Part 96

=Taschereau, Hon. Henry T.=, B.L., B.C.L., Montreal, Judge of the Superior Court of the province of Quebec, was born in the city of Quebec, on the 6th October, 1841. He is the son of the Hon. Jean Thomas Taschereau, late one of the judges of the Supreme Court of the Dominion, who, after being on the bench for nineteen years, was forced to resign his position in consequence of ill-health, in October, 1878. His grandfather, Hon. Jean Thomas Taschereau, was in his lifetime one of the puisne judges of the Court of Queen’s Bench of Lower Canada, and his grandmother, Marie Panet, was a daughter of the Hon. Jean Panet, first speaker of the House of Assembly for Quebec province, which he held for twenty consecutive years. Judge Taschereau, the subject of our sketch, is the fifth member of the Taschereau family who have sat on the bench of the province of Quebec, or of the dominion of Canada, and is a nephew of his Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop of Quebec. The family is one of the oldest and most distinguished in that province, its founder in Canada having been Thomas Jacques, of Touraine, France, son of Christopher Taschereau, King’s counsellor, director of the mint, and treasurer of the city of Tours. This gentleman came to Canada about the beginning of the last century, was appointed treasurer of the marine, and in 1736 obtained the cession of a seigniory on the banks of the Chaudière river, Quebec province. Judge Taschereau was educated at the Quebec Seminary, and at Laval University, and received from Laval the degree of B.L., in 1861, and B.C.L. in 1862. He took up law as a profession, and practised in Quebec, with marked success, until he was elevated to the bench, in 1878. He was at one time a member of the city council of Quebec, and represented the city on the North Shore Railway Board. In 1862 he edited the newspaper, _Les Debats_, and in 1863 was one of the editors of _La Tribune_, of Quebec. He entered active political life in 1863, and ran as candidate for the county of Dorchester in the Legislative Assembly of Canada, but failed to secure his election. In 1872 he was more successful, and was returned as member for Montmagny county to the House of Commons. In 1874 he again presented himself for election, and was returned by acclamation. In politics, he was a Liberal. Being possessed of good talents and fine culture, with a good judicial mind, he has already done credit to his family of eminent parents. He was first married to a daughter of E. L. Pacaud, advocate of Arthabaska, on the 22nd June, 1864, and has a family of nine children. After the death of his first wife (Nov., 1883), he married in April, 1885, Mrs. Marie Masson, widow, of Montreal, sister-in-law of ex-Lieut.-Governor Masson. No children by last marriage.

* * * * *

=McLachlan, Alexander=, Erin, Ontario, was born at the Brig o’ Johnston, Scotland, in the year 1820. He is the son of a mechanic, and has had few of the advantages to be derived from a liberal education, yet from boyhood he was a great reader, and thus became acquainted with the works of the principal British authors. In early life he was apprenticed to a tailor, and worked at his trade for many years. In this way he fostered his inborn love of song, as few occupations are more conducive to the growth of poetic sentiment than a mechanical movement of the fingers, which leaves thought free to soar to heights that idleness could never hope to attain. In early life he became connected with the Chartist movement, but afterwards changed his views. In 1840 he emigrated to Canada, and, for a short time, made his home in the wild-wood; but since appearing before the public as an author and lecturer, he has resided at Erin, Wellington county, Ontario. The height of Mr. McLachlan’s ambition is to be to Canada what Burns was to Scotland: the poet of the people; and in this, we think, he has succeeded thus far. We cannot say that a greater than he may not appear in the future; but we have not yet seen any volume of Canadian verse equal to his in the simplicity that goes to the heart of the poor and lowly. In this respect he meets a want of the community, and occupies a position of honor that a poet of higher culture might vainly aspire to fill. It does not fall to the lot of every man to receive an education that will enable him to appreciate the classic beauties of a “Mulvaney” or a “Roberts,” or the chaste imagery of a “Maclean”; nor has nature gifted everyone with the “wild wealth of imagination” (we quote Collins) that would lead him to revel in the love-songs, of a “Caris Sima”; but what Canadian farmer, with a soul large enough to survive the transit to another sphere, would not feel the pathos of the lines that he writes on the death of his ox. This poem, though faulty in construction, brings the trials and sufferings of the early settler so graphically before the reader that it is impossible for us to overlook it. We quote the following lines:

Here, single-handed, in the bush, I battled on for years; My heart sometimes buoyed up with hope; sometimes bowed down with fears. I had misfortunes not a few, e’en from the very first; But take them altogether, “Bright,” thy death’s the very worst.

And again he writes,

How can I ever clear the land? How can I drag the wheat? How can I keep my credit good? How can my children eat?

The reader of these lines, perhaps, at the moment, a judge of the supreme court, a member of parliament, or a minister of the Gospel, will instantly look back to his boyhood’s days and see the meek-eyed oxen standing before the log-cabin door, from which issues the form of his father, bearing a long slender switch, which he twirls round in front of the gentle animals as he says “haw, Buck, gee, Bright”; and again he will see them struggling in the yoke, their wide-spreading horns clashing together as they draw the great logs into a heap for the burning; and seeing the result of the early settlers’ efforts in the magnificent stretches of cleared land, and waving fields of grain, he will sing, with our poet, in patriotic strain:

Hurrah! for the grand old forest land, Where freedom spreads her pinion; Hurrah with me, for the maple tree, Hurrah! for the new Dominion.

