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Canadian Historic Sites: Occasional Papers in Archaeology and History No. 16
by William Naftel The CapitalistsThe Investment Climate With the stimulus of active official encouragement, the stage had been set for the inauguration of a ranching industry by the beginning of the 1880s, but it frequently takes more than official interest to initiate a new venture. What was needed was something more intangible to create public enthusiasm and this was achieved as cattle ranching reached the proportions of a minor fad among investors in Europe and North America at precisely this time. The reasons for this enthusiasm were varied. Some of it was due to the glowing reports of North-West Mounted Police and travellers, official and otherwise, who had passed through the grazing country and who by word of mouth or in print had transmitted their enthusiasm to others. They expounded upon the rich, nutritious grasses, the bracing climate, the clear ever-flowing streams and the warm Chinooks. Lachlan Kennedy, government surveyor of the Bow River District in 1881, wrote
The interest of entrepreneurs was further heightened by rising beef prices, and with the prospect of profit before them, they began to eye the grasslands of the West. In the western United States the ranching industry had reached maturity during the post-Civil War period. There the cattle industry had had its beginnings in Texas in the years immediately following the Civil War; discharged soldiers found that they could round up longhorns in the southern part of that state, paying no more than $3 or $4 a head, and drive them north to the upper Mississippi valley where they sold for $40 a head. Scarcely had this market been tapped than another opened up in Britain where prices for beef had soared due to the ravages of disease among herds in Britain and on the continent. Between 1877 and 1879 the export of beef on the hoof from the United States increased almost threefold.2 Indicative of the often speculative nature of this interest was the appearance of pamphlets such as that by General James F. Brisbin, Beef Bonanza: or How to Get Rich on the Plains (1881).3 In Canada, just on the threshold of western development, a representative of a more responsible but nonetheless glowingly optimistic type of propaganda is Professor John Macoun's, Manitoba and the Great North-West. In a contribution to this volume Alexander Begg, himself to become a leaseholder in the Northwest and an enthusiastic advocate of the development of that whole country, informed the reader that a small investment of $5,000 in cattle would grow to $55,000 in as little as five years.4 Manitoba and the Great North-West, a work which had a tremendous effect on contemporary public opinion, devoted two chapters to the subject of stock raising with particular reference to the Bow River district. None of this escaped the notice of the British investor and in the late 1870s the new cattle trade was talked about everywhere; in Parliament, over the tea tables of the aristocracy and in the counting houses. Few with spare capital to invest could fail to note that near riots had occurred in Liverpool and Dublin when the populace attempted to purchase the cheap imported meat. The Earl of Airlie, chairman of the Scottish American Mortgage Company, toured the American West in 1881 and on his return reported that it was not uncommon for a cattle breeder to secure 80 to 100 per cent on his capital.5 Further encouragement came from a more august source. The Marquis of Lorne, following his vice-regal tour of the Northwest in the summer of 1881, remarked that if he had his life to live over again he would be a rancher in the Canadian Northwest, "God's Country" he called it. This remark achieved wide circulation and proved to be an excellent advertisement for the new country and the new industry.6 The Principals One of the side effects of the Industrial Revolution was the creation of large amounts of spare capital, the result of a greatly increased money supply. The time was not yet ripe for its more equable distribution among the various levels of society to be a matter for serious debate and it was concentrated in the hands of a relatively small number of entrepreneurs who had done well in the new age and who now sought means of putting their surplus funds to good use. In the case of the Cochrane ranch, its investors were representative of the Anglo-Saxon Protestant capitalist group in the Province of Quebec. They were all self-made men and with one exception, Louis Huet Massue, were