Miss Confederation

by Anne McDonald

By 1864, a person would have to sit for only six to twelve seconds in order to have his or her photograph taken. On a dreary day, he or she may have had to sit a few seconds longer. Notice that Mercy Coles isn’t smiling in her photograph. Mercy’s unsmiling expression was what was typical at the time. It wasn’t the custom then for those having their photos taken to smile, perhaps because people weren’t yet used to the idea of posing with a smile on their face, of “smiling for the camera.” William Notman appears to actively discourage smiling.

  Notman’s advice on the subject is laid out in a pamphlet written to his clients, about 1866: “While a pleasing expression is desirable, a characteristic one is still more so, as nothing is so silly or undignified as a forced smile.” He also wrote, “The one thing needful for a sitter to learn is how to forget himself. If he could be perfectly free from self-consciousness, he would secure a natural and truthful picture.”1

  The photographs of Mercy Coles (chapter one), Emma Tupper (chapter fifteen), and the others are striking in their naturalness and lack of artifice; it’s as though one can see behind the eyes, to the essence of the person. Mercy, with her head slightly tilted, looks as though you have just walked into the room and she has turned to look at you.

  It’s Notman’s photographs of the Fathers of Confederation with which we are most familiar. He was a supreme businessman, and a huge success. By 1865, he had taken photographs of all the Fathers, and compiled them in Portraits of British Americans, to which he offered subscriptions. He also suggested, then got, the commission to document the making of the Victoria Bridge. He ob-viously loved Montreal. His photographs of his new city are an enduring testament to the grandeur and growth of the city. For someone who’d run away from Scotland in 1856 so he wouldn’t be imprisoned because of a business scandal (for which his father was jailed for a short time), and who taught himself all he knew about photography, William Notman is as much an emblem of the drive in the 1860s to push the limits of human potential as is the Victoria Bridge itself.

  Christ Church Cathedral, St. Catherine Street, Montreal, about 1860. Christ Church Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral, and was built between 1857 and 1860. It has been designated as a historic site of Canada. The cathedral is unique in that it now has two floors of shopping, a mezzanine, a parking level, and the McGill metro tracks beneath it.

  Thursday morning, October 27, Quebec City

  We leave for Montreal today at 4 o’clock. I had a letter from Ide this morning, they are all quite well. I was so relieved to hear of them all. Aunt Jane has arrived home all serene but has hurt her leg so can’t walk very well.

  Friday morning, October 28, Montreal, St Lawrence [Hotel]

  We arrived here last night at ½ past 10. We left Quebec at 4 o’clock. I felt better as I got away. Ma would not let me talk, but I had such a nice old gentleman, Mr. Malcolm Cameron** who recited poetry for me and then entertained me with riddles.

  This hotel is an immense place. We had a very nice supper when we arrived in the Hall in which we are to dance tonight. I went to breakfast. Mr. Tilley sat alongside of me [emphasis mine]. He came in the night train. Dr. Tupper, Mr. Henry, and about 9 other gentlemen came. It is pouring rain so there is no going out for me today. Mr. Crowther is here. He came to call on me this morning. He wants to hold me good for the dance I promised him at Quebec [emphasis mine].

  Saturday morning, October 29, Montreal

  I feel quite well this morning. I went down to the Ball last night. Such a splendid affair. Mr. Crowther danced with me the first Quadrille. Sir Fenwick Williams*** was here looking as well as ever. He called on us all in the afternoon. I did not stay very late at the Ball. I was engaged for every dance but I was afraid of being booked up.

  Ma and I have just been to the Convent Congregation Notre Dame. Mr. McDonald (stutterer)**** came and took Mamma and I. I have just come from Notman’s. My photograph was not good I don’t think, so I would not take it however the man said he would send me two dozen to the Island.***** Mr. Tilley was supposed to have gone with me but I was not punctual. Andrew McDonald, Col Gray and Mrs. Pope were there before us.******

  All the gentlemen are in Conference. Sir Fenwick Williams called [on] me and I saw him in the drawing room.

