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Ussher, The Right Rev. Brandram Boileau, M.D., Montreal, Bishop of the Reformed Episcopal church in the Dominion of Canada and the Island of Newfoundland, was born in the city of Dublin, Ireland, on the 6th day of August, 1845. He is the youngest son of Captain Richard Beverly Ussher, late of H. M. 86th Regt., and Henrietta Ussher (née Boileau). On both sides of the house his ancestors were most distinguished. Captain R. B. Ussher was descended from Richard Neville, the great Earl of Warwick, one of whose descendants (for political reasons took the name of the office which he bore, viz., Usher of the Black Rod, thus retaining his influential and lucrative position when the name of Neville had become unpopular and the “Kingmaker’s” influence had waned,) subsequently settled in Ireland. To distinguish the family name from the office, the second letter, s, was added some eighty years ago. The subject of this sketch is descended from a long line of churchmen. His great-grandfather was rector of the parish of Clontarf, near Dublin, which was held in the family from father to son for over one hundred and fifty years. The Rev. John Ussher, afterwards Astronomer Royal for Ireland, was the last of the family to hold the incumbency. His sons were Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Ussher, K.C.A., who figured in the history of the great Napoleon, taking him to Elba in H.M.S. Undaunted. He died Naval Commander-in-Chief, at Cork, Ireland, and lies buried in one of the vaults of Monkstown church, County Dublin—his record was that of a gallant sailor. John Ussher, of Woodpark, who left four sons, the youngest of whom, Richard Beverly, was the father of Bishop Ussher, of Montreal. He is directly descended from Archbishop Henry Ussher, one of the founders of Trinity College, Dublin, whose brother Arland was the father of James Ussher (Trinity’s first student, buried in Henry VII. Chapel in Westminster Abbey), the celebrated Primate of Ireland, author of “Ussher’s Chronology,” etc., with whom the Duke of Wellington was also connected, owing to the fact that Mary Ussher married Henry Colley, of Castle Carberry, who was the mother of the first Lord Mornington, who was the grandfather of the Duke of Wellington. The Venerable Archdeacon Adam Ussher, rector of Clontarf, was the brother of the above named Mary Ussher and son of Sir William Ussher, clerk of the Council. The Rectory of Clontarf descended to his son Frederick, and from him to his son Henry Ussher, D.D., who held the Andrew’s Professorship of Astronomy in Trinity College, Dublin, and from him is directly descended Captain R. B. Ussher, the father of the Right Rev. Bishop Ussher. Three hundred years ago two brothers of the name of Ussher were driven from Ireland during one of the troubles, and settled in the neighbourhood of Melrose, in Scotland, where they acquired considerable lands, and amongst them the property of Huntley-burn, one of the most celebrated spots on the Borders. The grandfather of the present Thomas Ussher, of Edinburgh, for seventeen years secretary of the Borders’ County Association for the Advancement of Education (and out of which arose the celebration of the centenary of Sir Walter Scott), sold to Sir Walter Scott the chief part of the estate of Abbotsford (vide “Lockhart’s Life of Scott”). By unbroken tradition this branch claims kinship with Archbishop Ussher; and the Rev. W. Neville Ussher, cousin of the above named Thomas Ussher, is a canon of the Cathedral in Edinburgh. The Ussher family have had the honour of having four distinguished church dignitaries; two Archbishops of Armagh; one Bishop of Kildare (Robert Ussher); and Bishop B. B. Ussher, of Montreal, who has at present five surviving brothers and two sisters as follow:—Major-General John Theophilus Ussher, Beverly Ussher, Henry Ussher, M.B., Rev. P. R. C. Ussher, a prominent minister in Australia; and James Ussher, solicitor; Henrietta Buchanan and Arabella Madelina Buchanan. On his mother’s side Bishop Ussher has an equally distinguished ancestry, the Boileau family being one of the few that can trace their genealogy back without a break for a period of over six hundred years. The present Baron Boileau de Castleneau is the seventeenth in descent from Etienne Boileau, who, born early in the thirteenth century, was appointed by Louis IX., in the year 1255, Grand Provost of Paris, at that period the highest officer of state. In 1371, Jean Boileau was ennobled by Charles V. At the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, A.D. 1685, Jacques Boileau, the 10th baron, was arrested as a