either Scots-Canadian Montrealers or of Yankee stock from the Eastern Townships. The investors were connected by political or board room contacts, not only among themselves, but also, it is to be suspected, with much of the rest of the eastern capital being sent out to the Northwest. The ensuing paragraphs briefly outline the backgrounds of those men whom it has been possible to identify as shareholders in the Cochrane Ranche Company or its successor, the British American Ranche Company, on the Bow River site at Big Hill. The Honourable M. H. Cochrane The Honourable Matthew Henry Cochrane was one of those products of the 19th century whom Horatio Alger immortalized: the self-made man, the farm boy who went to the city and by dint of hard work achieved wealth and influence. He was born on 11 November 1824 in Compton, Lower Canada, the son of James Cochrane, an immigrant from Northern Ireland. Until the age of 18, Matthew Henry lived on his father's farm but in 1841 he departed for Boston to make his fortune. With commendable determination he did just that in the leather and shoe business. In 1864 he returned to Canada where he engaged in the same business in Montreal in partnership with Samuel G. Smith under the corporate title of Smith and Cochrane. Following Smith's death in 1868, Cochrane joined forces in 1873 with Charles Cassils, a native of Dumbartonshire, Scotland, to create the firm of Cochrane, Cassils and Company. By the mid-1880s, this firm was employing some 300 men and women and had an annual business of about $500,000.7 Cochrane's other businesses developed considerably over the years and he eventually held numerous influential positions. In addition to his interests in Cochrane, Cassils and Company, he was president of Bigelow Company and the Tolley Manufacturing Company; a director of the Canada Meat and Produce Company, the Canada Agricultural Insurance Company, the Waterloo and Magog Railway Company (which became part of the CPR in 1888), and the Eastern Townships Bank, and a trustee of both the Montreal High School and Bishop's College School, Lennoxville.8 His political leanings were made apparent by his appointment to the Senate on 17 October 1872 by the Macdonald administration. He does not, however, appear to have been active in politics unless in a "back room" capacity, though he was certainly acquainted with the leading Conservative politicians of his era.
Despite his business interests, Cochrane's preoccupation was with agriculture; specifically, with animal husbandry. One is tempted to speculate that the manufacture of boots and shoes and his directorships were simply the vehicles by which he was enabled to earn sufficient money to indulge his first love. In 1864 he returned to Compton, the scene of his boyhood, and purchased a large farm adjoining the original homestead. The farm "Hillhurst," eventually contained about 1,000 acres of "largely rolling land, and almost in one block, with brooks and springs, furnishing an abundance of good water."9 Having thus acquired suitable land, Cochrane set about the purchase and breeding of stock in such a manner as was to make him famous among his contemporaries in Britain and the United States and earn him such honours at home as a seat on the Quebec Council of Agriculture. Up to this point, interest in scientific breeding had been sporadic in Canada East and indeed in much of British North America. Shortly after he acquired Hillhurst, Cochrane began to purchase good stock from sources in Canada West. He soon recognized his need for an expert stockman and this need was met in 1867 with the arrival at Hillhurst of Simon Beattie. Beattie was a native of Dumfrieshire and nephew of James Beattie of Newbie House, one of Scotland's leading breeders. He had emigrated to Canada West in 1854, bringing with him a near priceless knowledge of fine cattle and a keen sense of showmanship. Employed by the Miller family of Markham, pioneer cattle breeders, he very shortly began to make his mark in the Upper Canadian show ring and as early as 1855 could state confidently: "I would 'na carry a second or third i' ma pooch."10 In 1867 Cochrane and Beattie launched into the big-time cattle world with a major purchase of Shorthorns. This breed was in high favour in the mid-19th century and within its ranks were two competing strains. One line was descended from the experiments of Thomas Booth and his sons who continued to control the best blood lines of their strain from the family establishment at Warlaby, Yorkshire. The other line had been developed by Thomas Bates and by the 1860s