GOUGH, JACOB CARVELL (1840 LIVING 1889)

GOUGH, JACOB CARVELL, businessman, shipbuilder, and MLA; b. Fredericton, 9 May 1840, s/o James Jacob Gough and Isabella Carvell; m. 1862, Henrietta W. Porter, of Saint John; living in 1889.

When Jacob C. Gough was seven his father, a Saint John policeman, was killed by street thugs, and when he was thirteen his mother was remarried, to Peter Mitchell of Newcastle.

Gough attended Mount Allison Academy and then joined his family on the Miramichi. In 1861 his future wife, Henrietta W. Porter, was teaching music in Newcastle and boarding at the home of his mother and stepfather, and although he was only twenty-one years old, he was the proprietor of a shipbuilding yard at Chatham. Between 1862 and 1868 he had ten sailing vessels built, mostly under the supervision of master builder Patrick Carroll. The first of them, which was launched just prior to his marriage, was christened the Royal Bride.

Gough was one of the most admired public speakers on the Miramichi, having both "a good voice" and "a pleasing delivery." When he addressed the Mechanics' Institute in Newcastle on "Irish Eloquence," his humor "brought down the house." In 1867 he took a seat in the House of Assembly, he and William M. Kelly having been returned by acclamation in the by-election called to fill the vacancies created by the resignations of John M. Johnson and Edward Williston. He sat until 1868 and then resigned to run for the federal seat made vacant by Johnson's death. His 'card' in that contest addressed national issues rather than constituency concerns. Defeated by Richard Hutchison, he reclaimed a provincial seat, again by acclamation, in a by-election called in 1869. Re-elected with a large number of votes in 1870, he sat another four years and acted during part of that period as leader of the Opposition.

Meanwhile, in 1868, Gough's shipbuilding activity was halted by financial problems and he turned to railroad construction. In 1870 he had the contract to build the section of the Intercolonial Railroad between Red Pine and Beaverbrook, north of Newcastle, but like his previous business ventures this was a failure. "He was ambitious and enterprising," states Louise Manny, "but was always held back by lack of capital." By 1874 he was deeply in debt, and when he was also defeated in that summer's election he fled the province, leaving his name "on the roll of absconding debtors." In announcing his downfall the New Brunswick Reporter noted that, in spite of "peculiarities of temper and disposition, manifested too frequently in violent denunciations of his political opponents," he was "a young man of great ability," who might have occupied an important position in the future administration of the affairs of the province.

In 1879 Gough's daughters, Annie Isabel Gough and Ella C. Gough, were attending school in Montreal. He was living in Algoma Mines, Ont., in 1882 and had gained a reputation as a temperance lecturer. In 1883 he was appointed customs inspector at Port Arthur, but he resigned and ran unsuccessfully for a federal seat in the election of 1885. He was referred to as a resident of Port Arthur when his wife died in Toronto in 1888, but he himself moved to Toronto at about this time. A city directory for 1889-90 shows him living on Beaconsfield Avenue, as proprietor of the Victoria Roofing Co., a contracting firm. In 1891 his mother, Mrs Isabella Mitchell, and a Mr R. J. Parker Gough were listed as residing at the Beaconsfield Avenue address, but his name did not appear in the directory, and nothing more is known.