Henry Mulholland, Montreal Hardware Merchant

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With one of the largest St. Patrick’s Day parades in the world, Montreal has long celebrated its Irish heritage. Waves of Irish immigrants came to Canada in the 19th century, peaking in 1815 and 1831, and a surge of immigrants arrived during the famine in Ireland, between 1847 and 1849.

Many Irish Catholic immigrants settled in Montreal, while the majority of Protestants moved on to the United States or Upper Canada, but my great-great-grandfather Henry Mulholland (1809-1887), an Irish-born Protestant, put down deep roots in Montreal. 

Henry Mulholland

I do not know where he was born or who his parents were, but the name Mulholland is most common in Ulster (now Northern Ireland). Nor do I know when, why or with whom, if anyone, he came to Canada. The first record I have found is his 1834 marriage to Ann Workman at Montreal’s Anglican Christ Church. 

Mulholland may have known the Workman family in Ireland. They immigrated from Ballymacash, near Belfast, in the 1820s. Ann Workman’s six brothers established themselves in Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa in the fields of publishing, business, medicine and politics. Her brothers William and Thomas were partners in Frothingham and Workman, the largest hardware importing, wholesale and manufacturing company in Canada. 

Mulholland also went into the hardware business. Perhaps he started his career with his brother-in-law’s company, or perhaps he worked his way up in Benjamin Brewster’s hardware firm. In 1842, the first year Lovell published its annual Montreal city directory, there was a listing for “Brewster, B. and Company (H. Mulholland and John Evans), wholesale and retail hardware.” Lovell’s 1851 directory of Canadian businesses listed “Brewster & Mulholland, importers of shelf and heavy hardware of every description, 177 and 179 Saint Paul Street.”

In 1859, Mulholland joined with a new partner, Joel C. Baker, to form Mulholland and Baker, hardware merchants and ironmongers. A lawyer, Baker was married to Louise Workman, daughter of William Workman. 

Lovell’s 1876 edition advertised Mullholland and Baker as “Importers of hardware, iron, steel, tin, Canada plates, window glass; manufacturers of cut nails, and also of the new chisel pointed cut nail.”  Their customers included small shopkeepers, merchants and blacksmiths in southern and central Quebec. The company opened a branch in Guelph, Ontario and began importing raw materials and manufacturing nails.   

During this period of Montreal’s history, industries and railways were being built, utilities developed and banks established. Like many of his business colleagues, Mulholland was involved with several of these enterprises. Many of these men also knew each other through their memberships in the Mechanics’ Institute of Montreal, an organization founded to provide education to working men and youth for a modest fee. 

Mulholland was a director of the New City Gas Company, founded in 1847 to compete with the Montreal Gas Light Company. New City Gas burned coal to produce gas that was used to light the homes and streets of Montreal. Some years later, when the Sun Mutual Life Insurance Company of Montreal was founded in 1871, Henry Mulholland was a member of its first board of directors.

Henry Mulholland’s house was near the corner of Sherbrooke Street and Drummond. This photo appeared in a book called The Saga of Sherbrooke Street, Yesterday and Today, by Arthur Kittson

He was also one of 15 managing directors of the Montreal City and District Savings Bank. Most of Montreal’s banks were set up to serve commercial interests, but the City and District was founded in 1846 by the Bishop of Montreal and a group of businessmen to help ordinary workers save their money. In 1866, the year Mulholland was serving as president of the City and District, a group of Irish-Americans known as the Fenians raided the Canadian border.

Many customers were afraid the crisis would cause the bank to fail and demanded their deposits back, but Mulholland and two other bank directors formed a committee to deal with the situation and prevented the bank’s failure.  

Mulholland did not succeed, however, in preventing the bankruptcy of his own hardware company. It went out of business in 1879, a situation that appears to have been fallout from the bankruptcy of an individual whose mortgage Mulholland had guaranteed. 

Mulholland had to sell his family’s home to cover his debts, and he and his wife moved to a smaller house nearby. For the next few years, court battles and appeals took up much of his time. After his wife died in 1882, he moved in with his daughter Ann, her husband, Dr. George Wilkins, and their children. Henry Mulholland died in 1887.   

Photo Credit:

“H. Mulholland, Montreal, QC, 1886”, II-79921.1, Wm. Notman & Son, McCord Museum, http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/en/collection/artifacts/II-79921.1?Lang=1&accessnumber=II-79921.1

Notes:

Several of the organizations Mulholland helped establish are still in operation today. The Montreal City and District Bank is now the Laurentian Bank and the Sun Life evolved into Sun Life Financial. The Mechanics’ Institute of Montreal is now known as the Atwater Library and Computer Centre.

