A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time by Rose
1834. Mr. Moffat, the subject of our sketch, is the eldest son of this
3347 words | Chapter 90
worthy couple, and received his education in Bytown, now Ottawa. He
worked with his father in his mills in the section of country where the
family had settled, and which was then an almost unbroken wilderness,
until he was twenty-three years of age, when he began the lumber
business, and carried this on until 1865; and from that year he
conducted his father’s business, which consisted of flour and woollen
mills, until his death, on the 7th of April, 1872, when he, with his
brother Alexander, continued the business, to which they have added
oatmeal and saw mills, until 1878. The mills were on the site on which
his father first built in 1840. Mr. Moffat has in his day taken an
active interest in municipal affairs. He was reeve of the township of
Pembroke for the years 1871 to 1874; and during 1872 to 1876 he was
warden of the county of Renfrew. In 1875 and ’76 he occupied the
position of reeve of the village of Pembroke; and he was also the first
mayor of the town of Pembroke, holding that office in 1877 and 1878. In
January, 1885, he was appointed treasurer for the county of Renfrew, and
this office he continues to fill to the satisfaction of his fellow
citizens. He was the projector of the Kingston and Pembroke Railway, and
was one of its first directors. He is a member of the Masonic order. In
politics he is a Reformer, and twice carried the standard of his party
through political contests—one for the Dominion parliament and one for
the Ontario legislature—but unfortunately was unsuccessful on both
occasions. In religion he is a member of the Presbyterian church. In
1849 he was married to Isabella Ambrose Kennedy, who came from
Dumfriesshire, Scotland.
* * * * *
=Ouimet, Hon. Aldric Joseph=, Lieutenant-Colonel, LL.B., Q.C., Montreal,
M.P. for Laval County, and Speaker of the House of Commons at Ottawa,
was born at Ste. Rose, Laval county, on the 20th May, 1848. He belongs
to one of the oldest families in the district of Montreal, they having
settled there over a century ago. His father was Michel Ouimet, a
justice of the peace, and his mother, Elizabeth St. Louis Filiatrault.
Hon. Mr. Ouimet was educated at the Seminary of St. Therese de
Blainville, and graduated a LL.B. at Victoria College, Cobourg, Ontario,
in 1869. He studied law in the office of Edmund Barnard, in Montreal,
and was called to the bar of Lower Canada in 1870, and since that period
he has successfully practised his profession in Montreal, being the head
of the law firm of Ouimet, Cornellier and Emard. On the 11th October,
1880, he was appointed a Queen’s counsel. In 1874, he was elected a
member of the Board of Roman Catholic School Commissioners for Montreal,
and has ever since taken a direct interest in educational matters. He is
now a director of the Montreal City and District Savings Bank, and of
the Credit Foncier Franco-Canadién; and president of the Laval
Agricultural Society. A number of years ago he joined the volunteer
movement, and was promoted to a captaincy in the Mount Royal Rifles. He
is now lieutenant-colonel of the 65th battalion of rifles, and as such
commanded his battalion throughout the North-West campaign in 1885. He
did good service to his country in the Edmonton district, by pacifying
the Indians, and persuading the Half-breeds to support the Dominion
government. He is chairman of the council of the Dominion Rifle
Association. He was first returned to the Dominion parliament in
November, 1873, to his present seat, in place of the Hon. Joseph
Hyacinthe Bellerose, who was called to the Senate in October of that
year, and was re-elected by the same constituency by acclamation in
1874, 1878, and 1882. He was again elected at the general elections held
in 1887. He was unanimously chosen speaker of the House of Commons on
the 13th April, 1887, and now fills that high office with dignity and
impartiality. Hon. Mr. Ouimet is a Liberal-Conservative in politics, and
was returned as an independent supporter of Sir John A. Macdonald’s
administration. He is a thorough Canadian, and has great faith in the
future of Canada and of the Canadian nation. He supports a protective
tariff, and any other well-devised scheme for the improvement of the
country. In 1882 he voted for commercial independence. He seems to have
at an early period of his life struck out for himself an independent
career, and thus far he has succeeded. On the 30th July, 1874, he was
married to Theresa, daughter of Alfred La Rocque, of Montreal, by Emelie
Berthelot, and the fruit of the union has been four children.
