McMicking, Robert Burns

  • Mason Temple Lodge: “McMICKING, Robert Burns”: http://www.templelodge33.ca/robert-burns-mcmicking-past-grand-master/
  • Temple Lodge profile notes:
    • McMicking was born on July 7, 1843 and was the son of a farmer in the township of Stamford, Welland county. His father, Wm. McMicking J.P., died at the farm. His grandfather came from Scotland and located there about 1780.
    • At the age of thirteen he started the study of electricity, with the development of which in after years he was to be so intimately associated. He was later employed in the operating department of the Queenston office of the Montreal Telegraph company. Of the trip to the Pacific coast, in which he participated, he told the following story to the Times last fall:
    • “While we reached Fort Garry in May after a six days’ trip, enlivened by social pleasure and without incident, it may be mentioned that we really escaped danger because the third trip of the stern wheeler resulted in tragedy – the vessel was captured by Indians, the captain and several of the crew and passengers massacred. Among the passengers on the trip was Archbishop Tache, the great Catholic theologian. We had an address on the journey from Governor Dallas, who had married the second daughter of Governor Douglas at Victoria, and had been appointed to succeed Sir George Simpson as governor of the company’s territory of Rupert’s Land, while we were at Georgetown awaiting the completion of the steamer. We arrived at Fort Garry on May 18, 1862.
    • “Subsequently the whole expedition left Fort Garry on June 2. It was organized on a military model and all of us, except the officers of the expedition, took turns on guard, two hours each on watch being allotted. We had Red River carts for the carriage of our material, drawn by oxen, mules and horses, most of the carts being covered in. At night we formed a triangular group, with the wagons drawn up in a wedge shape, leaving sufficient room for the animals to pass inside the area so provided, our tents being established around the triangle. As we were a large party and well armed, we reached Fort Edmonton without molestation, the journey across the prairie being pleasant at that time of year. Often the wagon wheels got stuck and we had to take a turn to pull them out of the mire of the trail. Fort Edmonton was reached on July 21, the 900 miles of prairie having thus been safely accomplished.
    • “Here an exchange of wagon for pack saddles was made and a guide secured to pilot us to Tete Jeune Cache on the Fraser river. We rested a week there, and gave a minstrel entertainment to the residents of the Hudson’s Bay fort. As we approached the foothills of the Rockies the herds of buffalo and the numerous species of wild game gave place to the mountain sheep and the furred inhabitants of the hill lands. By forest and swamp Jasper House was reached and thence the party proceeded by the valleys of the Athabasca and Mayette rivers to the Yellow Head Pass. Tete Jeune Cache was reached on August 28, and there the parties divided, I staying with the larger party that decided traverse the rapids of the Fraser river on rafts.
    • “Five of these were built, and with the experienced French-Canadians in the party, the navigation of the unknown river was attempted, as Simon Fraser had done in canoes many years before. I was in the last of the rafts to leave the cache, and with my comrades took many risks, one night continuing to move down stream without any idea of the nature of the river. We found next morning that we had passed all the other rafts in the darkness, and were ahead of the party. Three men in a small party who followed were lost by drowning. However the party reached the mouth of the Quesnel by September 11. The second party, it may be added, were more adventurous and one raft was engulfed in a canyon of the Thompson river, and lost, two men being drowned.
    • “Owing to the fact that when our party arrived at the mines the mining season had expired, most of the men proceeded to New Westminster to winter.”
    • In June, 1869, he married Miss Margaret Leighton, who had been residing with her uncle, Thomas R. Bule, J.P., at Lytton.
    • In the following year Mr. McMicking was transferred to Victoria, where he assumed charge of the Western Union telegraph office and Barnard’s British Columbia express. In 1871 he was appointed superintendent at Yale, after the government took charge of the telegraph lines. During that time he had charge of the submarine cables connecting the island and mainland. Public offices began to come to him at this time, and he was appointed J.P. and coroner at Yale.
    • From 1875 to 1880 he continued in the government telegraph service, with headquarters at Victoria. In 1878 he received the first two telephones imported into the province, using them for connection to his residence. On leaving the telegraph business he organized the Victoria & Esquimalt Telephone company, of which he became manager. In 1883 he secured a franchise to introduce the arc electric lights for street illumination. In 1887 he managed the formation of a company for the production of the incandescent electric light for domestic lighting. The introduction by Mr. McMicking of the subdivided arc light for commercial purposes, followed in 1889, when a 50 light plant was set in motion from the Victoria Electric Illuminating company station in October of that year. In 1881 he built the first electric fire alarm in British Columbia for Victoria city, and nine years later he installed the first Gamewell fire alarm here.
    • His work for electrical development, subsequently with the B.C. Telephone company, from which he retired only a short time ago, placed him in the front rank of those associated with electrical enterprise in the province.
    • He was elected to the city school board in 1897, and was again a member of the board from 1898 to 1899. He was returned to the city council at the bye-election August 1914, at the head of the poll, and re-elected in January.
  • Grandson of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=5652
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/121314403/robert_burns-mcmicking