Several years ago, archaeologists from the Pointe-à-Callière museum explored the site of Mulholland and Baker’s tool sharpening service. See “Pointe-à-Callière Archaeological Field School: The Mulholland and Baker Years”, http://www.ecoledefouilles.org/default.asp?id=60.  

“Old Montreal, Mulholland and Baker in 1873”, http://www.vieux.montreal.qc.ca/inventaire/fiches/eng/mulholland.htm briefly describes the history of Mulholland and Baker.

The Dictionary of Canadian Biography, http://www.biographi.ca/en/index.php, has biographies of many of Mulholland’s business associates, including William Workman, Thomas Workman and John Fotheringham. Mulholland also knew entrepreneur and politician Luther Holton. See Henry C. Klassen. Luther H. Holton, A Founding Canadian Entrepreneur. Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2001.

For an account of the City and District’s early days, see the “Origins and Early History of the Montreal City and District Savings Bank 1846-1871” by John Irwin Cooper, http://www.cchahistory.ca/journal/CCHA1945-46/Cooper.html

“New City Gas and Mechanic’s Institute” http://montrealhistory.org/2010/01/new-city-gas-mechanics-institute/, outlines the early history of gas lighting in Montreal. The site montrealhistory.org publishes articles focused on people and events associated with the Mechanics’ Institute.

Highlights of the history of the Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada can be found on the website La Mémoire du Québec (in French only.) http://www.memoireduquebec.com/wiki/index.php?title=Sun_Life_Assurance_Company_of_Canada_%28compagnie_d%27assurance-vie%29  

To search issues of the Lovell Directories for Montreal from 1842 to 2010, go to http://bibnum2.banq.qc.ca/bna/lovell/

Henry and Ann Mulholland had seven children, five of whom grew to adulthood: Benjamin, Joseph, Ann, Jane and Henry. I will write about the family in another post.

John Murray Smith and the Giant Bible

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My great-grandfather John Murray Smith (1838-1894) hardly looks like a man of mystery. He was a banker with gentle eyes, mutton-chop whiskers and a mustache. But there is at least one mystery about him: how did he acquire that giant bible?

I adopted the bible from my cousin Benny, who had inherited it. It was so big (it weighs at least 10 pounds, or 4 kg,) that Benny was glad to get rid of it. There are no family records in its pages, but there is a plaque on the inside front cover that reads, “Presented to John Murray Smith, Esq. of the Bank of Toronto In grateful acknowledgement of services rendered In December, 1867. James Ross. William Coldwell. Toronto, February 1st 1868.”

What could a young banker have done that someone thanked him with such a present? I googled William Coldwell and discovered there was a journalist by that name working for the Toronto Globe newspaper in 1867.  Aha, I thought, perhaps Coldwell wrote an article in the Globe about whatever it was John had done, but a search brought no hits.

Actually, that bible may have been an appropriate gift for John, a devout Presbyterian. Later in life, he was a member of St. Paul’s Church (now St. Andrew’s and St. Paul’s) in Montreal, and president of the Presbyterian Sunday School Association of Montreal for eight years.1 He was also on the board of the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) for fifteen years and served one term as president of that organization.2

John Murray Smith was born in 1838 in MacDuff,3 a town on the Firth of Moray, Scotland, where his father, James Avon Smith, was a teacher. His mother, Jane Tocher, died a few weeks after his birth,4 leaving his father with seven children to raise. His father remarried to a Mrs. Daly and Aunt Elizabeth Tocher helped to bring up the children.

According to an unpublished Smith family history, James Avon Smith left Scotland for America around 1846, eventually settling in Toronto, where he got a position teaching classics. Three of the children came over in 1848, and John and the other three followed in 1852.    After finishing his education, John began working for the Bank of Toronto. He worked in various bank branches in Ontario and, by 1871, was branch manager in Peterborough, a small city in eastern Ontario. While living there as a single man, he boarded at Caisse’s Hotel, said to be the finest hotel in Peterborough.5

He married Jane Mulholland of Montreal in 1871.6 She was the daughter of Henry Mulholland, an Irish-born hardware merchant, and Ann Workman, the only sister of several of the city’s prominent businessmen. In 1877, J. Murray Smith, as he was known to his business colleagues and customers, was transferred to Montreal, at that time Canada’s largest and most important city, as manager of the Bank of Toronto’s branch. 

John Murray Smith

Between 1873 and 1884, John and Jane had six children: Henry, Louise, May, Frederic (my future grandfather), Ella and Mabel. The two eldest were born in Peterborough, the others in Montreal.7

In 1881,the Murray Smith family moved to a two-story stone house on McGregor Street, a fashionable address on the slope of Mount Royal.8 From the front of the house, they would have looked toward the trees of Mount Royal Park and, from the back garden, they would have seen the St. Lawrence River in the distance.  

