John Charlton

1829 - 1910  (81 years)

• Name	John Charlton
  Born	3 Feb 1829	Garbutt, Monroe, New York, USA   [1]
  Gender	Male
  Residence	1849	North Dumfries Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [1]
  Eby ID Number	Waterloo-118521
  Died	11 Feb 1910	Lynedoch, Norfolk Co. , Ontario
  Person ID	I118521	Generations
  Last Modified	6 Apr 2024

  
  

  Father	Adam Charlton,   b. Abt 1800, Newcastle upon Tyne, , Northumberland, England ,   d. Yes, date unknown
  Mother	Ann Gray,   b. Abt 1800, Gorham, Ontario, New York, United States ,   d. Yes, date unknown
  Family ID	F22925	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Notes

  CHARLTON, JOHN, farmer, businessman, politician, office holder, and social reformer; b. 3 Feb. 1829 in Garbuttsville (Garbutt), N.Y., eldest son of Adam Charlton and Ann Gray; m. 1 Nov. 1854 Ella (Ellen) Gray in Charlotteville Township, Upper Canada; they had no children; d. 11 Feb. 1910 in Lynedoch, Ont. Born on the family farm at Garbuttsville, near Caledonia, John Charlton relocated with his parents in 1832 to Cattaraugus County, N.Y. His father continued farming and was employed as financial manager for the Holland Land Company in Ellicottville. Charlton was educated at the McLaren Grammar School in Caledonia and at the Springville Academy. In addition to working on his father's farm, he learned to set type at the Cattaraugus Whig of Ellicottville. After a year in a general store there, he read law briefly and may have studied medicine for a short period. In 1846 he travelled by lumber raft down the Allegheny and Ohio rivers to Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1849 Charlton and his family moved to Upper Canada, settling on a farm south of Ayr, in Waterloo County. For the next four years he farmed with his father; in his spare time he organized a circulating library and a debating society. He had come to Canada with the intention of leaving for the western United States as soon as possible. In 1853, as he was planning to migrate to Minnesota, he instead accepted an offer from George Gray (a relative of his mother and his future father-in-law) to join him in opening a general store in Norfolk County at Wilson Mills, near the Lynedoch post office. The white pine in the area was of high quality and, in addition to selling goods, Gray and Charlton traded in timber. With the advent of reciprocity between the United States and Canada in 1854, their firm soon entered the timber business on a formal basis, in association with Smith and Westover of Tonawanda, N.Y. Business commitments made it impossible for Charlton to join his parents and brothers when, in 1855, they left for Iowa but soon afterwards he visited them. Although he considered himself a protectionist in trade, the trip convinced him that Canada needed better access to American markets so that it might share the commercial advantages enjoyed by Iowa and other western states. He now regarded Canada as equal or superior to the United States in most respects, and his sojourn in Iowa, he claimed, cured him of "western fever." In 1858 Charlton's brother George returned from Iowa to replace him in the general store at Lynedoch, allowing John to devote more time to the timber business. Charlton became head of the Canadian operations of Smith and Westover the following year. He purchased the firm's Canadian business in 1861, in partnership with James Ramsdell of Clarence, N.Y., and was joined at Lynedoch by another brother, William Andrew. He had bought out Ramsdell by 1865 and was in business on his own at Lynedoch and Tonawanda. In 1868 he was joined in the lumber and timber business by his brother Thomas. Their firm, J. and T. Charlton, would operate under this name until John Charlton's death in 1910. In partnership with Alonzo Chesbrough of Suspension Bridge (Niagara Falls), N.Y., Charlton expanded his cutting operations into the United States, acquiring large tracts of pine in eastern Michigan. Charlton had first held public office in 1856-57 as a Charlotteville Township councillor. His interest in politics was rekindled by the build-up to the American Civil War. In 1860 he delivered a lecture in Lynedoch - "Does the Bible sanction slavery?" - which brought him into prominence, and he continued to give it throughout the war. He believed the answer to his question was no, but felt that many Canadians, particularly Tories, sympathized with the Confederacy. Around 1866 he organized a circulating library and founded a debating society called the Lynedoch Lyceum. Local Tories accused it of treason for its frank debates on reciprocity and annexation to the United States. In 1872 Charlton sought and received the federal Liberal nomination in Norfolk North, despite the objections of some Grits who argued that, as an American, he had "annexation proclivities" that would harm his chances of election. Returned to the House of Commons that year, he would hold Norfolk North until his resignation from politics in 1904. During this period the Liberals were in power from 1873 to 1878 and again from 1896. As a government backbencher in the 1870s Charlton served on the committee appointed to investigate Canada's economic problems. On trade policy his shifting views reflected the divisions within his party [see Alexander Mackenzie*]. Despite his speeches in the house in favour of reciprocal trade with the United States, he could sympathize with those urban Liberals and manufacturers who, he believed, sought protective tariffs out of self-interest. By 1876 he was advocating an increase in duties to satisfy the party's protectionist wing. In the two