Protestant, tortured, and, after an imprisonment of ten and one-half years, died in the prison of St. Jean de Vedas, one mile from Montpellier, a noble martyr for the Protestant faith, having been beheaded by order of the Duke de Nemours. His son, Charles Boileau, then a youth, having taken refuge in England and having entered the British Army, firm to his Protestant faith, formally renounced his rights and titles to the honours and estates of the family which thereby devolved on his younger brother Maurice, who became the eleventh Baron Boileau. From that time the barony fell into the hands of the junior and Roman Catholic branch of the family of which the present Baron Boileau de Castleneau is now the representative. He holds, too, the ancient château de Castleneau, six miles from Nimes, which has been for three and a half centuries in the family to which it gives the present title of the barony. Five of the Barons de Castleneau held in succession the office of Royal Treasurer. Charles Boileau died in 1733, leaving three children who had issue, whose grandchildren and more remote issue are now living to the number of six hundred and fifty. The Right Rev. Bishop Ussher, when a child, was sent from under the jurisdiction of a governess at a very early age. At Delgany College, in the county Wicklow, the Rev. Dr. Daniel Flyns, of Harcourt street, Dublin, and the Rugby of Ireland, the Rev. Dr. Stackpools, of Kingstown, he received his education as a youth. As a lad he was older than his years and sought the company of those much his seniors, showing a decided penchant for those given to study. Thrown chiefly amongst medical students he followed the course of study so closely with one companion, that he was almost as well fitted as he to pass the examinations. At a little over sixteen years he secured the diploma of the Royal Dublin Society, taking sixth place out of seventy-three candidates. Owing to heavy financial losses, through the dishonesty of associates, the father of young Ussher was unable to permit him to continue his studies and the determination was formed to visit the United States. The resolve was put into execution, and, in the city of New York, mercantile life was entered upon; successful, though not in harmony with it, it was abandoned after a year, and a visit undertaken to Washington, where several of the United States’ army hospitals were visited; the old medical love rekindled and much practical knowledge gained in the treatment of surgical diseases and gun-shot wounds. The resolve was then formed to adopt medicine as a profession, and after pursuing his medical studies in the University of Michigan, he finally received the degree of Doctor of Medicine in Illinois, became a member of the State Medical Association, and was ultimately elected a member of the National Eclectic Medical Association. As a practitioner he was most successful, and as a citizen highly esteemed in the city of Aurora, Illinois, where he practised for over ten years. He was vigorously identified with the welfare of the community, and at one time it seemed that he would enter into political life, being offered the nomination by the Democratic party as a candidate for the legislature. Politics, however, were too impure to have any permanent attraction for him, and he devoted himself to his professional duties and the interests of the Anglican Church, of which he was a member. Set thinking by a sermon preached by the well-known evangelist, Mr. Moody, the instructions of pious parents were revived, and earnest Christian work entered upon with marked evidence of the divine favour. Under the license of the Right Rev. Dr. Whitehouse, then bishop of Illinois, he kept alive several mission fields and taught a large Bible-class with great acceptability. It was then pressed upon him that he should enter the ministry of the Anglican Church in the Diocese of Illinois. Steadily the conviction of the need of entire consecration to God’s service deepened; it was fought back, but the urging of Bishop Whitehouse was strong, and as there was then little evidence of the sacerdotalism that subsequently manifested itself, the course of study was entered upon under the bishop’s direction. In time it became apparent that the bishop of Illinois held strong High Church views. He was a guest in Dr. Ussher’s house on the evening of the day of the publication of Bishop Tozer’s letter condemning Bishop Cummins of Kentucky, for partaking of and administering the communion of the Lord’s Supper with Dr. John Hall, Drs. Arnot and Dorner, of the Presbyterian church, and reading it with a sense of indignation, he (Dr. Ussher) asked Bishop Whitehouse what he