Born at Wallace, Cumberland County, Nova Scotia on 14 March 1848, after being a school teacher in Nova Scotia and a journalist in Boston he came to Winnipeg in 1879, and founded the Winnipeg Daily Times, a newspaper which continued until 1885, although he remained as editor only until 1880. In 1881 he served as census commissioner for Manitoba and, in 1883, he served on the Winnipeg School Board. In 1884 he accompanied an expedition to Hudson Bay under the command of Lieutenant Gordon. He moved to Chicago around 1885, and there he wrote extensively on American local history. While in Manitoba he assisted Donald Gunn in preparing for publication A History of Manitoba from the Earliest Times (1880). He also wrote Tuttle’s Popular History of the Dominion of Canada (1877) Royalty in Canada (1878), and Our North Land (1885). A candidate in a 1881 provincial by-election and the 1883 provincial general election, he was defeated each time.