CASSIDY, WILLIAM FRANCIS (1871-1939)

CASSIDY, WILLIAM FRANCIS, businessman and high sheriff, 1917-23; mayor of Chatham, 1912-13, and 1932-33; b. Milford (Saint John), 2 Aug 1871, s/o Charles A. Cassidy and Mary Hanlon; m. 1906, Mabel J. Flood, d/o Benjamin Flood and Margaret McMahon, of Chatham; d. there, 5 Jul 1939.

William F. Cassidy graduated from business college in Saint John in 1890, and before he entered business for himself he worked for the Lounsbury Co. in Newcastle. For many years afterwards he was president of W. F. Cassidy Ltd, boot and shoe wholesalers and retailers, with stores in Newcastle and Chatham. In 1909 he was a director and treasurer of Hotel Touraine Ltd, which owned the hotel opened the previous year in Chatham by Peter Archer. As noted elsewhere, when his brother Charles A. Cassidy Jr died in 1929 he became head of Cassidy Ginger Ale Works.

Cassidy sat on the Chatham School Board from 1904 onward and was secretary of the board during the last three years of his life. In 1910 he was appointed to the first board of governors of St Thomas College. He was an early member of the Chatham Town Council and mayor during two separate terms. He was high sheriff of the county for six years, until he resigned that post in 1923. He served both as president and secretary of the County Liberal Association and had membership in a number of community and Catholic church societies.

Cassidy's wife, Mabel J. Flood, was a teacher before her marriage, and she later "gave unstintingly of her time" to worthy causes. She served as president of the Children's Aid Society of the county and was active in the Hotel Dieu Hospital Aid Society, the Red Cross Society, the IODE, and the Catholic Women's League. After her death in 1954 the hospital dedicated a room in her memory, and the IODE created a scholarship. She and her husband had six daughters, four of whom survived her in 1954.