Date Published:
September 2007

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

Hon. Nathaniel Curry

Senator. President of the Canadian Car & Foundry Company

and other Canadian Corporations of Montreal, Que.

HON. NATHANIEL CURRY, Senator, president of The Canadian Car and Foundry Company and numerous other important corporations, is a native of King's County, Nova Scotia, where he was born March 26th, 1851, a son of Charles Curry, a farmer of Scotch-Irish descent and Eunice (Davidson) Curry of English ancestry. At the age of 15 he started to learn the woodworking business (1866) and four years later went to Boston, Mass., remaining there for one year. He then crossed the continent seeking his fortune at a time when there were many hardships to endure and from 1872 to 1877 worked at his trade at Carson City, Nevada, with the Virginia & Truckee Railroad as assistant foreman and millwright in shops; this position he remained in until 1877 when he went to Amherst, Nova Scotia, and founded the firm of Rhodes, Curry and Company. In 1893 the company was incorporated and bought the car business of J. Harris & Co., and in 1909 together with the Dominion Car and Foundry Company, and the Canada Car Co. they were merged into the present corporation under the name of The Canadian Car & Foundry Company, the largest in the Dominion, and Mr. Curry was chosen as its president, which position he now holds. He is also president of Canadian Steel Foundries, a director of The Canadian Light & Power Co., of The Bank of Nova Scotia, of the Montreal Trust Co., of the Canadian Coal & Coke Co., of the Travelers Life Insurance Company of Montreal, of the Maritime Coal Railway & Power Co. and various other corporations in the Dominion of Canada. Mr. Curry is a member of the Mount Royal, The Engineers, The Canada, The Royal, Montreal Golf, The Caledonian Curling Clubs of Montreal, of the St. Andrews Society and of The National Club of Toronto. He was married September 17, 1881, to Mary Hall of Amherst, Nova Scotia, and they are the parents of five sons, Victor G. Curry, Eric M. Curry, Leon H. Curry, Ivan Curry (deceased) and N. R. Curry.

Mr. Curry was president of The Canadian Manufacturers Association in 1911, elected by acclamation and was made Senator in 1912. Received degree of LL. D., Acadia University, 1912.

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. 65.