its standard-bearers were in the custody of Sir Robert Gunter of Weatherbie Grange, York, England. Rivalry between proponents of the two strains was keen and heated debates were common wherever breeders gathered. Both Bates and Booth stock soon suffered from the effects of this popularity and before too many years passed declined from the effects of inbreeding, but when Cochrane entered the market he did so just before the cattle boom of the 1870s hit. In this boom Shorthorns played a leading part as wealthy speculators and cattle fanciers battled in the auction rooms for the finest specimens of Bates and Booth blood. Cochrane's first major purchase was the cow "Rosedale," called by some the "Queen of Cows," who had no peer in the British prize rings.11 At the same time, he bought the bull "Baron Booth of Lancaster," of whom it is said he "marked the turning point in the evolution of the ideal animal sought by a majority of breeders of Shorthorn cattle through out the Western States."12 The two animals were acknowledged as being among the finest cattle of their day and created a sensation wherever they were exhibited. The following year Cochrane imported the cow "Duchess 97th" from Sir Robert Gunter, paying 1,000 guineas, at that time the highest price ever paid for a Shorthorn cow. This was only the beginning and over the next decade or so Cochrane speculated in the most fashionable pedigreed strains. The combination of his own and Simon Beattie's judgement, and the courage to invest large sums of money in the best stock paid off handsomely. At the beginning of the 1880s he paid Sir Robert Gunter the almost incredible sum of $30,000 for the "10th Duchess of Airdrie" and three or four of her daughters, but within six years he had sold $200,000 worth of descendants from these cows.13 As a measure of ability, not only in acquiring fine stock but also in disposing of it in the most advantageous fashion, the sale arranged by Cochrane at Bowness on Lake Windermere, Cumberland, was a classic. The auction, held 4 September 1877, caused tremendous excitement in the British livestock world because the senator had shrewdly offered some of the finest of the Bates and Booth strains. This tactic had the desired effect of attracting the leading breeders of both lines, generating considerable publicity, and gaining record prices for the stock.
The effect of the senator's importations was equally impressive in the United States and the blood lines introduced by him played a leading, and for him a profitable, part in the rebuilding of the American beef industry following the shattering effects of the Civil War. Clearly, one of the reasons for Cochrane's involvement in the livestock world was the fact that for a man with his ability and capital it was a remunerative business indeed and the cattle he bought and sold were not pets. Nevertheless, profit was not his sole motivation.
Cochrane's stock-breeding interests continued throughout the remainder of his life and included investments in the American ranching industry in which he made handsome profits.16 Over the 40 years or so during which he was engaged in this activity, it is estimated that he handled some 2,500 head of pedigreed Shorthorns and over 1,000 head each of Herefords and Aberdeen Angus cattle.17 In later years he branched out into thoroughbred horses and in this proved equally successful. One of his objectives in entering the business of ranching in the Northwest was the establishment of "mass produced" beef of high quality. In this he was eminently successful, the Cochrane ranch being noted for its fine stock, particularly after its transfer to the southern range. The senator's private life was, by all accounts, exemplary. While in Massachusetts he met and in 1849 married Miss Cynthia Maria Whitney, a direct descendant of Eli Whitney. They had nine children, three boys and six girls. The eldest was James Arthur, followed by William Edward and then by Ernest Balch. All three sons were involved with the ranching operation in some fashion: James as a director, though his real interests lay in Hillhurst, and William and Ernest on the actual site. The girls, Ermina, Alice, Eleanor, Mabel, Lillian and Bertha, had little to do with ranching, but Eleanor married E. A. Baynes of Montreal and for a time lived in Calgary where Baynes was involved, not very successfully, in ranching both on his own and his father-in-law's accounts. (Between September 1883 and June 1884, Baynes also set himself up as a barrister and notary, then became general manager of the Mount Royal Ranche Company.18) All