Person

Hosmer, Charles Rudolph, 1851-1927

1851-1927

Self-made millionaire Charles Hosmer was born in Coteau-Landing, Quebec. Beginning as a telegraph operator for the Grand Trunk Railway, he was later hired by Dominion Telegraph Company; he soon became superintendent, then president. In 1880, he was appointed general manager of Canadian Pacific Railway Telegraph Service. Retiring from the telegraph business, of which he was by then the most outstanding figure in Canadian telegraphy, Hosmer moved on to become one of Montreal’s most important financiers; he eventually was president of Ogilvie Flour Milling Company and vice-president of Laurentide Pulp and Paper Company, as well as director of 26 other companies. In addition, he undertook an initiative on behalf of his friend César Ritz to bring a luxury hotel to Montreal. With the support of a group of businessmen, the Carlton Hotel Company, investment arrangements were begun in 1909, and the first guests were welcomed in 1912.
Hosmer had married Clara Jane Bigelow in 1878 and they had two children, Elwood Bigelow and Olive. Summers were spent in their “Hillcrest” mansion in St. Andrew’s, New Brunswick. For some time he had wanted a Montreal house for his family appropriate to his prosperous circumstances. In 1900 he commissioned architect Edward Maxwell, who had designed the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, to design a luxurious house for him. “Hosmer House” (3630 Promenade-Sir-William-Osler) was built by 1901 with each room in a different style, and with wall space to show off his art collection. The architect’s brother, William Sutherland Maxwell, renovated the gallery and constructed a new foyer in 1904. Hosmer’s wife died in 1926 and he himself in 1927 after a long illness. That same year, Elwood and some friends attempted to cross the Atlantic leaving from England (in a Dormier-Napier flying boat named the “Whale”), but failed. The next year they tried again, leaving from Lisbon, but crashed near the Azores where they were lucky to be rescued after 12 hours. Elwood’s father had left him and his sister $20 million. In 1969 McGill University bought Hosmer House and in 2005, the Quebec government decreed it to be part of the “Site patrimonial du Mont-Royal.”