  Monday, October 31 [en route from Montreal to Ottawa]

  On board the Prince of Wales on the Ottawa River. We left Montreal this morning at seven o’clock. We came by train to Lachine then came on board this steamer. I have just seen the Rapids mentioned in the Canadian Boat Song.*******

  Yesterday we made the acquaintance of a Mr. Robertson at breakfast who offered us his seat at the Cathedral.******** Such a nice service. We walked around after. We saw the Church plate and the Bible presented by the Prince of Wales. We walked up to see McGill College. Such magnificent residences are in the vicinity. We went back to the Hotel in a street car. At 3 o’clock we went through the Grand Victoria Bridge. Sir R[ichard] MacDonnell and his lady went with us. We stopt in the middle and got out. We saw the rivet the Prince of Wales******** drove in, they opened the window and we looked down on a raft just passing under the bridge.

  From the 1917 Guardian extract:

  At the hotel we took an omnibus to go for a drive over the Victoria Bridge. One of the ladies came down to the door and said she would not go in the omnibus, and while arguing in favour of a carriage her husband stepped into the omnibus leaving her standing at the door. We passed through Griffin town, a very muddy place, and chaffed Mr. McGee on the state of his constituency. At the bridge we got out and looked at the last rivet in the construction work. It was a silver rivet which the Prince of Wales had driven when he was in Canada. They opened the windows and we looked down on a raft of timber which was just then passing under the bridge. It was a lovely day and we enjoyed the outing immensely.

  These are interesting additions not in the original handwritten diary held by the LAC, and, like before, one can’t really see why Mercy left these things out of her diary of the tour. Or, more to the point, how was it that her full, original diary survived as the one kept and passed on to Coles’s relatives? What became of the circumscribed Guardian version? Very luckily for history, it is the original handwritten journal in its entirety that has been preserved.

  * * *

  * Today, the river isn’t as wide, and the current is slower.

  ** Malcolm Cameron was the Queen’s Printer in 1864. He was fifty-six years old at the time, compared to John A.’s forty-nine years, and Leonard Tilley’s forty-six, so it’s interesting that Mercy refers to him as an “old” man. He was pretty portly, compared to Macdonald and Tilley.

  *** Sir Fenwick Williams was sent to Canada in 1861 as commander-in-chief of the British forces in British North America. In November 1865, he was sent to be lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia (and replace Sir Richard MacDonnell) as someone who would be pro-Confederation, of which Britain was by then in favour.

  **** Presumably this was Andrew Archibald Macdonald of PEI.

  ***** Researcher Nora Hague, who has spent many years working with the Notman Archive, and I were both delighted to discover the photograph of Mercy Coles and we were able to attach Mercy’s diary notes to both Mercy’s and her father’s photographs. Mercy had been labelled simply as “Miss Cole,” with no indication of where she was from, or anything else about her. Neither of her parents had their photos done that day, either: their identification would likely have helped to identify Mercy. The only way to determine the picture was of Mercy Coles was by looking at the Notman ledger of October 29, 1864, and finding her name, along with the other names she mentions in her diary, listed there. As the date Mercy gives is Saturday, October 29, this helped determine that Notman worked on Saturdays.

  ****** Tilley, Emma Tupper and her mother, Mrs. Pope, and the others Mercy mentions all had their photos done that day at William Notman’s studio.

 
******* The rapids were at Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, just west of Montreal. Sainte-Anne was designated a national historic site in 1929. The “Canadian Boat Song” was written by Irish poet Thomas Moore in 1804.

  ******** Christ Church Cathedral now has two floors of shopping, a mezzanine, a parking level, and the McGill metro tracks beneath it. See www.montrealcathedral.ca/history.

  ******** The Prince of Wales, Albert Edward, reigned as King Edward VII from 1901 to 1910. At the time of his visit, he wasn’t yet married; he married Princess Alexandra of Denmark in 1863.