years before the federal election of 1878, however, he was a tireless campaigner for reciprocity, the policy supported by party leaders. Charlton adopted this position at some cost: in attacking his views, Tory opponents again took aim at his American origin. In his unpublished autobiography Charlton recorded, "I was often made to feel the power over the Canadian mind, of narrow bigotry and senseless prejudice." After the Liberal government's defeat in 1878, Charlton continued to serve his party faithfully. By January 1882, with an election expected, he and George William Ross* had formed its committee on campaign literature. Publishing supplements for county newspapers from the office of the Ottawa Free Press, they selected extracts from "speeches pertinent to issues of the day and original contributions from members of the House." In fact, Chariton later noted, he and Ross were the authors of much of this political boilerplate. By the mid 1880s Chariton, a prominent member of the Canadian Forestry Association, had come to be known in the commons as "the member for Michigan" because of his forestry interests there and his agitation for commercial union with the United States [see Erastus Wiman]. In 1884 and 1885 J. and T. Chariton wound up its operations in Norfolk County and Michigan and began working limits on the north shore of Georgian Bay as a new source of supply for the firm's factory at Tonawanda. In addition, Charlton and his brother William purchased limits at the headwaters of* the Blind and Serpent rivers in the Algoma District. In 1888 Charlton was appointed chairman of the royal commission established by the Ontario government to examine the province's mineral resources and their exploitation. In its report of 1890 the commission called for an end to "commercial belligerency" between Canada and the United States. Chariton's business took him to the United States several times a year, and he had cultivated connections in several state legislatures and in Washington. In 1890, after Canadian lumbermen had persuaded their federal government to remove duties on American lumber, in return for favourable American duties on Canadian lumber, Chariton lobbied successfully for additional reciprocal-trade concessions made possible by the McKinley tariff in the United States. He visited Washington again in 1892 and 1893, as a representative of the Liberal party, for further negotiations on the trade in forest products. Although trade relations occupied much of Charlton's time, his religious beliefs and strong convictions about moral reform also found frequent expression, both commercially and politically. A member of the Presbyterian Church from the 1850s and a confirmed Sabbatarian, he did not permit labour in his lumber camps on the sabbath and he managed to confine his business travels to the other six days of the week, returning home to Lynedoch by Sunday. For Charlton public morality and national strength were most definitely connected. In parliament in 1879 he seconded the motion by Thomas Christie calling for stricter observance of the Lord's Day by agencies of the dominion government. Charlton argued that Britain, as an avowedly Christian nation, had enacted similar laws to secure religious liberty. Within a decade the call in Canada had escalated to a drive for a national Lord's Day observance act. In 1888 Charlton was elected vice-president at the inaugural meeting in Ottawa of the Lord's Day Alliance, which drew support from Presbyterians. In 1894 Chariton argued in the commons that to prevent great social upheaval, including labour violence, it was necessary to apply "Christian principles . . . and the first step to take in applying them is to recognize God's law, that the Sabbath Day is to be remembered and kept holy, and the labourer is to be secured in the possession of his right to enjoy . . . a day of rest." On 20 Feb. 1882, driven by "a profound sense of public duty" and evidently drawing on the views of his church and on legislation in Britain and some American jurisdictions, Charlton had introduced a bill in parliament to provide for the punishment of adultery and seduction under criminal law. The bill proposed prison sentences for men convicted of having sexual intercourse with girls under 16, for teachers who seduced female students, and for men who seduced women through the promise of marriage. Charlton noted that when introduced the bill was "scarcely accorded a hearing, and was made the butt of ridicule and discourteous remarks." Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald* facetiously observed that the legislation would cause thousands of young men to leave the country. The bill died on the order paper at the dissolution of the house for the election of 1882. Charlton reintroduced it in 1883, only to see the section on adultery removed by a select committee, and the amended bill laid over by the Senate. The following year it was again blocked in the upper house. Bolstered by a resolution of the Presbyterian General Assembly in 1885 that advocated extended protection against seduction, Charlton put the bill forward once again in 1886. "The degradation of women is a crime against society," he said. "The pure Christian home is the only safe foundation for a free and enlightened state. Vice in the shape of social immorality is the greatest danger that can threaten the state." At the request of John Sparrow David Thompson*, the minister of justice, the bill was referred to a special committee for modifications proposed by his department. Designed to mollify opponents of the bill, the amendments weakened its force, requiring, as