Smith, Robert Harcourt Carington

Robert Harcourt Carington Smith 1858 - 1913 & Mary Valliere Gunn 1865 - 1931

Harky, as he was known, was born in Quebec City in 1858, and was the eldest son of Robert Herbert Smith and Amelia Jane LeMesurier.
He was educated at Bishop College School, in Lennoxville. He was a keen sportsman his whole life, winning many events in local sports and participating in the Thistle Lacrosse League, Quebec Snowshoe Club, and the Quebec Golf Club. In business, he was a partner in the square timber and lumber firm of J. and W. Sharples and Co. and was recognized as one of the ablest and most reliable lumber merchants in Canada.
According to his obituary, “He was a man of unusual business acumen and was devoted to his firm’s interest as well as his family.” In 1894 he married Mary Valliere Gunn of Kingston, Ontario. They had four sons (Eric who died in infancy), Alexander (Lex) born in 1895, Gordon, born in 1906, and Guy, born in 1908.
In 1911 he purchased Dufferin House from the Dale family, and thus began the long history of the Smith family in Tadoussac. Harky died in 1913 of pneumonia at the age of fifty-four. He is buried in Mount Hermon Cemetery in Quebec City.

Eve Wickwire