  Nine

  Ottawa the Unseemly

  Tuesday, November 1 to Wednesday, November 2

  Mercy and the others continue touring and sightseeing as they head farther west into the Canadas. She is happy, and full of the thrill and excitement of travel, and the balls, banquets, and courtship continue. Their first stop after Montreal is Ottawa, and the new parliament buildings, still under construction. Beyond Montreal, as they pass the rapids at Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, they sing the “Canadian Boat Song”: “Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast, / The Rapids are near and the daylight’s past.” Unlike the characters in the song, Mercy is past danger at this point, and on the road to adventure, and she can enjoy the singing as heartily as Whelan writes of the company. The weather improves, the rain stops, and they have a grand lunch in the Picture Gallery — the only finished room of the parliament buildings — and tour the locks on the Rideau Canal.

  After only one day in Ottawa (it was not an impressive city by any accounts — rat-infested, with muddy roads and stinking sewers), they travelled to Toronto by train, with stops all along the way, and it was an exhilarating ride. The delegates’ trip from Ottawa to Toronto was a big event, one we can hardly imagine today for politicians or politics. From the descriptions, you’d think they were rock stars touring across the country. Peter B. Waite eloquently wrote: “the special train … was stopped at Kingston by arrangement and at Belleville by public enthusiasm. Cheers and the waving of handkerchiefs greeted the delegates at Belleville, and bumpers* of champagne were drunk in the failing light of late afternoon on the Grand Trunk station platform.”1

  Parliament buildings under construction, Ottawa 1865.

  A crisp mid-fall in that part of the country is something indeed. The last of the trees are turned gold and red; yellow poplar leaves flutter in the slightest wind as the train goes past; and the travellers look out on countless silver lakes — until Kingston, where Lake Ontario looks as big as the sea. A heady time, and a heady trip to go with it. Mercy feels as “gala” and “splendid” as her descriptions.

  November 2nd, Wednesday, [en route from Ottawa to Toronto]

  Aboard the Carslet-Prescott.** We have been travelling ever since 8 o’clock. Yesterday we had such a gala day. We went to see the Parliament Buildings in the morning, they are magnificent; such a splendid example of everything that is good. The Picture Gallery is the only room that is finished, fit to [unclear] and it was there we had the luncheon. We saw the model of the library which will be a most splendid building. It is made of plaster of Paris and is kept in a room to show what the library will be.

  We went quite up to the top and saw such a nice view of Ottawa. The Chaudière Falls are very pretty and can be seen very well from there. In the halls are some marble pillars. The marble is got near Ottawa and is the prettiest I have seen. When we came out we walked round the grounds and saw the Rideau Canal which has 8 locks. We saw the place where the new barracks are to be built. We went there at 2 [more likely it was 12:00, as Whelan writes] then to luncheon. It was a grand affair. Mr. Henry, Mr. Johnston and Papa made speeches. John A was to have made a speech but he was tight or had a palpitation of the heart and could not go on [emphasis mine].*** Mr. Galt got up and excused him very well. We went to the Ball in the evening. It was a very grand affair. I had to refuse six gentlemen the first Quadrille. I danced it with Mr. Brydges.**** His brother Mr. Dodgson had asked me to dance but I had been engaged the day before. I have kept my card which has all the names of my partners written by themselves. I had to come away with a half dozen gentlemen not danced with.

  In the 1917 Guardian extract, Mercy leaves out her comments on John A. and adds an interesting note about her father’s speech:

  On November 1st we were in Ottawa. In the picture gallery of the Parliament building we had luncheon. It was a pleasant affair, and some of the men made speeches, my father being among them. He was speaking of the allurements which they were going to hold out to the Maritime Provinces to enter Confederation. Father horrified mother and me by saying that among all the fine things we had down here [in PEI] we had the finest looking ladies, pointing to mother as a specimen. The other gentlemen said equally ridiculous things.

  Wednesday, November 2nd [Continued]

  ½ past 2 — We have just dined at Kingston. Such a delicious dinner given by Mr. Brydges. Mr. Brydges has just introduced me to his uncle, such a nice person, just as nice as himself. His half-brother Mr. Dodgson is also a very nice person. Mr. Bernard has gout. He cannot put [weight] on his foot and goes hobbling around with a stick.

