(13 Nov. 1837-26 March 1919), author. Born in County Donegal, Ireland, and came to Canada in 1856. He was ordained as a Church of England clergyman in 1865, but retired from the ministry after a few years. In 1870, he became literary editor of the Montreal Gazette, and from about that time he supported himself as a man of letters. He wrote extensively in newspapers and periodicals but published only one full-length book, The Prophecy of Merlin and Other Poems (1870). In 1871, in connection with the games of the Caledonian Society of Glengarry, there was a competition for the best poem on Glengarry, with a silver medal for the winner. The poems were judged by Professor Daniel Wilson of the University of Toronto (later, president of the University of Toronto), who chose Reade as the winner. (Witness, 23 Nov. 1871) The poem was presumably published at that time, perhaps in the Cornwall press, but copies of Cornwall newspapers have survived only very poorly from that period. However, when Reade died nearly 50 years later, the Cornwall Standard published the poem along with his obituary in its issue of 3 April 1919. The copy of the poem for the 1919 printing was made available to the Standard by F.D. McLennan of Cornwall. “Mr. McLennan’s father, the late D.F. McLennan, was the leading spirit of the promotion of the gathering [the Glengarry games of 1871] and the original copy of the poem in the author’s handwriting was among his papers.” The title of the poem is “Glengarry” and the first line is “O Scotland, bonnie Scotland! let us wander where we will.” The smoothly-written poem consists of 10 stanzas of four lines each. It pays tribute to Scotland and praises GC, but it does not indicate, by the content, any personal knowledge Reade may have had of the latter. Reade praises the Glengarrians for living in peace with each other and for not carrying into the New World the age-old strife of the Scottish Highlands. Beyond this poem, there is no record of any connection Reade had with GC, unless one notes his commendation of J. A. Macdonell’s Glengarry history of 1893. As one of the founders and promoters of Canadian literature, well known and well connected in his time, and a scholar and intellectual as well as a writer, the energetic, hard-working Reade retains a historic importance. He died, unmarried, in Montreal.

Life of Reade by Leslie Monkman, Dictionary of Canadian Biography, XIV, 858-859, also lives of Reade in MDict, Rose i, 800-801, Morgan (1898) 847-848 and Morgan (1912) 929-930 * “commendation”: Morgan (1912) 686