A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time by Rose

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