Читать книгу A Cyclopædia of Canadian Biography - Various - Страница 118

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Ogilvie, Hon. Alexander Walker, Montreal, Lieutenant-Colonel, member of the Senate of Canada for Alma division, was born at St. Michael, near the city of Montreal, on the 7th of May, 1829. The Ogilvie family is descended from a younger brother of Gilchrist, Earl of Angus, a valiant soldier who in the thirteenth century was rewarded with the land of Ogilvie, in Banffshire, Scotland, and assumed the name of the estate. The family is celebrated in history for having long preserved the Crown and sceptre of Scotland from the hands of Oliver Cromwell. The parents of Senator Ogilvie came from Stirlingshire, Scotland, to Canada in 1800, and Mr. Ogilvie, sr., served his adopted country as a volunteer cavalry officer during the war of 1812-14 against the Americans; and took up arms against the so-called patriots during the Canadian rebellion of 1837-8. To this couple were born a large family of sons and daughters, and all have made their mark in the country. In 1854 Alexander and his brothers, John and William, founded the firm of A. W. Ogilvie & Co., as millers and dealers in grain, and built extensive mills on the banks of the canal at Montreal, now known as the Glenora mills. Since that time the business has grown to such dimensions that the firm’s mills and business operations are carried on at Montreal, Goderich, Seaforth, Winnipeg and other parts of the North-West, and they are now the most extensive millers in the Dominion. In 1874 Alexander retired from the business. In 1867 he first entered political life, and at the general election of that year he was chosen by acclamation to represent Montreal West in the Quebec legislature, when on the dissolution of the house in 1871 he declined re-nomination. He, however, was induced again to enter the political field in 1875, and was elected for his old seat. This he occupied until the legislature was dissolved in 1878, when he retired from local politics. On December 24, 1881, he was called to the Senate to represent the Alma division in that body. Senator Ogilvie has been an alderman for the city of Montreal, president of the Workingmen’s, Widows and Orphans’ Benefit Society, and of the St. Andrew’s Society, and a lieutenant-colonel of the Montreal Cavalry (now on the retired list). He is president of the St. Michael Road Company, chairman of the Montreal Turnpike Trust, and of the Montreal Board of Directors of the London (England) Guarantee Company, a director of the Sun Life Insurance Company, the Edwardsburg Starch Company, the Montreal Loan and Mortgage Company, and the Montreal Investment Company. He is also a justice of the peace. Senator Ogilvie is a Conservative in politics, and in religion is a Presbyterian. He is married to a daughter of the late William Leney, of Montreal, and has a family of four children, one son and three daughters.