Page:A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Colonial Gentry Vol 2.djvu/307

r.rTJKT-yS roI.ONTAL GENT1!V. 685 Ai'm-f — A/ a chccrou i'l'iii. between tlti'ee encaliups at'i/. Cresl — -i stag sla/aid ppr. a/lired and unguled ur. Alo/lo — JIicc generi incremenla fides. Residence — Halifax, Nova Scotia, Cuniida. HON. WILLIA]I BERRIAN VAIL, of Weymouth, Dighy co, and Ottawa, Ontario, and Halifax, Nova Scotia, Lieutenant-Colonel late Digby Militia, h. at Sussex, King's co.. New lirunswick, 19th December, 1825, removed to Digby, Nova Scotia, 1846, where he m. '22nd May, 1850, Charlotte Leslie, daughter of Charles JoNHs, of Weymouth, Digby, Nova Scotia, and has issue, I. Ella Leslie, h. 18th August, 1851, m. 25th July, 1872, Archibald ,S. Mitch KLI-, of Halifax, Nova Scotia. II. Annie Farish, 6. 15th December, 18C3, m. 22nd September, 1885, Colonel Edmund Donough Collins 0']5i;ii:n, K.E., Colonel on the Staff, S.E. District. Mr. W. B. Vail succeeded to the office held by Sir Charles Tupper when the several provinces were confederated, and was leader of the Government in the Provincial Legislature for the first two parliamentary terms after the union, a very critical period in the history of his pi-ovince, and it was laigcly due to his loyalty, tact, and popularity with his party, that the legislature of Nova Scotia decided to accept the situation and give the Union Act a fair trial. It was during his term of office as Minister of Militia and Defence of Canada, that the Roj-al Military College at Kingston, Ontario, was built and opened, where up to the present time, eighty-five of the total number of cadets, who have graduated, have been given commissions in the Imperial Ai-my, several of them having served with distinction. The Hon. W. B. Vail was elected member of the Provincial Legislature in September, 1867 ; was sworn a member of the Executive Council of Nova Scotia, and appointed provincial secretary of the province on the 7th November, 1867, which office he held, together with that of leader of the Government, in the House of Assembly, till the .SOth September, 1874, when he was sworn of the Queen's Privy Council of Canada, and appointed minister of Militia and Defence, which office he held till January, 1878, when he resigned. Hon. W. B. Vail sat for Digby, Nova Scotia, in the House of Assembly from 1867, until his appointment to office in the Dominion Government, when he was returned for the same county in the House of Commons of Canada, and with the exception of one short term continued to represent Digby co. till 1887. Hi'iunge. EoBEliT Vail, one of tlio adlicroiits to Nt-u lirunswick, wlicrc he rosiiletl. Ifc represented King's co. in the New JJrnnswick Legislature, for uearl^ a quarter of a century, was judge of the District Court of Common Pleas, and also held several important ]nd)lic oillces. He was b. 1790; m. Charlotte (h. 1795), daughter of the Kev. Oliver Ahxoi.u, rector of Sussex, King's eo., New Uruuswick, the British Crown, during the war of the American Colonies, emigrated from the United States to St. John, New Brunswick, at the close of that war in 1782. Ilis son, John- Cougle Vail, Lieutenant-Colonel of the 1st Regiment of King's co. Militia, a largo lauded proprietor in Sussex, King's co..