John also purchased real estate as an investment. In 1890, he acquired five adjoining building lots on Charles Borromée Street from Robert Stanley Bagg. The following spring, he purchased five more lots on the same street.9 He probably built brick or stone or row houses and sold or rented them.

According to family stories, John loved sailing. Around 1891, he bought a summer house in Beaurepaire (now part of suburban Beaconsfield) on Lake St. Louis, a broad section of the St. Lawrence River.10

John died of heart failure at age 57, in Beaurepaire, on July 25, 1894,11 and he was buried two days later at Mount Royal Cemetery. He had been a good businessman and the solid investments he left to his family meant that, although they sold the summer house, they were able to remain in their McGregor Street home for many years.

See also

Janice Hamilton, “James Avon Smith of MacDuff, Banffshire,” Writing Up the Ancestors,   https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/search/label/James%20Avon%20Smith

Janice Hamilton, “My Tocher Family” Writing Up the Ancestors, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2015/02/my-tocher-family.html

Janice Hamilton, “The World of Mrs. Murray Smith,”   Writing Up the Ancestors, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2016/02/the-small-world-of-mrs-murray-smith.html

Janice Hamilton, “Annie Louise Smith: One of the First Women to Graduate from McGill University” Writing Up the Ancestors, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2016/02/annie-louise-smith-one-of-first-women.html

Photo credits

The author’s collection
The author’s collection

Notes and Sources

  1. “Men of Canada: The Late John Murray Smith,” W. Cochrane, The Canadian Album, 1896, p. 131, https://books.google.ca/books?isbn=5882975107, accessed March 4, 2016.
  2. Montreal was home to the first YMCA in North America. When the Montreal YMCA was set up in 1851, it had strong connections to Protestant churches, but it became open to people from all churches. Its goal was to put religious teachings into practice and to lead by example. The Montreal YMCA began offering night classes to citizens and immigrants in the 1870s. In addition to reading rooms and lectures, the YMCA also made physical education programs available.  
  3. “Scotland Births and Baptisms, 1564-1950,” database, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XY64-X52m, accessed 29 February 2016), John Murray Smith, 20 Jan 1838; citing reference FHL microfilm 990,994.)
  4. Jane Tocher died Feb. 28, 1838, aged 35, according to the gravestone inscription in Doune Kirkyard, MacDuff, Banffshire, Scotland.
  5. Ontario Directory, Peterborough, 1871, p. 696, http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/001075/f2/nlc008162.pdf
  6. “St. George’s Anglican Church, Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec,” Quebec,Canada, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1968 [database on-line] (www.Ancestry.ca, accessed March 1, 2016), entry for John Murray Smith, October 4, 1871, citing Gabriel Drouin, comp. Drouin Collection. Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Institut Généalogique Drouin.
  7. 1891 Census of Canada, database. Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.ca: accessed March 2, 2016), entry for J. Murray Smith; Citation Year: 1891; Census Place: St Antoine Ward, Montréal Centre, Quebec; Roll: T-6407; Family No: 21, citing Library and Archives Canada. Census of Canada, 1891, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada: Library and Archives Canada, 2009.www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/census/1891/Pages/about-census.aspx. Series RG31-C-1. Statistics Canada Fonds. Microfilm reels: T-6290 to T-6427.
  8. Theo. Doucet, N.P. #105552, 29 April, 1881, Deed of sale. Author’s files.
  9. John Fair, N.P. 13 Jan. 1890, Deed of sale R. Stanley C. Bagg et al to John Murray Smith,and John Fair, N.P. 24 March 1891, # 28434, Deed of sale from Robert Stanley C. Bagg et al to John Murray Smith. Abner and Stanley Bagg Fonds, McCord Museum, Montreal.
  10. Robert L. Baird, Gisèle Hall, Beaconsfield and Beaurepaire, 1998. http://shbbhs.ca/index.php/en/the-bbhs/publications/160-livre-beaconsfield-et-beaurepaire This book notes that J. Murray Smith’s summer house was on Thomson Point. Two Toronto real estate brokers had purchased the Thomson farm in 1891 and subdivided it into lots. The point was described as “one of the most picturesque on the whole Island of Montreal.” I have not seen a photo of the Murray Smith cottage but, if it was like others in the area, it was likely a “massive fantasy in wood,” complete with turrets and balconies. Summer residents commuted from the city to their country houses on the lake by train, and the developers had entered into an agreement with the Grand Trunk Railway Company to build a station at Thomson Point.
  11. ” St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church, Montreal, Quebec, Quebec,” Canada, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1968 [database on-line] (www.ancestry.ca, accessed March 2, 2016) entry for John Murray Smith, July 27, 1894; citing Gabriel Drouin, comp. Drouin Collection. Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Institut Généalogique Drouin.