The story behind this community’s namesake, Matthew Henry Cochrane, is one of unremitting success, but has very little to do with the town at all, and strangely enough, is not the only ‘Cochrane’ who had an incredible influence in the area.
Often referred to as Senator Cochrane, the industrialist, entrepreneur and livestock breeder, is said to have once admitted that he had only taken the Senate floor once or twice during his time as a senator, which spanned from 1872 to 1903.
A Conservative politician, Mr. Cochrane was appointed by former prime minister Sir John A. Macdonald, presumably because he was considered to be the primary player behind a flood of livestock investment in Western Canada.
Mr. Cochrane’s main feats, of which there were many, stem from his entrepreneurial success, which was made possible from a commercial and industrial apprenticeship in the Boston, Mass. area.
Building enough capital between his stint in the Boston area between 1841 and 1854, Mr. Cochrane set up a footware factory in Montreal – he was born in 1832 in Compton, Lower Canada, located in Quebec, where he also died at the age of 79.
Later on, Mr. Cochrane purchased an agricultural property in 1864 in Compton County, building a farming enterprise with the money he had made from the footware factory.
His venture quickly became a ‘farming enterprise’, named Hillhurst Estate, and expanded to 1,100 acres in the few years following its inception, making Mr. Cochrane the biggest landowner in Compton County.
He also held office in several Canadian companies, including the Canada Agricultural Insurance Company and the Canadian Meat and Produce Company, before entering his political venture in the Senate.
Mr. Cochrane was the president of the Cochrane Ranche Company Ltd., which changed livestock ranching in the west from then on out.
The company eventually was the second ranked livestock business behind only the British company Walrond Ranche.
In the end, the companies Mr. Cochrane was president of were dissolved shortly after his death, and his estate was sold in Compton County.
Railway tracks came through town in 1883, and it was Canadian Pacific Railway that decided to name the community after Mr. Cochrane.
Ironically, there is another ‘Cochrane’ to this story – Thomas B.H. Cochrane.
With no relation to Matthew Cochrane, Thomas, along with his wife Lady Adela, had established the community of Mitford around 1885, what today’s town of Cochrane was formerly known as.
Thomas and Adela created the first lumber business in Mitford in 1886, employing 50 men, but is said to have been very poorly organized and closed in 1890.
Adding to the paradox of having two, unaffiliated historical figures with the surname ‘Cochrane’, is the fact that Thomas, like Matthew, entered the world of politics in 1896. He was defeated in his House of Commons bid and Thomas and Adela returned to England shortly after, where they lived out the remainder of their lives and are now buried on the Isle of Wight.
Mitford was deserted by 1898, and many of the buildings that had been built during Thomas’ rein had been destroyed by fire.
It is written in More Big Hill Country that Lady Adela would not believe the news that Mitford had been abandoned and destroyed.
The name ‘Cochrane’ means a lot to this town, and given that so many pioneers in the area harboured the same family name, it’s no wonder why.
Information in this story was derived from a summary of Matthew Henry Cochrane written by Jacques Ferland, a University of Maine history professor, who wrote the piece for the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, and from the Cochrane Historical & Archival Preservation Society’s book, More Big Hill Country.
