate resumed on April 27. "If it is not robbery for a member to take money out of public subsidies, I should like to know what it is." One week later, the government announced its intention to investigate the charges, not through Edgar's preferred route of the standing Committee on Privileges and Elections, but by a specially appointed commission outside the House that would avoid cross-examination from Liberal members. Worse still, not all of Edgar's charges were included; his allimportant allegations on election financing were excluded. On September 8, the Caron commissioners asked Edgar for a list of witnesses whom he wished to examine. James, however, refused to cooperate with a body whose mandate "appears to have been skillfully drawn to baffle investigation and to screen the offenders."1 Laurier urged his colleague to reconsider, but Edgar remained resolute. "If I

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Toronto Evening News, April 5, 1892, depicting J.D. Edgar as a police officer bringing Adolphe Caron to justice.

appear before them I simply do so to court a certain failure," he informed his leader. "The public would then accept the view that I had tried to prove my charges and had failed. Moreover, I do not wish to get into any altercation with the Commissioners, but rather to keep the blame on the shoulders of the Government, where it now is."2 The Conservative press had great sport with Edgar's actions. "This contemptible accuser runs away from his charges," trumpeted the Toronto Empire, "and with a cowardice as unique as it is deplorable, refuses to appear."3 Edgar still awaited the commission's report when Parliament resumed on January 23, 1893. To provide home-cooked meals and avoid digestive problems, James now had with him in Ottawa the family's long-time cook, Mary McDonald. On the thirtieth he wrote

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Tillie: "I have had breakfast in my room yesterday & today—Tea or coffee—toast & 3 boiled eggs—very large & just as newly laid as ours—I am going to ask for 4. Mary is cook & waiter—& does not seem to be cross about it as I feared...I am taking a great deal of hot water & I have a very firm appetite—but I am tired enough to enjoy my bed for a good many hours. Tho' well enough I am not in rude health at all. Laurier arrived yesterday & I called on him at night. He will move our amendment today to the address so that we will have a debate & division. I don't want to speak—& am not ready but must try & get ready today." Despite Mary's presence, Edgar's digestive problems returned in February with the tensions of parliamentary life. He resorted to drugs such as phenacetin, an ammonia-based product, and chloradyne, a popular anodyne composed of chloroform, morphia, Indian hemp, and prussic acid. On the tenth he reported to his wife: "I have had one of the worst attacks of indigestion this afternoon that I ever had. I crawled up to the House after lunch & lay down in my room 42. Took 9 grs phenacetin but it did no good. Sent a messenger to my Chambers for Chloradyne & took 25 drops—before six I began to get better & am staying here till I go home—as I am nearly free from pain. I am taking no dinner. I had an excellent steak for breakfast but I feel the dry toast is not good for me & I must try & get pulled bread somewhere. For an hour the perspiration streamed from my forehead. I have got to stick closer to Salisbury or give up eating at all." The next day: "I send you a cheque for $100 of my hard earned money. Endorse it & deposit in your own bank account as there is no discount on it. I taught Mary to make pulled bread & I have had it for breakfast & a little hot water colored with milk & steak. I am in dread of an attack this afternoon but I am not going to do any head work today as I fear that hurts my stomach. I have a purging today which may do me good—but I am weak & seedy & it is a lonely time here Saturday & Sunday."

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The Caron Commission reported to the House on February 6, and as expected the mutilated charges did not produce the stinging indictment that Edgar wished. Still, on March 22, James charged that Caron's close ties with the Quebec and Lake St. John Railway Company demanded his resignation as a cabinet minister. After two hours of debate, Edgar's motion was defeated 119 to 69. Just after midnight James sent a message to Tillie: "I am in my rooms again after my Caron speech. I began about 1/2 past 8 & spoke 1 3/4 hours...My friends say I did splendidly—I knew I did rather better than I had planned—but I do not think I will ever again undertake such a task...This is an egotistical letter—but if a fellow cant brag to his wife life is a failure and marriage ditto. I feel a tremendous load lifted off my mind— as if I had paid off my butcher—or made an assignment." Edgar's charges against Adolphe Caron failed because too many Liberal members and too many Liberal newspapers had grown tired of scandal. Meanwhile, Caron remained in the cabinet, though his power and prestige were pale shadows of his earlier strength. Indeed, Richard Cartwright claimed that the collapse of the Conservatives in Quebec in the 1896 dominion election was due largely to the diminished influence of such once-superb organizers as Caron and McGreevy.4 Edgar could take much of the credit. "You will see by enclosed that I am at last appreciated," James wrote to Tillie on March 24, 1893. "The puff would have been too strong in a Liberal paper but in the [Montreal] Gazette it is right enough."

While Edgar concentrated on Adolphe Caron, the Liberals continued searching for an effective trade policy. By 1893, unrestricted reciprocity was a dead issue. Canadian manufacturers and voters proved indifferent, Edward Blake remained adamantly opposed, while the protectionist U.S. government offered no encouragement. Yet Edgar was slow to abandon the cause. In January 1892 he told a South Ontario Reform meeting that the country wanted free trade. A year later, before his own West Ontario constituents, he continued to preach reciprocity in both manufactured and natural products.5

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Official trade policy would be shaped at the Liberal party's national convention, planned for Ottawa in June 1893. That spring, Laurier wrote several letters asking Edgar for agenda items. Tariff reform? Senate reform? Temperance? School problems in Manitoba? "I would be very much obliged, my dear Edgar," he implored, "if you would write down our program such as you have it in your mind." On the eve of the Ottawa gathering, Laurier expressed hope that Edgar would be present at the pre-convention meeting of the party's inner cabal and asked him to prepare resolutions for the convention.6 Yet Edgar no longer held the esteemed position within the Liberal hierarchy that he had during former years. His gradual decline in influence arose from his stubbornness in pushing the Caron charges and his hesitancy in abandoning unrestricted reciprocity. And as his health deteriorated, Edgar left more of the tiring work of party organization to younger men. At the convention itself, Edgar played little part in shaping the party's tariff policy. The trade resolution called for "broad and liberal trade intercourse" between Canada and the United States and for "a fair and liberal reciprocity treaty." The motion remained silent on "unrestricted" reciprocity, and it was moved against a background of talk about closer trade connections with Great Britain and the need for a revenue tariff.7 Edgar fell into line during the following months. At speeches in Montreal and Newmarket, he de-emphasized reciprocity and championed a revenue tariff. During future budget debates in Parliament, he left grand tariff strategy to others while focusing on how specific protective tariffs had harmed consumers while benefiting Canada's cotton, iron, and sugar manufacturers.8 When the June 1893 convention ended and Parliament prorogued, James Edgar bade good-bye to Ottawa for a longer break than usual, for the next session would not open until the following May. In the interval, he holidayed at Roach's Point, worked at his law practice, and rebuilt his finances. He particularly enjoyed a trip to Montreal, where he renewed his friendship with Louis Frechette and served as a warm-up speaker for Laurier before a crowd of seven thousand at the Exhibition Grounds. From the Windsor Hotel he sent word to Tillie on August 15:

