A physician, amateur geologist and historian, William James Anderson was born at sea off the Danish coast, to Scottish parents
He studied medicine at Edinburgh and obtained the degree of MD and a LRCS (Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons). He was a physician in the Maritimes in the 1830s where he fostered his taste for the history and geology of Nova Scotia by exploring and investigating mining operations there, His health collapsed during a typhus epidemic in Pictou He left the medical profession and the Maritimes in 1847 and worked in the lumber business in Upper Canada before moving Toronto in the 1850s.

He returned briefly to the mining district in the Maritimes and settled in Quebec City in 1860 to resume his profession. He became acquainted with Dr James Douglas, a fellow mining enthusiast and member of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec. Dr. Anderson led a group of members who revived the society, reanimated its interest in securing and publishing documents on Quebec, and re-established its library and museum. His first papers in its Transactions in 1863 were on the goldfields of Nova Scotia and of the world, and the bitumen of Point de Lévy. He continued to publish in this subject area. On a visit to Nova Scotia in 1862 he had toured Acadian regions and inspected the Provincial Archives at Halifax.

In 1866, he began a series of major historical contributions in the Transactions of the Literary and Historical Society with historiography a particular theme. These papers dealt with the life of the Duke of Kent, including letters from him held by the de Salaberry family, one of whom had been his patient. In writing these essays Anderson used archival papers in Halifax, arranged for the transfer of others from Halifax to Quebec, and got archival materials transferred to Canada from Britain. While on the executive of the Literary and Historical Society, he fostered publication of two series of Historical documents (1866, 1871) and his last publication in 1872 advocated an archive for Canada. He counted other notable historians of the confederation years among his friends. Anderson died in 1873 of tuberculosis in Quebec City.

Joseph Howe was born on December 13, 1804, in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

He was a Nova Scotian journalist, politician, public servant, and poet. He attended the Royal Acadian School before beginning an apprenticeship at his father's printing shop. In 1828, he went into the printing business himself with the purchase of the Novascotian, a Halifax newspaper, soon making it into a popular and influential newspaper. He reported extensively on debates in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly and travelled to every part of the province writing about its geography and people. In 1836, he was elected to the assembly as a liberal reformer, beginning a long and eventful public career. He was instrumental in helping Nova Scotia become the first British colony to win responsible government in 1848. In 1854, as the head of a bi-partisan railway commission, he was successful in completing lines from Halifax to Windsor. He served as premier of Nova Scotia from 1860 to 1863 and led the unsuccessful fight against Canadian Confederation from 1866 to 1868. Howe became the 3rd Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia in 1873. During his life, he wrote and published some poems related to his appreciation of Nova Scotia and its history. In 1874, a year after his death, his family published a book of his poetry “Poems and Essays”.

In 1828, he married Catherine Susan Ann McNab (1807–1890). He died on June 1, 1873, in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Rev. Andrew Walker Herdman was born on September 5, 1822, in Rattray, Aberdeenshire, Scotland.

He was a clergyman. In 1849, he became a pastor at the St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Pictou, Nova Scotia where he ministered for thirty years. In 1879, he moved back to Scotland and was inducted into his native Rattray Parish Church as his brother William's successor. He served here until his death in 1894.

In 1849, he married Elizabeth Close (1827-1897). He died on August 17, 1894, in Rattray, Aberdeenshire, Scotland.