Ruttan, Henry, 1792-1871 : Colonel, the Honourable Henry Ruttan was born on 12 June 1792 at Adolphustown, U.C., the son of Lieutenant William Ruttan (1759-1843), a Loyalist from New Jersey of French ancestry. Lt. Ruttan had come to Canada in 1783 at the end of the American Revolutionary War, by sea from New York via Quebec. His wife, Margaret Steele (1764-1844) who accompanied him was from a New York loyalist family. William and Margaret had first settled in the Township of Cataraqui, Bay of Quinte and later in the Township of Adolphustown; where they were to live for the remainder of their lives. Their son Henry, largely educated at home, had obtained the position of a store assistant in a Kingston, U.C., business at age fourteen. With the outbreak of the War of 1812, he joined the militia with the rank of sergeant in the Northumberland Militia. He subsequently was commissioned a Lieutenant in 1813 and saw action at the Battle of Lundy's Lane (1814) where he was seriously wounded (it is unsure whether he was with the 2nd Battalion, 8th Regiment of the Line or with the Volunteer Battalion of Incorporated Militia of Upper Canada at the time). Upon his recovery he returned to active service where he remained until the War ended. He continued to serve in the active militia up until 1846, achieving the rank of Major in the 1st Battalion of Northumberland Militia in 1816 and then Colonel in the 3rd Battalion in 1825. Subsequently, he was recalled to command the 4th Military District, from 1860-1862. In private life Henry Ruttan had gone into business, in 1815, in the Township of Haldimand. In 1816, he married Mary Jones (1799-1873), the daughter of Elias Jones, a loyalist, and Margaret Harris who had settled in Hamilton County. Henry and Mary began their married life in Grafton, U.C., where six of their nine children were born. They later moved to Cobourg ca. 1827. Henry's public career was to parallel the success of his military career. He was first elected to the House of Assembly from 1820-1824 and subsequently from 1836-1840 as the representative for Northumberland. During his second term in the Assembly, he was credited with influencing the start of work on the Trent Canal. He had also been called upon to temporarily replace (Sir) Allan MacNab as Speaker of the House (Dec. 1837-Jan. 1838). At the time of his move from Grafton to Cobourg (ca. 1827), he had been appointed Sheriff of the Newcastle District (the United Counties of Northumberland and Durham after 1849). He was to hold this office for some thirty years until his resignation in 1857. It was during this time that he was responsible for referring the talents of (Sir) Sandford Fleming to the Hon. James Morris, then the Postmaster General. Fleming had been asked by Morris to produce designs for the first Canadian stamp, the 3 pence beaver stamp issued on 23 April 1851. The three men had met two months earlier over breakfast in Toronto to discuss the stamp's design and this historic meeting, held on Monday February 24, 1851, was recorded by Sandford Fleming in his diary. In 1860, at age 68 Henry Ruttan was accidentally thrown from his carriage sustaining serious injuries from which he only partially and very slowly recovered. He took this period of convalescence to write his autobiography and reminiscences (1861). The resulting work unaccountably makes no mention of his very extensive studies into the problems of the heating and ventilation of buildings and railway coaches over the years for which he was granted seven patents between 1846 and 1858. His researches on this subject, however, were published separatly under the titles: "Lectures on the ventilation of buildings delivered at the Cobourg Mechanics' Institute", Cobourg, C.W., 1848; "Lecture on ventilation delivered before the Cobourg Mechanics' Institute... Feb'y 22, 1858," Cobourg, C.W., 1858 and "Ventilation and warming of buildings", New York, 1862. Henry Ruttan died on 30 July 1871 in his 80th year. His wife Mary, who had ably assisted him both in public and private life, survived him by only 19 months, passing away on 25 February 1873. Their final resting place is the cemetery of St. Peter's Anglican Church in Cobourg. Summary of the entries for William Ruttan and Margaret Steele and the Hon. Henry Ruttan and Mary Jones taken from "A Part Of The Family Of Ruttan 1590-1986" by Henry N. Ruttan U.E. (See pages 17, 20, 23-24) Edited by Frances H. Emery and Published by Emery Publishing, Ottawa, Canada. 1986. - Summary of the entries for Henry Ruttan taken from Vol. X (1871-1880) of the "Dictionary of Canadian Biography" (See pages 636-637) Edited by Marc La Terreur and Published 1972 by University of Toronto Press and from the fourth edition of "The Macmillan Dictionary of Canadian Biography" (See pages 735-736) Edited by W. Stewart Wallace and W.A. McKay and Published by Macmillan Of Canada, Toronto, 1978. - For postal history reference see illustration on page XIV, Vol. II of "The Postage Stamps and Postal History of Canada" by Winthrop S. Boggs. Chambers Publishing Co., Kalamazoo, Mich. 1945.
Kane, Paul, 1810-1871 : Paul Kane was born in Mallow, Ireland, in 1810, and emigrated to Canada with his family in 1820, where they settled in York. Apprenticed to Toronto furniture manufacturer W.S. Conger in 1828, he was encouraged to become an artist, and received private lessons from Thomas Drury, the drawing master at Upper Canada College, from 1830 onwards. He exhibited nine works at the initial Toronto Society of Artists exhibition in 1834. In the same year, he left Toronto for Cobourg, where he worked as a portraitist and furniture decorator for two years before moving to Detroit and then on to Mobile, Alabama. He sailed from New Orleans for Europe in June 1841. He spent his time in Rome and Florence copying old master paintings, before wintering in London in 1842, where he encountered the work of George Catlin. Inspired, he returned to Mobile to pay off his debts, and in 1845 returned to Toronto. In June 1845, he set off on his first sketching trip among the Indians of the Great Lakes. While on this trip, he met a Hudson's Bay Co. factor, John Ballenden, who brought Kane to the attention of Sir George Simpson, the head of the Company. Kane was offered HBC assistance for a western journey the following spring, and in 1846-1847 he was able to wander across much of Rupert's Land, the Oregon Territory, Vancouver Island, and the Rocky Mountains. He arrived back in Toronto in October 1848. Kane's working methods involved small sketches in pencil and watercolour, as well as quick oil sketches on paper, which were brought back to Toronto, and then used as the basis for a one hundred painting cycle illustrating all aspects of Western Indian life and scenery. This cycle was eventually purchased by George Allan for 20,000 pounds sterling. It is now part of the Royal Ontario Museum's collection. He also painted works for Sir George Simpson, for the Government of Canada, and for many other individuals. Kane never visited the West again, but spent the rest of his life in Toronto working on canvases based on his life sketches.
J. Russell Harper, Paul Kane's Frontier including Wanderings of an Artist among the Indians of North America (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971).
