Marcus Child
He was involved in improving local education in the Eastern Townships, an area which had recently opened for colonial settlement.
He supported the Parti patriote in the 1830s, and fled to exile in the United States for a short time after the Lower Canada Rebellion in 1837.
He worked for a short time for an uncle in Vermont, then emigrated to Stanstead Township, Lower Canada in 1812, where he entered business as a druggist.
A member of the Methodist Church, he was also the secretary of the Stanstead County Bible Society, and a Grand Master of the local Masonic Lodge.
The returning officer held that he had been defeated by the opposing candidate, Wright Chamberlain, but this decision was subsequently set aside by the Legislative Assembly on an election petition.
[1][2] Child was sworn into the Assembly the next day, February 19, 1834, just in time to participate in the debate on the Ninety-Two Resolutions, introduced by Louis-Joseph Papineau and other members of the Parti patriote.
The local paper gave him an endorsement, saying that he was "...by no means a polished orator, or calculated to shine in debate, as but few men are, but is capable of expressing himself with ease, force and clearness."
His opponents ran as moderate reformers, while Child and his running mate, John Grannis, were elected as supporters of the Parti patriote.
He also chaired a committee which investigated the conduct of the sheriff in Sherbrooke, who was part of the group supporting one of the major landholders, William Bowman Felton.
When Grannis resigned his seat in 1836, he was replaced in the by-election by a more conservative candidate, Moses French Colby, who opposed some of the key points of the Ninety-Two Resolutions, such as making the Legislative Council elected rather than appointed.
Child did not participate in any of armed battles, but he sympathised with the Patriotes and appears to have assisted some of them in fleeing to the United States.
Although he continued to live in Stanstead, he began to develop business interests in nearby Coaticook where he established himself as a merchant, potash manufacturer, and carding-miller.
His opponent was Moses French Colby, who had replaced Grannis in the 1837 by-election and had been Child's paired member from Stanstead in the Lower Canada Assembly.
The poll stayed open for twelve days, a lengthy period, as the supporters of the two candidates hotly contested the election.
One of the leaders of the French-Canadian Group, John Neilson, introduced a motion condemning the way the union had been imposed on Lower Canada.
On a major debate in the Assembly on the issue, Child voted in support of the members of the Executive Council, and against the Governor General.
When LaFontaine and Baldwin were returned to power in the 1848 general elections, Child was given control over government patronage in the Stanstead area.
