Sir John Joseph Caldwell Abbott was born on March 12, 1821, in Saint-André-d'Argenteuil, Quebec.

He was a lawyer, professor, businessman, politician, and the 3rd prime minister of Canada. He studied law at McGill University and assisted with the school’s accounting. He was admitted to the bar in 1847 and partnered with a Montreal lawyer William Badgley in 1849. In 1853, he started teaching law at McGill as a lecturer. After receiving his B.C.L. degree in 1854, he became dean of the Faculty of Law in 1855, a title he held until 1880 when he was named emeritus professor. Abbott was made Queen’s Counsel in 1862, received a D.C.L. degree in 1867, and was named to the Board of Governors of the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning at McGill in 1881. In his long-standing legal career outside the university, he specialized in commercial law. He held shares and senior positions in a wide variety of companies, e.g., the Merchants’ Bank of Canada, Bank of Montreal, Dominion Mineral Co., Intercolonial Coal Mining Co., and the Canada Central Railway. From 1860 to 1867, Abbott represented Argenteuil as a Member of Parliament for the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada. He was elected to the House of Commons in 1867, removed by petition in 1874 following his involvement in the Pacific Scandal, and reelected in 1880. In 1887, he was appointed to the Senate and served as Leader of the Government (1887-1893) and Minister without Portfolio. He also served as Mayor of Montreal (1887-1889). Abbott became the first Canadian-born prime minister on June 15, 1891. Deteriorating health forced him to resign on December 5, 1892. Abbott was president of the Fraser Institute, one of the founders of the Art Association of Montreal, Canadian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and the first president of the Board of Governors of the Royal Victoria Hospital. He was named a Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George in 1892. The Government of Canada named Abbott a National Historic Person in 1938. John Abbott College, an English-language Montreal-based CEGEP established in 1970, is named in his honour.

In 1849, he married Mary Martha Bethune (1823–1898). He died on October 30, 1893, in Montreal, Quebec.

Job Abbott was born on August 23, 1845, in Andover, Massachusetts.

He was a civil engineer and entrepreneur who helped pioneer the construction of steel bridges in Canada. In 1864, he graduated from the Harvard University's Lawrence Scientific School. He also studied law and became an expert in the field of patents. He worked at the Manchester Locomotive Works in New Hampshire, the Long Island Rail Road, the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad, and Wrought Iron Bridge Company, where he became vice president and chief engineer in 1872. In 1880, he became president and chief engineer of the Toronto Bridge Company. In 1882, he became president, chief engineer, and senior sales representative of the Montreal based Dominion Bridge Company Limited, manufacturing and installing steel bridges and structures throughout Canada, including many for the Canadian Pacific Railway, such as the 3,400 ft Lachine Bridge in Montreal, Quebec.

In 1866, he married Ruth R. Pecker. He died on August 18, 1896, in Andover, Massachusetts.

Writer, photographer, and documentary filmmaker in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, known for her documentation of the culture, heritage, and natural environment of rural and indigenous communities both in Canada and elsewhere. She has authored six books: The Coast Way, The French Shore, A Country So Wild and Grand, The Heart of the Farm, Eeyou Istchee, and Memphrémagog: An Illustrated History. Her films include Nunaaluk: A Forgotten Story. She graduated from McGill University in 1972.

Lyman J. Abbott was born on December 18, 1835, in Roxbury, Massachusetts.

He was an American Congregationalist theologian, pastor, editor, lawyer, and author. In 1853, he graduated from the New York University where he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1856. He soon abandoned the legal profession, and after studying theology, he was ordained a minister of the Congregational Church in 1860. He was a pastor in Indiana, New England, and New York. He was also an associate editor of Harper's Magazine, editor-in-chief of The Christian Union, renamed The Outlook in 1893, and the founder of a publication called the Illustrated Christian Weekly.

In 1857, he married Abby Frances Hamlin. He died on October 22, 1922, In New York, New York.

Maude Elizabeth Seymour Abbott was born on March 18, 1868, in St. Andrews East, Quebec, and died on September 2, 1940, in Montreal. In 1890, she became one of the first women to graduate with a B.A. from McGill University, but was denied admission to the McGill Medical School, since women were not yet admitted. Abbott attended the University of Bishop’s College and received her medical degree in 1894. Following postgraduate studies in Europe, Abbott returned to Montreal where she met the Chair of Pathology at McGill University, Dr. George Adami, who appointed her Assistant Curator of the Medical Museum in 1898. In addition to her efforts at curating and maintaining the specimen collection at the Medical Museum, Abbott became a renowned teacher and an expert in cardiac disease. In 1924, the Medical Museum and the Pathology Department were moved from Strathcona Building, and Abbott was named curator of the new Central Medical Museum until her retirement in 1936. Abbott was a founding member of the Federation of Medical Women of Canada (FMWC), the International Association of Medical Museums, and helped develop and organize the Canadian Medical War Museum. Her main area of medical interest was pathology and she specialized in congenital heart disease. She taught in McGill's Department of Pathology from 1912 to 1935, was the first woman to be honoured by the Pathological Society of London, and published her authoritative Atlas of Congenital Cardiac Disease in 1936. Her second vocation, one inspired and encouraged by Sir William Osler, lay in museum work and medical history. She was curator of the Medical Historical Museum at McGill and lectured and wrote about various historical topics, her major publication being the History of Medicine in the Province of Quebec (1931). Her honours and awards include: the Lord Stanley Gold Medal (1890), the Senior Anatomy Prize from Bishop’s College (1894), the Chancellor’s Price from Bishop’s College (1894), the Person of National Historic Significance from Parks Canada (1993), and an induction into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame (1994).

William Abbott, brother of Joseph Abbott, was born in Little Strickland, Westmoreland, England. He began theological studies and then accepted a request from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts to leave his homeland to pursue missionary work in Canada. He came to Canada with his brother in 1818. In 1824, he was ordained deacon by the bishop of Québec, and sent to the mission at Yamaska Mountain (later named Abbotsford). In the following year he exchanged parishes with his brother, at that time Rector of St. Andrews. Under William Abbott's direction, the building of Christ Church, St. Andrews, was completed and the parish consolidated.