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Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

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BUCK, WALTER MANSFIELD (1826-1881)

BUCK, WALTER MANSFIELD, civil engineer and railwayman; b. Dublin, Ireland, Dec 1826, s/o Robert Andrew Buck and h/w Harriet; m. Charlotte Hepworth, a native of Leeds, England; d. Fredericton, 15 May 1881.

Walter M. Buck, the son of a Dublin solicitor, was a qualified civil engineer before he came to St Andrews, N.B., from England in the mid 1850s. Within a year or two of his arrival he was hired as chief engineer of the New Brunswick and Canada Railway and Land Co., which was to build a line north from St Andrews to Carleton County. The line was finished in 1862, after which Buck worked on branch lines and also as chief operating engineer for the railway.

When controversy arose at the time of Confederation concerning the most advantageous route for an intercolonial railway to take, Buck published a pamphlet in which he argued the merits of the "frontier route," which would have followed the United States border, using part of the New Brunswick and Canada line. After Peter Mitchell and other proponents of the "North Shore route" prevailed, however, he accepted appointment as engineer of surveys at Miramichi, with responsibility for determining the path which the new line would follow over the rugged terrain north of Newcastle. He arrived in May 1869, found a suitable home for his family at Chatham Head, and became involved in the activities of the Anglican church and other community organizations. He finished his engineering assignment for the ICR in December 1874. He spent the year 1875 surveying the route for what was then being called the Miramichi Valley Railway, between the ICR line and Devon.

In 1876 Buck went to Salisbury, N.B., as chief engineer for the Albert Railway. In reporting his departure the Union Advocate stated that his many excellent services to the Miramichi during his seven-year residency were the amende honorable for the offending pamphlet which he had written concerning the best route for the ICR. He was later an official of the federal Department of Railways and Canals, with an office in Moncton. He was in Fredericton on business in 1881 when he died suddenly, at age fifty-four. He was survived by his wife, Charlotte Hepworth, and eight children.

The year after Buck's death, his widow had his remains disinterred at Moncton and reburied in St Andrew's churchyard in Newcastle, and different members of the family maintained close ties with the town in the 1880s. A son, William F. Buck, also continued his father's railroad connections. He entered an ICR machine shop apprenticeship program in 1882, at age eighteen, and at the time of his death in 1912 was "superintendent of motive power" for the Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fe Railway.

Sources

[b] DCB [d] Telegraph 18 May 1881 / Advocate 13 May 1869, 21 Jul 1875, 8 Sep 1875, 16 Feb 1876, 5 Jun 1878, 2 Aug 1882, 19 Feb 1908, 14 Feb 1912, 6 Feb 1929; Buck; Standard 21 Mar 1866; Telegraph 17 May 1881; tombstones


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