OAKES, INGRAM BURPEE (1848-1948)

OAKES, INGRAM BURPEE, principal of the Chatham Grammar School, 1876-79; b. Albany, Annapolis Co., N.S., 16 Nov 1848, s/o Jesse Oakes and Elizabeth Whitman; m. 1878, Elizabeth Jardine Smith, of Bass River, Kent Co., N.B.; d. Wolfville, N.S., 28 Jun 1948.

Educated at Horton Academy and Acadia University (BA 1871, MA 1883), Ingram B. Oakes was principal of the high school at Hantsport, N.S., for a year and of the Kent County Grammar School at Richibucto for three years. He was appointed principal of the grammar school at Chatham in the fall of 1876, as successor to Edwin H. McAlpine. His students undoubtedly felt fortunate, for while at university he had acquired "not only a knowledge of, but a love for, the Latin and English classics, and often recited with keen relish long passages from the Masters." His capabilities as a teacher were warmly praised when he resigned in 1879 in order to be appointed a school inspector in southern New Brunswick.

Oakes was an inspector for nine years and then principal of Horton Academy from 1888 to 1899. He later occupied different public offices, including that of prothonotary of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia. He was a governor of Acadia University from 1904 onward, and for many years, secretary of the governing board. In 1914 the university granted him an honorary DCL. When he died in 1948, a few months before his 100th birthday, this "Grand Old Man of Acadia" bequeathed $70,000 to the university.