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| Birth: | 1839 in Fredericton, NB |
| Death: | 1896 in Amherst, NS |
| Sex: | M |
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Individual:
Civil engineer Henry George Clopper Ketchum, son of George and Mary Ann (Phillips) Ketchum, was born in Fredericton, New Brunswick on 26 February 1839 of Loyalist descent. Educated at Fredericton Collegiate School, in 1854 he attended a series of lectures on engineering, surveying and levelling given by English engineer McMahon Cregan at King's College, Fredericton. In 1862 Ketchum was awarded the first diploma in civil engineering from the University of New Brunswick.
in 1865, he was hired as resident engineer for International Contracting Company, being charged with building the Eastern Extension of the European and North American Railway from Moncton to Amherst. When the company went bankrupt, construction was taken over by Clark, Punchard and Company, and Ketchum was hired as sub-contractor, a position which he held until 1868. In 1869 he was named chief engineer of construction of the New Brunswick Railway from Fredericton to Edmundston, and he was also named engineer of a section of the Quebec and New Brunswick Railway. As well, by 21 August 1866, he had married Sarah E. Milner of Sackville, N. B.
During the mid-1870s Ketchum became interested in the scheme for which he is best known. The Chignecto Marine Transport Railway Company was formed in 1882 to construct a ship railway for transporting vessels across the Isthmus of Chignecto, thereby facilitating shipping between the Bay of Fundy and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Ketchum acted as managing director of the project, which was partially financed by the Canadian Parliament in the form of an annual subsidy, if the line was completed in seven years and kept in good repair.
Construction began in October 1888, but the Chignecto Ship Railway soon faced serious financial difficulties. The 1890 collapse of Baring Brothers and Company, the London bank backing the project, signalled the death of Ketchum's dream, which was assured in 1892 when Parliament refused to grant the company a second extension. Soon after, on 8 September 1896, Ketchum died unexpectedly in Amherst, Nova Scotia. He was buried at Tidnish within view of the ship railway terminus.
Sources: "Henry George Clopper Ketchum", Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. XII, pp. 484-485
History of Tidnish
http://www.rootsweb.com/~nscumber/tidnish/tidnish.html
George C. Ketchum, the remarkable promoter of the Ship Railway, is remembered in the little Anglican Church, that he had built at the head of the road leading down to the dock, with its stained glass window to his memory. And also by his summer home, overlooking the docksite, which was left to the church for the use of its clergymen who conduct Sunday services in the little church during the summers. The old-fashioned ginger-bread style house once stood well back, amid beautiful cultivated grounds, but the bank has gradually fallen away in front, and trees and bushes are now crowding it from the rear. It was in the attic of this house that the Ketchum plans and working models for the Ship Railway were discovered by chance, several years ago, and were then obtained for the Fort Beausejour Museum.
Mr. Ketchum died soon after the failure of his great project and his remains were laid in a cement vault in the garden, but later removed to Sackville, N.B.
A local lady, Mrs. Earl Jackson has several interesting relics of the Ketchums--some lovely old English silver and pewter dishes, given to her by Mrs. Ketchum, and a chest made from the Ketchum drafting table on which all the Ship Railway plans were drawn. It was of a solid, heavy hardwood and also came from England. it was given to Mrs. Jackson's father, the late Jacob Baxter, who made the chest.
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