Joseph Merrill Currier (1820 – April 22, 1884) was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

member of parliament and businessman.

Early life and business

He was born in

North Troy, Vermont North Troy is a village in the town of Troy, Orleans County, Vermont, United States. The population was 631 at the 2020 census. It is located south of the Canada-US border. Government Village Trustees are: *Mary Santaw *Jim Starr History Th ...

in 1820 and moved to Canada in 1837, where he began work in the timber trade. In the late 1850s and early 1860s, he set up a

sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes (dimensi ...

and

gristmill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and middlings. The term can refer to either the grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that has been separat ...

operation at

Manotick, Ontario Manotick ( ) is a community in Rideau-Jock Ward in the rural south part of the City of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It is a suburb of the city, located on the Rideau River, immediately south of the suburbs Barrhaven and Riverside South, about from ...

with Moss Kent Dickinson. He also operated his own lumber business in

New Edinburgh New Edinburgh is a neighbourhood in Rideau-Rockcliffe Ward, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It is located to the northeast of the downtown core. It is bordered on the west by the Rideau River, to the north by the Ottawa River, to the south by Bee ...

from 1853 to the late 1860s and was a partner in the Wright, Batson and Currier Company with

Alonzo Wright Alonzo Wright (April 28, 1821 – January 7, 1894) was a Canadian member of Parliament and businessman commonly known as "King of the Gatineau". He was born in Hull, Quebec in 1821. He was a grandson of Philemon Wright, and son of Tiberius ...

which operated a saw mill at Hull, Quebec. In 1868, Currier built a house at 24 Sussex Drive, for his third wife Hannah Wright (granddaughter of Philemon Wright), which is now used as the official residence for the

Prime Minister of Canada The prime minister of Canada (french: premier ministre du Canada, link=no) is the head of government of Canada. Under the Westminster system, the prime minister governs with the confidence of a majority the elected House of Commons; as su ...

. Currier named the house ''Gorffwysfa'',

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...

for place of rest. Currier became a member of the Ottawa City Council in the 1860s. In 1863, he was elected as a representative for Ottawa in the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada. He supported

Confederation A confederation (also known as a confederacy or league) is a union of sovereign groups or states united for purposes of common action. Usually created by a treaty, confederations of states tend to be established for dealing with critical issu ...

and continued to represent Ottawa in the Parliament of Canada until 1882. During that period, he was forced to resign on April 16, 1877 because his firms had done business with the government of Canada; he was re-elected in a

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...

on May 9, 1877. From 1872 to 1877, he was president of the Citizen Printing and Publishing Company which produced the Ottawa Daily Citizen. He also was president of two railway companies in the Ottawa area, the Ottawa and Gatineau Valley Railway and the

Ontario and Quebec Railway The Ontario and Quebec Railway (O&Q) was a railway located in southern and eastern Ontario, Canada. It was initially chartered in March 1881 by managers of the Canadian Pacific Railway to run between Toronto and Perth, where it would connect, via ...

. He was also connected with many other companies in the construction, banking and insurance industries. He began encountering financial problems in the 1870s and, in 1878, when the saw mill in Hull burned, he was bankrupt. He was appointed postmaster of Ottawa in May 1882.

Personal life

Currier had three wives: Christina Wilson whom he married in 1846 and who died in 1858; Ann Elizabeth Crosby; and Hannah Wright, daughter of

Ruggles Wright Ruggles Wright (1793 – August 18, 1863) was a Canadian lumber merchant, the second youngest son of Philemon Wright. He was born in Woburn, Massachusetts but moved to Canada with his parents while still young. He later joined the family busin ...

, whom he married in 1868. He married his second wife in January 1861 and brought her to Manotick a month later. While viewing the machinery in the mill, Ann's dress became caught in a shaft and she was thrown against a wooden post. She died instantly from the impact to her head. Currier is said to have never visited Manotick again and he cut his ties to the business there in 1863, selling his shares of the mill to Dickinson. According to local legend, Ann's ghost continues to haunt

Watson's Mill Watson's Mill is an historic flour and gristmill in Manotick, Ontario, Canada. It is the only working museum in the Ottawa area and one of the very few operating industrial grist mills in North America. Watson's Mill still sells stone-ground whol ...

in Manotick.

Death

He died in 1884 in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

and is buried in Beechwood Cemetery.

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Currier, Joseph Merrill 1820 births 1884 deaths Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Ontario Pre-Confederation Canadian businesspeople Conservative Party of Canada (1867–1942) MPs American emigrants to pre-Confederation Ontario Canadian Presbyterians Businesspeople from Ottawa Ottawa city councillors Immigrants to Upper Canada Businesspeople from Vermont People from Troy, Vermont Members of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada from Canada West