but the two youngest girls married and of these two, Bertha joined the Anglican order of the Society of Saint John the Divine. From James's marriage in 1887 to Mary Louise Grant, daughter of Sir James Grant, is descended the present and only direct line of descent, neither William nor Ernest having any family. The Cochranes lived at Hillhurst despite the senator's many business and political interests in Montreal and Ottawa, and it was a busy place for the fame of the Cochrane herd drew many visitors. Mrs. Cochrane, who was a quiet, devout lady, disliked entertaining and so devoted her time to housewifely duties and raising her large family. Social affairs were left in the hands of Mrs. Charlotte Roby, the senator's widowed sister. Cochrane would appear to have had connections with the CPR syndicate in Montreal, so it is not surprising that when the George Stevens-Donald Smith group received the contract to build the transcontinental railway, he was either persuaded by them, or was quite ready on his own, to investigate cattle ranching prospects. Though other associates took part in the enterprise, Cochrane was the principal shareholder and its heart and soul. He negotiated leases and regulations with the government, imported cattle, hired staff and, most importantly, supplied both money and enthusiasm during the difficult years of heavy losses. After his death the Cochrane ranch lost its driving force. Although still a profitable operation, it was sold in 1905, its cattle dispersed and its range given over to cultivation. Cochrane died on 12 August 1903. It would have pleased him to know that he was remembered for his contribution to agriculture. The Montreal Gazette eulogized, "He was the pioneer in that field of industry and everything that has since been achieved was largely due to him." "He will be longest remembered by his efforts to improve the standard of Canadian cattle. In this his enterprise and energy was most marked, and the effects may be seen on all sides."19 It is a measure of the esteem in which he was held that the Grand Trunk Railway attached a special car to the morning train on the day of his funeral in Compton to accommodate those who wished to attend. James Cochrane If, as is sometimes suggested, a father directs his son into the career he would have preferred for himself, then the senator's eldest son James clearly reflects this in his preference for agriculture over business. James was born in 1853 at Lowell, Massachusetts, and followed the normal educational pattern until he reached college age. He then took a degree in agriculture at Cornell University, New York, and followed this up with postgraduate work at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, England. Early in the 1880s he took over the management of Hillhurst, leaving the senator free to develop his ranching interests. Although he was a director of the Cochrane ranch, visited it frequently and took some part in the management of its affairs, his main interest centred on Hillhurst. During his lifetime James served as president of the Eastern Townships Agricultural Association and as mayor of Compton, Quebec. He was also a director of Bishop's College School and a delegate to the Anglican Synod. After the senator's death, he seems to have withdrawn from both farming and ranching, selling both Hillhurst and the ranch. He moved with his family to Lennoxville, then in the 1920s to Westmount, where he died in 1933.20 Dr. Duncan McEachran Closely associated with the establishment and the first few years of operation of the Cochrane Ranche Company was Dr. Duncan McEachran who, as mentioned above, was one of the leading veterinarians of the day. The exact history of his relationship with the Cochrane ranch becomes rather cloudy after a few years. Officially he was resident general manager of the company and he and the senator both invested equally to the extent of 1,000 shares each, but he spent little time on the ranch, the actual day-to-day operations being left to the local manager. In 1883, after he became manager and vice-president of Sir John Walrond's operation, the Walrond ranch, he gave up his official connection with the Cochrane ranch and by 1885 the number of shares he held in the latter organization had dropped to 100.21 In 1884 he became, in addition to his other interests, Dominion veterinarian, so it would not be surprising if he withdrew from active participation in the affairs of the Cochrane Ranche Company. It is even less surprising in view of a history of disagreements between McEachran and other members of the company.
