| Notes |
- James Wm. is the son of Eleanor Beaton & James W Bridgeland.
Surveyor & civil servant, born Apr. 9, 1817 at or near York (Toronto), second son of
James W. Bridgeland, 1776 -Oct. 6 1844 & Eleanor Bentham, 1779-Sept. 14, 1827, d/o Jeremiah Bentham.
J.W. died Oct. 22, 1880 in Toronto. His parents came to York from Kent County, England in 1816. For some years the family remained in York, the father having obtained the position of the Court of King's Bench, & young James attended Thomas Appleton's common school. In 1828 the family purchased property in Downsview, Toronto north, where the sons & daughters grew up. Young James decided to become a land surveyor & in 1842 attended the summer term at Victoria College, Cobourg. He was apprenticed to John Stoughton Dennis & qualified as a provincial land surveyor on May 6, 1844. Soon after he commenced to practice, he was employed by the Crown Lands Department in making surveys in Canada West & he became a member of the staff of the Crown Lands Office on Jan. 22, 1856. His most important surveys were in the townships of Mornington (1848), Kincardine (1850) & Carden (1852); along the Muskoka River (1852) & Indian River (1853); on Rama Island (1860); & in the Huron & Ottawa territory (1861-2). His reports frequently have a distinct literary flavour. To describe land near
the Muskoka River, he wrote "would only be to repeat the tedious monotony of rocky barrens, swamps, marshes, & burnt regions; destitute of good water, good timber, in short of everything necessary to make settlement desirable or life supportable; seem from their scarcity - scarcely able to exist".
These reports were eminently sensible & won the approval of his superiors, as did no doubt his attitude towards employees who attempted to gain an increase in pay. To one of his subordinates he wrote: "The Strike you speak of should have been the immediate occasion for you to have discharged every man ..., I will not sanction a farthing of increase in wages."
After 1860 Bridgeland's duties lay chiefly in the field of colonization of roads, built by the government to attract settlers to the Georgian Bay & Ottawa area. His duties led him also to the mining districts & Indian lands north of Lake Superior. In 1864 when the superintendent of colonization of roads in Canada West, David Gibson, died, that office was discontinued but the duties were transferred to Bridgeland. After confederation he continued to perform the duties connected with the oversight of colonization of roads in Ontario - duties he would be relied on to perform with diligence & economy.
. 1859 June 11, James Bridgeland, a widower, married Martha Ann Jones (1832-1910) d/o Rev. Richard Jones & Mary Ann Wright.
Six children were born from this marriage:
Anna Sarah (1860-1941)
Albert James (1861-1865)
Mary Ella (1865-1944)
Martha Alice (1868-1868)
Josephine (1870-1953)
Mildred Katherine Bridgeland (1873-1949). - - -
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1817 - 1880 (63 years)