thought of such a letter, to which Bishop Whitehouse replied in cold, severe tones, “I think Bishop Tozer is perfectly right, and Bishop Cummins deserves the severest condemnation.” Those words decided the mind of Dr. Ussher, and realizing that as an Evangelical Protestant Churchman, he would be out of sympathy with Bishop Whitehouse, he determined to abandon the idea of entering the Anglican ministry. He felt, however, that his heart was so bound up in the Episcopal Church, and his love for her liturgy was so great, that he could not be at home in any other branch of Christ’s Church. At this juncture the Right Rev. Bishop Cummins, D.D., took steps to organize the Reformed Episcopal Church, which being made public, proved the open door. Under the guidance of that distinguished Protestant prelate, he pursued his studies and was ordained deacon in the city of Chicago, by the Right Rev. Bishop Cheney, in Christ Church, June 9th, 1874, and presbyter, July 16th, 1876, in Emmanuel Church, Ottawa, Ontario, by Bishops Cheney, Nicholson, Cridge and Fallows. His pastorates in Canada have been, one of three years in Toronto, during which was built the church on the corner of Simcoe and Caer Howell streets, and his present charge in St. Bartholomew’s, Montreal, over which he has been pastor since 1878. For good and sufficient reasons he and his congregation withdrew from the jurisdiction of the Reformed Episcopal Church in the United States and united with the English branch of the Reformed Episcopal Church under the Right Rev. T. H. Gregg, M.D., D.D., otherwise called the Reformed Church of England. By the General Synod in England, in the following year, the Rev. Dr. Ussher was elected to the episcopate, but declined. Two years after he was elected again, the Canadian Synod electing him as their bishop, and in 1882, on the 19th day of June, he was consecrated in Trinity Church, Southend, by the Right Rev. Bishop Gregg, and seven presbyters, as “a bishop in the Church of God.” Returning to Canada he took charge of the Diocese of Canada and Newfoundland. The bishop believing in benevolent societies as handmaids to the church, has been a member of the Order of Oddfellows since 1865, and has held the office of Grand Master of the Province of Quebec; he has also been, and is at present, a member of the Order of Knights of Pythias, in which he holds the rank of Past Grand Chancellor, and has had the honour of being Supreme Representative for the State of Illinois, and the authorship of one of the degrees in use by the order. Bishop Ussher is a graceful and forcible writer and an eloquent speaker, and poet of acknowledged merit. In his religious views he is an old-time Evangelical believer, pronounced in his Protestant views, in fact, a keeper in the old paths, for which reason he is ecclesiastically where he is to-day. On the 16th day of July, 1867, he was married by the Rev. Dr. Kelly, in the city of Chicago, to Elizabeth Leonora Thompson, third daughter of the Rev. Skeffington Thompson, of Broomfield, near Lucan, in the county of Dublin, Ireland, and Elizabeth Margaret D’Arcy. The father of Mrs. Ussher, the Rev. Skeffington Thompson, is the thirteenth child of the late Skeffington Thompson, of Rathnally, county of Meath, by Anna Maria Carter, only child and heiress of Thomas Carter, of Rathnally, county Meath. Skeffington Thompson the elder was an unsuccessful candidate in the last Irish Parliament against the Duke of Wellington for the borough of Trim, both candidates being neighbours in the same county, Dangan Castle, the Wellesley seat, being near Trim. The family of Thompson, according to Burke, descended from the Thompsons of Barton, Cumberland, a branch of which settled about the 16th century in the county of Hertford, England. The Irish branch are descended from those who crossed over to Ulster when that province was first taken in hand by King James, and engaging in the prosperous linen trade made large fortunes. Mrs. Ussher’s family history on the male side is interesting, as leading back to the famous Thomas Carter, who took so active a part in the Irish revolution, ending with the battle of the Boyne, 1690. This Thomas Carter was sergeant-at-arms, a partisan of King William III. at the siege of Derry, and battle of the Boyne. He was, as Burke, Ulster King of Arms, says “a gentleman whose services to his country at the revolution were very considerable, for he not only served King William at the battle of the Boyne (July 1st, 1690), but secured divers useful books and writings belonging to King James and his secretaries.” These documents he secreted in the vaults of Christ’s Church Cathedral, Dublin, until