Category: Montreal

The Silver Spoon

by

In this article I refer to Robert Stanley Bagg by his middle name since it was the name by which he was best known. In other articles I have referred to him as RSB to differentiate him from his father, Stanley Clark Bagg (SCB) and his grandfather, Stanley Bagg.

My great-grandfather Robert Stanley Clark Bagg, or R. Stanley Bagg (1848-1912), was born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth, however, working in the family real estate business was not what he really wanted to do in life. It wasn’t until after he retired that he was able to follow his true passion: politics.

I never heard any family stories about Stanley, perhaps because he died several years before my mother was born. It wasn’t until Montreal’s two major English-language newspapers were digitized a few years ago that I learned about his various interests and activities. In fact, his name appeared in Montreal newspapers frequently, especially after the late 1890s when he became active in the Conservative party.  

Robert Stanley Bagg, portrait by Adam Sheriff Scott. Private collection.

Stanley was the second child of Montreal notary and land-owner Stanley Clark Bagg (1820-1873) and Philadelphia-born Catharine Mitcheson (1821-1914). The couple’s first child died before Stanley was born. Three younger sisters, Katharine, Amelia and Mary, were born in 1850, 1852 and 1854, and a fourth sister, Helen, arrived in 1861. Even as a child, Stanley must have been told that he would have a leadership role in the family, not only as the eldest, but also as the only male.

According to his obituary in the Montreal Gazette,1 Stanley studied law at McGill University and passed the bar in 1873. He then left Montreal for England, intending to further his studies, however, his father died unexpectedly in August of that year and Stanley came home. For a short time, he was in partnership with lawyer Donald Macmaster, sharing an office on St. James Street, in the old business heart of the city, but he gave up his legal practice to concentrate on the administration of his late father’s real estate. Nevertheless, throughout his life, Stanley identified himself as a lawyer or an advocate, a term used to refer to the practice of Quebec’s civil law.  

The job Stanley undertook as administrator of his father’s estate was not an easy one. Montreal was rapidly expanding, with thousands of new immigrants arriving, manufacturing, railroads and industries expanding and construction of new residences ongoing. The farmland that comprised the vast S. C. Bagg Estate, mostly located on the west side of St. Laurent Boulevard in a corridor north of Sherbrooke Street, benefited from the city’s growth. Sales, mainly of residential properties, became a profitable business.

This map shows the extent of the late Stanley Clark Bagg’s properties, shaded in beige, in 1875, when an inventory was made of his estate. These properties are overlaid over a modern map of the island of Montreal. At that time, the actual city of Montreal was south of Sherbrooke Street, extending down to the banks of the Saint Lawrence River. The eastern slope of Mount Royal is adjacent to the Mile End properties. Map created by Justin Bur, based on two open data sources: physical geography from CanVec, Natural Resources Canada and modern streets from Geobase, City of Montreal.

Stanley does not seem to have been interested in developing and promoting housing or commercial real estate projects himself, but he did decide which pieces of land to subdivide into lots and he supervised sales. The estate also rented small residential and commercial buildings, and some of the land was sold to the city for civic projects such as parks.

He encountered many unexpected headaches over the years. He had to ask the provincial government to pass a special law in 1875 to override a provision in SCB’s will in order to make the lot prices competitive.2 There were misunderstandings in 1889-91 over which properties were part of the estate and which belonged to the five children. And Sister Helen’s husband disappeared under mysterious circumstances in 1897, owing the Baggs large sums of money. Although Stanley was the main administrator of his father’s estate, several family members acted as advisors. His mother had a great deal of input, and sister Amelia kept track of some of the property sales. When a major decision had to be made, family members got together to discuss it, or if that was not possible, they communicated through letters.

When Stanley announced his retirement as of January, 1901, his mother arranged to hire someone to succeed him, and she wrote Stanley a thank-you letter.3 She described her husband’s unexpected death as a calamity for the family, especially for Stanley who was “so young and inexperienced in the ways of the world.”  She commended Stanley for the “able, honourable and efficient manner” in which he had performed his arduous duties for 27 years. She added, “I am most anxious that you should have a complete rest from all the worry and anxiety that is unavoidably connected with the responsible position you have occupied for such a long time – and while personally I shall greatly miss you, I hope that your absence and a complete change will allow you to regain your usual health and strength.”

