PEDOLIN, FERDINAND LOREK (1849-1913)

PEDOLIN, FERDINAND LOREK, doctor and businessman; mayor of Newcastle, 1911-12; b. Fredericton, 29 Jul 1849, s/o Peter Pedolin and Elizabeth Ross; m. 1877, Mary T. Fowler, d/o Elijah Fowler and Jane MacAllister; d. Newcastle, 7 Jun 1913.

Ferdinand L. Pedolin's grandfather, John Pedolin, was born in Switzerland and his father, Peter Pedolin, was a native of Holland. John Pedolin died in Fredericton in 1824, and Peter Pedolin had a confectionery and grocery business there in the 1830s. Fredericton is cited as Ferdinand L. Pedolin's place of birth, but all members of the family were residing in Woodstock in 1851, where Peter Pedolin was a merchant. They returned to Fredericton sometime before 1861.

After finishing his schooling in Fredericton, Pedolin spent three years as a student of Harvard Medical College (MD 1869). When he returned to New Brunswick he practiced at Doaktown, then at Hartt's Mills in York County, then at Doaktown again until 1885, and finally in Newcastle.

After its incorporation in 1888 the Chatham Electric Light Co. & Miramichi Telephone Exchange ran a line to Newcastle and installed a small switchboard in Pedolin's residence on Pleasant Street. The next year Pedolin, together with Allan A. Davidson and other members of the Davidson family bought the Newcastle exchange, together with the right to extend the telephone system in the parishes of Newcastle, Derby, Blackville, and North Esk. Pedolin was manager of the exchange, which continued to be conducted out of his home for eighteen years. He was able to run the telephone company without serious interference with his medical practice because his sister-in-law, Lily Fowler, lived with his family and took care of the switchboard. Later two of his daughters assisted as telephone operators. The exchange was bought by the New Brunswick Telephone Co. in 1906. Pedolin was kept on as manager until 1910, but "being the old family doctor type," states the company historian, "and not bothering to collect his own accounts, [he] found it rather hard to collect the Company's."

Pedolin was a talented musician and a bandsman in his youthful years. He was surgeon major of the Field Battery at Newcastle until he retired from the militia in 1896. In 1901 he won a seat on the Newcastle Town Council. He served for three years as a councillor and for one as mayor. He was a member of St James Presbyterian Church and of the Orange, Oddfellow and Masonic fraternities. During 1901 he was worshipful master of Northumberland Lodge.

Pedolin was "a kindly man and very fond of his family." He had "a great love for the Miramichi and its people," and in his later years liked to reminisce about his experiences at Doaktown and elsewhere. He was still in practice at the time of his sudden death in 1913, a few weeks before his sixty-fourth birthday. His wife, Mary Fowler, predeceased him in 1893, at less than forty years of age. He was survived by a son and three daughters.