they did, corroborating evidence for charges of seduction. The amended bill, which became known as the Charlton Seduction Act and was passed by the house on 14 April and by the Senate on 13 May, provided that a man convicted of sexual intercourse with a girl under 16 be sentenced to three years in prison. Although the act would lead to relatively few prosecutions, it did establish Charlton's reputation as a moral reformer and brought gender relations further into the sphere of criminal law. Charlton's religion also influenced his views on French-English relations in Canada. In 1886 he voted with the Tories against the motion by Liberal leader Edward Blake* condemning the execution of Louis Riel*. Shortly after Blake's five-and-a-half-hour discourse on the subject, Charlton, himself a logical and concise speaker, had proposed a motion to limit the length of speeches in the house. He also angered Blake's successor, Wilfrid Laurier*, when in 1889 he thwarted Laurier's attempts to limit his role in the parliamentary debate over the Jesuits' Estates Act [see Honoré Mercier*]. Supporting the call for federal disallowance of this Quebec statute, Charlton declared: "Now these are British provinces. The design was that these should be Anglo-Saxon commonwealths." Thus "the tendency to foster an intense spirit of French nationality" should be resisted. As one of only 13 mps to vote in favour of disallowance - the "noble thirteen," in the words of Macdonald - Charlton found himself increasingly estranged from the Liberal leadership. Indeed, he shared the platform with Conservative maverick D'Alton McCarthy* at a meeting to honour the "noble thirteen" in Toronto on 22 April 1889. Although he became a member of the Equal Rights Association, formed in June under the direction of William Caven, Charlton ultimately refused to sign its manifesto. He resented McCarthy's partisan attacks on the Ontario Grits and, after assuring Premier Oliver Mowat of his support in the provincial election campaign of 1890, he accused McCarthy of trying to turn the ERA into a "donkey-engine of Toryism." Nevertheless, Charlton had come to believe that the Liberal party was now only the lesser of two evils. With "a French Catholic leader and under the manipulation of such unscrupulous machine politicians as J. D. Edgar . . . I have not the utmost confidence in the future of the Reform party," he wrote. At the same time his own credibility in parliament may have diminished. On drawing the commons' attention in 1890 to incidents in which French Canadian mobs had driven a female Protestant evangelist back across the Ottawa River from Hull, Charlton was attacked by both Macdonald and Blake for trying to score political points. In 1895-96 public debate in Canada was dominated by Manitoba's elimination of public funding for Catholic schools. Siding with the provincial Liberal government of Thomas Greenway in its opposition to remedial legislation, Charlton encouraged Laurier to do the same. Despite their differing views on the question, Laurier and Charlton met in the spring of 1896 to discuss the impending federal election. Laurier, who believed that the Liberals stood a good chance of winning, asked Charlton if there was a cabinet position he would like. Charlton told him that he would prefer to be made commissioner to the United States. The Liberals were victorious in June and Charlton was accordingly dispatched to Washington to push free trade. The assignment, however, may have been only a means to satisfy the free-trade wing of the Liberal party, for its leadership was, in fact, moving away from reciprocity [see George Hope Bertram*]. Charlton returned in December, his mission foiled by re-emerging protectionist sentiment in both countries. In 1897 Charlton went back to Washington in an unofficial capacity to lobby against the Dingley tariff, which restored protective duties, particularly on forest products [see John Bertram], but he succeeded only in embarrassing the Laurier government. He was nevertheless appointed in 1898 to the joint Canadian-American high commission, where he encountered entrenched American resistance to tariff concessions. By the time of the general election of 1900, Charlton had become deeply disillusioned with the Liberal party. He believed that it had failed to keep its promises on such matters as prohibiting the granting of land, timber, and mineral rights to mps and friends, an issue that had claimed his attention since the 1880s. He was bitter too over the influx of new faces into Laurier's cabinet. Charlton made his feelings clear to his constituents, and in so doing won the support of many Conservatives. According to his autobiography, he made an agreement with the Tories whereby he was able to run unopposed in Norfolk North in return for his promise not to campaign for Liberals in other ridings. By 1904 ill health forced him to retire from politics, and he did not run for election that year. He had continued to be an active businessman. In 1899, with his brother William and Thomas Pitts, he had formed another timber company. The following year his early company, J. and T. Charlton, opened a sawmill in Collingwood, Ont. He died in 1910 as a result of a stroke at his home in Lynedoch. Politics in 19th-century Canada was about business and religion. John Charlton's career reflects that fact. As a lumberman who sold most of his product in the United States, he naturally sought better access to the American market. As a Presbyterian, he became the parliamentary agent for his church, pressing for legislation which reflected its stance on seduction and the