McEachran was born in Scotland in 1841 and received his education there, graduating in 1862 from the Royal Dick Veterinary College, Edinburgh.22 He immediately emigrated to Canada and settled in Woodstock, Ontario. He was, at this early period, involved in the foundation of the Ontario Veterinary College, but a difference of opinion with Andrew Smith, the founder, cut short his participation. In 1865 he moved to Montreal where, with the assistance of Sir William Dawson, principal of McGill, and Dr. George Campbell, dean of medicine at McGill, he organized the Montreal Veterinary College. In 1875 he built, at his own expense, a college building and at about the same time entered into close co-operation with Dr. (later Sir) William Osler of the McGill Medical School. This association was of tremendous significance in view of the contributions to research in animal diseases which were to arise from it. In 1889 the two men were successful in having the Montreal Veterinary College incorporated into McGill University as the "Faculty of Comparative Medicine and Veterinary Science" and as such it functioned until 1903 when it was forced to close for financial reasons. The closure was the result of McEachran's rigid adherence to the highest possible standards which, while making it perhaps the finest veterinary school of its day, also ensured small attendance in an era of unlicensed schools when anybody could, and did, open a "veterinary college." Studies at the college were integrated with those of the McGill Faculty of Medicine on the assumption that human and animal medicine were but two branches of the same art. Students of the two disciplines took the same classes and wrote the same examinations, where relevant. With an extra year of study, students in either field could qualify for a degree in both professions. Of even greater long-term significance for the stockman was McEachran's position as initiator of Canada's quarantine system. McEachran's principal failing was a lack of tact and diplomacy, making it difficult for him to deal with those of lesser ability than himself. Nor did he shrink from controversy of which there was no lack in the sensitive post of chief veterinary inspector. Note has already been made of the allegations of conflict of interest which were made over the institution of stiff quarantine rules in 1884 and into this sort of fray he entered with gusto. It is therefore a measure of his recognized ability in a partisan age that his services were retained by the Macdonald administration in 1878 and in turn by the Laurier administration in 1896. He retired in 1902 and died at his home in Ormstown, Eastern Townships, on 24 October 1924. James Walker Another leading participant in the venture was its first local manager, James Walker, described prosaically in the charter of incorporation as a farmer from Galt, Ontario. He was in fact one of the formative influences in the early development of the Northwest, serving with the North-West Mounted Police from its formation until he joined the Cochrane Ranche Company in 1881. Firm to the point of rigidity, fair and energetic, he was able to win the confidence of the Indians and was one of those men instrumental in establishing the reputation of the North-West Mounted Police among them.
Born in 1846 in Carluke, Ontario, Walker devoted much of his youthful energy to the militia and saw service against the Fenians in 1866 and 1870. He was appointed sub-inspector in the North-West Mounted Police at its inception in 1873. In 1881 he retired from the force with the rank of superintendent to take the position of manager of the Cochrane Ranche Company, but two years of stock losses, part of which were due to his strict adherence to inappropriate directives from the eastern directors, persuaded him that this was not his field. On retiring, his financial investment in the ranch company was redeemed by the acquisition of the company sawmill, whose ownership launched him on a prosperous career in lumbering, ranching and real estate. As one of the original inhabitants of Calgary and as a continuing resident, he gradually assumed the mantle of "Grand Old Man" of the City of Calgary, dying in 1936 full of age and honour.23 John Milne Browning John Milne Browning of Longueuil, Quebec, was the business manager of the company and one of Quebec's leading estate agents. He had for years managed the holdings of the Right Honourable Edward Ellice, including the seigneury of Beauharnois, and in 1881 was still the agent as well as one of the proprietors of that property. His interests in agriculture were extensive. He had begun farming about 1863, was one of the original appointees on the Quebec Council of Agriculture on which Senator Cochrane also served and was for some years its president. He served as business manager for the ranch company until his departure in the spring of 1888 for British Columbia where he undertook the management of the affairs of a real estate syndicate in which the CPR had interests.24 He was succeeded as business manager of the ranch