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Sifton, Hon. John Wright, Brandon, Manitoba, was born in the township of London, county of Middlesex, Ontario, on the 10th August, 1833. He is the youngest son of Bamlet and Mary Sifton, who came from the county of Tipperary, Ireland, in 1832, and settled in London township. His ancestors on both sides were English. He received his education in the public and grammar schools of London. Up until 1860 he devoted his time to farming and other business, when he removed to Oil Springs, in Lambton county, and engaged in the oil business as producer and refiner. Here he purchased a large tract of oil lands immediately surrounding the famous gum beds, and afterwards sold them to an American company. This was the first foreign company that invested in Canadian oil property, and they continued to develop the resources of their territory until the enormous yield of oil at Petrolia made it impossible for them to successfully compete with this more productive locality. In 1870, Mr. Sifton removed to Paris, Brant county, with the object of having his children educated at the grammar school there; and in 1872, in company with his brother, contracted for and built forty miles of the track of the Canada Southern Railway. In 1873, he moved to London, and was appointed secretary of the Oil Association, and this office he held until the association ceased operations. In 1874, in company with two other gentlemen, whose interests he soon after bought out, he was awarded the contract for building and maintaining for five years a telegraph line from the city of Winnipeg to Fort Pelley, and clearing the track a hundred feet wide, for a distance of about three hundred miles, for the then contemplated Canadian Pacific Railway. Although this contract, when it was entered into, appeared to be one likely to give a fair profit, yet it afterwards turned out the opposite way. The fearful wet seasons of 1876, ’77, and ’78, flooded the country for forty miles east of Lake Manitoba, and sixty miles west along the line to, in some places, a depth of six feet, making it impossible to keep the line up, and as the Government refused to make any allowance for this, the loss was very great. Some idea may be formed of the difficulty of performing work in this country at that time, when we state that, one winter, provisions having ran out at one of Mr. Sifton’s camps, he had to send supplies by dog-trains 160 miles, and then have it carried on men’s backs, 60 miles further, making it to cost twelve cents per pound freight from Winnipeg to the camp, and at no time during the best part of the season could he deliver the same goods at their destination for less than five cents per pound freight. In 1875, the firm of Sifton, Ward & Co. were awarded the contracts for sections thirteen and fourteen of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and Mr. Sifton, the senior member of the firm, undertook charge of section fourteen, which commenced at Red River, and extended a distance of seventy-seven miles to Cross Lake. During this time he removed to Manitoba, settling at Selkirk, and here he remained until the completion of his telegraph and railroad contracts. The money involved in these two operations amounted to about a million and a half dollars. In 1879, he took up his abode in Winnipeg, where he purchased some real estate outside the city limits, and erected for himself a fine residence. Taking advantage of the “boom of 1881,” he sold out this property and moved to Brandon, where he now resides. Here he has invested a considerable sum of money in farming lands, and for four years succeeded in raising in each year from 10,000 to 18,000 bushels of grain. But the years of frost (1883, ’84, ’85) having made the raising of wheat or grain in large quantities a risky business, and the collapse in values of all kinds of property, especially real estate, have forced Mr. Sifton to suspend business operations in this direction for the present. However, from his experience of over twelve years in the North-West country, and a thorough practical knowledge of farming, he thinks that although extensive farming has been in the past, and may prove in the future from certain causes, a failure, when compared with Ontario, yet he is impressed with the idea that it cannot be equalled on this continent for fertility; always providing, however, that the present hindrances to its prosperity be removed. What Mr. Sifton wants for his country is fair competition in freights; the abolition of all monopoly; readjustment of our present tariff, so that it may have the same chance as Ontario; a reasonable homestead law that will not be changed every year, and pre-emptions at such a price that the settler can meet it in a reasonable time. If these concessions were made, he thinks the North-West would make such strides onward that the most sanguine of us would fail to realize. Mr. Sifton, during his busy life, has devoted time to other things besides purely business matters. In 1852, he became a member of the Order of the Sons of Temperance, and in 1854, he also joined the Good Templars, and has kept up his