Gildersleeve, Overton Smith

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Margaret S. Angus, “GILDERSLEEVE, OVERTON SMITH,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 9, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/gildersleeve_overton_smith_9E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Lawyer, businessman, and politician; b. 13 Jan. 1825 at Kingston, Upper Canada, eldest of the eight children of Sarah Finkle and Henry Gildersleeve; d. 9 March 1864 at Kingston. He married Louisa Anne, daughter of William Henry Draper*, 16 Aug. 1850; there were no children.
    • Henry Gildersleeve arrived in Kingston from Gildersleeve (part of Portland, Conn.) in 1816, and developed a flourishing shipping and shipbuilding business. He helped construct the Frontenac, the first steamboat on Lake Ontario, in 1816, and is sometimes called “the father of steam navigation on the Lakes.” Overton Smith Gildersleeve was educated in Kingston. He took up the study of law in 1843, was called to the bar in 1849, and began practising in Kingston in 1850. Henry Gildersleeve died 1 Oct. 1851, four months after the death of Overton’s young wife, and at age 26 Overton became the head of the family shipping business, holding a majority of the stock in each ship, and the head of a household consisting of his mother, two sisters, and two brothers. He also succeeded his father as a director of the Kingston Marine Railway Company; it built all types of vessels for lake, river, and ocean traffic, and had an iron foundry, a sawmill, a hotel, and extensive wharfage rights.
    • With the decline in lake traffic Gildersleeve joined John Hamilton in re-forming Hamilton’s Royal Mail Line and they became the principal stockholders in the new Canadian Inland Navigation Company. Gildersleeve and Hamilton bought up other steamers for service on their run between Hamilton, Toronto, Kingston, and Montreal. Gildersleeve was also a promoter of branch railways in this period – the Cataraqui and Peterborough incorporated in 1852 and the Kingston and Newburgh Railway in 1856.
  • Grandson of Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory –https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=2797
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/175009613/overton-smith-gildersleeve