after the disturbances. He married for his second wife, the Countess of Roscommon, widow of Wentworth Dillon, the poet, who was publicly buried in Westminster Abbey. By her he had no family, but his only son Thomas became Master of the Irish Rolls, for twenty-four years, Privy Councillor, and Secretary of State. This Right Hon. Thomas Carter had two sons and three daughters, from the eldest of whom Mrs. Ussher is descended. The eldest sister of this Thomas Carter married Doctor Philip Twysden, bishop of Raphoe, and son of Sir William Twysden, baronet, of Roydon Hall, Kent. The issue of this marriage, Frances, married George Bussey, fourth Earl of Jersey and first cousin to Anna Maria Carter, Mrs. Ussher’s grandmother. This latter alliance resulted in the birth of two sons and six daughters, her eldest son being George, fifth Earl of Jersey, and the daughters became Ladies William Russell, Ann Lambton, Sarah Bailey, Lady Ponsonby, Lady Henrietta, who married the bishop of Oxford, and Lady Anglesey, wife of the Marquis of Anglesey, a hero of Waterloo, and for her second husband the Duke of Argyll, which Duchess of Argyll was cousin german to Mrs. Skeffington Thompson, Mrs. Ussher’s paternal grandmother. The Right Hon. Thomas Carter’s second daughter, Susan, married Thomas Carter, of Duleek Park and Castle, county Louth, and her grand-daughter, Elizabeth, became Marchioness of Thomond by entering the family of William O’Bryen, descendant from Brien Boroimhe, King of Ireland, and whose line was continued by the King of Munster and of Thomond to the reign of Henry VIII., King of England (see Sharpe’s Peerage). Mrs. Ussher’s family history on the female side is even more interesting. Her mother was Elizabeth Margaret, eldest daughter of the Rev. Joshua D’Arcy, Rector of Lacka, county Kildare. This D’Arcy family came to Ireland early in the 14th century and settled at Platten in the county Meath. In a book “Maynooth Castle,” written by the present Duke of Leinster when Marquis of Kildare, on page 5, we read, “Sir John D’Arcy, Lord Justice of Ireland, married the Countess Johanna de Burgh, daughter to the Red Earl of Ulster, and sister to Ellen, wife of Robert Bruce, King of Scotland. They had a son, William, born at Maynooth, in 1330, from whom the present family of D’Arcy are lineally descended, and are represented by George James Norman D’Arcy, of Hyde Park, county Westmeath (see Burke’s “Landed Gentry”, also Walford’s “County Families”), the worthy head of both English and Irish families and representative of twenty-eight peerages of Great Britain.” The Irish D’Arcys were governors of Ireland in the reign of the three Edwards, with extraordinary privileges, the power to appoint a deputy, which as Fynes Thompson remarks, neither before nor after was granted to any but some few of the royal blood (and which he exercised on two several occasions). A descendant, Sir William D’Arcy of Platten (or Platyn) was the person who carried Lambert Simnel on his shoulders through Dublin after he had been crowned in Christ Church Cathedral, for which he was obliged to do homage to his viceroy, in 1488. This Sir William D’Arcy’s descendant, Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, in 1523, was the author of a work entitled, “The Decay of Ireland and the causes of it,” the MS. of which is now in the library of Trinity College, Dublin. It is quite beyond the limit of this sketch to give a full history of a family dating back to their ancient seat in Arcques, in Normandy, whence they came to England with the Conqueror, into whose family they had married previously—then settled in Lincolnshire and are given in extenso in Burke’s “Extinct Peerages.” The Yorkshire histories contain a full pedigree of about twenty-five generations, and the English and Irish pedigree illuminated by Camden, the historian, and author of the “Brittania,” dating from 1066 to 1617, is in the possession of the present head of the D’Arcy house, Mrs. Ussher’s cousin. This history says, that Nicholas D’Arcy, of Platyn, espoused the cause of King James II., and was a captain in his army. He was consequently attained in 1690, and his estates were forfeited and sold in 1691; his only son Christopher, dying unmarried, George D’Arcy, the surviving lineal heir, male, succeeded to the family headship. This George D’Arcy entertained James the Second in his Castle of Dunmow the night after the battle of the Boyne, and King William was his guest previous to the battle. King James in his hurried departure next morning forgot his pistol which yet remains in the D’Arcy family. It is related of him that on the occasion he repeated the following couplet: