GANONG, WILLIAM FRANCIS (1864-1941)

GANONG, WILLIAM FRANCIS, visiting geographer and historian; b. Saint John, 19 Feb 1864, s/o James Harvey Ganong and Susan Elizabeth Brittain; m. 1st, 1888, Jean Murray Carman, d/o William Carman and Sophia Maria Bliss, and 2nd, Anna Hobbet; d. Saint John, 7 Sep 1941.

William F. Ganong was educated at the universities of New Brunswick (BA 1884, MA 1886, PhD 1898), Harvard (BA 1887), and Munich (PhD 1894) and was a professor of botany at Smith College in Northampton, Mass., for thirty-eight years. He was the author of several works on botany, but he is best known for the geographical and historical studies which he carried out in the summer months in New Brunswick.

Ganong's explorations in the Miramichi district began in the 1890s when he travelled the rivers and streams gathering information on Indian place names, routes of travel, campsites, and artifacts, which constituted the basis of his invaluable monographs on place nomenclature (1896) and the province's historic sites (1899). In expeditions undertaken during the early years of the 20th century he gathered data on the modern, non-Indian settlements. His historical papers on Tabusintac (1907) and Neguac and Burnt Church (1908) were among the published findings of this period. Other Miramichi material remains in manuscript in his "Settlement Studies," which are held by the New Brunswick Museum.

One of the great figures in the intellectual history of New Brunswick, Ganong has a peak named for him in the Naturalists Mountains, next to Upsalquitch Lake.