Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1921-12-01
PIONEER RAILROAD
CONSTRUCTOR DIES;
AM|ASSED FORTUNE
Lord Mount Stephen Passed
Away at England Home;
Was Pardner of Hill.

London, Nov. 30.-(By the Associ-
ated Press. Lord Mount Stephen, 90
years old, pioneer railroad constructor
in Canada, and first president of the
Canadian Pacific Railway company,
died last night at his country resi-
dence, Brocket Hall, Hatfield, Hart
fordshire.
Lord Mount Stephen George Ste
phen) first Baron Mount Stephen,
was born on June 5, 1929, at Forres, in
Banffshire, Scotland, the son of VIII
liam Stephen, carpenter.
His Early Struggle
The life story Of Lord Stephen was
a romance of early struggles against
poverty, of rapid rise to eminence
after he came to Canada in 1850, of
pioneer work in railroad construction
which eliminated in the connecting of
the Atlantic and Pacific by the Can
adam Pacific railway, of the acquisi-
ton of a $6,O0O,OOO fortune, much of
which he gave to relatives, and finally
of an old age spent as peer in a
historic home known as Bricket Hall,
Hertfordshire, in England, which had
at times been occupied by two prime
ministers of England, Lord Melbourne
and Lord Palmerston.
As boy, Stephen played barefoot
ed in the streets of his native village,
was shepherd on the nearby bleak
moors and then Diapers clerk. Com
ing to Canada, he entered the store of
an uncle in Montreal, cloth merchant,
whom he ultimately bought out He in
vested his savings in Ban of Montreal
stock. becoming one of the largest
H. h1t1
About this time Stephen came into
cousin, who afterwards became Lord
Strathcona. Smith interested him in
the construction of a railway to the
Canadian west, which he knew through
his association with it as resident gov
ernor of the Hudson Bay Company.
Associate of Hill
Smith and Stephen joined forces with
the late James j. Hill, and the trio ac-
quired the ST. Paul 4 Pacific railroad,
which had failed, and had fallen into
the hands of its Dutch bondholders.
The line was built through from st.
Paul to Winnipeg.
The Importance of this early venture
on the subsequent development of the
Canadian west lay in the fact that it
made the building of the Canadian Pa
cific possible, as supplies for the con-
struction gangs operating in the other
wise inaccessible prairie section passed
over it. Acknowledgement of his part
in the origination and consummation
of the Canadian Pacific came from the
who elected Stephen the
first president of the company, and
from the king, who. on recommends
tion of the government of Canada, con-
ferred a baronetcy on him in 1855 and
a peerage in 1891. He retired from
the presidency in 1883 and soon after
wards went to live in England. Be-
fore leaving Canada Lord Mount Ste
phen divided his fortune among rel
atives in Montreal, retaining enough to
support him for the remainder Of his
life. Previously he had contributed
81 ,O0O, COO to the founding Of the Royal
Victoria Hospital at Montreal.
Lord Mount Stephen, whose title be-
comes extinct at his death, married in
1853, Anne Charlotte, daughter Of
Kane, of Montreal. She died
in 1895. In 1897, he married Clan,
daughter of Captain r. G. Turnall r.
NJ of Icrdor 80