One activity Stanley found helped to restore his health was travel, especially ocean voyages. Perhaps he got the travel bug when he was 20 and spent a year exploring the highlights of Europe with his parents, his aunt and his sisters. In 1875, Stanley visited England again with his mother and one of his sisters, and he returned to Europe with his new wife, Clara Smithers, on their two-month-long honeymoon in the summer of 1882.

Robert Stanley Bagg and Clara Smithers were married at St. Martin’s Anglican Church, on what was then the corner of St. Urbain and Bagg Streets. Bagg street was later renamed Prince Arthur and the current Bagg Street is located several blocks further north. St. Martin’s never acquired a spire and it was eventually demolished.
Image source: St. Martin’s Church, Historical Sketch of St. Martin’s Church : 1874-1902, Montreal, Canada, 1902?; Canadiana, https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.85997  Accessed June 14, 2023.

In 1891, he and Clara spent an extended period of time in England, taking along their two young daughters. That year’s Census of England showed Stanley, Clara, the children, a governess and a cook staying in a lodging house in St. George Hanover Square, in central London. Ten years later, after his retirement, Stanley returned to Europe, this time touring for eight months.

While real estate management, legal training and travel seem to have been family traditions, so was military service. Stanley’s father served in the military, and his grandfather was a major in the 1st Battalion Loyal Volunteers during the Rebellion of 1837. His great-grandfather Phineas Bagg had served during the American Revolution ((1775-1783) before immigrating to Canada.

In 1877, the Canada Gazette reported that R. Stanley Bagg, gentleman, began his military service as an ensign with the 5th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, Montreal. When he retired in 1882, he retained the rank of captain from what had become the Royal Scots Fusiliers. Although his military career was relatively short, it appears to have been a success. The Montreal Star quoted the following article about Stanley that had appeared in the paper 30 years earlier:4

“There are few better-known figures in Montreal than Captain Stanley Bagg. He was an enthusiastic volunteer and belonged to the old 5th Royals before and after they had become a kilted regiment. At the time of the ship laborers’ riots in Quebec, when several regiments of Montreal were sent to restore order and liberate the regular garrison, who were practically prisoners in the Citadel, the 5th Royal Scots were marched up Mountain Hill and the honor of leading them was conferred by the colonel of the regiment on Captain Bagg owing to his height and commanding presence. Captain Bagg has always been an ardent supporter of and participant in athletic sports. A good rider and one of the old Dowell school of boxers, he kept himself in such first-class condition that he can stand almost any fatigue.”

I had read the letter written by Stanley’s mother about his retirement many years ago, and it had left me with an image of my great-grandfather as a tired and anxious man. It was a revelation to find this newspaper article and realize that he had indeed once been a strong leader and an athlete.

This article is also posted on the collaborative family history blog Genealogy Ensemble.

Footnotes:

1. “R. Stanley Bagg Died Yesterday,” The Gazette, July 23, 1912, p. 4, accessed June 9, 2024.

2. “38 Vict. cap. XCIV, assented to 23 February 1875”, Statutes of the Province of Quebec passed in the thirty-eighth year of the reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, part 1, p. 474, https://books.google.ca, accessed June 9, 2024

3. Catharine Mitcheson Bagg, Correspondence, P070/B6.4, Bagg Family Fonds, McCord Stewart Museum, https://collections.musee-mccord-stewart.ca/en/objects/details/176488; classification scheme; personal documents; correspondence. Accessed June 14, 2024.

4. “From the Star Files 30 Years Ago Today” The Montreal Star, Sept. 17, 1909, p. 10, www.newspapers.com, accessed June 9, 2024.

