Читать книгу A Cyclopædia of Canadian Biography - Various - Страница 158

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Church, Hon. Charles Edward, Commissioner of Public Works and Mines, of Nova Scotia, Halifax, was born on Tancook Island, Lunenburg county, Nova Scotia, on the 3rd of January, 1835. He is a son of Charles Lot Anthony Church, whose ancestors came to America with the Pilgrim Fathers in 1625. His great grandfather, Charles Church, was a United Empire loyalist, who left New England on the breaking out of the rebellion, and settled at Shelburne, Nova Scotia. His grandfather, Charles Lot Church, who was only five years of age when he came to Nova Scotia with his parents, on growing up into manhood, settled in Chester, Lunenburg county, Nova Scotia, and afterwards represented that county for ten years in the House of Assembly. This gentleman was one of the early Reformers of the province. His mother, Sarah Hiltz, is of German descent, her ancestors having emigrated from Germany to Lunenburg in 1753, and was amongst its first settlers. Their descendants are noted for their mechanical skill, especially in shipbuilding. Charles Edward Church, the subject of this sketch, received a fair English education at the schools in Chester and Truro, and afterwards followed for about ten years the profession of teacher. He then went into mercantile pursuits at La Have River, and for several years was interested in the fisheries. In 1871, Mr. Church was appointed a justice of the peace. He was, in 1872, elected to represent Lunenburg in the Liberal interest, in the House of Commons, at Ottawa; and again at the general election in 1874, he was returned by acclamation, and sat in the Dominion parliament until 1878. In 1882, Mr. Church was elected a member of the Nova Scotia legislature, and again in 1886, he was returned to the same position by a large majority. He was appointed provincial secretary in 1882, and held the office until 1884, when he was appointed Commissioner of Public Works and Mines, and this office he still holds. Mr. Church is a Liberal in politics, and for the past twenty years, has taken an active interest in both federal and provincial questions, and stands high as a progressive statesman. He also takes an interest in all moral reforms, and was formerly a member of the order of Sons of Temperance and of the Good Templars, and held office in the Grand Division of Sons of Temperance, of Nova Scotia, and also in the Grand Lodge of British Templars of the same province. Though not taking as warm an interest in the temperance movement as formerly, he is still a strict total abstainer. Mr. Church has travelled over a considerable portion of the Dominion of Canada, and through parts of the United States. He is a Protestant, holding broad and liberal views respecting religion as well as politics. On the 24th of June, 1884, he was married to Henrietta A. Pugsley, of Halifax. Her father, Henry Pugsley, was a native of England, and her mother a native of Halifax, Nova Scotia.