Purser Colin Arthur of the Hamilton Steamboat Company

Perhaps no officer could be as ill-spared from the ranks of the Hamilton Steamboat Company as Mr. Colin Arthur, who does all the buying and distributing of supplies to the vessels Modjeska,Macassa, and Mazeppa.Mr. Arthur was born at Glasgow, Scotland, in the year 1835, and in that city he received a substantial education.

When Mr. Arthur was nineteen years of age he came out to Canada, landing in Hamilton, Ontario, where he has resided ever since. Those were the times of sailing vessels and from the day that Mr. Arthur left Glasgow in the schooner Shandon, until he stepped upon the wharf at Quebec was exactly seven weeks. They encountered many contrary winds. Once into Hamilton,Mr. Arthur opened up a wholesale and retail meat business, and soon had a trade on a large scale, after some years Mr. Arthur was laid low with a severe attack of typhoid fever, which somewhat broke up his health, and he was compelled to abandon his business.

Eight years ago, in 1889. he was offered and accepted a position with the Hamilton Steamboat Company as chief purser, and afterwards as purchasing steward. All the provisions and supplies of the company have to pass through Mr. Arthur's hands, and the work is well managed. Mr. Arthur married in 1855 Miss Stanford of Buffalo. One daughter was born to them, Miss May Arthur. He has always been a Liberal, and he was a worker for the famous Joe Rymal, when first that gentleman took the field as candidate under the Liberal banner. There is hardly a position in the ranks of the Liberal organization of Hamilton that Mr. Arthur has not filled.

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