Amor De Cosmos
Amor De Cosmos was a Canadian journalist, publisher and politician. He served as the second Premier of British Columbia.
Amor de Cosmos was born William Alexander Smith in Windsor, Nova Scotia to United Empire Loyalist parents. His education included a stint at Kings College in Windsor, following which, around 1840, he became a mercantile clerk in Halifax, Nova Scotia. There he joined the Dalhousie University debating club, and came under the influence of the Nova Scotia politician and reformer, Joseph Howe. In 1845,at the age of 20, he joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints converting to Mormonism. In 1852 he left for New York on a steam ship stopping first in Boston. He settled in Kanesville, known as Council Bluffs, Iowa, formonths where he established a daguerreotype gallery. But the following year the lure of the California Gold Rush beckoned, and Smith continued west, heading overland to Placerville, California. Here he set up a new studio and prospered taking pictures of the miners and their operations. Joined by his brother, the pair moved northwest to Oroville, California, wher
Source: Wikipedia