It is, though portrayed in the humblest language, a very pathetic picture he draws of “Old Hannah,” poor old woman, husband and children all gone, sitting, on the Sabbath morn, on the doorstep of her desolate home, with her Bible on her knee, looking as sweetly patient as only those purified by affliction can look, and silently teaching us to thank God for the suffering that alone can fit us for the kingdom of heaven. We quote these lines:

In her faded widow’s cap; She is sitting alone On the old grey stone With her Bible in her lap. . . . . . . Her years are o’er three score and ten, And her eyes are waxing dim, But the page is bright With a living light, And her heart leaps up to Him Who pours the mystic harmony Which the soul can only hear, She is not alone On the old grey stone, Though no earthly friend is near.

For his poem, “Halls of Holyrood,” Mr. McLachlan, in a world-wide competition, won the prize offered some years ago by the _Glasgow Workman_ newspaper, for a national song for Scotland. In 1863 he was appointed by the Canadian government to lecture throughout Great Britain in favor of emigration to Canada. He has also lectured in the principal Canadian towns and villages on various subjects. He speaks with much earnestness and simplicity. As a poet, we would say, Mr. McLachlan has written many pretty musical pieces, while all his work evinces much force, fervor, and simplicity. Here is a line of great beauty that he gives birth to when he speaks of the humming bird as

Wandering spirit of the flowers.

And here is a pretty stanza from “Indian Summer”:

Down from the blue the sun has driven, And stands between the earth and heaven, In robes of smouldering flame; A smoking cloud before him hung, A mystic veil, for which no tongue Of earth can find a name; And o’er him bends the vault of blue; With shadowy faces looking through The azure deep profound; The stillness of eternity, A glory and a mystery, Encompass him around. The air is thick with golden haze, The woods are in a dreamy maze, The earth enchanted seems. Have we not left the realms of care And entered in the regions fair, We see in blissful dreams?

Here our poet has left the logging-field and is enjoying the beauties of nature, while giving more attention to the rhythmic tone of the muse. We understand that Mr. McLachlan is now writing for _Grip_, and we have seen some lines of his entitled “May Song” which, as a lyric, is far in advance of his previous work. We give the first stanza:

Now morn is ascending from out the dark sea, A light crimson veil hanging o’er her; The lark leaves her nest on the bonny green lea, And flutters aloft to adore her. And, oh, how the living beams revel and leap! In purple and gold to enfold her; And how the wild cataract roused on the steep, Is shouting with joy to behold her.

Here is good word-painting, and shows what heights our poet is capable of attaining. We would say, in conclusion, that we think Mr. McLachlan should be looked upon as a benefactor to his country, in that he has thrown a halo over the humblest home. Well would it be, for those who are seized with the “brick and mortar craze” of the present day, to pause and read “The Old Settler’s Address to his Old Log House,” before he lays the foundation stone of the new brick mansion that too often leads to ruin, and sometimes to disgrace.

* * * * *

=O’Connor, Hon. John=, Q.C., Puisne Judge of the Divisional Court of Queen’s Bench, who died at Cobourg, on the 3rd November, 1887, was of Irish descent. His parents, both of whom were named O’Connor, were representatives of two distinct branches of that family, and emigrated in 1823 from Kerry to Boston, Massachusetts, where deceased was born, in January, 1824. Four years later his parents removed to Canada, and settled in Essex county, Ontario, where he grew to manhood. When about nineteen years of age he sustained an accident which materially influenced his future career. While cutting timber on his father’s farm a heavy tree fell upon him, jambing one of his legs in the brushwood. Young O’Connor struggled hard to liberate the limb, but failed, and as night was fast approaching, and a biting frost prevailed, he feared he might be frozen to death. There was no hope of assistance. Under these desperate circumstances the young fellow took out his jackknife, cut off the limb, and crawled to his home over the snow, bleeding profusely. This disabled the future judge for manual labor, and from that date he devoted all his energies to study. Mr. O’Connor was called to the bar in 1854, settled down to practice in Windsor, and was successful, not only in gaining a profitable business, but in acquiring a good deal of local influence, political and otherwise. He was also a member of the Michigan bar. He filled the offices of reeve of Windsor, warden of Essex, and chairman of the Windsor School Board. In politics, he was a Conservative, and in religion a Roman Catholic. Mr. O’Connor represented Essex in the Canadian Assembly for a short period, and he was member of the same constituency in the House of Commons from 1867 to 1873, being one of Sir John Macdonald’s cabinet from 1872 till it resigned in 1873. Defeated in Essex in 1874, he was out of Parliament until 1878, when he was elected for Russell county, and again became a member of the Conservative government, holding the portfolios successively of president of the Council, postmaster-general, and secretary of state. From the cabinet he went to the bench, having been a judge of the Ontario Queen’s Bench since September, 1884.

* * * * *

=Moffat, William=, Treasurer of the county of Renfrew, Pembroke, Ontario, was born on the 29th November, 1825, in Haddingtonshire, Scotland. His father, Alexander Moffat, came to Pembroke in 1840, and laid out the village (now town) of Pembroke. He was its first postmaster, and subsequently became an extensive mill owner. In his day he was a leading Reformer, and was on one occasion nominated by his party to represent it in the Legislative Council, but declined the honor. Mr. Moffat’s mother was Margaret Dickson Purvis, who died in 1834. Mr. Moffat, the subject of our sketch, is the eldest son of this 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.

* * * * *