See also:

Janice Hamilton, “Bagg Family Dispute part 1: Stanley Clark Bagg’s Estate”, Writing Up the Ancestors, Dec. 13, 2023, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2023/12/bagg-family-dispute-part-1-stanley-clark-baggs-estate.html

Janice Hamilton, “The Bagg Family Dispute part 2”, Writing Up the Ancestors, Feb. 14, 2024, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2024/02/the-bagg-family-dispute-part-2.html

Janice Hamilton, “Helen Frances Bagg: A Happy Exile”, Writing Up the Ancestors, Jan. 6, 2016, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2016/01/helen-frances-bagg-happy-exile.html

Janice Hamilton, “Continental Notes for Public Circulation”, Writing Up the Ancestors, April 8, 2020, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2020/04/continental-notes-for-public-circulation.html

Janice Hamilton, “Aunt Amelia’s Ledger”, Writing Up the Ancestors, April 26, 2023, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2023/04/aunt-amelias-ledger.html

Clara Smithers Weds R. Stanley Bagg, Writing Up the Ancestors, March 2, 2014, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2014/03/clara-smithers-weds-r-stanley-bagg.html

Janice Hamilton, “The Life and Times of Stanley Bagg, 1788-1853”, Writing Up the Ancestors, Oct. 5, 2016, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2016/10/the-life-and-times-of-stanley-bagg-1788.html

The Bagg Family Dispute, part 2

by

in collaboration with Justin Bur

When my great-great grandfather Stanley Clark Bagg died in 1873, his wife and five children inherited large tracts of farmland on the island of Montreal, land that they made a family business of selling.1 But misunderstandings over who owned what and how to keep track of the income created a lot of difficulties. 

Stanley Clark Bagg (I usually refer to him as SCB to differentiate him from his father, Stanley Bagg, and his son, Robert Stanley Bagg,) had inherited most of this property from his grandfather John Clark (1767-1827).2 But there were conditions attached to some of these bequests: Clark’s 1825 will stated that land that comprised the Durham House property, and land comprising Mile End Farm, should pass down through three generations of descendants before it could be sold. The legal term for this, in civil law, is a substitution. However, a change in the law, passed in 1866, limited substitutions to two generations.3 That meant that the generation of Robert Stanley Bagg and his sisters Katharine, Amelia, Mary and Helen were the last generation affected by the substitutions and they could do what they liked with these properties.

The substitution clause referring to Durham House was part of the 1819 marriage contract between SCB’s parents, in which John Clark gave that property to his daughter as a wedding present.4 (It is shown in dark green on the map below.)

Robert Stanley Bagg, # II-57308.1, 1880, Notman & Sandham, McCord-Stewart Museum; Bagg family collection

When SCB died at age 53, none of his family members was ready to manage these properties. His only son, Robert Stanley Bagg, or RSB, (1848-1912) had recently graduated in law, but he had no experience in renting or selling properties. Furthermore, neither the notary who completed the inventory of SCB’s estate in 1875,5 nor SCB’s widow, nor his children were aware of the substitutions. The Durham House and Mile End Farm properties were treated as though they were no different than the other properties belonging to the late SCB’s estate.

The 22-acre Durham House property (lots 19–28 and 101–115, cadastre of the Saint-Laurent ward) was located north of Sherbrooke Street, on the west side of today’s Saint-Laurent Boulevard. SCB had subdivided part of it and sold lots from it as early as 1846. In 1889, RSB, who was an executor of his father’s estate, subdivided the Upper Garden of Durham House (lot 19, Saint-Laurent ward) and began to sell those lots. He signed the property documents as “R. Stanley Bagg for the estate,” and his mother, Catharine Mitcheson Bagg, also signed.

But the Durham House property actually belonged jointly to the five Bagg siblings. It was not part of SCB’s estate, and his widow could not inherit this land, sell lots from it or acquire income from it. Yet that is what she did: the name Dame Catharine Mitcheson, widow of Stanley Clark Bagg, appeared on five deeds of sale in 1889.  

It is not clear who discovered the error, but perhaps someone close to the Bagg family took a good look at the property documents and noticed these details. SCB’s middle daughter, Amelia Bagg, was to marry Joseph Mulholland the following year, and he worked as a real estate agent for the Stanley Clark Bagg Estate. Also, Joseph’s brother-in-law, John Murray Smith, was about to purchase several of the Durham House lots. Any one of these people could have discovered the marriage contract and John Clark’s will, which SCB had registered at the provincial land registry office.6

As soon as they became aware of the situation, the Bagg siblings tried to remedy it with a notarized document called a Ratification.7 It said that, as the actual owners, they ratified and approved the five sales made by their mother. A few weeks later, in January and April of 1890, the Bagg siblings sold five lots to John Murray Smith and four to James Baxter, and this time, the vendors named in the deeds were correct.

