Fonds P054 - Thomas C. Brainerd Fonds

Title and statement of responsibility area

Title proper

Thomas C. Brainerd Fonds

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  • Source of title proper: Based on the documents in the fonds.

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Fonds

Repository

Reference code

CA OSLER P054

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Statement of scale (cartographic)

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Issuing jurisdiction and denomination (philatelic)

Dates of creation area

Date(s)

  • 1862 (Creation)
    Creator
    Brainerd, Thomas C.

Physical description area

Physical description

0,2 cm of textual records

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Archival description area

Name of creator

(1837-1910)

Biographical history

Dr. Thomas C. Brainerd was born in 1837 in Pennsylvania, to Rev. Thomas Brainerd, a Presbyterian clergyman. He studied medicine at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia for at least the 1859-1860 academic year. He enlisted as an officer in the Union army during the American Civil War and served as a surgeon.

In 1866, he resigned from the army due to his wife's poor health and abandoned medicine altogether. He then began working in the iron business followed by the manufacture of blasting powder. In 1867, he joined the Laflin Powder Company, where his father-in-law Joseph Milton Boies was president, where he rose from the position of agent to department head and then to secretary around 1870. He was also appointed secretary of the board of the Gunpowder Trade Association of the United States in 1872.

He operated his own gunpowder mill near York, Pennsylvania from 1874 to 1876. He immigrated to Canada in 1876 to run the Canadian branch of the Gunpowder Export Company Limited. He purchased the Ontario-based Hamilton Power Company with his friend Lammot Du Pont at the end of 1878 and acted as its president. His company purchased many competitors in Canada. In 1886, Brainerd and four partners including the future Liberal-Conservative Prime Minister John Joseph Caldwell Abbott and the Conservative senator John Hamilton, founded the Dominion Cartridge Company Limited, which dominated the ammunition market in Canada.

He was listed in the 1901 census as living in Montreal. In 1904, he suffered a stroke that partially paralysed him, and his eldest son, Dwight, took over as president of Hamilton Powder Company. He passed away in 1910. The factory he opened in Belœil, QC remained in operation for 120 years.

Custodial history

Gift of Miss A.W. Brainerd, 3476 Redpath St., Montreal, 12 February 1931 with the assistance of Dr. Campbell Palmer Howard. The documents were given with a case of instruments, which belonged to Dr. Brainerd, used in the Civil War. Old accession number 372.

Scope and content

Fonds shows Dr. Thomas C. Brainerd as a surgeon with the US Army during the Civil War. The fonds contains an invoice issued by the US Army, a form for examining a recruit and a report on sick and wounded.

Notes area

Physical condition

Immediate source of acquisition

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Language of material

  • English

Script of material

Language and script note

The documents are in English

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Items can be requested for consultation online via the Library Catalogue or by email at osler.library@mcgill.ca. Advance notice is recommended.

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Alternative identifier(s)

Osler Database ID

4573

Osler Fonds ID

44

Osler Alternate ID

P54

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