A Canadian politician, who served as mayor of Sudbury, Ontario in 1895
On the evening of September 14, 1897, Sudbury’s third mayor, Murray C. Biggar, mysteriously vanished from his office. He had told his wife, Etta, that he would quickly check his mail and return home, but he was never seen again.
The next day, a skiff and oars were found on Lake Ramsey, along with a fragment of a telegram addressed to Biggar. Was it possible he had attempted to row to a nearby island to meet his law clerk, John McPhail, and tragically drowned? Sudbury’s first town constable, Const. Gagne took the drastic step of dynamiting Lake Ramsey in a search for answers, but despite his efforts, Biggar’s body never surfaced.
(From the City of Greater Sudbury Archives.)
After his defeat in 1896, Murray C. Biggar abruptly disappeared from Sudbury, abandoning both his law practice and his family. While rumours circulated that he had drowned in Lake Ramsey, Sudbury resident Gus Harwood discovered him alive in San Francisco in 1898. Biggar had briefly ventured to the Yukon to try his hand at prospecting during the Klondike Gold Rush, but after failing to stake a claim, he relocated to San Francisco to start anew.
Murray Clement Biggar was born in Walpole, Ontario, to James Pettit Biggar and Priscilla Pettit Clement. On September 26, 1895, he married Etta Lovell Cleland in Collingwood, Ontario. A dedicated lawyer, Biggar enrolled as a solicitor with the Law Society of Upper Canada in 1890 and was called to the bar in December 1894. He practiced law in Sudbury from 1892 until he was elected mayor. After his loss in 1896, he is believed to have continued his legal practice until his mysterious disappearance.
The last official mention of M.C. Biggar in the Town of Sudbury Minutes appears to be on August 2, 1897.
According to C.M. Wallace and Ashley Thomson, “In 1896, Biggar himself mysteriously vanished, leaving behind his law practice, his wife, and his home. At the time, everyone thought he had drowned in Lake Ramsey, but in 1898, Gus Harwood, Fournier’s challenger in 1891, came across the former mayor in San Francisco, where he had relocated after failing to strike it rich in the Klondike. Later, Biggar was rumoured to have moved on to South America.”
C.M. Wallace & Ashley Thomson, "Sudbury: Rail Town to Regional Capital," (Toronto: Dundurn Press Limited, 1993), p. 56