McKEES ROCKS 



3564 



MACKENZIE 



manufactured goods, coal and lumber. The 

 more prominent public buildings are the Fed- 

 eral building, city hall, Carnegie Library, Ma- 

 sonic Temple, Y. M. C. A. building and the 

 city hospital. 



McKeesport was founded in 1795, and was 

 named in honor of the first settler, a Scotch- 

 man who operated a ferry across the rivers. 

 The place was unimportant until 1830, when 

 the coal fields were opened. It was incor- 

 porated as a borough in 1842 and became a 

 city in 1891. The commission form of govern- 

 ment was adopted in 1913. MC L.L. 



McKEES ROCKS, PA., a borough in Alle- 

 gheny County, adjoining Pittsburgh and situ- 

 ated opposite Allegheny on the Ohio River. 

 It is on the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie and the 

 Pittsburgh, Chartiers & Youghiogheny railroads. 

 The population in 1910 was 14,702; in 1916 it 

 was 19,949 (Federal estimate). The area of the 

 borough exceeds one square mile. Its leading 

 industrial establishments are iron and steel 

 works, railroad machine shops, and manufac- 

 tories of lumber, wall plaster, concrete, freight 

 and passenger cars. There is a Federal build- 

 ing, and the borough has the Ohio Valley Gen- 

 eral Hospital. 



MACKENZIE, makerizi, the name borne 

 by a former district of Canada, which consti- 

 tuted the nucleus of the present North West 

 Territories. It lay far to the north, touching 

 the Arctic seas, and only Yukon was farther to 

 the west; on the east was the district of Kee- 

 watin, and on the south Athabaska and Brit- 

 ish Columbia. It had an area of 563,200 square 

 miles, but so inaccessible was it and so rig- 

 orous its climate that its population remained 

 very small. In 1901 it had but 5,216 in- 

 habitants, most of them in settlements along 

 the Mackenzie, the chief river of the district. 



In 1912 Mackenzie was combined with Frank- 

 lin and with the northern part of Keewatin to 

 form the North West Territories. F.O. 



MACKENZIE, ALEXANDER (1822-1892), a 

 Canadian statesman, the first Liberal Premier 

 of the Dominion, a man whose integrity has 

 become proverbial. In an age when corruption 

 was common and too often excused, no breath 

 of suspicion ever attached to Alexander Mac- 

 kenzie. "While perhaps too cautious to be the 

 ideal leader of a young and vigorous com- 

 munity, his grasp of detail, indefatigable indus- 

 try and unbending integrity won him the re- 

 spect even of his political opponents." Aside 

 from his honesty, Mackenzie's most prominent 

 characteristic was his opposition to class distinc- 



tions of any kind, a democratic attitude which 

 made him three times decline the honor of 

 knighthood. 



Alexander Mackenzie was born near Dunkeld, 

 Perthshire, Scotland, on January 28, 1822. As 

 a boy he spent 

 several winters in 

 school, but at 

 thirteen he began 

 to work, learning 

 the trade of a 

 stonemason. His 

 father died in 

 1836, leaving 

 seven sons, all of 

 whom afterwards 

 settled in Can- 

 a d a . Alexander 

 emigrated in 1842, ALEXANDER MACKENZIE 

 and settled at 



Kingston, Ont., where he worked as a stone- 

 cutter and afterwards became a building con- 

 tractor. In 1847 he removed to Sarnia, Ont 

 where he continued to prosper to such 

 extent that about 1852 he began to give 

 part of his time to other interests. In tlu 

 year he became editor of the Lambton Shiel 

 a Liberal organ through which he expressed 

 personal desire for an expansion of populj 

 political rights as well as his party's principl< 

 in general. 



After 1852 Mackenzie gave himself wholly 

 public affairs. In 1861 he was elected to tl 

 Canadian assembly, in which his wide rai 

 of knowledge and his readiness in debate 

 him a powerful influence. He strongly advo- 

 cated Confederation, and in 1865 declined a 

 place in the coalition Ministry which was 

 formed after the resignation of George Brown. 

 Mackenzie was at first one of Brown's chief 

 lieutenants, but after 1867 was the recognized 

 leader of the Liberals in Parliament. He was 

 elected to the first House of Commons in 1867, 

 and from December, 1871, to October, 1872, 

 also sat in the Ontario provincial assembly 

 and was provincial treasurer in the cabinet of 

 Edward Blake. Dual representation, which al- 

 lowed a man to represent his constituents both 

 in the provincial and the Dominion legislative 

 bodies, was abolished in 1872, and Mackenzie 

 thereafter devoted himself to national politics. 



First Liberal Premier. On the resignation of 

 Sir John Macdonald in 1873, as a result of the 

 Pacific railway scandal, Mackenzie was called 

 on to form a Ministry. Of the many important 

 changes made by the new government, espe- 