sabbath. Although the Charlton Seduction Act of 1886 was a weak version of his original bill, he viewed it as his major legislative achievement. In many ways, Charlton was an outsider: his concern for the protection of women met with ridicule, he was frequently subjected to disparaging remarks about his American origin, and he became increasingly isolated from the mainstream of the Liberal party, both as a Protestant stalwart and as a free trader. Charlton's politics flowed from his personal interests, but throughout most of his career those who shared his concerns were seldom in power. Thomas H. Ferns and Robert Craig Brown The most important primary sources of information on John Charlton are his papers, held at the Univ. of Toronto Library, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, ms Coll.110. The collection consists of Charlton's diaries and a typescript autobiography, approximately 1,000 pages long, based on the diaries. Charlton's publications include numerous speeches, listings for which appear in CIHM Reg. and Canadiana, 1867-1900. A collection, Speeches and addresses, political, literary and religious, was issued at Toronto in 1905. He is also the author of an article, "Canadian trade relations with the United States," in Canada, an encyclopædia (Hopkins), 1: 371-78. Globe, 14 Feb. 1910. C. [B.] Backhouse, Petticoats and prejudice: women and law in nineteenth-century Canada ([Toronto], 1991). R. C. Brown, Canada's National Policy, 1883-1900: a study in Canadian-American relations (Princeton, N.J., 1964). R. C. Brown and Ramsay Cook, Canada, 1896-1921: a nation transformed (Toronto, 1974). Can., House of Commons, Debates, 1885-86. Canada Lumberman and Woodworker (Toronto), 30 (1910), no.5: 27. Canadian men and women of the time (Morgan; 1898). Paul Crunican, Priests and politicians: Manitoba schools and the election of 1896 (Toronto and Buffalo, N.Y., 1974). Cyclopædia of Canadian biog. (Rose and Charlesworth), vol.1. Karen Dubinsky, "'Maidenly girls' or 'designing women'? The crime of seduction in turn-of-the-century Ontario," Gender conflicts: new essays in women's history, ed. Franca Iacovetta and Mariana Valverde (Toronto, 1992), 27-66. [J. J.] B. Forster, A conjunction of interests: business, politics, and tariffs, 1825-1879 (Toronto, 1986), 152. J. F. P. Laverdure, "Canada on Sunday: the decline of the sabbath, 1900-1950" (phd thesis, Univ. of Toronto, 1990). J. R. Miller, Equal rights: the Jesuits' Estates Act controversy (Montreal, 1979). Nelles, Politics of development. R. W. Winks, Canada and the United States: the Civil War years (rev. ed., Montreal, 1971), 234. Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online 2000 University of Toronto/Université Laval _________________________ JOHN CHARLTON, M.P. Lynedoch, Ontario It is a recognized axiom among parliamentarians that it is in Opposition that leaders are developed. In the comparatively long time in which the Liberals in the House of Commons have sat to the left of Mr. Speaker, a number of men of pronounced individuality and great ability have attained their political maturity, and have fitted themselves for office, then the party shall succeed in obtaining a parliamentary majority. Among these none is more prominent in the eyes of his fellow members or in the eyes of the people than the subject of this sketch. The Charltons are an old Northumberland family whose genealogical records date back to the Norman ear of English history. Adam Charlton, of Newcastle-on-Tyne, came to America in 1824, and settled in the State of New York. He married Ann Gray, whose people came from Northumberland, and who was born at Gorham, N.Y. The couple lived for a time near Caledonia, N.Y., where their son John was born on February 3, 1829. Three years later the family removed to Ellicottville, where Adam Charlton entered the employment of the Holland Land Company. At the same time he carried on farming, and John Charlton as he grew up assisted his father in its management. He attended school also and got a very fair education at the McLaren grammar school, Caledonia, and at the Springville academy. When he was sixteen years old his father moved from the farm into Ellicottville. He spent a good deal of his spare time in the office of the Cattarangus Whig newspaper, where he learned to set type, and he was for over a year a clerk in a general store. In 1849, when John Charlton was twenty years of age, the family removed to Canada, settling near the village of Ayr, in Waterloo county, where the father again embarked in the vocation of farming, assisted by his son. Three or four years later, when the young lad was about leaving for Minnesota, Mr. George Gray, of Charlotteville, Ont., proposed to him a partnership in a general store to be opened at what had been known as Wilson's Mills, where the post office of Lynedoch had lately been opened. The result of this was the establishment of a firm destined to prosper, and the opening of a career in mercantile life which has made Mr. Charlton a man of considerable means. The capital of the firm, including the cost of the building which they had constructed for their business, was about $1,800. Besides the money capital, however, there was sound business ability, capacity for work, and excellent opportunities. Pine timber was abundant in the district in those days, and Messrs. Gray and Charlton branched out from their regular business into lumbering in connection with Messrs. Smith, Westover & Co., a wealthy and reputable firm of Tonawanda, N.Y. In 1859, Mr. Charlton sold out his interest in the store to engage in the lumber business solely. He