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"The papers will perhaps tell you of the big meeting. I was told to say my French at first & on the platform they all shouted "en Francais", "en Francais" so I had a good excuse & jumped into it & gave it without mistake & with a great deal of action— so loud was the cheering that really my last 1/2 sentence could hardly be heard. They were put into such admirable good humour that the rest of my speech was received well & I certainly spoke vigorously as I always can to a large & lively crowd... I must get up to The Pines as soon as possible." Edgar remained a potent force whenever the Liberals faced potentially disruptive cultural matters. During the autumn of 1893, he led the party's attack against the Protestant Protective Association (PPA) and its demands for "equal" rights and "protection" for Protestants against an alleged Roman Catholic take-over of Ontario and Canadian public life. At a meeting of the Toronto Reform Association on November 21, he preached his usual tolerance-is-better-thanbigotry sermon and became "the first public man in Canada to denounce the P.P.A. movement."9 In mid-December, Edgar wrote two open letters to both the Globe and the Mail, in which he allayed fears of a Catholic take-over and warned instead of the danger to the country from Protestant extremists. Any Protestant—Catholic rift, he argued, could grow into a major threat to the cultural duality of Confederation. And that would have serious implications for his native province of Quebec. "If it could succeed in lashing into a frenzy the latent evil passions of any important part of Ontario's population, Quebec might be driven out of Confederation. Quebec is the pivotal province of the Dominion from its geographical position, and its secession would smash Confederation into its original atoms, and the name of Canada would disappear from the map of the world."10 With a provincial election looming in Ontario and Liberal Premier Oliver Mowat concerned about the PPA, the party published Edgar's letters in pamphlet form.11 Edgar himself stepped up his public utterances in a series of meetings of February 1894 in his West Ontario constituency. His best speech came in the most unlikely of settings—the Orange Hall in the Conservative hotbed of Greenwood— where he urged Canadians to unite, not divide, over religious and

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racial issues. "He wished in the heart of the great Protestant Province of Ontario," reported the Globe, "there in the midst of one of its most intensely Protestant constituencies, and even in that Orange Hall where he spoke, to proclaim to the world that the Liberal party would uphold, under all circumstances, at all times, in all places and at every risk, their glorious principles of civil and religious liberty."12 When the June 1894 election gave Mowat a smashing victory, Edgar returned to the fray at Ottawa. That year's parliamentary session was short, lasting only from mid-May to late July, and proved less tiring for Edgar than usual. Still, his heart lay elsewhere, as we can see in his July 11 letter to his wife: "I am just sitting at my desk waiting for a vote—The first vote will be on an amendt of mine—& it looks as if a lot of our French friends were going against it tho' Laurier supports it...I spoke over half an hour & loudly & they say well. At any rate I was cheered as much as anybody tonight. I have had too much to do & am pretty well tired out. I do want a rest & must try to get it at the Pines as soon as I can. I am sending up all the books I can get to the Point." Three days later he enclosed a poem: "This morning I broke out into pantheistic verse apropos of nothing in particular but a feeling that I would like to be off among the gods of the trees etc. and little fishes..." YE GODS AND LITTLE FISHES There were Gods of the woods and the waters And Gods of the Trees and the hills, There were Gods of the mightiest rivers, and Gods of the streams and the rills. There were Gods of the storm and the tempest and Gods of the sunshine and rain, There were Gods of the day and the darkness, And Gods of both pleasure and pain.

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And two days later: "I called on my doctor this forenoon. He says I am improving but have not got my right colour yet. He says I must keep on a tonic for some time, for which he has given me a changed one— and that I must also take as much rest & holiday this summer as possible. For a week or so the big grey filling that was put in for me at Asheville has been giving me trouble & I went today to [Dr] Legge opposite our old room on Sparks St. He took it out & found decay going on & the nerve badly exposed—so he is killing the nerve & I will have to get it filled in Toronto."

By July 1894, the Manitoba schools controversy had worked its way into the centre of Canada's political life, five years after Manitoba ended support for denominational schools and established a province-wide, non-sectarian system. Edgar himself did "not like state aid to education of the slightest sectarian character," and the only reason he tolerated separate schools, he told Laurier, was because they were "part of a pact & compromise" of Confederation.13 Yet it was even more important to hold Catholics and Protestants together within the Liberal party. Through the spring of 1895, while the Globe and many Ontario Protestants urged Laurier to uphold provincial rights in Manitoba, Edgar counselled caution. "As long as we can preserve our policy of silence in Manitoba schools," he wrote to Laurier, "I think the situation is getting worse for the enemy."14 Manitoba Catholics initially hoped that Ottawa would disallow the provincial act, which seemed to violate guarantees for minority education enshrined in the British North America Act of 1867, but the Macdonald government had let the legislation stand. Next, the Catholic minority launched a legal challenge; the courts ruled the law legitimate. Finally, Manitoba Catholics asked Ottawa to restore their rights through "remedial" legislation. Instead of acting, however, the Dominion government, led since November 1892 by Prime Minister John Thompson, asked the courts to determine whether it had the right and duty to intervene in Manitoba affairs. Then in late December 1894, before the Imperial Privy Council had brought down its decision, Canadian politics were thrown into disarray with Thompson's sudden death.

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Edgar rushed to Ottawa early in the new year to await news on Thompson's successor. "The situation looks promising," he wrote to Tillie on January 6. "I hear a great deal, and think that neither Bowell nor Tupper can succeed in forming a new Ministry. Chances are at present that after an adjournment Laurier will be called in." It was not to be, however, as Governor General Lord Aberdeen adhered to tradition and called on a Conservative, Senator Mackenzie Bowell, to form a new ministry. Then in February, the Privy Council pronounced in favour of dominion remedial legislation for Manitoba's Catholics, and the Bowell cabinet passed an order-in-council directing Manitoba to restore Catholic school rights. On April 17, on the eve of a new parliamentary session, Edgar joined Laurier and the inner cabal of Liberal leaders to veto any hurried pronouncement in favour of provincial rights.15 He then turned his attention to various matters before the House, writing to Tillie on June 29: "So far we have beaten the Govt on every point about that Ry Bill. Yesterday too I had a good deal to say about the French Treaty. Laurier went home yesterday till Tuesday & left some important & delicate political matters for me to deal with & I have so far today been able to do nothing else, tho' I have a great many arrears to do before Tuesday." A postscript added: "I believe Maud has been instructed to hide from me some rash exploit of yours which has hurt your foot or your back & made you lie up in bed." The pressure continued, and on July 4 he ruminated: "I am almost ashamed of myself the way I am running railway matters both in Com. & in House this Session—& today in banking & C Com. I only had to express my views twice & they were at once acceded to. In fact they don't often venture to take a vote when I have spoken...Tarte told me the other day that I was the only man in the party that could give voice in a crisis, & curiously he said that Davies had told him that the party would be lost without me. All this I tell you to shew that even if I get a bit tired I must stick to the work here. I have put my name down for a berth on Friday night, & hope to get away,—though things are fearfully squally here & I may have to stay...I feel awfully like taking a week at the Point & sit or lie on the hills like gods together."

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When the Bowell government announced that it would enact remedial legislation if Manitoba remained adamant, Edgar urged the Liberals to break their silence, for now there was a definite government policy to attack. "We are certainly in favour of exhausting all efforts for an amicable settlement," he wrote to Laurier in July, but "there is already clear evidence that on the hard and fast lines of [Bowell's] remedial order no amicable settlement can be reached or hoped for. Why then not declare against shutting the door against settlement next session?"16 During an autumn 1895 speaking tour through Ontario, Laurier enunciated his conciliatory stand. Edgar joined him at Markham, where he praised his leader's tone as one that would "sweep away the local and sectional bitterness of the past." Two months later at Galedon, Edgar charged that Bowell's remedial order was the "worst piece of law passed by a Canadian government... the most stupid thing that the Government could have done in the interests of the aggrieved minority."17 Bowell recalled Parliament on January 2, 1896, to pass remedial legislation. Three days later, seven Protestant ministers resigned from cabinet. Could the Conservatives hang on to power, or would Laurier and the Liberals finally get their opportunity? From his seat in the House and his room at the Russell, plagued with his usual aches and pains, Edgar reported (January 10) on the action and intrigue: "Laurier wishes me to run down to Montreal tonight to see our Montreal friends there tomorrow, so I have just wired you that I will not be back this week. You say you wish I would tell you the true inward news of the situation. Well nobody knows it. We know a good deal that is affecting the situation & are trying to do something to affect it too. But Laurier can tell no more than you can whether he will be called in before the Elections. I myself think the chances are about even, and seem to be improving...Yet it may be & a big election fight before we get in." He followed this up on the twenty-first: "I have been staying in my room this afternoon & will not go up to the House tonight. I have wretched pains again every step

