Reuben Wells Leonard died on December 17th, 1950, at St. Catharine’s, Ont., Canada, at the age of 70.
A Canadian by birth, he graduated from the Royal Military College of Canada in 1883, with the award of the Silver Medal, and joined the engineering staff engaged on the surveys and construction of the Lake Superior division of the Canadian Pacific Railway. He served in the North West Rebellion in 1885, and after three years spent as chief engineer of the Cumberland Railway & Coal Co., of Springhill, Nova, Scotia, he returned to the engineering staff of the C.P.R., with whom he worked until 1903, most of the time as chief engineer and manager of construction of branch lines, with occasional trips for examination and report on mineral properties in Ontario and Novia Scotia. He was personally responsible for the construction of the C.P.R. line from Montreal to Ottawa, and the St. Lawrence and Adirondack road from Montreal to Malone.
In 1903 he was appointed engineer in charge of the construction of the hydro-electric plant for the Dominion Transmission Co. at St. Catherine’s, and in 1905 he was employed in a similar capacity at the Kaministiquia Power Co’s hydro-electric plant west of Fort William, Ont. In 1907, he became president and general manager of the Coniagas Mines, Ltd., and the Coniagas Reduction Co., Ltd., with head offices at St. Catherine’s, and he was connected with those companies, of which he was the principal owner, until his death.
Colonel Leonard was elected a Member of the Institution in 1909.
Vol. 41, Trans IMM 1931-32, p.657
[The North-West Rebellion was a short-lived uprising by the Métis people under Louis Riel, a Canadian politician, and an associated uprising by First Nations Cree and Assiniboine of the District of Saskatchewan against the government of Canada.]