was engaged by Messrs. Smith, Westover & Co., to take charge of their business in Canada. Mr. Charlton discharged his duties to the thorough satisfaction of his employers, and when, in 1861, they retired from business in Canada, they gave him the opportunity to buy out their interest on favourable terms. Mr. Charlton then formed a partnership with Mr. James Ramsdell, of Clarence, N.Y., to carry on the business, and the firm of Ramsdell & Charlton continued in successful operation for several years. In 1865, Mr. Charlton purchased his partner's interest, and for some years carried on business on his own account. Subsequently he extended his operations considerably in partnership with Mr. Alonzo Chesborough, of Toledo, Ohio, the firm of Chesborough & Charlton being one of the best known in the State of Michigan. Besides his lumber business in connection with Mr. Chesborough, Mr. Charlton, in partnership with is brother, Mr. Thomas Charlton, carried on an extensive trade in timber, first in Canada and later in Michigan. The business of the former firm was gradually reduced, and had been about to wound up when, in 1887, Mr. Chesborough, the senior partner, died. At present, Mr. Charlton's business is centered wholly in the firm of J.& T. Charlton. As a business man, Mr. Charlton has exhibited qualities of enterprise and judgement that would alone entitle him to rank among the prominent men of the country. It is in public life, however, that his most noteworthy work has been done, and his abilities have been shown at their best. Mr. Charlton's first pubic experience was as a member of the township council of Charlotteville. He was elected for two successive years, but the pressure of business prevented him from devoting much time to the affairs of the council, and soon compelled his retirement. Mr. Charlton had always taken a warm interest in politics, and had done good work for the Liberal party, with which he was closely identified. He had developed good abilities as a speaker by taking part in pubic meetings of various kinds. His activity in connection with church and Sunday-school work did much also in this direction. He had attracted a good deal of attention by several lectures he delivered in various places in Norfolk county, and the Western peninsula generally. The first of these was entitled "Political Aspects of American Slavery," first delivered in 1861. In this lecture Mr. Charlton took the grounds that the South having gone to war to prevent the restriction of slavery, the upholders of the union need not hope for better than a series of reverses until they declared for the abolition of slavery altogether. The utterance was prophetic, for the fortunes of war changed in favour of the North with the Emancipation Proclamation. In 1872 the Liberals nominated Mr. Charlton for the Commons for North Norfolk. He accepted the nomination, and took the field against Mr. Aquilla Walsh, a prominent and experienced politician, and for some time previously the Intercolonial railway commissioner. The contest was one of the fiercest the riding had ever seen. Both sides fought with determination which left the issue in doubt to the last moment. North Norfolk had been Conservative before this election, and this fact, together with the prominence of their candidate, gave the ministerialists great hopes of success. The count, however, showed a majority of fifty for Charlton, a result which was received with the greatest enthusiasm, not only by the Reformers in the country, but by their sympathizers in every part of the Dominion. From the time of his entrance into the House of Commons, Mr. Charlton took a prominent part in the work of legislation. While he has made himself known as one of the strongest advocates of the principles of his party, he has also manifested a determination to go beyond the line of mere party strife, and to make his position useful in the direction of social and moral reform. His first important step in Parliament was a business-like proposal that the Government should make a geographical and geological survey of the North-West Territories, the great new country that Canada had recently acquired. In support of this resolution he made a forceful speech, but, of course, as it came from one in Opposition, the proposal was not favourably received. On the Liberals assuming office, the duties of the many able debaters in the ranks were to defend rather than attack. Without forgetting his independence, and without slavishly following the lines laid down by the Government, Mr. Charlton proved an excellent supporter in this respect. To him as assigned the important duty of defending the draft reciprocity treaty, as tentatively arranged by Hon. George Brown with the authorities at Washington. His speech was a masterly effort, and assured him once and for all of the distinguished place he holds in the front rank of parliamentary debaters. Even the leader of the Opposition, the late Sir John A. Macdonald, complimented the member for North Norfolk upon the ability he displayed on this occasion. This was among the most noteworthy of the speeches made by Mr. Charlton during the liberal . The most important legislation with which his name was associated was a bill for the prevention of cruelty to animals, a well-considered measure which has continued since then with some amendments first proposed by Mr. Charlton himself at a subsequent period. Mr. Charlton also performed the duty of unearthing the scandal of the retention of a large sum of secret service money in the hands of Sir John A. Macdonald after he retired from office. He presented a full and exhaustive