A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time: A Collection of Persons Distinguished in Professional and Political Life, Leaders in the Commerce and Industry of Canada, and Successful Pioneers
History
A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time: A Collection of Persons Distinguished in Professional and Political Life, Leaders in the Commerce and Industry of Canada, and Successful Pioneers
=Ogilvie, Hon. Alexander Walker=, Montreal, Lieutenant-Colonel, member
of the Senate of Canada for Alma division, was born at St. Michael, near
the city of Montreal, on the 7th of May, 1829. The Ogilvie family is
descended from a younger brother of Gilchrist, Earl of Angus, a valiant
soldier who in the thirteenth century was rewarded with the land of
Ogilvie, in Banffshire, Scotland, and assumed the name of the estate.
The family is celebrated in history for having long preserved the Crown
and sceptre of Scotland from the hands of Oliver Cromwell. The parents
of Senator Ogilvie came from Stirlingshire, Scotland, to Canada in 1800,
and Mr. Ogilvie, sr., served his adopted country as a volunteer cavalry
officer during the war of 1812-14 against the Americans; and took up
arms against the so-called patriots during the Canadian rebellion of
1837-8. To this couple were born a large family of sons and daughters,
and all have made their mark in the country. In 1854 Alexander and his
brothers, John and William, founded the firm of A. W. Ogilvie & Co., as
millers and dealers in grain, and built extensive mills on the banks of
the canal at Montreal, now known as the Glenora mills. Since that time
the business has grown to such dimensions that the firm’s mills and
business operations are carried on at Montreal, Goderich, Seaforth,
Winnipeg and other parts of the North-West, and they are now the most
extensive millers in the Dominion. In 1874 Alexander retired from the
business. In 1867 he first entered political life, and at the general
election of that year he was chosen by acclamation to represent Montreal
West in the Quebec legislature, when on the dissolution of the house in
1871 he declined re-nomination. He, however, was induced again to enter
the political field in 1875, and was elected for his old seat. This he
occupied until the legislature was dissolved in 1878, when he retired
from local politics. On December 24, 1881, he was called to the Senate
to represent the Alma division in that body. Senator Ogilvie has been an
alderman for the city of Montreal, president of the Workingmen’s, Widows
and Orphans’ Benefit Society, and of the St. Andrew’s Society, and a
lieutenant-colonel of the Montreal Cavalry (now on the retired list). He
is president of the St. Michael Road Company, chairman of the Montreal
Turnpike Trust, and of the Montreal Board of Directors of the London
(England) Guarantee Company, a director of the Sun Life Insurance
Company, the Edwardsburg Starch Company, the Montreal Loan and Mortgage
Company, and the Montreal Investment Company. He is also a justice of
the peace. Senator Ogilvie is a Conservative in politics, and in
religion is a Presbyterian. He is married to a daughter of the late
William Leney, of Montreal, and has a family of four children, one son
and three daughters.
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