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I take & have seen the Dr this morning & he is giving me a good deal stronger dose as the other only seemed to aggravate things. I will try & keep quiet tomorrow...! went in a sort of despair to the theatre last night & saw Rhea in Nell Gwynne. I really think the long cramped position hurt me or brought on pains." And a poignant postscript: "I am pretty lonely shut up so much in my room." On March 3, rather than risk splitting the Liberals by supporting or attacking the principle of remedial legislation, Laurier moved for a six-month delay on the debate, by which time the government's five-year mandate would have expired. Edgar warned the House to avoid extreme remedies when the entire country was torn with agitation and bitterness.18 Three days later he summarized the newspapers' response: I see in the Mail a good deal better report of my speech than in the Globe & also on Editorial page they give 'This Canada of Ours' & I have heard from many that I am supposed to be writing poetry now. Very hard in my lucid intervals! I find very strong puffs of my speech in many papers. They do sometimes say I am not eloquent but powerful & logical & never speak without commanding the attention of both sides etc." On the seventeenth: "I am quite hoarse today—but my tonics are working & I am really much better—but glad we do not have to sit up all this night at any rate—Tho' we will tomorrow night. Why does not Maud take for her throat what did me so much good—a single grain of quinine powder with a little sugar—every 3 hours - to dissolve in a teaspoonful of water. This I prescribe in addition to all other remedies." But there was no respite; on the nineteenth "The debate is going on steadily & looks as if it would last nearly all day. I rested fairly well on a sofa—old Dr Christie M.P. took another & snored fearfully & kept me awake so that I heard

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all the hours strike in the town clock overhead. The big chairs were occupied by another M.R who is finishing up his sleep on one of the sofas now. I wore a flannel with turpentine & goose grease all night & have renewed it this morning & took my medicine every 4 hours & certainly my chest is eased & my voice better so I will take up my parable in the House at once after the vote. I have just sent to the Russell for my tonic & will soon go to breakfast downstairs. Did you read my long argument on Monday, and my calling Tupper to order on Tuesday as reported in Globe?" The March 20 vote on second reading of the remedial bill paased by twenty-four, little more than half the normal margin. With Manitoba still unconciliatory, Bowell had no alternative but to ram through third reading and prepare implementation. At this point the Liberals decided to obstruct the measure with all the weapons at their disposal. Edgar enjoyed the hectic debating in the Commons during the next few days, though it put a tremendous strain on his health. Just as in the days of the great Franchise Bill debate of 1885, he managed the Liberal attack from his seat in the House, or sometimes from his bed at the Russell Hotel. If a party member was unsure of what line to take, Edgar helped him to gather information and marshal his ideas; if there was a pause in the debate, he filled the gap. On March 23 he informed Tillie: "I am better today—tho' I had an awful night of nightmares. I think, however, I know the cause. J.G.] Bourinot asked me to a 5 o'clock family dinner & I found it to be a tea with oyster patties as first course, & lobster salad as 2nd & last course. I took one pattie—& nothing more till breakfast this morning but it was like Pandora's box full of all evils for my dreams. The doctor says that in grip one of the most important things is to keep the digestion right... I believe, in spite of the Mail, the Govt is going to back down on the Duration of Park question. Bourinot congratulated me very much on my argument."

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On April 9 he replied to his wife's worrying missive: "I have just read your letter saying that you are again sick & altho' I wrote once today I write again to tell you to stay in bed & keep warm till you are quite well. It is evidently unfinished grip & you must dose or nurse & coddle yourself just as with grip... I got through at 10.30 this morning & had 2 or 3 hours sleep & bath. I am going soon to bed—& come on next at 10 tomorrow morning for all day. The govt tonight have already accepted another amendment of mine that I moved a couple of days ago. I am not making any suggestions tonight as I am going to bed." On April 15 the government abandoned its attempt to pass the Remedial Bill. The estimates were voted, Parliament was dissolved, and members left for the hustings. Edgar was more than ready for battle. "Now that the Tory Candidate is fixed on, I am putting on war paint," he informed his wife, and "am starting [Elias Malone] and his office staff to send out 3000 of my own & Laurier's speeches." By April 21: "News from West Ontario continues to be excellent—I propose to work hard at it." It was to be an exciting campaign.

CHAPTER

14

Speaker of the House 1896-1899

"We came down past the Great Divide & stopped the cars to see a little ditch from the mouth of which water flows both ways as it pleases—some into the Atlantic & some into the Pacific—what a subject for moralizing. There is perhaps just such a turning point in every life—seeming of small importance at the time, but all important in settling our destinies..." —J.D. Edgar1

JAMES EDGAR REMEMBERED his 1892 transcontinental rail journey because of that moment in the afternoon of May 23 when his Canadian Pacific Railway train halted at the continental divide in the Rocky Mountains. Yet the fact that he was included in this all-expenses-paid, railway excursion from Montreal to Vancouver also marked the beginning of his friendship with William Van Home, president of the CPR. During the next year James and Tillie spent a week at Covenhoven, the Van Homes' summer home near St Andrews, NB. There the Liberal railway critic and the CPR president talked business and politics and shared their impressions of architecture, painting, and literature.2 As the 1896 national election neared, Van Home distanced his company from the Conservatives and turned to Edgar as a gobetween with Laurier and the Liberals. "Since the session began," Edgar wrote Globe editor John Willison in late January, "I have been

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in Montreal, & had a long interview with Van Home of the pleasantest character, and discussed politics and found no divergence in our views." Edgar was convinced that "it is impossible there can be any danger of the CPR actively interfering against us. I cannot conceive of Van Home being personally guilty of deceit involved in speaking with quite unnecessary frankness to me if he were plotting the other way." A warm friendship continued between the Edgar and Van Home families. "For a couple of months Van Home has been trying to get my wife & myself to pay them a visit for a few days in Montreal," Edgar continued. "We have only been able to do so now, and yesterday my wife in Toronto reed, a letter from Lady V.H. & I reed, another from him fixing the latter part of next week for it as we could not go sooner." It sounded promising. "His letter is very cordial & wants long talks while there. Now could he do this & be at the same time deceiving us?"3 James and Tillie spent several days in Montreal as guests of William and Lucy Van Home in early February. This visit confirmed Van Home's decision not to support the Conservatives; a few weeks later the CPR announced that it would play no part in the coming election.4 In the spring of 1896, however, Edgar forsook the delights of Van Home's Montreal mansion for the rough-and-tumble of an election campaign. Though he was in his mid-fifties and suffering from an assortment of physical ills, James played his customary role—drumming up local candidates, raising money, distributing party literature, and plotting strategy. During May, he campaigned outside his own constituency, repeating his opposition to the coercion of Manitoba, supporting Laurier's "sunny ways," and urging conciliation and understanding of the Roman Catholic minority.5 On election day, June 23, West Ontario returned Edgar with a majority of 739 votes. The Liberals carried every province except New Brunswick and Manitoba and were firmly back in power after eighteen years in opposition. Wilfrid Laurier was sworn in as prime minister on July 11. Would James Edgar be included in Laurier's cabinet, perhaps as minister of railways? As opposition railway critic for more than a decade, Edgar had a firmer grasp of transportation issues than any of his Liberal colleagues. His old hostility to the Canadian Pacific syn-

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William van Home, President of CPR. A close friendship developed between the Edgars and William and Lucy van Home.