report on the subject, which was adopted by the committee of pubic accounts, and by the House. The report was strongly condemnatory of Sir John Macdonald's government. With the return of the Liberals to the opposition side of the House, the duties expected of such men as Mr. Charlton were very laborious. The record of his work since 1878 must, therefore, be confined to only a few of the more prominent points. There are two general divisions of parliamentary work in which Mr. Charlton has been equally prominent. In the first place, as a critic, he is keen, strong and incisive. He not only states clearly and forcibly what he believes to be the fault, but he presents his remedy with decision and with much persuasive power. He is known, also as the promoter of a number of important bills, and he has made a fine record by the success he has achieved through hard, persistent parliamentary fighting. First, as being most important from a political point of view, the trade question may be mentioned. On this point Mr. Charlton's position has, in some respects, changed. He began as a protectionist of a moderate kind, but is now one of the strongest advocates of a pure revenue-tariff policy. He has always been enthusiastically in favour of reciprocal free trade with the United States. On this question, so long ago as 1869, he publicly advocated a zollverein or customs union with the United States. In 1881 he referred the question to a convention of the Liberal electors of the riding of North Norfolk, and by that gathering his position was endorsed, and instructions were given to him to continue his advocacy of the policy. Before the general election of 1887 he urged the adoption of this policy upon the leader of the Liberal party, Hon. Edward Blake, but that gentleman did not see his way to proposing it as the party platform. Nevertheless, after the general election in the first of several bye-elections in Haldimand in 1888, Mr. Charlton squarely advocated Commercial Union, as the proposal came to be called, and also addressed a large meeting of his own constituents at Waterford, his utterances on the subject being received with favour by the people. At a later date the Hon. Wilfred Laurier, who followed Mr. Blake as leader, formally made reciprocity the principal plank in the part platform. Mr. Charlton tried hard to induce his friends to make a declaration for a customs union, representing that only in this way could the revenue difficulty be met. Notwithstanding that the party's platform is Unrestricted Reciprocity, Mr. Charlton makes no secret of his personal opinion that the clearer and more easily explained system of customs union, which obviates the loss of revenue difficulty that will attend Unrestricted Reciprocity, is the true policy for the country and for the Liberal party. In no speeches that he makes does Mr. Charlton display more ability than in those he makes upon trade and fiscal questions. As a leader in the denunciation of extravagance and corruption, whether in high or low places, Mr. Charlton has rendered his party and his country signal service. In the session of 1885, he called for a return showing the applications for timber limits with notes as to what had been done in each case. The papers were brought down in 1886, a tremendous collection of thirteen or fourteen thousand foolscap pages. With a perseverance, worthy of all praise, Mr. Charlton went through the whole of this material, and having mastered its contents, he presented in a powerful speech a summary of what he had learned. He showed that about twenty-five thousand square miles of territory, a large portion of it in the disputed territory, had been granted by the government by private arrangement and without calling for tenders. Of the grantees a score or more were members of Parliament and senators, and there were, besides, a hundred or more applications granted to outside parties on the application of legislators. Upon the facts thus presented, Mr. Charlton based a resolution declaring that the practice of thus using the public lands to conciliate parliamentary supporters was one destructive of the independence of parliament. The resolution was voted down, but he facts presented in the speech were used with tremendous effect in both the provincial and Dominion election campaigns which followed within twelve months. Another question which, in its time, even overshadowed that of the tariff, was the proposal for the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. When the contract with the syndicate was announced in the session of 1880-81, the Liberals opposed it with all their force, not only in the House, but in the country during the short time in the Christmas recess that was available for public agitation. In the forefront of this force fierce war of opinion, Mr. Charlton was conspicuous. He, more clearly than any of his colleagues, outlined a policy which he contended would build the line within a time short enough for all practical purposes. He urged the construction of the road from Lake Superior to the Rocky Mountains, proceeding with such haste only as the progress of settlement might require. This portion completed and a traffic assured, it could be handed over to a company as a bonus for building the other portions of the line. By such a plan, he contended, the country would save at least twenty-five millions in money, and the whole enormous land grant of twenty-five millions of acres of land. The fight over the Franchise Act is one not soon to be forgotten. The effort of the Liberals to compel the modification or withdrawal of the bill when the Government