This map shows details of several of the late Stanley Clark Bagg’s properties in 1875, when an inventory was made of his estate. Durham House and its upper garden, as well as a small part of the Mile End Farm and SCB’s home, Fairmount Villa, are overlaid over a modern map of the island of Montreal. Mile End Lodge had been John Clark’s home. At that time, the densely populated part of Montreal was south of Sherbrooke Street. Mount Royal Park, opened in 1876, is on the left. Map created by Justin Bur, based on two open data sources: physical geography from CanVec, Natural Resources Canada and modern streets from Geobase, City of Montreal.

Next, Catharine and her five children took a step to sort out the income from lots from the Durham House property that SCB had sold in his lifetime. They did not involve a notary, but tried to look after the issue as a family, signing a document called an Indenture on May 12, 1890.8

The indenture stated that neither Catharine nor her children had known about the marriage contract until December, 1889. The Bagg children (by now all were adults) declared the love and affection they had for their mother and their desire to settle the matter amicably, and released her from all claims and demands. For her part, Catharine agreed to repay to her children the capital sums she had received from the sale of these properties. Because she had paid taxes and expenses on them, the children made no claim for the interest payments she had received.

Action Demanded

No doubt confident that everything had been resolved, RSB took his wife and two young daughters on an extended trip to England, leaving his mother and sisters to handle offers for land sales during his absence. After his return, however, the family dispute blew up once more, this time over the Mile End Farm property. Two of the married sisters, Katharine Sophia Mills and Mary Heloise Lindsay, hired a notary to represent their interests.

Notary Henry Fry sent a complaint on their behalf to the three living executors of SCB’s will — Catharine Mitcheson Bagg, Robert Stanley Bagg and notary J.E.O. Labadie – demanding immediate action. Dated July 22, 1891 and titled Signification and Demand,9   this document stated that the executors of SCB’s will were bound, upon his death, to deliver over the Durham House and Mile End Farm properties to his children, and to produce an account of the administration of these properties.

Catharine Mitcheson Bagg, #71147, 1883, Wm. Notman & Son, McCord-Stewart Museum; Bagg family collection.

It stated that the executors “have wholly failed and neglected to render such account, but on the contrary, have, since the death of the said Stanley Clark Bagg, continued in possession of the said substituted property and have even sold and alienated portions thereof and have received the consideration money of such sales and have received and retained the entire revenues therefrom and that although they have been recently requested to render such account, the said executors have neglected and refused to do so.”

The executors had until August 10 to provide an account of the property belonging to the substitutions. They must have met this demand because no further complaints have turned up. Furthermore, the Bagg siblings seem to have found a better solution to their dilemma: they partitioned the Durham House property and sold a large chunk of the Mile End Farm.

In September 1891, the remaining unsold lots of the Durham House property were grouped into five batches, and the five siblings pulled numbers out of a hat to determine who got which ones.10 They could then sell these lots, or keep them, as they pleased.

Two months later, the five siblings sold 145 arpents of land, including most of the Mile End Farm and a section of the adjoining Black Gate Farm, to Clarence James McCuaig and Rienzi Athel Mainwaring,11 These Toronto land developers had plans to develop an exclusive housing development they called Montreal Annex in the area.12

As for keeping track of property sales, Amelia, the middle Bagg sibling who was now married to Joseph Mulholland, took on that responsibility. Starting in 1892, she kept a ledger in which she wrote down the dates, names of purchasers and prices paid for each of the lots that were part of the Mile End Farm and Durham House properties.13

This article is also posted on the collaborative blog https://genealogyensemble.com.

