Charles Henry Keefer (1852 – 12 April 1932) was one of

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's pioneering engineers. Charles was the son of well-known

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civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing ...

Thomas Keefer Thomas Coltrin Keefer CMG (4 November 1821 – 7 January 1915) was a Canadian civil engineer. Biography Born into a United Empire Loyalist family in Thorold Township, Upper Canada, the son of George Keefer and Jane Emory, née McBride, his f ...

. Charles was born in

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Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...

when it was the property of his grandfather, Thomas McKay, before it became the official residence of the

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. Although not formally educated, Keefer spent his early years employed as a surveyor on some of Canada's most important railway works including the Canada Central Railway (Ottawa to Carleton Place), the Chaudière branch of the St. Lawrence and Ottawa Railway, the

Canadian Pacific Railway The Canadian Pacific Railway (french: Chemin de fer Canadien Pacifique) , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadi ...

(

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), and the

Canada Atlantic Railway The Canada Atlantic Railway (CAR) was a North American railway located in Ontario, southwestern Quebec and northern Vermont. It connected Georgian Bay on Lake Huron with the northern end of Lake Champlain via Ottawa. It was formed in 1897 through ...

. Between 1872 and 1875, he worked on the construction of the Ottawa Water Works as assistant engineer. He worked on Montreal Harbour Works in 1878 and between 1881 and 1885 he was division engineer during the construction of the New York, Lake Erie and Western Railway extensions. In 1884-1885, he worked on the Kicking Horse Pass section of the C.P.R. and later became an engineer for the construction of the

Tay Canal The Tay Canal is the portion of the Tay River (Ontario), Tay River in the eastern Ontario region, providing a connection between the town of Perth, Ontario, Perth and the Rideau Canal at Beveridge Bay on Lower Rideau Lake. The canal is in length ...

. He joined the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers (CSCE) in 1887 and was an active participant in discussing engineering matters through the journal of the Engineering Institute of Canada. He was elected as a "Member of Council" of (

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) in 1892, 1893, and 1903, and became vice-president of that society in 1904-1905. In 1914, he was elected to the board of directors of the

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( ASCE). Keefer's official biographer is historian Daniel Hambly. In 1902, his daughter Mabel Crichton Keefer married James Fuidge Crowdy, who would later become Assistant Secretary to the

. His granddaughter married James Kenneth Weir, 2nd Viscount Weir of Eastwood.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Keefer, Charles 1852 births 1932 deaths Harbour engineers Canadian civil engineers