pressed it in the session of 1885 led to the longest session on record. The Opposition, roused to exasperation by the determination of the Government to press the measure through, blocked the progress of the business so as virtually to compel the withdrawal of features which they regarded as objectionable. Mr. Charlton was persistent in his opposition to the measure, and even after its adoption he scored many points in his platform and parliamentary addresses by dwelling upon the costly and cumbrous character of the new law, and upon what he regarded as its essential unfairness. He also introduced the resolution in the section of 1887, squarely demanding the repeal of the act, and has twice introduced a bill to make the provincial franchise in each province the Dominion franchise. In the session of 1891 he presented a bill to provide that where the provincial voters list was later than the Dominion list, the former should be used in Dominion elections. These were, of course, voted down by the ministerial majority. In connection with this may be mentioned an amendment to the election law which Mr. Charlton has very strongly urged upon the House. The use of the power of spending money on public works, to advance the interests of the dominant party, has become a crying abuse in Canadian politics. Mr. Charlton seeks to meet this evil by a proposal to declare it a corrupt practice within the meaning of the act to give or promise openly or tacitly any public work to any locality with a view to affecting a pending election. This measure he has twice, though vainly, introduced. In no way is the member for North Norfolk better known than by the statute which is commonly known as the Charlton Act. The object of this measure is to protect women against the wiles of unscrupulous men. As first introduced in 1882, this bill was one to declare the seducer a criminal, and punish him accordingly, and to visit with still heavier punishment anyone enticing young girls to disreputable resorts, or seducing a woman in his employ or placed under his guardianship or control. With his usual thoroughness, Mr. Charlton, before presenting the measure, had made himself familiar with the statutes upon this subject throughout the civilized world, and presented to the House such a list of precedents as revoked the expressions of contempt with which his proposal was at first received. Year after year for four successive sessions did he propose his bill without effect. In the session of 1886, however, he had the gratification of achieving a partial success by seeing his proposal embodied in the statutes in a modified form. In the following year the bill was strengthened on his own suggestion, and as it stands to-day it is a strong protection to youth and innocence, at least against the calculation debauchee and the soulless trafficker in vice. In much the same line as the last named act is Mr. Charlton's bill respecting Sabbath observance. This bill was first presented (backed by numerous petitions from churches and other religious societies, and from individuals), in the session of 1890. Its objects were to prohibit Sunday newspapers and all Sunday work in newspaper offices, save that necessary to issue the paper on Monday; to prohibit canal traffic between six o'clock a.m., and ten a'clock p.m. on Sunday; to regulate railway traffic on Sunday, so as to reduce it to a minimum, and to prohibit Sunday excursions by boat or rail. The bill was among the "slaughtered innocents" at the close of the session. In the following year it met the same fate. But Mr. Charlton has not only his natural determination, inspired by a cause which most men will regard as a worthy one, but also the memory of his own success after repeated defeats, to cause him to persevere. He declares his intention of keeping on with this bill as he did with the other until he succeeds or ceases to be a member of the House. Mr. Charlton was one of the "noble thirteen," as they were called, who voted to condemn the Government for failing to disallow the Jesuits' Estates Act. Ad not only did he vote, but both in the House and on the platform he denounced with eloquence and power what he considered as a great wrong to the people of the whole Dominion. He contended that the question of the act should be referred to the Supreme Court for an opinion as to its constitutionality. He attempted, on April 30, 1889, to present a resolution in favour of that course, but the Speaker gave the floor to another gentleman who rose at the same time. Mr. Charlton hotly contended at the time, and has always since believed, that a deliberate arrangement had been made to juggle him out of the opportunity he desired, and there were certainly strong reasons for believing that the Prime Minister of that day, Sir John A. Macdonald, put up one of his supporters to "head off" what threatened to be a very awkward proposal. By a singular coincidence, however, Mr. Charlton gained his point by having the subject of reference to the Supreme Court passed upon by the House just one year from the day on which his first attempt had failed. The motion was then debated and lost. Mr. Charlton was a leader in the Equal Rights Association which grew out of the agitation on the Jesuits' Estate question. He was the subject of much criticism for his subsequent action, but his course was one quite consistent with every principle he had previously laid down. He found the attempt made in the executive committee of the association just before the provincial general election, by means of a manifesto, to reflect, as he believed unjustly, upon the Ontario Government as led by