* * * * *
=Whelan, Hon. Edward=, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.—The late
Hon. Edward Whelan was born of humble parents, in the county of Mayo,
Ireland, in the year 1824, and having received a fair common school
education, when quite a boy he emigrated to Nova Scotia, and apprenticed
himself to the Hon. Joseph Howe as a printer. At the age of nineteen he
came to Prince Edward Island, and commenced writing for some of the
public newspapers, and the brilliancy and force of his articles soon
brought him into public notice, and shortly afterwards he assumed the
editorship of a newspaper called _The Palladium_, in which the cause of
the tenantry was ably espoused, and the foundation laid for a vigorous
campaign, which resulted in the establishment of the present system of
responsible government, and the abolition of the rental system, which
was then as obnoxious to the people of Prince Edward Island as it is at
present to the people of his native land. At the early age of twenty-one
years, looking but a mere boy, he was elected to represent the second
district of Kings county in the local legislature, and shortly
afterwards having, in conjunction with the Hon. George Coles, succeeded
in obtaining responsible government for the province, was chosen a
member of the first government formed under the new constitution, and
was co-leader with Mr. Coles for several years; when, finding that his
position as a member of the Executive Council interfered with his
freedom in discussing public questions, he retired from the council,
retaining the office of Queen’s printer. His ready pen and eloquent
tongue were ever ready to defend the causes he had espoused, and
sometimes he would reply to the attacks of his opponents with such keen
severity, that, feeling their inability to cope with him in a paper
warfare, he was dragged into the courts on charges of defamation of
character. And his eloquent and able defence before the court on one of
those occasions won for him the admiration of the judges, lawyers, and
all who heard him, convincing not only the court and jury, but all who
heard or read his eloquent address to them, that he was no slanderer,
but only an exponent of public wrongs. He continued to represent the
second district of Kings county for over twenty years, during which time
his popularity never abated. When the confederation of the British
provinces was proposed, he warmly espoused the project, sincerely
believing that its accomplishment would materially add to the prosperity
and development of his adopted country; and although the party with whom
he formerly worked were for the most part opposed to the scheme, and
although he knew that the project was held in small favour by the great
majority of his constituents, he nevertheless openly advocated what his
honest convictions assured him was for their true welfare, although at
the expense of his present popularity and interest. And now, after a
lapse of over twenty years, the province almost unanimously acknowledges
that he was not only honest and sincere in his criticisms, but right in
his judgment, and a movement is on foot to erect a statue to his memory
in the principal square in Charlottetown. He was one of the delegates to
the Quebec convention for the confederation of the provinces, where he
made many friends, and did credit to himself and the province he
represented. The “Canadian Biographical Dictionary” of 1881 contains the
following tribute to his worth:—“Amongst the most noted statesmen and
orators in Prince Edward Island fifteen and thirty years ago was Edward
Whelan. A self-taught man and sagacious politician, at the age of
eighteen he came to the island, and shortly afterwards entered upon a
brilliant career of journalism, having great power with the pen, and
wielding it on the side of the people. In the local parliament, of which
he was a member for a score of years, he was a great power, the premier
part of the time, and one of the most courageous spokesmen of his party
(the Liberal at all times). Few men in this province, living or dead,
have done more service in getting important measures through parliament
and extending civil liberty through the island. . . . Mr. Whelan was a
Roman Catholic, and his death is reported to have been the triumph of
faith.” The following is an extract from a speech by J. C. Underhay,
M.P.P., at a meeting at Morell Bear in the fall of 1886, in advocacy of
erecting a monument to his memory:—“No marble monument is needed to
perpetuate the memory of Edward Whelan in this province. Our free
schools, free lands, and self-government, with the well-tilled fields
and comfortable homes, which all over the province have taken the place
of the rude structures and neglected farms of the rent paying era, are
all monuments to his memory more lasting than freestone or marble. But
the people of Prince Edward Island need to erect a monument to his
memory to tell to future generations that we, who were the immediate
recipients of the benefits his patriotic heart, his gifted intellect,
and his eloquent tongue secured for us, are not ungrateful for or
forgetful of the great benefits he was so largely instrumental in
securing for this province.” In 1851 Mr. Whelan married Mary Major,
daughter of George Hughes, of the commissariat department at Halifax, by
whom he had two daughters, who died some time previous to his own
decease, which took place on the 10th of December, 1867. He had one son,
a promising young man, who perished by the upsetting of a boat in
Charlotte Harbor on the 1st of July, 1875, casting a deep gloom over the
city, and so adding to the bereaved wife and mother’s already
overflowing cup of affliction, that the chief justice was heard to say
on the occasion that if ever there was a time when the miracle of
raising the widow’s son could be fitly repeated it was then. His widow
is still living, and, in consideration of the great public services
rendered to the country by her husband, receives an annual grant from
the legislature. Her whole existence seems to be wrapt up in the memory
of her departed husband, and the one great desire of her life is to live
to see a suitable monument erected to his memory.
