Thom Adam
Born in Scotland. Educated at King's College, Aberdeen.
Came to Canada, and practised law in Montreal. Appointed recorder of
Rupert's Land, 1838, and arrived in the Red River Settlement the
following year. Also legal adviser to the governor of Assiniboia. His
arbitrary conduct made him extremely unpopular, especially among the
French half-breeds, and he was compelled to retire from the bench in
1849. The following year
reinstated, to try a complicated case of
defamatory conspiracy, but the verdict proved so unsatisfactory that
Governor Caldwell procured his permanent removal, and had him appointed
clerk of the court. Resigned this office in 1854, and returned to
Scotland. =Index=: (Mackenzie / Selkirk / Simpson era) Governor Simpson makes him recorder of Red
River, 1839, 245; opposes Papineau in Lower Canada, 245; his newspaper
letters signed "Camillus," 245; on Durham's staff, 245; returns with him
to England, 245; his influence in Red River affairs, 246; the "stormy
petrel," of the Settlement, 247; returns to England, 1854, 247; his
connection with Simpson's narrative of his journey round the world, 249.