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
Departmental buildings then in course of erection. Interests of
considerable magnitude were then at stake between the government and the
contractors, claims amounting to nearly half a million of money having
to be adjusted. In connection with his employment by the government, Mr.
Baillairgé found that to continue his services he must be a party to
some sacrifice of principle, which, rather than consent to, he was
indiscreet enough to tell the authorities of the time. This excess of
virtue was too moral for the appointing power and more than it was
disposed to brook in an employé of the government. The difficulty was,
therefore, got over by giving Mr. Baillairgé his _feuille de route_, a
compliment to his integrity of which he has ever since been justly
proud. He shortly afterwards returned to Quebec. During his professional
career, Mr. Baillairgé designed and erected numerous private residences
in and around Quebec, as well as many public buildings, including the
Asylum and the Church of the Sisters of Charity, the Laval University
building, the new Gaol, Music Hall, several churches, both in the city
and in the adjoining parishes—that of Ste. Marie, Beauce, being much
admired on account of the beauty and regularity of its interior. The
“Monument des Braves de 1760” was erected in 1860, on the Ste. Foye
road, after a design by him and under his superintendence. The
government, the clergy and others have often availed themselves of his
services in arbitration on knotty questions of technology, disputed
boundaries, builders’ claims, surveys and reports on various subjects.
In 1872, Mr. Baillairgé suggested, and in 1878 designed and carried out
what is now known as the Dufferin Terrace, Quebec, a structure some
1,500 feet in length, overlooking the St. Lawrence from a height of 182
feet, and built along the face of the cliff under the Citadel. This
terrace was inaugurated in 1878 by their Excellencies the Marquis of
Lorne and H.R.H. the Princess Louise, who pronounced it a splendid
achievement. In 1873 Mr. Baillairgé designed and built the aqueduct
bridge over the St. Charles river, the peculiarity about which is that
the structure forms an arch as does the aqueduct pipe it encloses,
whereby, in case of the destruction of the surrounding wood-work by
fire, the pipe being self-supporting, the city may not be deprived of
water while re-constructing the frost-protecting tunnel enclosure. At
the age of seventeen the subject of our sketch built a double cylindered
steam carriage for traffic on ordinary roads. From 1848 to 1865 he
delivered a series of lectures, in the old Parliament buildings and
elsewhere, on astronomy, light, steam and the steam engine, pneumatics,
acoustics, geometry, the atmosphere, and other kindred subjects, under
the patronage of the Canadian and other institutes; and in 1872, in the
rooms of the Literary and Historical Society, Quebec, under the auspices
of that institution, he delivered an exhaustive lecture on geometry,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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