by the firm of P. S. Ross and Sons, a concern which still is active in the management consultant field. The Honourable A. W. Ogilvie Though not all were directors of the ranch company, other leading Montreal merchants took an interest in this new western venture or in its subsequent off-shoot, the British American Ranche Company. Principal among these was Alexander Walker Ogilvie who in 1852 had gone into the flour-milling business. Two years later he founded the milling firm of A. W. Ogilvie and Company which pioneered the use of the wheat grown in the Northwest. Of even greater significance, the firm introduced into Canada the "Hungarian process" of milling that made it possible for mills to handle the vast quantities of grain being produced as a result of the introduction of farm machinery and the exploitation of the prairie wheat lands. He retired in 1874 and devoted his life to politics though he retained many of his business interests. A Conservative, he began as a Montreal alderman and graduated to the legislative assembly where he sat from 1867 to 1878 with an interregnum from 1871 to 1875. His business interests were wide: president, Western Loan and Trust Company; vice-president, Montreal Loan and Mortgage Company, Sun Life Insurance Company of Canada, and Dominion Burglary and Guarantee Company, and director, Federal Telephone Company. His services to business and the Conservative Party were recognized in 1881 when he was appointed to the Senate.25
Charles Cassils Charles Cassils, born in Scotland, was a member of the firm of Cochrane, Cassils and Company. A leading member of the Montreal business community, he was involved with or a director of Carnegie Steel Corporation, Dominion Transport Company, Bell Telephone Company, Wire and Cable Company and the Windsor Hotel Company. Outside the business world he was at various times president of the Saint Andrew's Society, a governor of the Montreal General Hospital and the Alexander Hospital, and president of the Montreal Philharmonic Society. He was, in addition, a Conservative and a Presbyterian. In 1876 he married Ermina Maria Cochrane, the senator's daughter.26 William Cassils A second member of the Cassils family, William, an elder brother of Charles, was equally representative of the Montreal business community. He was heavily involved in transport and communications including the presidency of the Canada Central Railway, the Dominion Transport Company, and the Federal Telephone Company. He had also at one point been involved in the manufacture of "hoop skirts and fancy goods" as a member of the firm of Cassils and Cameron.27 Other Capitalists William Ewing, a shareholder, was a member of the firm of Ewing Brothers, seed merchants and florists, and importers of garden, farm and flower seeds.28 William Lawrence was probably connected with the firm of Perry Davis and Son and Lawrence, dealers in wholesale proprietary medicines and toilet goods. The merchant class was further represented by Hugh Mackay of Mackay Brothers, wholesale dry goods, just a few doors down McGill Street from Ewing Brothers.29 A later shareholder, and by 1885 a director, was the Honourable (later Sir) George A. Drummond, manufacturer, financier, Conservative senator, vice-president (later president) of the Bank of Montreal, and a prominent figure in Canadian economic life. Drummond had a further qualification which would make him eligible for membership in this select group. Like McEachran and the Cassils, he was a Scottish immigrant, arriving in Canada in 1854. He was actively involved in the affairs of the Cochrane Ranche Company as early as March 1884 and probably earlier.30
A late shareholder in the Cochrane Ranche Company was Edward Towle Brooks, Conservative member of Parliament for Sherbrooke from 1872 until 1882, when he was appointed judge of the Superior Court of the District of St. Francis. A participant with Cochrane in the ranching movement from the beginning via the Eastern Townships Ranche Company (of which more later), he had as well all the proper connections: solicitor for the Eastern Townships Bank, vice-president of the International Railway and of the Waterloo and Magog Railway, president of the Sherbrooke Rifle Association, the Fish and Game Protection Society and the Ploughman's Association, and trustee of Bishop's College School, Lennoxville. In lieu of a Montreal-Scots background he represented the other option, the New England-Eastern Townships inheritance, and he received his college education (BA and MA) at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire.31
Louis Huet Massue was also a latecomer among the shareholders. He was the seigneur of Trinité and St. Michel, a farmer at Varennes, president of the Quebec Council of Agriculture, director of the Provident Mutual Association of Canada and Conservative member of Parliament for Richelieu, 1878-87.32 Massue's French-Canadian background made him an odd man out among the other shareholders, but his qualifications fitted the requirements exactly and evidently proved adequate.