connection with these active temperance organizations to the present time. In 1867, he became one of the United Templars, and from 1876 to 1883 he acted in the capacity of president of their Grand Lodge in Manitoba. He was grand worthy chief templar of the Grand Lodge of Manitoba of the Independent Order of Good Templars in 1884, and is at present president of the Manitoban Branch of the Dominion Alliance for the suppression of the liquor traffic, and has been since its formation in 1879. He took the leading part in the contest for the Scott Act, when it was passed in the counties of Lisgar and Marquette. These counties extend over about three quarters of the old province of Manitoba. The act was carried by very large majorities,—more than two to one voting in its favour; but on account of the vagueness of the meaning of some of its provisions in reference to counties in Manitoba, and the impossibility of getting it amended, it still remains a dead letter. In politics, Mr. Sifton is a Liberal. In 1878, he received the unanimous nomination of the Liberal party for the Commons for the county of Lisgar, and organized and carried on the campaign up to the memorable day, the 17th of September, 1878. The 18th being nomination day in Manitoba, and the news reaching there of the defeat of the Mackenzie government, his committee had a hurried meeting on the morning before nomination, and decided that it would be better for the county if he would withdraw, and allow a supporter of the Macdonald government to be elected by acclamation, and this he consented to do. In the fall of the same year he received the nomination for the Local House for the electoral division of St. Clemens, and was elected by a large majority, and on the assembling of the house he was elected speaker. During the sitting of this parliament a redistribution bill was passed, giving the new settlers something like fair representation, which they had not hitherto enjoyed. At the next general election he ran for one of the new electoral divisions, and was defeated. In 1881, when the province was enlarged, he ran for the division of Brandon and was elected. In the general election of 1883 he was defeated; and again at the last general election for the division of West Brandon he met the same fate by a small majority. Mr. Sifton was reeve of Oil Springs and a member of the County council of Lambton during the years 1867, ’68 and ’69. He was chairman of the school board of same place in 1868-69, and was reeve of the municipality of Cornwallis for 1885-86, but declined the nomination in 1887. He has been a justice of the peace for the province since 1875. He has travelled over the whole of the Dominion of Canada, and is familiar with all parts of the United States north and south, and as far west as Omaha. Mr. Sifton is a member of the Methodist church from choice. Before the union he was a Wesleyan Methodist, and since then his opinions have not changed much on religious subjects, except that he has more confidence in those who differ from him in church affairs than he had in his younger days, and now has a greater love for and confidence in the teachings and doctrines of the church of his choice. He was a member of the General conference of 1882, and a member of the committee appointed by that conference to confer with committees appointed by other branches of the Methodist church on union. He was strongly in favour of union, and was a member of the conference held in Belleville when the union was consummated. At the conference in 1882, he took the leading part in having Manitoba and the North-West set apart as a separate annual conference, which was agreed to at that conference. He was also a member of the General conference held in Toronto in 1886. He is now a member of the general board of missions of the Methodist church, and has been a member of the local board of missions in the Manitoba and the North-West conference since its formation. He has also been a member of Manitoba and North-West annual conference since the admission of laymen, and is president of the Brandon branch of the Upper Canada Bible Society. He has always been actively engaged in Sabbath school and church work, and is superintendent of the Brandon Sabbath-school. And as for temperance work, he has spent much time and labour in this direction, and has spoken in almost every section of the country on the subject. He was married 1st October, 1853, to Kate, third daughter of James and Sarah Watkins, of Parsonstown, King’s county, Ireland, and has three children living. His oldest and only daughter, Sophia, was educated at Hamilton Female College, and is married to A. N. Molesworth, civil engineer, now construction engineer for the St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba Railway Co. His oldest son, Arthur Lewis, graduated from Cobourg University in arts, studied law in Manitoba, was called to the bar in 1882, and is now practising law in Prince Albert. His youngest son, Clifford, graduated from Cobourg, and is a gold medallist; he studied law in Manitoba, was called to the bar in 1882 in his twenty-second year, and is now practising law at Brandon.