Hon. Oliver Mowat, a government which he held to be the purest and best the country had ever known. He declined to be a party to this action, refused to subscribe to the manifesto when it was issued, and not only that, but to offset at much as possible the attempt that had been made, he published a letter to Wm. Cavan, D.D., president of the association, giving his reasons for refusing to sign the manifesto, and took the stump in favour of the Government. In the course of that campaign, which seemed more ominous for the Government than any previous one since Mr. Mowat's accession to office, Mr. Charlton addressed many meetings, and always with effect. The forgoing is but a part of the public work, the conscientious, even laborious, performance of which is the solid foundation upon which the political reputation of Mr. Charlton rests. He is thoroughly popular in his own country, having turned a Conservative riding into what is commonly known as a "Grit hive." He is also held in high esteem among his fellow members of the House of Commons. Those of his opponents who grow restive under his denunciations of their course, or who fail to find argument with which to reply to him, invariably call him an annexationist, some even clinching this accusation by reference to his American birth. This was the chief cry raised against him in his first election, and wherever attempts are made to reply to him on the platform or in Parliament, the same may still be heard. Instead of weakly begging out of such accusations, Mr. Charlton meets them aggressively, and makes them add to the strength of his position. He is a close and intelligent student of American affairs, and his illustrations of warning and example respecting the political course of Canada are largely drawn from the history of the Republic. Instead of noting only those points where Canada has the advantage of her neighbour, and vaingloriously boasting of it, Mr. Charlton, recognizing how many points of similarity there are in the social and political circumstances of the two peoples, seeks to use the experience of the Americans as a matter of practical and real benefit to Canada. A sound-minded man holding this view is naturally unaffected by sneers. By his whole private and public life, Mr. Charlton has declared his preference for Canadian over American institutions as a whole, and few have done harder or better work than he in keeping those institutions sound and strong and effective for the maintenance of the rights of the individual. Though engaged in an extensive business, and devoting much time to public affairs, Mr. Charlton has made opportunities to do good, useful work in connection with church and Sunday-school. He is an ardent Presbyterian, and has taken a prominent part in the affairs of the denomination. At the meeting of the General Assembly in Hamilton, in 1886, he made a strong speech in advocacy of the consolidation of the theological colleges carried on under the auspices of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. The proposal was received with a good deal of favour, but it aroused opposition among the representatives of the colleges, who are a power in the Assembly by reason not so much of their numbers as their commanding ability. The debate was the occasion for a lively passage at arms between Mr. Charlton and the Rev. Principal Grant, in which that divine did not have it all his own way. Mr. Charlton purposes pressing this question again upon the attention of the Assembly. His ability and his knowledge of public affairs, combined with his thorough practical acquaintance with their business, has led those engaged in the lumber and timber business, to look to Mr. Charlton for assistance in matters which require legislative executive action. For years he fought the export duty on logs, and his speeches had much to do with causing the Government (in 1889) to rescind its action in increasing that duty. Another public office in which he has been engaged, and one wholly different from those mentioned above, was that of chairman of the commission on the mineral resources of Ontario. That commission visited the important mining districts of the province, and took the evidence of all those mining experts, mine owners and others who, it was believed, could give information of value to the people on the subject engaging the attention of the commission, and Mr. Charlton and the secretary of the commission, Mr. Blue, also visited some leading centers of the United States, where information respecting mining in its legislative, economic, or industrial phases, was to be had. Among other places visited were Washington, Pittsburg, Pa., Chattanooga, Tenn., and Birmingham, Ala. The report of the commission was presented in 1889. It is admitted to be one of the most valuable state documents of this character ever issued. Mr. Charlton's home is at Lynedoch, where he has resided since commencing business there in 1853. In 1854 he married Miss Ella Gray, of Lynedoch, a native of Portage, N.Y. Prominent Men of Canada, a collection of Person Distinquished in Professional and Polical Life, and in the commerce and industry of Canada edited by G. Mercer Adam. 1892

  
  

• Sources

  [S1612] Book - Prominent men of Canada a collection of persons distinguished in professional and political life, and in the commerce and industry of Canada, Biography of John Charlton, MP.

  
  

• Event Map

  Born - 3 Feb 1829 - Garbutt, Monroe, New York, USA Residence - 1849 - North Dumfries Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Died - 11 Feb 1910 - Lynedoch, Norfolk Co. , Ontario  = Link to Google Earth