L’Islet. Maternally he is descended from Jacques Babie, an officer of
the Regiment of Carignan-Salières, who landed in Quebec in 1665, and
whose descendants of that name have occupied high and responsible
positions in the country. His grandfather was the late Hon. Charles
Eusèbe Casgrain, lieutenant-colonel, unattached, who sat for Cornwallis
in the Lower Canada Assembly from 1830 to 1834, was a member of the
Special Council of Lower Canada from 1838 to 1840, and at his death held
the office of assistant commissioner of Public Works of Canada. His
father, the Hon. Charles Eugène Casgrain, C.M., M.D., is one of the
senators of the Dominion. He was educated in Quebec, and studied
medicine in McGill College, Montreal. He began the practice of his
profession in Detroit, U.S., in 1851, but removed to Sandwich in 1856,
and now resides at Windsor. He has held various prominent positions in
his country; and was created a knight of the order of the Holy Sepulchre
in 1884. He was called to the Senate in 1887. His mother is Charlotte
Mary Chase, a daughter of the late Thomas Chase, of Detroit, Michigan,
and Catherine Caroline Adelaide Bailli de Messein, of Quebec. Thomas,
the subject of our sketch, is the eldest son of this union. He was
educated in classics at the Quebec Seminary, in Quebec, where he
graduated with high honors in 1872, having stood at the head of his
class for five years. In mathematics, sciences, moral philosophy, at
Laval University, Quebec, and law, also at Laval, where he graduated a
master-in-law (licencié en droit), _summa cum laude_ in June, 1877,
carrying off the Dufferin medal for that year. He was called to the bar
in August, 1877, and settled in Quebec, where he began the practice of
law in partnership with Col. Guillaume Amyot, M.P., whom he left in 1881
to join the extensive law firm of Langlois, Larue, Angers & Casgrain.
Mr. Langlois having died, and Mr. Larue having been appointed a judge of
the Superior Court, Mr. Casgrain, in 1887, on his appointment as a
Queen’s counsel, became the senior partner of the firm of Casgrain,
Angers & Hamel, which has one of the most extensive practices in the
district of Quebec. He was appointed a member of the Law Faculty of
Laval University in October, 1878, and its secretary in November of the
same year. He was also appointed professor of Criminal Law in the same
institution, and granted the degree of Doctor of Civil Law in October,