Donald Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal immortalised as the "Cheeryble Brothers" in Charles Dickens' book, Nicholas Nickleby. Donald's mother was the sister of the Canadian explorer John Stuart, partner of the North West Company who rose to become Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay Company. Smith was educated at Anderson's Free School and on leaving at age sixteen he was apprenticed to become a lawyer in the offices of Robert Watson, Town Clerk of Forres. By the age of eighteen, Smith chose another career path: offered entry into mercantile life at Manchester, and a career in the Indian Civil Service, his choice was to pattern himself
Dickens in America these would be the meetings he had with American literary figures of the day. He met Longfellow in Cambridge, Washington Irving in New York and Edgar Allan Poe in Philadelphia. Part Six - Washington DC and Richmond Dickens traveled south by steamboat to Washington. Miriam travels along the Potomac in a pleasure boat. The two things that Dickens detested the most about America were slavery and tobacco spitting, which he saw more and more of, as he traveled further south. Dickens praised his first view of Washington and the capitol. (The capitol today is a much expanded building with a