dicate had been replaced by one of respect, aided by his growing friendship with Van Home. Certainly the Toronto Mail and Empire, Edgar's long-time antagonist, thought that he was "one of the claimants who must be satisfied," for "he has done a great deal for the party"6 Yet in the torrent of speculation from the Liberal press, Edgar was never considered a serious cabinet contender, and only occasionally was his name included in a list of possibilities. Laurier chose five Ontario Liberals for his cabinet—Richard Cartwright, Oliver Mowat, William Mulock, William Paterson, and Richard Scott—but not James Edgar. Failing health certainly played a role in Edgar's exclusion, for ever since the 1888 trade debate, attacks of influenza, laryngitis, and lumbago had frequently kept him away from House of Commons sittings. During the early 1890s, he constantly battled severe indigestion, liver trouble, and anaemia. The

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strain of round-the-clock House work and financial worries only worsened the situation. Edgar's position on the tariff also helped to keep him out of the cabinet. By 1896, Canadian manufacturers were being quietly assured that a Liberal victory would not produce drastic realignments of the country's tariff policy. The National Policy was still criticized, free trade was still mentioned as the ideal goal, but the emphasis shifted to revenue tariffs and imperial preference. Edgar, however, continued to support unrestricted reciprocity with the United States, and he failed to appreciate the closer alliance developing between business and the Laurier Liberals. He failed to adjust to the winds of change blowing through the country in the 1890s. Van Home wrote Edgar that he was "more than disappointed in not seeing your name among the new ministers." Perhaps James was "too obliging for a politician—you don't insist strongly enough on your rights. I don't know just how your claims rank with the others or just how things are measured but I feel that you ought to be there and that the thing is all wrong."7 Though excluded from the cabinet, this loyal lieutenant of Blake and Laurier merited some consideration. One new member of the Liberal caucus suggested that Edgar "would make a most estimable Lieutenant Governor of Ontario."8 Instead, on July 13, Laurier offered him the position of Speaker of the House of Commons. Though disappointed at being excluded from the cabinet, James Edgar was pleased to become "the first Commoner in the land."9 It was rather an ironic consolation prize for someone whose Scottish ancestors had once supported the overthrow of the British monarchy! Best of all, the office provided living quarters in Ottawa and a $4,000 annnual allowance! From the Speaker's Chambers he wrote to his wife on August 15: "I arrived here all right—and have had a very busy day fixing the List of Messengers & Pages as far as possible. The great question, as to status of Sessional Clerks has been discussed between Laurier & me & he adopts my views. I met him & his wife & her dog on Sparks St. this morning. I am going to supper with them tomorrow night...I have looked over all the Rooms & they are plain but comfortable & will be ready for you

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J.D. Edgar, Speaker of the House of Commons, October 1896.

& the gals. I am occupying this office today with a fine view of the Mountains at my desk & the retainers are painfully civil...Dr. Wright is in England & my throat is a nuisance to me—If not better tomorrow I will see another doctor." The Speaker was provided with a suite of rooms in the Centre Block of the Parliament Buildings for use during parliamentary sessions. The space included private rooms for the Edgar family and public rooms where the Speaker and his wife hosted a steady round of receptions and dinners for MPs and distinguished visitors. For the short 1896 session, James and Tillie were accompanied by two of their daughters—Maud, aged twenty-three, and Beatrice (Bea), nineteen. Papa's new status delighted the Edgar girls. At the formal opening of the House on August 20, Beatrice noted in her diary, "we were sent for by Capt. Bowie to be presented to Their Excellencies in the

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Senate Chambers." At a Government House garden party, "we shook hands with Their Ex's & then wandered about the grounds." Before the session ended, Maud and Bea enjoyed dining with Lord and Lady Aberdeen at Rideau Hall and entertaining members of the vice-regal party in the Speaker's Gallery of the Commons.10 The following year, Edgar presided over a three-month session from late March to the end of June. "He looks the part of speaker very well but has a weak voice," noted Ishbel Aberdeen in her diary.11 As one of the more intense and tactically oriented members of the old Liberal opposition, Edgar was well-skilled in parliamentary procedure. Though he was not fluently bilingual, his French was strong enough to allow him to preside over debates in both languages. And as leading figures in both Toronto and Ottawa social circles, he and his wife easily and graciously performed the traditional social roles associated with the position of Speaker of the House of Commons. Edgar deplored the fact that the same position in the American House of Representatives had "fast become changed (shall we say degraded?) into a political leadership." His personal model was patterned after the great Speakers of the British House of Commons— "to preserve the freedom and dignity of debate according to ancient usages." Yet he often "had great temptations to transgress the rule which I have tried to observe in my present position," which was "to keep my nose out of politics."12 He commented privately on Laurier's Senate nominations in the autumn of 1896; he supported a CPR line through the Crow's Nest Pass; he favoured reciprocal trade relations with the United States; he took a continuing interest in copyright laws. And through his friendship with Archbishop Walsh of Toronto, Edgar played a minor role in resolving the Manitoba school question.13 The Edgars were soon drawn into the vice-regal circle. Tillie had first met Ishbel Aberdeen—then thirty-six years old and ten years her husband's junior—at the founding meeting of the National Council of Women of Canada, held in Toronto in October 1893. Over the next few years, the two women had worked closely together to promote both the National Council and the Victorian Order of Nurses. Through Tillie, Lady Aberdeen had met James, and by the 1895 session of Parliament, he was proving "very attentive in coming to give me news as to the course the debate is likely to take from the Opposition's knowledge of affairs."

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Daughters Maud and Beatrice also fell under the spell of the Aberdeens. "The Drawing Room was a great success," Beatrice noted in her diary on March 27, 1897. "Their Ex's came back to our rooms & stayed a long time. Then His Ex took Mamma & Papa took Her Ex down to supper in the dining room." During the budget speech in April, "Her Excellency came in to tea with us with Capt Wilberforce & Sir Richard Cartwright. She stayed about half an hour talking to the different people who came in." The vice-regal round of dinners, dances, receptions, teas, and garden parties at Rideau Hall culminated in a large reception on May 24, Queen Victoria's birthday. "A very fine affair," noted Beatrice. "The long verandah was thronged with people & the garden paths shimmering with satin dresses." Then from June 7 to 10: "Maud & I stay at Govt House."14

After Parliament was prorogued in late June, Edgar pondered a number of interesting business opportunities. Like his father and grandfather before him, he remained convinced—even after the failure of the Toronto Belt Line Railway—that his next scheme would prove to be a financial bonanza. Those dreams now included expanding the law firm of Edgar and Malone and investing in various western Canadian projects. On July 18 he wrote to his son Pelham: "I am off in a couple of days to Rat Portage [Kenora] to establish a junior partner in a branch law office we are opening there where there is an immense mining boom — and will be away two weeks or so...One thing you must not forget, I cannot help you out of your debt, for I am too deeply involved myself. If I had it you should share it of course... Among other things I am going to be president of a large gold mine Development Co. & that busies me & I hope it will be of some profit. We will go into Kootenay properties & Lake of the Woods mines too—gold or silver—we are not proud. People are getting more or less crazy on mines—and I feel very independent having a little money to lose through "the Gold Hills Co." while I am at its head."