* * * * *
=Underhay, John Collier=, Farmer and Land Surveyor, Bay Fortune, M.P.P.
for Kings, First District, was born at Bay Fortune, in Kings county, in
the province of Prince Edward Island, on the 15th of January, 1829. He
is the only surviving son of William Underhay, who emigrated to Prince
Edward Island from Devonshire, England, in the year 1818, and married
Marianne Withers, daughter of James Withers, of the Commissariat
department, Somerset, England, and sister to J. C. Withers, the present
Queen’s printer of Newfoundland. The first months of their married life
were spent in one of the houses on Lord Townshend’s estate, which
Captain Marryat gives an account of the building of for the Irish
emigrants. It was first occupied by Pat. Pierce, who murdered Abel, the
steward or agent, at whose place the officers of the ship in which the
“naval officer” sailed stayed while Lord Townshend was settling his new
tenants on his estate, the nearest part of which was only about a mile
and a half from the harbor where the warship was lying, and close to
which the agent, Edward Abel, lived. After several removals, each one
diminishing the stock of money brought from the old country, until it
was about exhausted, they settled on the land which now comprises the
premises where the subject of this sketch was born, and now resides. He
received there a good common school education, and he completed his
studies with Robert Blacke Irving, who was then one of the best
mathematicians in the province. Having at a very early age closely
identified himself with the party who was contending for responsible
government, free schools, and free lands. At the age of twenty-four
years he was appointed a justice of the peace, the youngest person ever
appointed to that office in the province. Some years after he was
appointed a commissioner of the court for the trial of small debts at
Bay Fortune, and occupied the position of presiding judge in that court
until those courts gave place to the present county courts. In 1868 he
connected himself with the Independent Order of Good Templars, and in
1870 was elected grand chief of the province, a position which he has
since filled for two successive terms. In May, 1884, he was a delegate
to the Washington session of the Right Worthy Grand Lodge, and was
placed on several important committees; and has ever since his
connection with the order taken a leading part in the temperance
movement. In 1874, he contested, unsuccessfully, the first legislative
council district of Kings county, but in 1879 he was returned to
represent the first district of Kings county in the House of Assembly.
