The death of Hon. J. O. Villeneuve occurred on the 27th of
June, 1901, at the family residence at 862 St. Denis Street.
Editorially the Gazette said of him: “Senator Villeneuve is dead
at the comparatively early age of sixty-four. His career was a
typical one and included fully thirty years of public service,
municipal and parliamentary. His straightforward conduct and good
faith gained him general respect and for almost a generation
he could count on election to whatever office in the gift of
the county of Hochelaga or city of Montreal he aspired to. His
municipal career was crowned by the mayoralty of Montreal and
his political work by a senatorship. He was a thoroughly well
meaning man, of modest bearing and simple habits, whose innate
worth was behind his business and public success. In his death
Montreal loses a good citizen and parliament a member of safe
judgment and right purpose.” To thus win the merit and plaudit
of the press shows that the life of Hon. J. O. Villeneuve was
one of far-reaching usefulness and of importance in Montreal. He
neglected no opportunity, slighted no duty nor passed unheedingly
the chances to benefit city or province by helpful service on his
part.
JOHN DILLON.
John Dillon, for many years one of the best known merchants of
Montreal, was a member of the firm of Reford & Dillon. He was
born in Chambly, March 18, 1836, a son of John Dillon, Sr., a
native of Belfast, Ireland, who emigrated to Canada and for some
years resided in Toronto and Montreal, his death occurring in the
latter city in 1875. He was father of two sons, George Graham
and John Dillon. The former passed his active business life in
Toronto, where he was connected with the retail dry-goods house
of George Bowes & Company. He died in Toronto, while his widow,
Mrs. Catherine Jacques Dillon, passed away in Montreal. They were
survived by a daughter, Miss Elisabeth J. Dillon, who for many
years lived with her uncle, John Dillon, who never married.
It was in Toronto that John Dillon formed a partnership with
Robert Reford under the firm name of Reford & Dillon, wholesale
grocers, and in 1867 the business was moved to Montreal. This
association continued for about forty years and the business
was most successfully and capably conducted according to
modern progressive methods. A few years prior to his death Mr.
Dillon retired from the firm, but maintained his interest in
other industrial and commercial institutions. Up to the time
of his death he was a director of the Mount Royal Milling and
Manufacturing Company and was also vice president of the Gould
Cold Storage Company. His business judgment was sound, his
discrimination keen and his enterprise unfaltering. He could see
farther than many a man in business circles, foretelling the
outcome of any enterprise from the beginning and, moreover, he
had the power to coordinate and unify forces into a harmonious
whole.
[Illustration: JOHN DILLON]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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