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Son Pelham, now twenty-six, had married Helen Boulton (a Ridout cousin), resigned his teaching post at Upper Canada College, and begun postgraduate studies in modern languages at Columbia University in New York. Eldest son Jamie, thirty-one, remained James's law partner, principal business confidant and fishing companion. Maud, twenty-four, an honours graduate from the University of Toronto, taught French and music at Havergal College, a private girls' school in Toronto. The younger children, however, still needed parental attention and direction. Neither Willie, twenty-two, nor Beatrice, twenty, had settled into careers or marriage; Keith, seventeen, worked during the summer of 1897 in a BC mining camp; Bertie, fourteen, and Marjorie, eleven, remained at home. After a summer vacation with the Van Homes in New Brunswick, Maud and Beatrice Edgar returned to Toronto in late August for a happy reunion at 113 Bloor Street West. Rented out for two years during a period of financial hardship, the old house was now reclaimed by its owners. "A delightful home-coming. Every corner of the house full of pleasant associations," Maud noted. "We had much to talk over & much to see before Bee & I went to bed in our own old room feeling blissfully happy and deeply thankful." Over the next few weeks, Maud helped Tillie restore the Toronto house, attended the theatre with Beatrice, supervised Marjorie's amateur "Musical Club," and often bicycled out to High Park with Pelham and Helen for lazy afternoons of reading and intellectual discussion. Best of all for Maud were golf games at the Toronto Golf Club. "Played Papa even in holes," she noted one day; on another occasion, "made my record, 52 against his 58 and 5 holes up."15 In January 1898, James holidayed alone at the Hotel Chamberlin in Fort Monroe, Va. On the second he wrote thence to Tillie: "I have reached here like greased lightning. Had a sea voyage of 2 hours from 6—8 this morning in about the roughest water I ever sailed on. Men, women & children were sick—but as I had been very moderate in my meals yesterday I was not ill... My misfortunes have begun. No trunks! We have telegraphed to Toronto & Buffalo about them—I came so fast & changed so often, that I did not think anything without legs could have kept up with me. The worst of it is I have no change of shirt...

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It is a beautiful bright day & I am going to take a walk & will finish this before 3 o'clock when mail closes..." The next day: "To continue my journal—My trunks came this morning & I welcomed them with effusion. It was so cold in my room (tho' I had a fire for a while) that I had to get the clothes over my head as the draft along the floor was so great. I was on the floor, for the moment I got into bed it collapsed & I had to sleep in that shape. I felt all this a judgment against me for not bringing [you]." James golfed too (January 5): "I had 11 holes of Golf in the Fort today, with a young officer. The day is superb & we tee off for one hole from the top of the ramparts. I played a steady game & came out 3 up...To my amazement I had gained 4 Ibs, being 194 last evening, to 190 on arrival—but after golf today I am down 2 Ibs. Is it not curious? But I am not going to over do myself & propose to stay in bed 10 hours out of the 24." Still, Edgar could not escape nagging health concerns and communicated on the eighth: "I had the old night sweats last night—I have got a theory that it was because I did not support my nerve centres with any tea yesterday—only taking coffee. I will take tea today & if I have them bad tonight I will have a talk with a doctor here—otherwise I am very well. I have a match on at 11 at the Fort. A Mr Horn & I are to play the winners of a foursome which comes off at 10...It is quite cold again & I must put on my sweater as well as the red coat which I always wear when playing." In Washington, DC, on the way home, James visited the Corcoran Gallery, met various senators, and lunched with Theodore Roosevelt, then assistant secretary of the navy. In New York, he met Conrad Jordan, former secretary of the treasury under Grover Cleveland, who "took me to lunch at the Lawyers Club—a very fine place & he is a real epicure & kept me there for 2 hours. We are great friends."

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Following James's return to Toronto and a brief visit with the Van Homes in Montreal—"to talk over my B.C. interests"—the Edgars returned to Ottawa for the 1898 session and the family's longest continuous residence in the Speaker's Chambers, from January 31 to June 11. "Our rooms are much changed and beautiful this session," noted Beatrice. "The hall is freshly papered & a new rich warm carpet on the floor. A dainty tiled bath-room has been added to Mamma's room, & also a new room has been drawn into our quarters for Willie's use, so we have much more space and comfort now."16 The Edgars continued to play important roles in Ottawa's social world. Tillie "received" every Thursday afternoon in the Speaker's Chambers, assisted by Maud and Beatrice. "It was our day at At Home, & more people than ever called," Beatrice noted on February 10. "During the afternoon there were four hundred and nineteen visitors." For his part, James hosted a never-ending round of Speaker's luncheons and formal dinner parties. "Papa was giving a big men's dinner, at which we would not appear until afterwards," Beatrice noted on May 17. "About forty men turned up. There were several songs downstairs before the men came up, & at 10 o'clock we received them in the drawing room. Then there were more songs & some recitations. Mr. Phillips recited The German Band, Dr. Borden sang an Irish song with chorus, Dr. Neilson sang Alouette with chorus, Mr. Cook sang several songs, & so did funny old Morin, in spite of a very tight collar."20 The Aberdeens remained close friends. Lady Aberdeen was wont to leave her visitor's seat on the floor of the House and slip into the Speaker's Chambers at any hour of the day or evening. "At 5.30 she left her chair & said a few words to Papa & disappeared," noted Beatrice on February 7. "Presently a page came up to say that Her Ex. was down in our drawing room. So Mamma, Maud & I went down & found her sitting there alone. Soon Papa came in, & we all had tea." Meanwhile, dinner parties with the Aberdeens at Rideau Hall continued. "Papa & Mamma sat as usual at the little round table," Maud noted in her diary for March 14, and "His Excellency took Mamma in to dinner, & Papa sat on Her Excellency's right hand."18 Evenings without dinner parties James spent quietly at home. "Papa hardly ever goes to the theatre," observed Beatrice, and "when he does happen to go there or to church, it is invariably a deadly play, or a frightful sermon, which puts him against going again." Outdoor

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Lord Aberdeen (1847-1934), photographed at a gala ball commemorating the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, December 28, 1897.

recreation proved more to James's liking. When free of parliamentary duties, he enjoyed taking Willie fishing in the streams near Old Chelsea or playing golf with Maud and Beatrice at the Ottawa Golf Club's new course on the Chelsea Road outside Hull. A good round of golf seemed to restore James's old zest for life. "Papa was looking so rosy after the morning of golf," Beatrice noted on April 21. Four days later: "Papa played golf all morning with Mr. Waldo & came back with a good appetite for lunch."19 Tillie frequently accompanied her family to the links, where she sketched while her husband and daughters played golf. Her major interest, however, was her work with various women's groups. She encouraged some Ottawa ladies to start a historical society and assisted Lady Aberdeen with the Victorian Order of Nurses. In the third week of May, she threw herself into the annual meeting of the National Council of Women—a three-day whirl of committee meetings, plenary sessions, and formal receptions at Rideau Hall. One afternoon, she hosted a tea for council delegates and cabinet ministers' wives and

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Lady Aberdeen (1857-1939), Marchioness of Aberdeen and Temair, founder of the Victorian Order of Nurses and the National Council of Women (Canada).

daughters. "They came in dozens & Mamma stayed up in the drawing room to receive them, & the rest of us came downstairs & fed them," noted Beatrice. "The table looked as if locusts had crawled over it after they had finished. They were precious hungry some of them."20 The Edgars approached the end of the 1898 session with mixed feelings. A return to Toronto would reunite parents and younger children, while a more settled daily routine might benefit James's precarious health. Yet the June 15 prorogation of Parliament also meant farewell to the Aberdeens, who had completed their term and would return to Britain. "The House was crowded," Ishbel noted, and after the prorogation James Edgar, as Speaker, "in his three-cornered hat and robes," left the House, passed through the bar of the Senate, followed by many members, read the Farewell Address in English, and then listened while the Speaker of the Senate did the same in French. "His Excellency replied with his usual grace and

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heartiness," Ishbel quoted Tillie Edgar, assuring Canadians "that the friendships and acquaintances which that period had brought him would be an abiding possession." Then came informal presentations to Lady Aberdeen. Again, IshbePs diary relied on Tillie's impressions: "Then for the first time a woman's voice thrilled through the august Senate Chamber, as in eloquent and touching words Lady Aberdeen thanked the members for their gift, and spoke of the many pleasant memories of her sojourn in Canada which it would always recall to her mind."21

