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An unedited
transcription of a page 1 article from the 16 Feb 1910 British
Canadian.
Death of Mr. John
Charlton
On Friday night Mr. John Charlton,
one of the best known men in the county, passed away at his residence in
Lynedoch. For many years Mr. Charlton represented the North Riding of
Norfolk in the Dominion Parliament in the Reform interest. He had been an
invalid for some time, the result of a stroke of paralysis.
The late John Charlton was born at
Wheatlands, near Caledonia, N.Y., on Feb. 3, 1829. He was educated at the
McLaren Grammar School, of Caledonia, and at Springville Academy, New
York, after which he read law and engaged in newspaper work.
With his parents, he came to
Canada in 1849, and for four years worked on his father's farm near the
village of Ayr.
In 1853 he opened a general store
in Lynedoch, which he conducted until in 1859 [when] he was placed in charge of
the Canadian business of the lumber firm of Smith and Westover, of
Tonawanda, N.Y., and in 1861 embarked in the same business on his own
account.
This business developed till Mr.
Charlton became known as one of the "lumber princes" of the
province.
He was an ardent Liberal, and
first entered the political arena as Dominion member for North Norfolk in
the general election of 1872, and he held the seat continuously until
failing health compelled him to resign in 1904.
Mr. Charlton was not always in
accord with his party. He advised an increase in duties in 1867 to provide
for deficiency in revenue and to satisfy the protectionist element of the
Liberal party. He voted against his party leader, and with the Macdonald
Government on the Riel question, and was one of the "Noble
Thirteen," who supported Col. O'Brien's resolution in opposition to
the Jesuit Estates Bill. He was the father of the Charlton Act, and took
up the subject of the better observance of the Lord's Day. The bill for the
latter purpose passed the Commons in 1904, but then failed to command a
majority in the Senate.
Mr. Charlton was one of the
founders of the Dominion Lord's Day Alliance, which was organized in 1888,
and held office therein as vice president. He always advocated friendly
trade relations with the United States to the point of free trade between
the two countries. He was on the Joint High Commission which met at
Quebec, 1898, to settle disputes and remove trade obstacles between Canada
and the United States.
In November, 1854, Mr. Charlton
married Ella, daughter of the late George Gray, of Charlotteville, who
predeceased him in December, 1905. He married again about three years ago.
The following
article is from the 23 Feb
1910 British Canadian
Eldest of Nine
Children
The late John
Charlton, ex-M.P., of Lynedoch was the oldest of a family of nine
children, and the first to die. At the time of Mr. Charlton's death
their combined ages totalled [sic] six hundred and fifty years. The surviving
brothers and sisters are
W. A. Charlton of Toronto;
George G. Charlton of Ponoma, Cal.;
Thomas Charlton of North Tonawanda;
Miss Amelia Charlton of New York;
Mrs. A. E. Robertson of Muscatine, Ohio;
Mrs. J. R. Cannon of Wyman, Ohio;
Mrs. E. C. Sampson of Los Angeles, Cal.; and
Mrs. J. H. Rex of North Tonawanda.The
funeral on Tuesday of last week was largely attended. The services were
in charge of Rev. J. Johnston of Lynedoch Presbyterian Church; he was
assisted by Rev. W. J. Dey, M.A., of Simcoe, and Rev. Dr. McArthur,
Methodist, Lynedoch. The pall-bearers were E. C. Carpenter and
Lieut.-Col. T. R. Atkinson, both ex-M.P.Ps;
Crown Attorney T. R. Slaght;
ex-Warden Wm. Sutton;
H. H. Groff, manager of Molsons Bank at Simcoe,
and H. B. Donly of the Simcoe Reformer.
The following
article is from page 6 of the 3 Mar
1910 issue of the Simcoe Reformer newspaper. A
Great Man Has Passed Over
From Collier's Weekly
John
Charlton, who died the other day at a ripe old age, was an outstanding
example of a great man who did not come into his own.
His towering intellect had been
conspicuously wedded to unpopular political doctrines, so that when the
Liberals came into power in 1896 Sir Wilfrid Laurier had to pass him
over, though he was better Cabinet material than many that were chosen.
To be a member of the Joint High
Commission -- that was as high as John Charlton ever climbed.
Time, which heals all wounds,
did as much for John Charlton with the people as it did for Goldwin
Smith, both these apostles of "closer relations" lived down
the early animosities they had aroused, and came to be esteemed and
loved for their honesty of purpose and moral grandeur.
John Charlton was the best
speaker in the House of Commons. His mind was stored with history, and
he made figures bloom. His style was simple and strong, fact well
ordered, reasons well marshalled, no guff, no padding, no rhetoric, the
tone one key above intellectual conservation.
His speeches read like
editorials. They were pressed down, but they never ran over. Barred of
the larger questions of policy, John Charlton spent his latter years in
Parliament on sociological issues. The Charlton Act which protects the
virtue of young girls is one of his monuments. Sabbath observance and a
divorce court were two other matters that found in him an untiring
champion.
His life was in many ways a
success but he had to pay the price of thinking ahead of his times.
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