Low Down Articles
Echoes from the Past
Article 104 of 111
This article first appeared in the "Echoes from the Past" column of the The Low Down to Hull and Back News.
Reprinted with permission. Search complete list of Low Down Articles.
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West Hull Council
This story came from George H. Wilson's column OLD TIME STUFF in the Evening Citizen, Ottawa, July 27, 1929.
Patrick Murtagh became a member of the West Hull Council in the year 1878. By that time, the council was only in its third year, the council having been organized as such just three years earlier. Prior to 1875 it had been part of the great Township of Hull, which, before being broken up, had been one of the largest townships in the Province of Quebec. Extending as it did from well east of the Gatineau River to a considerable distance west of Aylmer and north to near Wakefield. Hull City had once been part of that great township. It broke away about 1874. A year later West Hull followed suit.
The new township of West Hull was roughly speaking, bounded on the east by the Gatineau River, west by South Hull and on the north by Wakefield township. After separation West Hull was still quite a sizeable township.
It had size but not population. In 1874 there were eleven or twelve hundred people in the township. The population has not greatly increased since, but the township has been much improved.
Much bushland has been removed since 1875. The roads have been improved and the homes of the people have been improved. In 1875, there were no roads worthy of name. Today they are all fairly good.
When Patrick Murtagh entered the council the revenue of the council was very small, not exceeding about $2,000. The small revenue provided very little money for roads, and the councillors of those days, to tell the truth, were not greatly concerned about good roads anyway. They had been used to bad roads all their lives, and it was hard to get them to understand the advantages of good roads.
Besides, as Mr. Murtagh says, they had an innate objection to taxes and good roads would mean taxes. Many of the farmers kicked strenuously, as it was, about the trifle of taxes they had to pay.
So it came about that the councillors of the early days gave most of their time to legislating rather than spending money. They passed bylaws of all sorts, about line fences and all the "don'ts, and mustn'ts" which gave the pioneer legislators so much amusement.
Much of the legislation did not mean anything, as no attempt was made to enforce it.
There were seven councillors the mayor being elected by the council. When Mr. Murtagh entered the council in 1878 Timothy Moffatt of the Mountain Road was elected mayor. He had been the first mayor the council had.