James Edgar's 1897 election as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada recognized his literary contributions to the nation. "His principal claim to membership," stated the Society's later tribute, "rested on his poems, which, though few, are declared by no less an authority than Dr. Frechette to be distinguished by 'elevation of thought, charm of expression, and faultless good taste.'" Though "engaged in the practice of law, and in the absorbing profession of politics," the tribute continued, Edgar "found in the cultivation of letters that relaxation which was most congenial to his cultured intellect."23 The literary life certainly appealed to Edgar. Had he lived longer, and had his finances been more secure, he might have eventually retired from law and active politics to devote himself to writing. "Would not you and I be happier if we had time and means to live the lives of literary men?" he asked Laurier. "That is my ideal life, and I think it is yours also, but how few are allowed to live out their ideals?"24 Edgar integrated his political and literary interests in his 1898 book, Canada and Its Capital. Though later dismissed as a "glorified guide book," written with "ponderous pride,"25 it was a thoughtful, 200-page guided tour of Ottawa and "the doings of the people there." James included chapters on Ottawa's history and geography; he listed the city's architectural landmarks and recreational features; he carefully explained the workings of the parliamentary system and commented on the social world of Rideau Hall; he paid tribute to political leaders Richard Cartwright, Wilfrid Laurier, and Charles

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CANADA AND ITS CAPITAL WITH

SKETCHES OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL LIFE AT OTTAWA

BY

HON. J. D. EDGAR. Q.C., M.P.. F.R.S.C. THE SPEAKER, COMMONS OF CANADA

TORONTO GEORGE N. MORANG 1898

Title page of publication titled "Canada and its Capital" (1898).

Tupper and to poets Wilfred Campbell, Archibald Lampman, and Duncan Campbell Scott. Edgar concluded by outlining his own maturing views on "The Future of Canada" as a partnership of English- and French-speaking peoples and on "Canada and England" as a league or commonwealth of equal countries, united through their allegiance to the monarchy. The year 1898 was crowned with the surprise announcement on May 20 that James Edgar was to receive a knighthood. During the 1870s, he had heaped scorn on Canadians who accepted such honours. "The sooner they were discontinued in Canada the better for her dignity." Such distinctions seemed out of place in the New World. Titles "are not required to let our people know who their best men

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are. Let their works speak for themselves," he urged. "Unless we go back to the laws of primogeniture and entail we could not keep up an aristocracy, and we do not want one...What a grand and free country is this Canada of ours, where no false distinctions of birth bar the way or stop the progress of a true man and an honest man to the highest positions of the land."26 When newspapers in 1896 hinted that Prime Minister Laurier might be knighted, Edgar urged resistance. "I think you should insist on the same Rt. Honourable which Sir John M. and Thompson received. That is worthy of you—the other is not."27 Once Laurier accepted a knighthood (he became Sir Wilfrid while in London in June 1897 for Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee), he tried to convince the Speaker of the House to follow suit. Edgar's initial response was flat refusal. "To accept a knighthood is so entirely out of accord with my personal views that I must ask to have my name omitted from the list," he wrote Laurier in mid-March 1897. Yet just three weeks later, Edgar agreed to accept a title as a mark of respect for the office of Speaker. "If it may be stated that it is only to afford a fitting opportunity for the recognition by Her Majesty of the House of Commons, and solely as representative of that House that the knighthood is conferred upon and accepted by me," he now wrote Laurier, "I will comply with your wishes and accept the proposed honour."28 Whatever the motivation, Edgar quickly grew so fond of his anticipated title that when his name was somehow dropped from the list in the late spring of 1897, he expressed "surprise and annoyance," especially since the title was "so generously known to have been suggested." By early 1898, Edgar was extremely frustrated over his missing knighthood. "That title, from the shape it assumed last June, has come to be a fixed idea in my mind, and a curious sense of injury rankles in my breast about it," he wrote to Laurier. "The remedy is in your hands and that is why I draw your attention to it now."29 Laurier finally intervened in the matter out of a sense of loyalty to his colleague. On May 20, 1898, came the news that the speakers of the House of Commons and the Senate were each to be named a Knight Commander of the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George (KCMG). Edgar's acceptance of an imperial title has been criticized as "the

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rapid demoralization of an old guard Liberal."30 Did he see knighthood as a fitting reward for his years of faithful service to party and to country? Did he visualize it as a dramatic and loving gift for his wife? James's failed business ventures meant that Tillie would never enjoy a worry-free financial future; perhaps as Lady Edgar, she could bask in the enhanced social status that accompanied titles in late Victorian Canada. Edgar was a man with a deep sense of pride in his own ancestry and a desire that this family pride might continue down through his descendants. What could be better than to leave his wife a title and give his children the memory of a father knighted by Queen Victoria? Perhaps the explanation lies in Edgar's changed attitude towards the British Empire and Canada's place within it. His advancing years and his long friendship with British statesman Lord Rosebery had tempered his thinking. "You will have observed an outward and visible sign of my change of heart when I submitted to be branded with the Imperial hall-mark of K.C.M.G.," he wrote Rosebery. "At first I hesitated, but on full reflection accepted it frankly as being now all in the right political direction." Edgar attributed the change in large measure to a reconciliation of Liberalism with imperialism, pioneered by Rosebery in Britain and Laurier in Canada. "Liberals like Laurier & myself," admitted Edgar, "feel that to be Imperial we need not be undemocratic, and that to abandon the idea of Colonial isolation is not necessarily to embrace jingoism."31 Edgar had integrated his old Canada First ideas with grander concepts of imperial loyalty. Certainly he still wanted freedom of action for Canada in commercial treaties and copyright, and he remained firmly convinced that Canada's destiny must be determined in Ottawa, not London. By 1898, however, his vision of the future empire approximated the twentieth-century Commonwealth. "When the day shall come, or how it is to come, we do not yet perceive, but come it must, when Canada will assume a fuller share of the responsibilities of the mighty Empire."32

Hopes that the less arduous position of Speaker would improve Edgar's health were to no avail. His physical condition continued to decline, despite frequent vacation trips to resting spots in the warmer

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climate of the southern and mid-Atlantic U.S. states. By June 1899, failing health prevented him from travelling to his boyhood home of Lennoxville, Quebec, to accept an honorary degree from Bishop's University; instead, he was awarded the degree of doctor of civil laws in absentia. That same month, Edgar's doctors forbade him to preside over late-night sittings of the House and required him to turn over the chair for those sittings to Deputy Speaker Louis Philippe Brodeur. One Wednesday evening at 8:10 he informed Tillie: "Your letter was welcome this a.m. & yours & Helen's tonight. On hearing that your pictures had not arrived I sent for Dube but found you & he had been wiring about them. I am sending Brodeur into the House at 8—I feel that the jumping up & down 50 times for private bills would be too much, Glad you are coming on Friday—if it does not disarrange your plans. Col Foster paid a nice visit this afternoon on Maud." Tillie later pencilled in "14 June 1899" at the top of the page, and the poignant words "My last letter" appear on the envelope. One week later, a communication breakdown between Edgar and Brodeur produced the sole occasion on which the Conservative press found fault with Edgar's conduct as Speaker. The Montreal Gazette chastised him and his deputy for both being absent from an evening session of the House and failing to nominate a temporary replacement. As Edgar reminded Laurier, however, he had indeed asked another Liberal member to fill in. "I am under the strictest medical orders to avoid late night sittings," he explained.33 Edgar's last appearance as Speaker came on July 12, when he reminded one member that direct quotation of previous debates was not allowed and cautioned another participant to address his remarks to other members through the Speaker's chair. Edgar left Ottawa on July 18 to return to the family home in Toronto, suffering from advanced kidney failure, or Bright's disease. Two days later, he underwent an operation to remove a kidney stone. One week after the operation, on the twenty-seventh, Pelham Edgar wrote to his wife: "Not quite so favourable a report to give of the invalid. He

