[Qoi] Ami — Aj*nual Address. 



20 



o 



From Dr. Whiteaves's obituary notice of Elkanah Billings the 

 following extracts are made : 



"Elkanah Billings, our esteemed associate for so many years, 

 was born at the family homestead on the 8th of May, 1820. His 

 first teacher was a governess, Miss Burritt, his next a family 

 tutor named Maitland, and he afterwards went to three small 

 schools in the neighborhood kept respectively by Messrs. 

 Colquhoun, Collins and Fairfield. In 1832 the youth was placed 

 at Rev. D. Turner's school in Bytown as a day pupil, and after 

 four years' interval during which he remained at home on the farm, 

 his parents sent him in 1837 to the St. Lawrence Academy at 

 Potsdam, in the State of New York, of which the Rev. Asa 

 Brainerd was Principal. 



"On leaving this institution, Mr. Billings entered the Law So- 

 ciety of Upper Canada as a student in 1839 and was articled to 

 Mr. James Mcintosh, a Barrister in Bytown. Mr. Mcintosh died 

 in the same year and was succeeded by Mr. Augustus Keefer, 

 with whom Mr. Billings remained for nearly four years ; and it 

 appears that he was for a short time also in the oflRce of the late 

 Mr. George Byron Lyon Fellovves in the same town. In 1843 he 

 went to Toronto and studied for a twelvemonth longer with the 

 legal firm of Baldwin & Wilson, and was admitted to practice as 

 an attorney in the fall of 1844. Soon after this he returned to 

 Bytown and entered into partnership with Mr. Christopher Arm- 

 strong, who was then one of the judges of the County Court, but, 

 a law having been passed prohibiting judges from pleading, the 

 partnership was dissolved after having lasted only six months." 



In 1845 Mr. Billings married a Toronto lady, a sister of the 

 Hon. Judge Adam Wilson. Between 1845 ^"<^ 1848 he practised 

 law in Bytown, having been called to the Bar in 1845. In 1849, 

 however, he removed to Renfrew, where he practised his profession 

 until June, 1852, when he returned to Bytown where most of his 

 time was engaged in journalistic and scientific pursuits. He 

 occupied the editorial chair of " The Citizen" from the fall of 1852 

 until late in 1855. Many of Mr. Billings's leading articles in "The 

 Citizen" of those days comprised popular disquisitions on geologi- 

 cal topics and natural history subjects, which served , to. Jo^icate 