At the general election in 1882 he contested the second district
unsuccessfully; but at the next general election, in 1886, he was
returned for that district, which he now represents, in conjunction with
the leader of the government. He was formerly a Liberal in politics, but
lately has allied himself with the Liberal-Conservatives, whom he thinks
more fully represent the principles of the old Liberal party of his
province. As a justice of the peace Mr. Underhay has demonstrated more
successfully than any other officer in the province that the Canada
Temperance Act was workable in all its provisions, and only wanted
public sympathy and support to make it effectual in the suppression of
the liquor traffic. He has been the presiding magistrate in over fifty
suits for violation of its provisions, and not one of these has been set
aside or judgment reversed by subsequent legal proceedings. During the
survey for the Prince Edward Island Railway, he suggested several
alterations as to location, which time has demonstrated, and it is now
generally conceded, would have been great improvements had they been
adopted, and would have materially added to the utility of the line. He,
however, succeeded, in opposition to the official engineers, in getting
the present line through Souris to the Breakwater—a route which,
although universally admitted to be the best, was declared by the
engineers in charge to be impracticable. This route has proved to be not
only by far the most convenient, but the cheapest to construct. He was
brought up a member of the Church of England, but living amidst a
Presbyterian community, he is a regular attendant and supporter of the
Presbyterian church, and has for over fifteen years held the offices of
secretary and treasurer to the congregation. He took an active and
leading part in the erection of the new church at Bay Fortune. He has
been a trustee for the school district in which he resides continuously
for nearly a quarter of a century; and on every occasion that he was a
candidate for a seat in the legislature he received an almost unanimous
vote from the settlers for several miles around, without regard to
political or other party distinction. He is taking a leading part in the
present movement for the erection of a monument to perpetuate the memory
of the late Hon. E. Whelan, who, in conjunction with the Hon. G. Coles,
obtained for the province self-government, free schools and free lands,
and many other liberal reforms. On the 17th September, 1856, Mr.
Underhay was married to Rosaline, daughter of the late Hon. James
Craswell, M.L.C., a descendant of Sir Edward Craswell.
* * * * *
=Read, John=, Secretary-Treasurer and Manager of the Stratford Gas and
Electric Light Company, Stratford, Ontario, was born in South Petherton,
Somersetshire, England, on the 20th August, 1838. His parents were John
and Susan Read. He received his education in his native parish, and also
attended for a short time Billing’s Academy, near where he was born,
receiving a very meagre education, having to leave school when only
thirteen years of age to accompany his parents to America. Shortly after
his coming to Ontario, in February, 1852—he having arrived in Canada in
September, 1851—he was apprenticed to the late Mark Holmes, in London,
to learn the trade of carriage-making; and having faithfully served his
time and worked some time as a journeyman, he removed to Stratford in
May, 1862, which city he made his place of abode. In 1865 he entered
into partnership with John Humphrey, and they carried on the business of
carriage and waggon makers for some years. In 1875 he became a building
contractor, and continued as such until 1883, when he abandoned
business, and accepted the position of secretary-treasurer and manager
of the Stratford Gas and Electric Light Company, which office he still
holds. Mr. Read has been in public life for about twenty years, and has
held during that time the various offices of councillor, reeve, and
public and high school trustee. He has always taken a great interest in
the improvement of the city, and worked hard to secure for it a public
cemetery, under one management, in which the remains of both Protestants
and Catholics may be consigned to mother earth. He also took an active
part in the erection of the high and public school buildings, which are
a credit to the young city of Stratford. Mr. Read belongs to the order
of Oddfellows, and is a past representative of that body. He is a
Conservative in politics, and has held for several years the office of
president of the Conservative Association of Stratford. He, too, has
been president of the North Perth Agricultural Society, and while he
held office the new fair grounds were purchased and buildings erected
thereon. In religion he is an adherent of the Methodist church. He was
married on the 1st September, 1874, to Mary E. Taylor, whose parents are
of Irish descent, and live in Ohio, United States.
* * * * *
=Pope, Hon. Joseph=, ex-Auditor and Manager of the Savings Bank,
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, was born on the 20th June, 1803, at
Turnchapel, Devon, England. His father was Thomas Pope, of Padstow,
Cornwall, England, and his mother, Annie Hase, of Barnstaple, Devon,
England. His grandfather was a substantial yeoman, who occupied his own
estate. Joseph was the sixth and youngest son, and his brothers almost
all distinguished themselves in their professions and callings. He
received his education at West Hore, parish of Plymstock, Devon,
England, and landed in Prince Edward Island in 1819, one year later than
his brothers, William and John, who had established themselves there as
merchants and shipowners. John returned to England in 1823, and William
in 1828, leaving Joseph to carry on the business on his own account at
Bedeque, where he afterwards remained for thirty-two years. In 1830 he
was elected to represent Prince county in the Legislative Assembly, and
occupied a seat in the house for twenty-three consecutive years, during
which period he was twice speaker for two full terms. In June, 1839, he
was appointed to a seat in the Executive Council, and in 1851, upon the
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