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had a very bad night which will offset the good night and day he had had before. He had constant diarrhoea again which I am thankful to say has been checked this morning. He slept most of the morning and had no trouble between 9.45 and 2.15 which is one of the longest intervals he has had. He seems always bothered by the beastly hiccoughs. He was quite bright today when I saw him and able to swear at his medicine—but he has really been weakened very much. Dr. Cameron told me when he came at two that his pulse was still remarkably good. A night like last night breaks Mamma all up, so they are going to get another nurse to assist. Dr. Cameron brought Dr. McPhedran with him to consult and I shall hear the result when I get back at five. The surgical part of the bother has almost entirely healed and it is really his old enemy the anaemia that he is fighting against. God grant he may beat it down... The general weakness brought on by the diarrhoea is alarming—& all today he has been ever so much better there again— if it can only be kept in check. The hiccoughs are tiring but they don't seem to disturb his food." Edgar's condition took a dramatic change for the worse about 10 o'clock on the morning of July 31, and this time there would be no recovery. Kidney failure combined with anaemia pulled the oncestrong body inexorably downward. Tillie, Jamie, and Pelham remained at his bedside all day. There was no time to summon Maud and Beatrice, from the Van Homes' summer place in New Brunswick, nor to bring the younger children down from The Pines at Roach's Point. James David Edgar sank rapidly during the afternoon and died at 6:45 on the evening of July 31, 1899. Laurier announced the news to the House of Commons shortly after nine o'clock that evening. "I had feared for many months that he was in danger of death," the prime minister told a hushed chamber. "I never saw a stronger instance of pluck than was evident in [his] demeanour during the last few months." Laurier mourned the loss of "a personal friend," while "parliament loses a man who was to it an honour, and Canada loses a man who believed in the great future of the country." After a brief tribute from George Foster of the Conservatives, the House adjourned for the evening.34

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Next morning the front page of the Globe featured a two-column story and picture under the headline: THE SPEAKER Is DEAD SIR JAMES EDGAR PASSES AWAY AT His HOME AFTER A SEVERE ILLNESS COMMONS MOURNS His Loss The Globe also carried a three-column biographical sketch on page 10, plus a lengthy editorial that praised Edgar's patriotism, his devotion to the Liberal cause, his hatred of racial and religious feuding, and his admiration of British institutions. The Mail and Empire, once his most bitter and persistent critic, praised "one of the ablest and most respected members of his party," a man who had the capacity of making friends in his three fields of endeavour—politics, literature, and business. "His career as a public man is in fact one that may be pointed to as exemplary, and his character such a one that every patriotic Canadian might wish to see in those who are entrusted with the government of their country."35 The Revd Frederick Plummer of St Thomas' Anglican Church conducted a private service for members of the family at the Edgar residence at 10:30 a.m. on August 3; a second service for a few close friends followed half an hour later. Then a cortege of twenty carriages proceeded east along Bloor Street to St James' Cemetery, where the body of James David Edgar was laid to rest. Though an impending crisis over war in South Africa kept Laurier in Ottawa, the dominion cabinet was represented by Sydney Fisher and Sir Henri Joly de Lotbinere—symbolically an English- and a French-speaking Quebecker. Laurier chose a wreath in the shape of a broken pillar to commemorate Edgar's passing. "The broken pillar fully expressed his life," Tillie wrote to the prime minister following the funeral. "He was a pillar of strength but has fallen in the midst of the battle."36 James David Edgar made major contributions to Canadian political life. He helped transform the Liberals from their nineteenth-century Upper Canadian Reform provincialism to Laurier's twentieth-century brand of national liberalism. Edgar foresaw the need for Canada to make its own decisions in the world, and his vision of Canadian—British relations was remarkably close to the reality of

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the modern Commonwealth. "The loftiest conception of a Canadian nationalism," he wrote in Canada and Its Capital, "is that our country should become part of a vast federation of free British nations, paramount in power, in wealth and in greatness."37 More important was Edgar's rejection of the nativist, anti-French, anti-Catholic strain of Upper Canadian Grittism. In 1889, he became the first Ontario Liberal to commit himself publicly to supporting the Conservative government's refusal to disallow the Quebec provincial Jesuits' Estates Act. The following year, in the vanguard of his Liberal colleagues, Edgar opposed Dalton McCarthy's bill to abolish use of the French language in the legislature and courts of the NorthWest Territories. In 1894, he was the first leading Ontario politician to denounce the bigotry and intolerance of the Protestant Protective Association. Edgar's position on the Manitoba school question also departed from a narrow Clear Grit heritage. Unlike many of his colleagues, he resisted the temptation to regard the plight of the Catholic minority in Manitoba as merely a question of provincial rights; he recognized that the dominion government must safeguard rights held by minorities at the time of Confederation. James David Edgar was a politician ahead of his time.

CHAPTER

I £

Life after Death 1899-1910

APART FROM HER Toronto and Lake Simcoe properties, and a modest accumulation of household furnishings and personal jewellery, Tillie Edgar faced widowhood with extremely limited financial resources. James's will, probated on October 3, 1899, left her convertible assets of just $3,045, consisting of his library (valued at $700), stocks and bonds ($2,225) and cash on hand ($120). Years of failed business ventures, expensive railway promotions, and unprofitable land speculation had used up surplus money. James never established a trust fund to secure his wife's future, while her own writings—even her much-acclaimed Ten Years of Upper Canada in Peace and War—never brought in more than a trickle of royalties.1 Drawing on their son Jamie's legal counsel and real estate knowledge, Tillie decided to keep The Pines on Lake Simcoe as the family's summer gathering place but sell 113 Bloor Street West when the market proved favourable. In 1902, she moved in with Pelham and Helen, at 21 Elgin Avenue, and she accompanied them later a few doors west to 45 Elgin. Financial worries paled beside Tillie's emotional distress at losing her husband. "For thirty-four years I have been his happy wife," she wrote Lady Aberdeen. "If we were separated there was the daily letter—now the great Silence has come."2 There would be no more sharing of ideas and experiences. No more private jokes at the foibles

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of friends and colleagues. No more daily letters to "My dearest wife" from "Your loving husband." Tillie quickly withdrew from the public world and retreated into her own private realm of grief. She ceased all her entertaining, suspended charitable and philanthropic activities, and resigned as president of the National Council of Women. On November 9 she wrote to Ishbel Aberdeen: "I am not fit for any outside work. I have resigned every office that I filled, and I could not enter upon any new work. In the quiet of my own home I am trying to possess my soul. I daresay you will think this selfish. I know how you worked even when your heart was sore, but I cannot help it." Like many Victorians, James Edgar during his lifetime had been attracted to spiritualism, whose adherents believed in the continuity of human existence, the personal identity of an individual after death, and a world of spirits who communicated with the living through mediums. In the aftermath of her husband's death, Tillie herself became a convert.3 During the autumn of 1899, Tillie, Maud, and Pelham held seances two or three evenings a week at 113 Bloor Street West. If they followed spiritualist decorum, they probably put on contrasting black and white clothing, ate a light meal, dimmed all the lamps in the room, and together placed their hands on a round table, with palms down. There is no mention of another person being present as a medium, and it was Maud, or occasionally Pelham, who "held the pencil" ready to "receive" the automatic writing and record James's messages from the "other side."4 "I shall tell you something about this side of life," James communicated on November 21. "There is no great gulf fixed between the two worlds as we had always thought—there is only the great difficulty of communication, but that will grow easier all the time. It is a most beautiful thought to think that it will not be very long before we all meet once more and continue the beautiful intercourse which was ours on earth, only intensified beyond all your powers of belief." The next message, five days later, was most reassuring: "I am very happy and at rest now. All troubles seem so small. All is Joy and Peace and Goodwill and Love. There is still much to be done, but there is a constant joy in each new effort. I am learning many new and different powers that are unknown to you now, but which are all to be learned sometime by everyone." December 17: "I am seeing sights

