Today is a very important anniversary to mark as we have a Prime Ministerial bicentennial on the calendar.  So, it was on March 12, 1821, that future Prime Minister Sir John Abbott was born, in Quebec.  He was destined to become our third Prime Minister, succeeding Sir John A. himself in 1891 upon the former’s death while still in high office. Abbott had a fascinating career, both in and out of politics.  He was a distinguished legal scholar who taught at the McGill University Law School in Montreal.  One of his students, in fact, would also become Prime Minister, a smart, ambitious young fellow named Wilfrid Laurier.  At other points in his career, Abbott served as Mayor of Montreal and also practiced law, becoming one of Montreal’s leading commercial lawyers. Voters sent him to the House of Commons in 1867 and he was then summoned to the Senate in 1887 by Sir John A. He was a member of the Red Chamber when he became Prime Minister in June 1891, the first PM to lead from the Senate. Sir John A. Macdonald once famously described his colleague as only being able to smile from the “teeth outwards.” While Abbott’s time in Canada’s highest political office was brief – about 17 months – he can claim a remarkable political record during his term.  He and his party faced a total of 52 by-elections during the period and his Tories won a commanding 42 of them. Abbott was no fan of many facets of political life and stepped down as PM in November of 1892 to be succeeded by Sir John Thompson. He returned home to Montreal, already suffering from brain cancer and died in October of 1892 at 72-years-of-age. So, a happy bicentennial day to Sir John A. Abbott, the first Canadian born PM -- and also, by the way, the great-grandfather of famed Canadian actor Christopher Plummer! caption id="attachment_543758" align="aligncenter" width="311" Sir John Abbott, House of Commons Collection/caption Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist.  He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy.  A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.