Richard Hardisty

Richard Charles Hardisty (March 3, 1831 – October 18, 1889) was a Hudson's Bay Company official at Edmonton, and a politician in the Northwest Territories, Canada.

The Honourable Richard Charles Hardisty
Senator from Edmonton, North-West Territories
In office 23 February 1888 – 15 October 1889
Nominated by	Sir John A. Macdonald
Appointed by	Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne
Preceded by	established
Succeeded by	Sir James Alexander Lougheed

He married Eliza McDougall on Sept 21, 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 John A. Macdonald on February 23, 1888, the first Metis Senator. He died just a year later while fording a river on horseback on October 18, 1889. His replacement in the Senate was Sir James Lougheed, who would marry his niece Belle Hardisty in 1891, and the grandfather of Peter Lougheed.[2]

The village of Hardisty, Alberta is named in his honour, as is Mount Hardisty in Jasper National Park.[3]

References

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. Place-names of Alberta. Ottawa: Geographic Board of Canada. 1928. p. 62.

External links

• Richard Hardisty – Parliament of Canada biography
• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online