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that I have never dreamed of. Their beauty is more felt than seen. I am learning new powers, the nature of which is unknown on earth. I do not quite know how to describe them. All seems so simple that was so perplexing." James delighted in reunification with his son Harrie, whose death at age four had devasted their household so many years ago. "H is always near me," James communicated on December 10. "We work together at many things. He has been here longer and knows much I have not learned. He leads me; he is my good spirit. He makes me walk in the right paths." Again on February 22: "You will love to see Harrie again; he is so very sweet and good. He is no longer a baby as you knew him, for his mind and spirit have grown so that I was his pupil in the field of heaven at first—but we are everything to each other." All the children were important. "My dear boys! I want them to think of me sometimes," he communicated on November 25. James implored them to make something of their lives. "I think the life of one who shrinks timidly from the world and its duties is not much nobler, and may be more selfish, than the life of those who plunge into its meaningless frivolities...It is as much a part, almost, of your worldly duties to think as to worship, and if you have good brains, it is a waste of spiritual treasure to neglect them." James's words helped lift Tillie out of her deep depression. December 6: "I do feel something, by sympathy, of your distress; and where love is concerned I feel that it is more serious than anything merely earthly." Four days later, James's message encouraged her to get outside her grief: "I think it is a possible mistake that too great love—I won't say too great, but too exclusive love—for our own family may lead us into. So let the world at large enter into your hearts. You may help many a poor, lost soul in that way. Follow all your natural instincts to do right." It was time for Tillie to resume normal activities. "You must not be unhappy, because life should be full of joy and happiness," James communicated on New Year's Eve. "There is always so much to be done and learned in your life on earth. Your happiness for this life is begun there. If you learn to take joy out of doing good to those about you, you will have learned the secret of all joy. No life need be unhappy, for material means of pleasure are not the only ones to be desired. You have in yourself means of procuring pleasures far more lasting."

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Last known photograph of Sir J.D. Edgar, as Speaker of the House, July 1899.

Tillie was far too gifted to spend the rest of her life in idleness, though James seemed aware of the magnitude of her struggle. "Nothing can be of use unless there is a strong effort and constant endeavour on your part to attain some object, and that object must be one for which your life has been in sort a preparation," James communicated on January 10. "Things happen very strangely sometimes, but people find their vocation as a rule, or else their lives are unhappy failures, and they must begin the uphill battle once again." One week later: "I always love to send you a little message of hope and outlook for

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the future. It must make life much nobler for you now that you know the future that lies before you." On January 17, James's words united his work and life with hers. "We are pretty much alike after all; the same feelings of mind and soul, the same unsatisfied desires, unsatisfied because always in the state of performance, so that we can never say it is done, nor want to say it, till the last great work of God is accomplished. When will that be, you know as well as I, and will be with me to see its undeviating progress." A week later: "You must never rail against your fate, for it is wisely ordered. You are given material to shape and to fashion. Do your work well, with whatever lies beneath your hand. Do not be afraid. We go on together, and I am learning for your sake. I could not continue to grow, if I felt that you were not to be my companion." The last recorded "seance" occurred on February 22,1900, when James repeatedly used his loving and familiar salutation. "My dearest

Matilda Edgar at her writing table, with daughters Marjorie (left) and Beatrice.

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wife—I think that those words express more than volumes. I really get desperately lonely for you myself. I want you to take part in all I do as you used to, and to give me your sympathy and help as of old." Tillie was asked to resume her work for James's sake, her own, and their children's. "My dearest wife. I must not have you grieve for this temporary cessation...The time on earth is short until we have another meeting and then the time when earth is left behind will be ours forever. Cheer up my dear little wife, and go bravely on with your work, and when I next hear there will be a lot of work put behind to your credit. You must know how much you are to your children, and for my sake bear up and be to them all that a mother can be."

Shortly after the start of the seances, a little more than three months after James' death, Tillie decided to "go bravely on" with her historical research. Her latest project—a study of the Scottish Edgars—might serve as a fitting memorial to her husband. She hoped to gain access to papers in the Windsor Castle Library that might illuminate relations between the Stuart dynasty and the Edgar family. On November 9 she wrote to Lord Aberdeen: "I have determined to go on with my work and have ventured to revive the application for permission to examine the letters in the Library of Windsor Castle. You were so kind in interesting yourself before, that I thought you would like to know what I have done, and therefore enclose copies of my letters to the Queen and to Sir Arthur Bigge... I have heard indirectly that the Librarian, Mr Holmes, is favourable to my being allowed entrance to the Library, but possibly some one else who is also seeking permission and is working in the same field, stands in my way. Perhaps now that you know I have applied again you will put in a word in my favour." Colonial researchers often experienced difficulty in gaining access to confidential royal papers in the ancient library and archives at Windsor Castle. Tillie's case was especially difficult, as she wanted to examine the Stuart papers for information on her husband's

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"traitorous" forebear, James Edgar, secretary to the exiled Prince James Stuart. On December 9 she wrote to Lady Aberdeen: "I have heard from Sir Arthur Bigge who regrets it will be impossible to have the letters I want copied at present as the Stuart Correspondence is in the Record Office in the process of "Calendaring," and until that is completed no one can have access to them. This disposes of my application, for the present at least, so there is no use bringing any more influence to bear on those in charge. The Queen has been graciously pleased to accept my other book [Ten Years of Upper Canada] and to have it placed in the Royal Library... Although I have been set back about the Stuart correspondence I am going on steadily with my work, and indeed finishing first a book about Colonial days in Maryland which I had half completed some time ago but which had been laid aside. A publisher thinks it ought to succeed very well in the States as people there are much interested about their beginnings, & I have much material as a granduncle of mine happened to be Private Secretary to the Governor of Maryland just before the Revolution." Temporarily blocked from researching her husband's ancestors, Tillie turned to her own. She approached the life of Horatio Sharpe, Maryland's governor from 1753 to 1769, through the observations and writings of his private secretary, John Ridout, the Annapolis business partner and brother of her grandfather Thomas Ridout. Her interest in him was first aroused when she and James visited an Annapolis cousin, Dr William G. Ridout, while travelling home from winter holidays in Virginia and North Carolina during the late 1880s and early 1890s. Cousin William had inherited a cache of family correspondence that shed considerable light on Sharpe's administration, which he generously shared with Tillie. Gradually the book took shape during the early 1900s, though it did not appear until 1912, two years after Tillie's death. A Colonial Governor in Maryland: Horatio Sharpe and His Times, 1153-1775, published by Longmans, Green, and Co. of London, is a blend of narrative and letters similar to Ten Years of Upper Canada, though with a

Life After Death

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A COLONIAL GOVERNOR IN MARYLAND HORATIO SHAEPE AND HIS TIMES 1753-1773 BY

LADY EDGAR ACTHfm OF 'THN YEAilS OP UPPER GAiUDA' A.VU ' LIFK OP GENERAL BROCK ' Waken of Cnntuta frruit

Wrff

ILLUSTRATfONS

L O N G M A N S , GREEN, AND CO. 33 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON XEW YORK, QOMBAT, AND CALCITTA

1912

In 1912 Lady Edgar's "A Colvnial Governorin Maryland'' based on diaries of her grand uncle John Ridout, Secretary to Governor Horatio Sharpe, was published by Longmans, Green and Co.

stronger narrative thread. After more than eighty years, it remains the definitive biography of Horatio Sharpe. Meanwhile Pelham contributed to his mother's rehabilitation by involving her in a multi-volume Canadian publishing project. On January 15, 1901, Matilda signed a memorandum of agreement with Toronto publisher, George N. Morang, to write a Life of Brock for the Makers of Canada series, co-edited by Pelham Edgar and Duncan Campbell Scott. She agreed to produce a manuscript of between

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My Dearest Wife

MAKERS

OF CANADA

SERIES

Anniversary Edition

GENERAL BROCK BY

LADY EDGAR

JUtutraled undor M