Jeremiah Travis


Jeremiah Travis was a Canadian politician and attorney. He was a member of the 1st Council of the Northwest Territories in the 1880s, serving as stipendiary magistrate. He was an attorney and judge. Travis was born at Saint John, New Brunswick.

Stipendiary Magistrate at the Town of Calgary

Travis, a teetotaler and supporter of the temperance movement, was a controversial figure in Calgary after his appointment as stipendiary magistrate of the Northwest Territories at the Town of Calgary on July 30, 1885.
Travis was appalled by the open traffic of liquor, gambling and prostitution in Calgary despite legal prohibition in the Northwest Territories. There were several clashes between Travis and Mayor George Murdoch and other town councillors. This culminated in the arrest and imprisonment of councillor Simon John Clarke to six month of hard labour, dismissal and imprisonment of Clerk of District Court Hugh Cayley, overturning the results of the January 1886 Calgary municipal election, removing Mayor Murdoch, barring him from contesting an election for two years and the appointment of a separate municipal council.
Travis was subsequently placed on paid leave while Justice Thomas Wardlaw Taylor was appointed by the federal government to investigate the situation. Justice Taylor's final report concluded "...considering the excited state of public feeling, and the attitude of hostility in which Mr. Travis and a large number of inhabitants of Calgary and neighbourhood stand to one another, and for which both parties are blameable, I can express no other opinion, than that the Government ought not to continue Mr. Travis in the office of Stipendiary Magistrate at the Town of Calgary."
Jeremiah Travis was suspended and the government waited for his official tenure to expire, after which he was pensioned off.

Later Life

Travis died in Calgary on April 27, 1911.

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