Angus Mackay
Angus Mackay has for forty years been connected with the wharves of Toronto, Canada's main port on Lake Ontario, and is perhaps better known than the majority of men in the same business. He is a Scotchman to the backbone, with the proverbial honesty and uprightness of character, and is proud to claim Caithness, Scotland, as his birthplace. Mr. Mackay was born in 1823 at Thurso, and there received a liberal education in the parish schools. After beginning work he was for seven years and a half foreman of construction on the Grand Trunk railway, and superintended the building of the section between St. Anne's and Pointe Claire, in the Province of Quebec. In the autumn of 1855 he went to Kingston, Ont., where he obtained a position in the locomotive works, retaining same until April 20, 1857, when he moved to Toronto. For the first seven years and six months of his stay in that city he had charge of the freight department on the Yonge street wharf, west side, for Messrs. Boomer & Miller, and John Brown & Co. Then he was engaged by Mr. Donald Milloy, on the wharf on the east side of the Yonge street slip, with whom he has remained ever since, excepting during the years 1894-95, when the Milloy wharf was leased by Mr. W. A. Geddes, and Mr. Mackay looked after the freight interests on the Dickson wharf, belonging to the corporation of Toronto, on the west side of Yonge street slip. Part of the time he was engaged by the Richelieu & Ontario Navigation Co., looking after supplies.
Mr. Mackay was married in 1851, to Miss Elizabeth Gunn, of Wick, Scotland, a most estimable lady, whose death, in December, 1882, at the home in Toronto, was keenly felt by her husband and children. Mr. Mackay has lost several fine children, but he has one son and four daughters living. Donald G. Mackay has charge of the silk warehouse of Messrs. Strange & Co., one of the largest wholesale firms of New York, for whom he was formerly a traveler. He married Miss Jeannie Knowles, whose parents live in Lodi, N. J., and they live with their two children in a pretty home in Passaic, N. J. Mrs. Hancock, wife of the manager of the Ontario Lumber Company, at French River, is a daughter of Mr. Angus Mackay, and three daughters keep house for their father at their residence, No. 12 Kensington avenue, Toronto. Religiously Mr. Mackay is a Presbyterian and a strong pillar of that Church. In politics he is a Liberal and a stanch freetrader. He is a prominent member of the Caithness Society of Toronto, and although a faithful lover of his adopted country, Canada, he ever keeps a warm spot in his heart for the old land across the sea. Nothing creates so much enthusiasm in his heart as a sight of the kilts and a sound of the pipes played by some bold Highlander.
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Volume I
This version of Volume II is based, with permission, on the work of the great volunteers at the Marine Captains Biographies site. To them goes the credit for reorganizing the content into some coherent order. The biographies in the original volume are in essentially random order.
Some of the transcription work was also done by Brendon Baillod, who maintains an excellent guide to Great Lakes Shipwreck Research.
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