1883.] THE LATE MB. JAMES LITTLE. 77 



THE LATE MR. JAMES LITTLE. 



EATH has removed from our midst, at the ripe age of eighty 

 years, our old friend and frequent contributor on forestry 

 subjects, Mr. James Little, one of those energetic and enter- 

 prising men that have done so much for the development of the 

 country of which the North of Ireland has sent us many good 

 examples. He arrived in this country alone in 1823, being at the 

 time in his nineteenth year, and went to Niagara, then the principal 

 wholesale market of the West, supplying the village of York, now 

 Toronto, with goods. After remaining there for a couple of years he 

 removed to St. Catharines, where he made the acquaintance and life- 

 long friendship of the Hon. Wm. Hamilton Merritt, through whose 

 perseverance and energy the Welland Canal was built, and whom he 

 accompanied on the first vessel passing through the canal. At St. 

 Catharines he married, and moved with his wife to a place on the 

 Grand River, now called Caledonia. At this time, about 1833, the 

 whole country was a wilderness inhabited by the Six-Nation 

 Indians, and Mrs. Little passed months at a time without seeing the 

 face of a white woman. This section of country is now wholly 

 settled, and is culled the garden of Canada. Here he engaged in 

 lumbering operations, which increased with the growth and prosperity 

 of the country till his business extended over nearly the whole 

 peninsula lying between Lakes Erie and Ontario, at one time having 

 twelve different lumbering concerns in operation. Here he carried on 

 an active business for a period of nearly thirty years, and the extent of 

 his operations is mentioned to point out peculiar characteristics of his 

 unbounded faith in human nature. It is, however, more with his life in 

 our midst that we have occasion to speak of him. Corning here at the 

 advanced age of seventy years, a period of life when one less eneri^etic 

 could have rested from his labours, his active mind would not remain 

 quiet, and the columns of the Witness often sent forth words of 

 warning from his pen on the important subject of forest protection. 

 Thus he became from one of the most active in the destruction of the 

 forest one of the most ardent advocates of forest protection, and his 

 great personal knowledge of the lumber business and the rapidly 

 decreasing area of forest territory enabled hira the more readily to 

 draw the attention of the public to the facts, and though jeered at and 

 ridiculed by empyrics, his persistence in the discussion forced a 

 recognition, till he was able, before his death, to see a full acknowledg- 

 ment of the soundness of his views by receiving a special vote of 

 thanks from the American Forestry Congress, and by having his 

 name placed as honorary president of the Forestry Association of this 

 Province. 



Air. Little was born near Londonderry, and though all his family 

 were business-people, his brothers, as he was himself, were fond of 

 literature, his younger brother David being one of the best linguists 

 of his day. His proficiency in languages was the cause, on his visit- 

 ing New York, of his being made president of the Society of Letters, 

 a society having among its members such names as Washington 

 Irving and Wm. CuUen Bryant. Mr. Little leaves a widow, four sons, 

 and two daughters to mourn his loss, and who have the sympathy of 

 the public in their heavy affliction. — Montreal Daily Witness. 



