The subject of this sketch, a son of Benjamin and Deborah (Smith) Bangs, was born at Stanstead, Lower Canada, now the Province of Quebec, January 19, 1814. His father was a native of Massachuesetts, his mother of New Hampshire. They moved to Canada in 1812. When Chauncey was about four years old the family removed to Montreal, and a little later to L’Orignal, county of Prescott, Ontario, the business of the father being that of a hatter and fur manufacturer. The opportunities for an education in that part of the Dominion, fifty years ago, were very limited, and our subject did little more than master the rudiments.
He early learned his father’s trade; moved to 0ttawa in 1847, and continued in the hat and fur business until 1875, operating in the meantime more or less in other lines. In 1867 he aided in forming the “Buckingham Manufacturing Company,” which purchased six hundred acres of timber lands and erected a saw mill eighteen miles below Ottawa, in the county of Ottawa, on the Du Lievre, a tributary of the Ottawa river. He is President of the Company, which, owing to the depression in the lumber trade, has not done much business during the last four or five years.
Mr. Bangs represented Wellington Ward nine consecutive years as alderman in the city council, and was mayor in 1878. At the general election in that year, he was the candidate of the Reform party for the Dominion Parliament, and was unsuccessful, the Conservatives having a strong majority in the district though the majority against him was quite small. He was defeated for re-election to the mayoralty in the same year, party spirit running very high.
Mr. Bangs is a Free Mason, but rarely we believe attends the meetings of the Lodge.
He and his family attend the Presbyterian church, he being a liberal supporter of religious and benevolent enterprises.
His wife was Elizabeth Kirby, daughter of William Kirby, of Hawkesbury, county of Prescott, their union occurring on the 17th of September 1849. They have eight children, four sons and four daughters. Elizabeth Jane, the eldest daughter, is the wife of David Gardner of Ottawa, no others are married. Their names are William Chauncey, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Chauncey Ward, Emma Smith, Lucy Burnham and Maria Louisa. All the children were born in Ottawa.