Peter van Toorn was born on July 13, 1944, in a bunker near The Hague, Netherlands.

He was a Canadian poet, editor, and educator. He moved to Canada with his family as a child. He attended McGill University, and during the late 60s and early 70s, he taught at Concordia University. He also taught Creative Writing and Canadian Poetry for almost thirty years at John Abbott College, Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec. He was the author of the collections of poems “Leeway Grass” (1970) and “In Guildenstern County” (1973). His masterpiece “Mountain Tea and other Poems” was nominated for the Governor General's Award for Poetry in 1984. He also edited the anthologies “Cross/cut: Contemporary English Quebec Poetry” (1982) and “The Insecurity of Art: Essays on Poetics” (1982).

He died on October 6, 2021, in Montreal, Quebec.

David Van Nostrand was born on December 5, 1811, in New York, New York.

He was a New York City publisher. In 1826, after graduating from Lewis E. A. Eigenbrodt’s Union Hall, a classical school in Jamaica, Long Island, at the age of fifteen, he began to work for a bookseller and publisher, John P. Haven. During the 1830s, he was briefly involved in a book sales and publishing partnership, but the depression of 1837 caused its demise. Van Nostrand spent the next eleven years in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he studied engineering and worked as a clerk of accounts and disbursements. In 1848, he returned to New York City. He established his bookselling and publishing operations, an enterprise that grew into the D. Van Nostrand Publishing firm, one of the major science and engineering publishers. He specialized in imported books on science, military and naval engineering, and mathematics. Following the Civil War, publications became more industry oriented. In 1869, Van Nostrand's Engineering Magazine was founded, followed by The American Chemical Journal. Van Nostrand played an active role in organizations of benefit to New York City, including the Academy of Design, the Century Club, the Historical Society, the Holland Society, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Natural History Society, the St. Nicholas Club, and the Union League. The books "Van Nostrand's Encyclopedia of Chemistry" and "Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia" are still published today by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

In 1833, he married Eliza Sophia Lewis (1807-1835), and in 1848, he remarried Sarah Ann Nichols (1825-1897). He died on June 14, 1886, in New York, New York.

Barbara Anne Van Nimwegen was born Barbara Anne Byers in 1941 to Donald and Anne Byers of Montreal, Quebec. Barbara attended Miss Edgar's School and Westmount High School. She graduated from the Royal Victoria Hospital Nursing School and worked at the Royal Victoria Hospital as charge nurse on the postpartum ward and operating nurse in the obstetrics operating room. Barbara married Donald Van Nimwegen of Boston, Massachuetts, on October 22, 1966, at the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul in Montreal. Following her marriage, Barbara moved to the United States, where she worked in the operating room of St. Margaret's Hospital in Boston. In 1969, she returned to Montreal and had her first child, Derrik, while her husband served in Vietnam. She later moved to Seattle where she had children Michael and Kathryn were born.

Addison Van Name was born on November 15, 1835, in Chenango, Broome County, New York.

He was an American philologist and librarian. He graduated from Yale University in 1858. In 1865, he became University Librarian at Yale University, a position he held until 1904. During his forty-year tenure as University Librarian, the number of volumes in the Yale Library increased from 44,500 to 475,000. He taught Hebrew at Yale for four years and was the Librarian of the American Oriental Society. Van Name was made librarian emeritus in 1905. He published "Catalogue of the William Loring Andrews Collection of Early Books in the Library of Yale University" (1913).

In 1867, he married Julia Gibbs (1836–1916). He died on September 29, 1822, in New Haven, Connecticut.

William Cornelius van Horne was born on February 3, 1843, near Frankfort, Illinois and died on September 11, 1915, in Montreal. He was the eldest child of Cornelius Covenhoven Van Horne and Mary Minier Richards. In 1867, Van Horne married Lucy Hurd, they had three children. Van Horne began working on railroads in 1857, serving in various capacities on the Michigan Central Railway from 1858 to 1864 and then on the Chicago and Alton Railway from 1864 to 1872. He served as the general superintendent of the Chicago and Alton Railway from 1878 to 1879. In 1882 he was appointed general manager of the Canadian Pacific Railway, became vice-president in 1884, and president in 1888, overseeing the construction of the first Canadian transcontinental railroad. Van Horne later invested in the Cuba Railroad Company, which built the first trans-country railway connecting Havana with the two eastern provinces of Camaguey and Oriente in 1901. He presided over the expansion of the CPR into the luxury hotel business and participated in the design of two of the most famous hotels in the chain, the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City and Chateau Lake Louise in Alberta. Van Horne also launched the sea transport division of the CPR, inaugurating a regular service between Vancouver and Hong Kong in 1891 on the Empress luxury liners. Van Horne was a governor of McGill University from 1895 to 1915. He was made honorary Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in Queen Victoria’s 1894 Birthday Honours. The Van Horne Institute based in Calgary is affiliated with the University of Calgary, Athabasca University, and the University of Alberta, and conducts research and policy studies related to all things carriage related, including rail, air, shipping, and road transportation. Van Horne was also a painter; his surviving works now reside in museums like the Montreal Museum of Fine Art.