Vail, Edwin Arnold

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: J. M. Whalen, “VAIL, EDWIN ARNOLD,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 11, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/vail_edwin_arnold_11E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Physician and politician; b. 19 Aug. 1817 at Sussex Vale (Sussex Corner), N.B., son of John Cougle Vail and Charlotte Hannah Arnold; m. first in 1842 Frances Charlotte Cougle, and they had two sons and two daughters; m. secondly in 1873 Harriet Courtland Murphy, and they had two daughters; d. 31 July 1885 at Sussex, N.B.
    • Edwin Arnold Vail was a member of a prominent loyalist family. His maternal grandfather, the Reverend Oliver Arnold, had been the first Church of England rector of Sussex Vale, and his father represented Kings County in the New Brunswick assembly for some 16 years and later served as county registrar. Educated in the local public school, in the early 1830s Vail went to Edinburgh and Glasgow to study medicine and in 1837 was granted an md degree by the University of Glasgow. He returned to his home town and engaged in a successful general practice as a physician in Kings County and in parts of the adjoining counties of Queens, Albert, and Westmorland. 
    • Vail’s long career in New Brunswick politics began in 1857 when he was elected to the assembly for Kings County as a supporter of John Hamilton Gray and the “compact” or Conservative minority in the house. Re-elected in 1861, Vail bitterly opposed the plan of the Liberal leader, Samuel Leonard Tilley, to bring New Brunswick into confederation. A determined anti-confederate, Vail was re-elected in 1865 when the voters rejected Tilley’s plans for union. Vail was speaker of the assembly under the government of Albert James Smith until in April 1866 Lieutenant Governor Arthur Hamilton Gordon forced the anti-confederates from office. In the ensuing general election and again in a by-election held the following year, Vail was defeated.
    • Vail’s public career was not as outstanding as that of his brother, William Berrian Vail, a prominent Nova Scotia politician and federal minister of militia and defence in Alexander Mackenzie’s government from 1874 to 1878. While serving in the assembly, however, E. A. Vail, known for his strong opposition to confederation, was also responsible for the passage of legislation which shortened the study of law from five to four years and which provided for all elections to the New Brunswick assembly to be held on the same day. 
  • Grandson of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=8594
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/208560279/edwin_arnold-vail