See also:

Janice Hamilton, “Bagg Family Dispute Part 1: Stanley Clark Bagg’s Estate”, Writing Up the Ancestors, Dec. 13, 2023, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2023/12/bagg-family-dispute-part-1-stanley-clark-baggs-estate.html

Janice Hamilton, “Aunt Amelia’s Ledger” Writing Up the Ancestors, April 26, 2023,  https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2023/04/aunt-amelias-ledger.html

Janice Hamilton, “Stanley Clark Bagg’s Family”, Writing Up the Ancestors, Feb. 29, 2020,  https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2020/02/stanley-clark-baggs-family.html

Janice Hamilton, “My Great-Great Aunts, Montreal Real-Estate Developers”, Writing Up the Ancestors, October 11, 2017, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2017/10/my-great-great-great-aunts-montreal.html Janice Hamilton, “A Home Well Lived In”, Writing Up the Ancestors, Jan. 21, 2014,https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2014/01/a-home-well-lived-in.html

Notes:

The Indenture, the Deed of Ratification and several other documents mentioned in this article were donated to the archives of the McCord Stewart Museum in Montreal around 1975 by my cousin.

This article was written in collaboration with urban historian Justin Bur. Justin has done a great deal of historical research on the Mile End neighbourhood of Montreal (around Saint-Laurent Blvd. and Mount Royal Ave.) and is a longtime member of the Mile End Memories/Memoire du Mile-End community history group (http://memoire.mile-end.qc.ca/en/). He is one of the authors of Dictionnaire historique du Plateau Mont-Royal (Montreal, Éditions Écosociété, 2017), along with Yves Desjardins, Jean-Claude Robert, Bernard Vallée and Joshua Wolfe. His most recent article about the Bagg family is La famille Bagg et le Mile End, published in Bulletin de la Société d’histoire du Plateau-Mont-Royal, Vol. 18, no. 3, Automne 2023.

Sources:

  1. Stanley Clark Bagg will, J.A. Labadie, n.p. no 15635, 7 July 1866
  2. John Clark will, Henry Griffin, n.p. no 5989, 29 August 1825
  3. In 1866 the government of Lower Canada enacted the Civil Code. This was a compilation and revision of the civil law inherited from the French regime; article 932 of the code put a two-generation limit on substitutions.
  4. Marriage contract between Stanley Bagg and Mary Ann Clark, N.B. Doucet, n.p. no 6489, 5 August 1819
  5. Stanley Clark Bagg inventory, J.A. Labadie, n.p. no 16733, 7 June 1875
  6. John Clark’s will and the marriage contract between Stanley Bagg and Mary Ann Clark are still publicly available at the Registre foncier du Québec. John Clark’s will had been transcribed there in 1844 (Montréal ancien #4752). The marriage contract (Montréal Ouest #66032) was transcribed in 1872. SCB’s will was transcribed into the register (Montréal Ouest #74545) in 1873.
  7. Deed of Ratification, Adolphe Labadie, n.p. no 2063, December 12, 1889, register Montreal Est #25109, McCord Stewart Museum (P070/66,3) This notary was a son of notary J.E.O. Labadie, who was an executor of the will, and grandson of notary J.A. Labadie, who had handled SCB’s will and the inventory of his estate.
  8. Indenture, May 12, 1890, McCord Stewart Museum (P070/B6,3).
  9. Signification and Demand, Henry Fry, n.p. no. 2234, 22 July 1891, McCord Stewart Museum (P070/B6,3).
  10. Deed of Partition, John Fair, n.p no 3100, Sept. 10, 1891, register Montreal Est #29503, McCord Stewart Museum (P070/B8,4).
  11. Deed of Sale, William de Montmollin Marler, n.p. #17571, 20 November, 1891, register Hochelaga-Jacques-Cartier #40225
  12. Justin Bur, Yves Desjardins, Jean-Claude Robert, Bernard Vallée, Joshua Wolfe, Dictionnaire historique du Plateau Mont-Royal (Montreal, Éditions Écosociété, 2017), p 271.
  13. Amelia Josephine Bagg Mulholland, Grand livre, 1891-1927, McCord Museum, Fonds Bagg, P070/B07,1. https://collections.musee-mccord-stewart.ca/en/objects/293626/a-j-mulholland-ledger (accessed April 3, 2023)