Richard Hardisty

Richard Hardisty
Senator from Edmonton, North-West Territories
In office
23 February 1888 – 15 October 1889
Nominated byJohn A. Macdonald
Appointed byHenry Petty-Fitzmaurice
Preceded byPosition established
Succeeded byJames Alexander Lougheed
Personal details
Born
Richard Charles Hardisty

(1831-03-02)2 March 1831
Fort Mistassini, Rupert's Land
Died15 October 1889(1889-10-15) (aged 58)
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Richard Charles Hardisty (3 March 1831 – 15 October 1889) was a Hudson's Bay Company official at Edmonton and a politician in the North-West Territories, Canada.

He married Eliza McDougall on 21 September 1866 while he was a Hudson's Bay Company employee.[1]

He ran as an Independent Conservative in the 1887 Canadian federal election and finished a close second in the Alberta (Provisional District). He lost to Donald Watson Davis.

He was appointed to the Senate of Canada on the advice of Prime Minister John A. Macdonald on 23 February 1888, the first Métis senator. He died on 15 October 1889, two weeks after being thrown from a buggy. His replacement in the Senate was Sir James Lougheed, who later married Richard Hardisty's niece Isabella (Belle) Hardisty in 1891. James Lougheed was the grandfather of Peter Lougheed, premier of Alberta from 1971 to 1985.[2][3][4]

The village of Hardisty, Alberta, is named in his honour, as is Mount Hardisty in Jasper National Park.[5]

  1. ^ Sanderson, Kay (1999). 200 Remarkable Alberta Women. Calgary: Famous Five Foundation. p. 3. Archived from the original on 2015-09-24.
  2. ^ MacEwan, Grant (1975). Calgary cavalcade from Fort to fortune. Saskatoon, Canada: Western Producer Book Service. pp. 77–80. ISBN 978-0-91930-650-9. Retrieved 19 May 2020.
  3. ^ "Senator Hardisty". Manitoba Weekly Free Press. October 17, 1889.
  4. ^ Graveland, Bill (26 November 2023). "'Part of our history': New book looks at Peter Lougheed and his Métis grandmother". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2 June 2024.
  5. ^ Place-names of Alberta. Ottawa: Geographic Board of Canada. 1928. p. 62.