Weekes, Abel Seneca, 1866-1936

Identity area

Type of entity

Person

Authorized form of name

Weekes, Abel Seneca, 1866-1936

Parallel form(s) of name

Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules

Other form(s) of name

  • Weekes, Abel S., 1866-1936
  • Weekes, A. S., 1866-1936
  • Abel Seneca Weekes, OLS, DLS, SLS, ALS
  • Weekes, A. Seneca, 1866-1936
  • Abel Seneca Weekes, 1866-1936
  • A. S. Weekes, 1866-1936
  • Abel Seneca Weekes, D.L.S.
  • A. S. Weekes, D.L.S.
  • Abel Seneca Weekes, A.L.S.
  • A. S. Weekes, A.L.S.
  • Abel S. Weekes, 1866-1936
  • A. Seneca Weekes, 1866-1936
  • Abel Seneca Weekes, O.L.S.
  • A. S. Weekes, O.L.S.

Identifiers for corporate bodies

Description area

Dates of existence

1866-1936

History

Abel Seneca Weeks was born February 17, 1866 on a farm in Moss Township, near Glencoe, Ontario. Although in 1885 Weekes passed his second class non-professional teachers' exam, he become employed with the surveying and engineering firm Code [Coad?] and Robertson out of Clinton, Ontario, conducting work primarily in northern Ontario. Weekes apprenticed with the firm for three years from 1887-1890, and would receive his commission as an Ontario Land Surveyor in April 1890. In the summer of 1890, he became an assistant to James Tiernan for his township survey of the Spanish River District, and thereafter Weekes established his own office in Clinton and became an engineer and surveyor for several townships, but continued a working relationship with Tiernan. In February 1892, he received his commission as a Dominion Land Surveyor and in the summer of that year he started as an assistant to Elihu Stewart of Collingwood on a survey of Falconbridge and McLellan on Lake Wahnapitae. Afterwards Weekes moved to western Canada in 1894 and for three years worked as a land surveyor and prospector across the region, including working as assistant to J. L. Foster on subdivision surveys of townships southeast of Wetaskiwin. In 1897, he joined with Albert E. Schaefer (Shaefer?) on travels up the Mackenzie River and proceeded to spend the next five years mining, trading, and seafaring in the north. During this period included working in the Yukon during the gold rush, in the fur trade, lumber industry, spending two summers on the Alaska commercial Steamboat "Victoria" as 2nd Engineer, and serving as an employee of the Fort Yukon store of the North American Transportation and Trading Company. In the spring of 1903, Weekes applied to the Department of the Interior for work and this resulted in an appointment as assistant to Thomas Turnbull who was helping with the location of the Barr Colony and afterwards inspecting surveys with charge of all the work not lying between the North and South Saskatchewan rivers. This was followed in early 1904 by him being awarded a contract for surveying a township of Whitemouth, Manitoba and then a contract for fourteen (14) townships south of Tramping Lake, Saskatchewan. Starting November 21, 1904 Weekes began working as a surveyor on right-of-ways and townships for the Canadian Northern Railway Company (CNoR) and when it amalgamated with Grand Trunk Pacific (GTP) he proceeded to Canadian National Railway (CN) where he worked as chief land surveyor for western Canada until he retired on February 17, 1931. During his career, he was a member of the Engineering Institute of Canada, Dominion Land Surveyors' Association, Ontario Land Surveyors' Association, a member of the executive of the Alberta Land Surveyors' Association (serving as president in 1918), and president of the Saskatchewan Land Surveyors' Association,

Weekes married twice; his first marriage was to Miriam Millicent Smith in December 1906, with whom he had one son (William James) and five (5) daughters (Miriam, Betty, Frances, Mary, Ruth) and her passing in April 1925 led him to marry again to Anna Whiteford in 1926.

Weekes died on April 25, 1936 in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

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Status

Draft

Level of detail

Minimal

Dates of creation, revision and deletion

2019-03-15 (Revisioin)
2021-02-24 (Revision)

Language(s)

  • English

Script(s)

  • Latin

Sources

Saskatchewan Land Surveyors' Association. "Member biography : Abel Seneca Weekes." Retrieved from: https://www.slsa.sk.ca/biographies/022.php.

Alberta Land Surveyors' Association. "Alberta land surveyors : Abel Seneca Weekes." Last modified 2015-07-29. Retrieved from http://albertalandsurveyhistory.ca/index.php?title=Abel_Seneca_Weekes&oldid=3262

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