Date Published:
September 2007

L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

Albert Azro Ayer

President the A. A. Ayer Co., Ltd.,

and Interested in other Important Enterprises. Montreal, Canada.

ALBERT AZRO AYER was born February 6th, 1845, at Frelighsburg, in the Eastern Townships of the Province of Quebec, Can., a son of George W. and Mary (Rogers) Ayer.

Ancestors on both paternal and maternal sides were English. His education was obtained in the public schools, in the Stanbridge Academy, (a somewhat famous school of the Eastern Townships at that time), in the Newhampton Institute at Fairfax, Vermont, and in the Eastman's Commercial College at Poughkeepsie, N. Y.

Mr. Ayer went to Montreal in 1865 and took employment as a clerk with Chandler & Hannan. In March, 1867, he started a local and export butter and cheese business under the title of A. A. Ayer & Co., and in 1902 the firm was incorporated as A. A. Ayer & Co., Ltd., which was recently changed to The A. A. Ayer Co., Limited. For many years this firm has done the most extensive business of any of its character in the Dominion Canada. Mr. Ayer, besides being president of The A. A. Ayer Co., Limited, is president of The Dominion Marble Company, The Bedford Light Company, The Superior Brick Company, and a former president of the Laurie Engine Co., of The Merchants Cotton Co. and of The Laprairie Brick Co. He is a member of the Canada and the Montreal Clubs, and also of the Board of Trade and has served several periods on its council.

Mr. Ayer was married in September, 1867, to Rebecca C. Hibbard, the union bringing seven children: Ada, (now Mrs. J. D. Patterson); Hibbard H., (in the insurance business); Albert J., (of The A. A. Ayer Co., Ltd.); George S., (a farmer); Grace, (now Mrs. H. W. Hamlin of Chicago); and Kenneth R. Ayer, (B. A. and B. Sc. of McGill University, now manager of The Superior Brick Co.)

He has always been a practical farmer and has done much to help and improve the Dairy industry throughout Canada, more especially in the Province of Quebec.

Mr. Ayer is a member and a senior deacon of the Olivet Baptist Church, Montreal. He is much interested in missionary and educational work. He has been for forty years a member of the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions and during the same time a director and for many years either president or vice-president of the Grande Ligne Mission.

He is the Board of Trade representative on the Board of Directors of the Montreal Technical School; he is a member of the Board of the Boys Home and of the Boys Farm and Training School and a Governor of McMaster University of Toronto.

He has travelled extensively on this continent, in Great Britain and in Europe, and has crossed the Atlantic more than forty times. He takes his summer recreation and leisure mostly at the old Homestead and farm at Frelighsburg where two of his sons reside.

Source: Canadian History Makers. A Volume Containing Accurate and Concise Sketches of Men who have Done Things in The Dominion of Canada Past and Present Together with Photogravures Made from their Latest Photographs, Montreal, Canadian Publication Society, 1913, 159p., p. 89.