  ¼ 5 — Just arrived at Belleville. All the voluntary turned out. The Mayor presented an address. They drank the health of the mayor and started the moment after. Mr. Crowther has just given me a likeness of himself and Mr. Drinkwater will have his done again. Won a pair of gloves from Mr. Brydges. He bet that Ma was lying down and I bet she wasn’t. He went to see and found Mrs. [unclear] where he thought to find her.

  In Edward Whelan’s The Union of the British Provinces, the speeches at the luncheon in the parliament buildings go on for sixteen pages, and the “Dejeuner” lasts from 12:30 to 5:30! Of John A.’s “palpitations,” he writes:

  The Honourable gentleman intended to have spoken at some length on the question of confederation, but illness induced by fatigue from assiduous devotion to public affairs, compelled him to curtail his observations, which the whole company deeply regretted, as no public man in Canada was considered so well qualified by talent, experience and statesmanship to speak on the question of confederation than the Honourable Attorney-General for Canada.… He [Macdonald] was applauded as if he had made the most brilliant oration ever delivered — thus manifesting the profound respect entertained for him at Ottawa.

  Of Galt’s excusing John A., Whelan writes: “The Hon. Mr. Galt, having expressed regret for Mr. Macdonald’s illness, and having pronounced a high eulogium on the great and universally acknowledged ability of the Attorney-General West, — Mr. T.C. Clarke, rose to propose the next toast.”

  George Coles spoke about halfway through the speeches. As quoted in Whelan, he first talks of Confederation as a matrimonial union, and how the proposed marriage settlement, “though not what some of them might have wished, he hoped would, taken as a whole, give satisfaction to the entire family.” He also speaks of how wonderful Prince Edward Island was for a summer residence, and how “plentiful the fishing off her coast.”2 There’s no mention in Whelan of Coles’s talk of Mercy’s mother’s allurements, but no doubt Coles said this.

  Mercy, her family, and the delegates travelled from Quebec through to Toronto by rail in special cars provided for them by Charles Brydges, general manager of the Grand Trunk Railway. The railways in Canada then, especially the Grand Trunk and the Great Western, were vying for business, wanting to be the one chosen for the intercolonial railway, which would extend across the Maritimes and west, beyond the borders of western Ontario. It was a big business, and required just as much deal making and relationship building as Confederation. It was a business of promises, of compromises, and of patronage — the whole Pacific Scandal was yet to come — and Charles Brydges, who had been the manager of the Great Western just two years earlier, was doing his utmost to make the Grand Trunk the chosen line. The railway men knew, too, that paying attention to the women was an important part of the negotiatio
ns. The Mr. Livesay of whom Mercy wrote, who paid her so much attention, was also a railway man.

  According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, by Confederation, in 1867, “The GTR was the world’s largest railway system, with 2,055 km of track. By the late 1880s [by which time the GTR and the Great Western Railway had merged] it had grown to more than 700 locomotives, 578 cars, 60 post-office cars, 131 baggage cars, 18,000 freight cars, and 49 snow plows. The GTR ran unbroken from the Great Lakes at Sarnia, to the Atlantic coast Portland, Maine.”

  As in any battle for control, there were intense animosities, blame, and recrimination. The railways were owned by companies in Britain, and managed by men sent to Canada to oversee the building and running of the lines. The need for expansion, and speedy expansion at that, was expensive. This created a lot of room for dissatisfaction in the quality, cost, and management of the lines.

  Brydges was thirty-seven years old in 1864, and had immigrated to Canada in 1852, when he became managing director of the Great Western Railway (a rival of the Grand Trunk at the time). Charles Brydges has been described variously as someone who was too ambitious, too aggressive, and in part responsible for the eventual bankruptcy of the Grand Trunk, as well as making the GTR much more efficient and caring toward its workers. He established schools, libraries (called reading rooms), and pensions for injured and older workers. He felt he had a responsibility to contribute to the betterment of the world he lived in, and proved that by his actions. Brydges was married, with seven young children, in 1864, so he wasn’t “courting” Mercy in that sense, but it’s clear that he and Mercy enjoyed each other’s company. The building of positive relationships could only help his cause.