(7 April 1853-27 Nov.1932), businessman, mining engineer. (Robertson Gordon, Lt..Col. James Robertson Gordon) (Morgan has date of birth 22 April 1858 ) Born at Sherbrooke, Que. Parents: Rev. Daniel Gordon and his wife Mary Robertson (both in the present dictionary). His childhood was spent in GC. He was trained professionally 1883-1884 at the School of Practical Science, University of Toronto. At the time of the North-West Rebellion of 1885, he “organized a corps of mounted scouts and offered their services to the government,” but the government having enough volunteers did not call the unit into service. He spent part of his earlier adult years in Texas and Arkansas. He was active in the development of Northern Ontario and its mining sector, had silver mining engagements or interests there, and belonged in 1906 to a committee working to establish Northern Ontario as a province. He lived 1906-1914 in California, “where he engaged in electrical development and the construction of electric lighting plants. Disposing of these, he returned to Canada in 1914, and spent the latter years of his life in Sudbury and district, spending the winters in California.” Gordon was active in the militia (with militia title of lt. col). He was one of the founders of the the 97th Regiment, Sudbury, and commanded it 1906-1909. In WWI this regiment “sent large contingents of officers and men to France.” He was married to Florence Helen Hagermann, of Cobourg, Ont., who died at Niagara Falls, Ont., 2 June 1924, in her 47th year. Places where he lived in his somewhat migratory life included Cobalt, and he is described in an obituary as a mining engineer in Toronto. Presbyterian, at least until Church Union. Mason. He was one of the founders of an organization described as the Engineering Society of Canada, which it has not been possible to identify further. He died in a hospital at Sweetwater, Texas, having been taken ill while motoring to California to spend the winter. (two children) He was the brother of the Rev. C.W. Gordon (the novelist Ralph Connor). No evidence has come to hand that he maintained contacts with GC in adult years, or that he had contacts among the Glengarrians who abounded in the Cobalt-Sudbury area, though he must almost necessarily have known some of them.
Toronto Mail, 29 Nov. (portrait) (QF) & 2 Dec. 1932, Standard Freeholder 7 Dec. 1932 * Morgan (1912) 457 * C. W. Gordon, Postscript to Adventure (1938) 111 (QF) & index * UTA