Travis, Jeremiah

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: D. G. Bell and Louis A. Knafla, “TRAVIS, JEREMIAH,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 14, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/travis_jeremiah_14E.html
  • DCB profile:
    • Businessman, lawyer, author, and magistrate; b. 21 Jan. 1830 in Indiantown (Saint John), son of Barnes Travis and Elizabeth Stevens; m. 24 Dec. 1856 Mary Smith in Amherst, N.S., and they had at least three sons and two daughters; d. 27 April 1911 in Calgary.
    • At age 34, with a family to support, Travis knew that he had to make his study of law “a matter of business.” Labouring “12 to 14 hours a day,” he clerked by day and read law by night. In 1865 he interrupted his articles to begin studying for a law degree at Harvard College in Cambridge, Mass. So adept was he at acquiring “scientific knowledge” from “men of gigantic intellect,” as he explained his experience, that on graduation in 1866 he was awarded the law school’s foremost prize for dissertations; his essay was subsequently published in the American Law Register.
    • Admitted as an attorney in 1867, Travis was called to the bar the following year, evidently after forming a partnership with Charles Duff. In 1873 he left to manage an ailing tannery at Salisbury, in which he was the largest investor. Within three years it failed, and his consequent personal insolvency compelled his return to Saint John and to the law. Perhaps because of his irascibility and egoism, he did so as a solo practitioner. Despite the temperamental instability that would hinder his legal career at every stage, marks of Travis’s forensic ability are abundant. At a time when employment of multiple counsel in important causes was common, in 1879 he acted singlehandedly in probably the most notorious civil suit in late-19th century Saint John, the interrelated cases of Harris v. Stanley and Sayre v. Harris.
    • Travis’s work on prohibition had propelled him to the notice of New Brunswick’s leading temperance man, federal cabinet member Sir Samuel Leonard Tilley. Travis had opposed him over confederation in the 1860s, but his stand on liquor jurisprudence allowed him to lobby Tilley for judicial appointment, first in New Brunswick, then in Manitoba, where he resided for a time in 1885, and finally in the North-West Territories. On 30 July 1885 Travis was appointed by Minister of Justice Sir Alexander Campbell as a stipendiary magistrate for the territories, resident in the newly incorporated town of Calgary.
    • After a lengthy examination, Taylor recommended his dismissal. Instead, Travis was suspended. In August he wrote to deputy minister George Wheelock Burbidge, charging that his replacement, fellow magistrate Charles-Borromée Rouleau, was an incompetent drunkard. Rouleau’s stinging reply, including the threat of a libel suit, forced Travis to recant. When the new act for the administration of justice in the territories came into effect on 18 Feb. 1887, Travis’s official tenure expired, and he was pensioned off.
  • Grandson of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=8501
  • Find a Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/122938737/jeremiah-travis