First published 1908.

One hundred years after it’s original publication, Martin (Marty) McAllister took it upon himself to republish this fascinating memoir from one of my ancestors. It was his pet project in retirement.

Sadly, Marty died of cancer just a few weeks before the book was released.

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A terrific read.

It’s very entertaining. Very informative.

He never liked his name, Aeneas, and preferred Angus.

Angus was born in Middle River, Cape Breton, N.S.

They had 5 girls, 3 boys in the family.

The memoir is mostly a recollection of his best friends & acquaintances. He was proud to have saved several potential suicides.

And stories. Angus had stories.

He spent time in 1901 with Thomas Edison.

He was much traveled for that age. Across Canada and back through the northern U.S., visiting Montana to see the world’s largest Copper mine, Anaconda near Butte. Also California, Mexico and all the way down to Panama. And Jamaica.

He was a skilled outdoorsman:

… I have lived a great deal in the open air and sunshine; I have roamed at will in the bush among the trees I love, and also on the beautiful plains ; I have had soft water to wash with every day of the year; I have been away from the sick noise of life in cities and towns ; I did not have to dress to please others, mainly fools; and, above all, I have been a free man, and not a slave. …

He survived stepping into a steel bear trap.

Scrambling up a slope, a big fallen log started rolling down hill, taking Angus with it. He escaped with only one bad cut.

He had many skills. And worked hard.

The best cabin I ever had in the bush I built in three days, with an axe, a saw and an auger, and one man to help me. The total outlay in cash was only thirty-eight cents, for two pounds of wire nails and hinges,latch and padlock for the door. I got a small window out of an old abandoned hut on the trail, and carried it four miles through the woods without breaking any of the glass in it. I made the bunks, table and other furnishings of the cabin from split cedar on wet days. A couple of French scientists from Paris had dinner in it with me once, and were greatly astonished when I told them that “dis leetle house,” as they called it, had only cost two francs. …

Angus was racist, as were men of his age. But not cursing the native peoples of the new world. Angus disparages the Irish. The French Canadians. Jews.

The Scotts were the superior race, in his opinion. All porridge eaters. A real man eats porridge every day.

Though Angus admired entrepreneurial Americans, he generally referred to them as “bands of colossal thieves”. “Unscrupulous grabbers”.

Angus had a very loving marriage, short-lived as his wife died young.

Emily Anne Muma, died March 23rd, 1875 (?).

Of their two sons, one died young. The other — Harry A — Angus hardly knew and only mentioned once in the book. (Though he did leave Harry a good part of his estate.)

The new edition published 2008 includes a bonus section covering Harry’s reported “suicide”, concluding it was a covered-up hunting accident. Harry died Nov 1st, 1924. For some odd reason his headstone says Henri McCharles.

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The fates were unkind to Angus, hence the title. Yet he struck it rich in mining shortly before he died.

Inspired by the Nobel Prize, he donated an amount worth about $260,000 in today’s dollars to education.

The McCharles Prize

Created from an endowment to the University of Toronto as a condition of Aeneas McCharles’s estate, the $25,000 McCharles Prize for Early Career Research Distinction is awarded every three years in recognition of exceptional performance and distinction in early career research on the part of a pre-tenure member of the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering at University of Toronto. …

My family once drove past McCharles Lake east of Whitefish, Ontario, close to Sudbury. Angus on his death donated land there originally as a Park.

Angus is buried beside his wife in Mt Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto. He died of carcinoma of the stomach.

related:

• Mining pioneer’s memoir reissued

• Bemocked of Destiny: Centenary Edition