Mr. Byrd was born at Lachute, province of Quebec, March 4, 1848,
and was therefore sixty-three years of age when he passed away at
Nassau, Bahama Islands, on the 3d of March, 1911. He had been a
resident of Montreal from early manhood, embarking in the grocery
business upon his arrival here. This he abandoned to enter the
Munderloh firm in 1868, at which time its founder, William C.
Munderloh was in control. After the death of this gentleman
Mr. Byrd entered into partnership with Henry Munderloh, son of
William C. Munderloh, in the continuation of the business. In
1909 the firm was organized as a joint stock company and Mr.
Byrd had active voice in its control, assisting in formulating
plans which had to do with its substantial growth and progress.
It became one of the important enterprises of the kind in the
city and through his connection therewith Mr. Byrd won notable,
gratifying and enviable success.
Mr. Byrd was united in marriage in 1873 to Miss Kate Macdonald,
a daughter of the late Alexander Roy Macdonald of Montreal.
During the last years of his life Mr. Byrd was in poor health
and, accompanied by his wife, had spent two winters in the West
Indies. He went again in February, 1911, in order to escape the
rigors of the Canadian winter and there passed away on the 3d of
March.
His memory is enshrined in a halo of good deeds, for he was
continually active in support of organized charities or in
individual assistance. He gave liberally to a number of the
benevolent organizations of Montreal and served on the board
of management of the Protestant Hospital for the Insane at
Verdun to which he made a contribution of five thousand dollars.
He was also one of the board of managers of the Montreal
General Hospital to which he gave ten thousand dollars; was
vice president of the Protestant House of Industry and Refuge
at Longue Pointe, to which he gave ten thousand dollars; was
vice president of the Moore Home and an officer of the Irish
Protestant Benevolent Society, to which his contribution was
five thousand dollars. He gave twenty-five hundred dollars
to the Western General Hospital; two thousand dollars to the
Alexandra Hospital; two thousand to the Montreal Protestant
Orphan Asylum; five hundred dollars to the Boys’ Home; one
thousand dollars to St. Patrick’s Society, a goodly sum to the
Erskine church for home movements and a sum of twenty-five
thousand dollars for foreign movements. He was an elder of the
old St. Gabriel church on St. Catherine Street and afterward
joined the Erskine Presbyterian church when it was amalgamated
with the Chalmers church. A high-minded Christian gentleman,
the principles of his religion permeated his life in all of
its different connections and his contribution to the world’s
progress along moral and religious lines was a valuable one.
[Illustration: CHARLES BYRD]
DAVID MORRICE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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