Sir Donald Mann | |
|---|---|
 Donald D. Mann (1907) [1] | |
| Born | Donald Daniel Mann March 23, 1853 |
| Died | November 10, 1934 (aged 81) |
| Resting place | Acton, Ontario, Canada |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Occupation | Entrepreneur |
| Known for | Canadian Northern Railway Toronto Suburban Railway |
| Spouse(s) | Jane Emily Williams (m. after 1887) |
Sir Donald Daniel Mann (March 23, 1853 – November 10, 1934), who was also referred to as "Dan" or "D.D." before his knighthood, [3] was a Canadian railway contractor and entrepreneur.
Born at Acton, Canada West, Mann studied as a Methodist minister but worked in lumber camps in Parry Sound District and Michigan for eight years [4] before moving to Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1879. [5] During the 1880s he worked as a contractor for the Canadian Pacific Railway under James Ross and Herbert Samuel Holt, building sections of rail across the prairies and through the Rocky Mountains. [5]
Partnering with William Mackenzie in 1886, [5] Mann built railway lines in Western Canada, Maine, and Chile. They also went to China to pursue opportunities, but found the red tape there too great an obstacle to overcome. [5] While there, he was challenged to a duel by a Russian count, who later withdrew when Mann advised him that he would choose to use the broadaxe, claiming it to be Canada's national weapon. [5]
By 1895, the effects of the CPR monopoly on freight rates in Western Canada, together with its refusal to build branch lines into the northern prairie, prompted Clifford Sifton to offer federal bond guarantees to any other enterprise that wished to construct railways there. [6] Mackenzie and Mann took up the offer, and began the process of purchasing and building such lines. [6] They would later be consolidated in 1898 to become the Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR), a line which would stretch from Vancouver Island, British Columbia to Montreal, [7] with other unconnected lines as far east as Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, which would form Canada's second transcontinental railway system. [6] The CNoR would be the first railway to reach Edmonton, Alberta, and the full line was completed in 1915, upon the driving of the last spike in Basque, British Columbia. [6] In recognition of their contributions to the development of Canada's railways, both Mann and Mackenzie were knighted in 1911. [8]
Financial difficulties eventually resulted in the insolvency of the CNoR. It was nationalized by the federal government on September 6, 1918, [9] and became the Canadian National Railway. [10]
Mann developed other business opportunities on his own, which included coal mines and a related railway in Inverness County, Nova Scotia, the Winnipeg Street Railway, and multiple public utilities in Monterrey, Mexico. [11]
Mann turned to oil drilling. He leased land in the Township of Vaughan, near the village of Concord, and sank a well in November 1922. In the spring of 1928, instead of oil, he found mineral water. Under the name Ontario Mineral Waters Ltd. he bottled and sold it as a health tonic named "Raysol Radium Water" effective against a variety of ailments including diabetes, angina, tuberculosis and rheumatism. $1 a bottle or $3 a gallon. The venture failed ostensibly because the water was very salty. [12]
Mann died in 1934 at the age of 81, and was buried at Fairview Cemetery in Acton. [5]
In 1969, a park was named for Sir Donald Mann in Acton, Ontario, the land of which once formed part of the farm on which he grew up. [13] It is adjacent to the CNR track, and not far away from the former right of way once occupied by the Toronto Suburban Railway controlled by Mackenzie and Mann.
He, along with Mackenzie, was inducted into the Canadian Railway Hall of Fame in 2002. [14]
He is also known for the Mann Cup, the trophy awarded to the senior men's lacrosse champions of Canada. [3] The cup is made of solid gold, and it was donated in 1910. [15]
Sir John Alexander Macdonald was a Canadian politician who was the first prime minister of Canada, serving from 1867 to 1873 and from 1878 to 1891. The dominant figure of Canadian Confederation, he had a political career that spanned almost half a century. Macdonald was born in Scotland; when he was a boy his family immigrated to Kingston in the Province of Upper Canada. As a lawyer, he was involved in several high-profile cases and quickly became prominent in Kingston, which elected him in 1844 to the legislature of the Province of Canada. By 1857, he had become premier under the colony's unstable political system.
Acton is a community located in the town of Halton Hills, in Halton Region, Ontario, Canada. At the northern end of the Region, it is on the outer edge of the Greater Toronto Area and is one of two of the primary population centres of the Town; the other is Georgetown. From 1842 until 1986, the town was a major centre for the tanning and leather goods industry. In the early years, it was often referred to as "Leathertown".
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Sir William Mackenzie was a Canadian railway contractor and entrepreneur.
David Blyth Hanna was a railway executive with the Canadian Northern Railway and the Canadian National Railways. Born in Thornliebank, Scotland, he emigrated to Canada in 1882 where he was employed by the Grand Trunk Railway. In 1896 he joined William Mackenzie and Donald Mann who organized the Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) in Western Canada.
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The Toronto Suburban Railway was a Canadian electric railway operator with local routes in west Toronto, and a radial (interurban) route to Guelph.
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Port Mann townsite was created in 1911 in the municipality of Surrey, British Columbia. The new town was to adjoin the new railway yard and roundhouse forming the terminus of the new trans-national rail-line operated by Canadian Northern Railway. It was named for Donald Mann, a partner in the building of the Canadian Northern Railway. Newspaper quoted that the town was intended to be a model town. Purchase of sections had been completed by 1911 and clearing of the forest had begun. The sale of lots began in March 1912 and by June 1912 all land in the townsite had been sold. Four million dollars worth of land was sold in Port Mann. Borrowing from mid-nineteenth century notions of Baron Haussmann’s Paris, Port Mann was laid out by landscape architect Frederick S. Todd with streets radiating from a central circus in the residential section. The business sector was to cluster around a large open square. In June 1912 the Toronto World also published that Port Mann would be the site of a large scale steel mill by Carnegie Steel Company of Pittsburgh as well as the site of flour mill, and grain elevators by International Milling, and the site of a large dry dock and shipbuilding yards.
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