One name which appears in an 1885 list of shareholders is that of James Gibb. He may indeed have been very early involved with the company as a "Mr. Gibb" is noted as one of the initial investors by Dr. McGregor of the Marquis of Lorne's party. Precise identification of this shareholder is, however, difficult. If the McGregor reference is to the James Gibb of 1885, he was not a member of Parliament or senator as there were none of that name at that date. He may have been James Duncan Gibb, prominent in the firm of Gibb and Company, Merchant Tailors and Haberdashers, an old established Montreal firm dating from 1775. There was also a James Robertson Gibb, advocate, who lived in Montreal from 1880 to 1885. On the other hand, the Honourable T. N. Gibbs, cabinet minister and senator, is among those promised leases in May 1881 and though he lived in Oshawa, he was born in Terrebonne, Quebec, and held numerous directorships. His death in 1883 removes him from the field after that date,33 but shares may have remained in the family. There was at least one other prominent investor who, although he does not at first fit into the Montreal-Eastern Townships commercial political clique, does have a valid carte d'entrée. This was John Philip Wiser, Liberal MP for Grenville South. His community of interest with Cochrane becomes obvious once his background and business affiliations are known. An American by birth, he had come to Canada in 1857 to manage Egert and Averell's distillery at Prescott. In 1862 he bought out his employers, setting up J. P. Wiser and Sons, Ltd., (which company still prospers) and built it into the third-ranking distillery in Canada. Having ensured his financial well-being, he now began, like Cochrane, to indulge what must surely have been his personal preference, breeding quality livestock. In Wiser's case his business and personal interests dovetailed to a remarkable degree. He was the president of the Prescott Elevator Company which supplied grain for the J. P. Wiser and Sons distillery, the mash from which fattened a thousand head of cattle a year on his stock farm outside Prescott. These cattle were then shipped to the Montreal Stockyards Company, of which he was a director, and from thence no doubt transported out to ocean steamships via the Montreal Lighterage Company, of which he was also a director. He was also, in 1880, a member of the Ontario Agricultural Commission. Although an Ontario resident, he was well inside the orbit of the Montreal financial community.
Wiser's first love was evidently horses for the farm itself was named "Rysdyke" in honour of a prize stallion for which he had paid $10,000. His Hambletonian trotters were among the finest in Canada.34 Thus far it is apparent that Wiser and Cochrane had much in common, but Wiser's connections with the ranching industry were even closer and were eventually to make the Cochrane operations seem insignificant. In the 1880s he became president of the Dominion Cattle Company in which Cochrane was also involved and which operated on 1.75 million acres in the Texas panhandle. Privately, he owned two other ranches in Kansas where stock was fattened for the Kansas City and Chicago market.35 It has not been possible to clarify Wiser's exact connection with the Cochrane Ranche Company. He and the senator worked closely to obtain adjoining leases and as late as May 1881 his name is among those virtually promised a lease,36 but for some as yet unknown reason the association here progressed no further. The possibility also exists that Major General Thomas Bland Strange was an early shareholder. Strange was an ex-imperial officer, founder and first commander of the 1st Garrison of Canadian Artillery, one of the permanent units of the Canadian Army established to replace imperial troops withdrawn in 1871, and he was to command the Alberta Field Force in 1885 during the rebellion of that year. In 1881 he left military life and established a ranch, the Military Colonization Company.37 The supposition that he may have had shares in the Cochrane Ranche Company is based on a remark made by him to Sir John A. Macdonald in a letter of March 1882. Strange states that he will shortly be going up to his lease with the senator's son. In closing he adds, "I have an interest in the Cochrane Ranche Company."38 This slim evidence is inserted here principally because the general is an historic figure in his own right and any possibility of his connection with the Cochrane ranch is worth noting. If there were any substance to this it did not last long, for Cochrane's initial resistance to sheep grazing and his successful lobby against it which resulted in the banning of sheep ran directly counter to Strange's plans. As a result, relationships between the two were cool and any connection would have been short-lived. It is worth remarking, as evidence of the closeness of the Montreal coterie of investors, that Mackay, Ogilvie and Lawrence all resided at area of large estates and fashionable homes, including that of Donald Smith, one of the builders of the CPR who lived at 1157 Dorchester, directly opposite.39 This list can scarcely be said to be a comprehensive one of all investors, company officers or shareholders for no such record has survived. It has been compiled from chance references in letters, diaries and government files and this has obvious limitations. It is nevertheless evident that the Montreal business community did not limit their efforts to control the economy of the Northwest to such major enterprises as banks and railways, but actively promoted small-scale activities as well, an observation born out by a glance at issues of the Canada Gazette for the early years of the 1880s which contain petitions for Letters Patent of Incorporation. The number of letters involving enterprises in the Northwest indicates a very considerable interest in the economic potential of that area; the large proportion of the new companies based in either Montreal or Toronto reflects the longstanding rivalry between those two centres for economic control of the Northwest.
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