Thomas Devine (1818 - November 14, 1888) was an Irish surveyor and cartographer active in Canada during the middle part of the 19th century. Devine mastered surveying working for the Ordnance Survey of Ireland and the Royal Engineers. He immigrated to Canada around 1846 and took work as a provincial land surveyor, eventually becoming official surveyor and draftsman for the Crown Lands Department, Upper Canada. In 1857, he was put in charge of the Upper Canada Surveys Branch, succeeding Andrew Russell, and was immediately assigned the work of compiling and publishing a group of important maps focusing on western Canada. There he completed his most important work, a great wall map entitled Map of the North West part of Canada, considered the first map of the west compiled and published in Canada. Following the Confederation, he became the Deputy Surveyor of Ontario, producing his last map in 1877. He retired in 1879, returning briefly to Ireland before settling down in Montreal. He was a member of the Royal Geographical Society, the Geographical Society of Berlin, and the American Geographical and Statistical Society. More by this mapmaker...

Joseph-Édouard Cauchon (December 31, 1816 – February 23, 1885) was a Canadian journalist, businessman, and politician. Cauchon born in Quebec City, the scion of one of Canada's oldest and most distinguished French families. He was educated at the Petit Séminaire de Québec from 1830 until 1839, after which he studied law in the offices of James George Baird. He passed the Canadian Bar, but there no record that he ever practiced law. After 1841, he took work as a journalist for Le Canadien. Impressed with the newspaper business, he partnered with his brother-in-law Augustin Côté, to publish the biweekly Journal de Québec. Cauchon has a reputation for being brash, opinionated, and ambitions. He is described by one of his enemies, Laurent-Olivier David, as 'ambitious, violent, enamoured of money, honours, and luxury, lacking in scruple, enterprising, full of shifts and expedients.' He was, on the other hand, admired by his friends as a brilliant politician, journalist, and historian. He supported the Confederation in a series of articles calling for a 'centralized federal system, resembling a legislative union rather than the American constitution.' Cauchon held various elected positions and was appointed Commissioner of Crown Lands for Canada in 1855, at which time he ordered several important maps produced. After leaving the position in April 1857 he continued to pursue he political ambitions, becoming a representative, senator, mayor of Quebec City, and more. He took part in the forming of the new government following the Confederation. He had an interest in western Canada including business in Manitoba. In time he retired with his son to a homestead called Whitewood in the Qu’Appelle Valley. He lived there on 'hard-tack and bacon,' and died on the 23rd of February, 1885. Learn More...