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Alexander Cameron Rutherford was a lawyer, politician and the first premier of the newly created province of Alberta.
Born in 1857 near Osgoode, Carleton County, Canada West (Ontario), he was the fourth son of James Rutherford, a dairy farmer, and Elizabeth Cameron.[1][2] After graduating from a Baptist college in Woodstock, Ontario, he taught for a year before attending McGill University (BA, BCL 1881). He articled in Ottawa and was called to the Ontario Bar in 1885. He practiced in Kemptville, Ontario, for ten years.
He married Mattie Birkett in Ottawa on December 19, 1888.[3] The couple had three children, Cecil, Hazel and Marjorie.
The Rutherfords moves to South Edmonton, District of Alberta, in 1895. Rutherford held several positions in the community before it was incorporated as the town of Strathcona in 1899. In the 1902 election, he ran as the candidate for the newly created riding of Srathcona in the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories and won. In 1905 he became the first premier, treasurer and minister of education of the newly created province of Alberta. Five years later, he was forced to resign over a scandal involving the government's dealings with the Alberta and Great Waterways Railway. He was defeated in the 1913 provincial election and returned to his law practice. From 1927 to 1941 he served as chancellor of the University of Alberta.[4]
In 1910, he put the name "Bonnie Doon", from a Robert Burns poem, on land he owned east of Mill Creek in south Edmonton. Later the name spread to what is now the entire neighbourhood of Bonnie Doon.[5]
He died in Edmonton on June 11, 1941, and was buried at Mount Pleasant Municipal Cemetery, Edmonton.[6]
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Categories: Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Edmonton, Alberta | 194th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, World War I | Freemasonry | Alberta Historical Society | Alberta, Jurists | Strathcona, Alberta | Strathcona, Northwest Territories | Kemptville, Ontario | Ontario, Jurists | McGill University | University of Alberta | Members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta | Northwest Territories, Legislative Assembly | St. Andrew's Society of Edmonton | Alberta, Premiers | Ontario, Rutherford Name Study | Alberta, Rutherford Name Study | Bonnie Doon, Edmonton, Alberta One Place Study | Canada, Notables | Notables | Rutherford Name Study