Who is philemon wright

In more than half the adult male population of the township was in the pay of the Wrights. Wright played a role of prime importance in the economic development upon which the very survival of his township depended. In his first year he cleared enough land to harvest a good crop of potatoes and wheat. At that time he lost 1, bushels of potatoes because of improper storage but, in compensation, his wheat yielded 40 bushels an acre.

In this early stage of settlement, Wright could count on profits from his production of hemp, a crop that the British government subsidized for a number of years and that he had great success in growing. In his mills burned down, but he spared no expense in rebuilding them. In the wheat crop alone produced 3, bushels. Seven years later, 35, bushels were harvested on his farms, which were renowned in Lower Canada; grown less and less on his land from , wheat made up only 13 per cent of the crop, whereas potatoes constituted In this record, unsurpassed in the colony, was again exceeded: the grain crops from the Wright farms reached 71, bushels, a figure that then represented 50 to 60 per cent of the grain harvested in the township.

Although soil depletion may have played a part in this set-back, other factors were at work. Not only were the sons less interested in agriculture than their father, but the inhabitants of the township and the Wrights cleared no new land for a score of years after This reverse must be linked as well with the rise in production costs due to the demand for labour to build the Rideau Canal and improve navigation on the Ottawa River between Hull and Montreal.

Wright had developed the agricultural base for lumbering after not only through producing oats, potatoes, and at certain times corn, but also through raising a great many cattle by the most advanced methods used in the United States and Great Britain.

Towards the end of the s, however, the family withdrew rather quickly from this sector of activity, probably because they could not beat competition from outside or from the local inhabitants.

In the number of animals in their herds had dropped by 50 per cent and constituted no more than Wright played such a central role in the economy of Hull Township that his participation in the import and retail trade, innkeeping, and light industry followed naturally. Equipping smithies, a sawmill, and a potashery and constructing a huge store as well as the Columbia Hotel also formed part of a strategy to develop his economic force.

However Wright might extol in bucolic vein the benefits of agriculture, the basis of his unrivalled power was more and more to be found in lumbering. To increase the efficiency of his ventures he founded the firm of Philemon Wright and Sons in , with his sons Tiberius, Philemon, and Ruggles. During the s he sent four or five rafts a year to Quebec, and in the next decade eight or nine. At the beginning he bought his wood primarily from settlers, but as marketable timber became scarcer on their lands he was forced to turn increasingly to his own camps for his supply.

Obviously, everything related to the forest industry was of the greatest interest to the founder of Hull Township. Whether as an individual, a township leader, or a representative of the grand voyer chief road commissioner of the province, he assisted in developing the road systems in the township and even in the Ottawa region. To avoid waterfalls and rapids, which damaged his wood, Wright devised chutes later bought by the government.

In he even built a steamship, the Union of the Ottawa , which was used for towing his rafts on the Ottawa River. He saw nothing wrong with selling wheat to the United States at high wartime prices.

He was first and foremost an entrepreneur, if an inept one. He voted with neither legislative faction consistently, but acted as a defender of the timber industry, and his main preoccupation was with his business. He had cultural aspirations for Hull but his interest did not extend much beyond the prestige value of such institutions as churches and libraries.

He was literate but his handwriting was crabbed and his spelling atrocious. Late in life, Wright returned to his agricultural ideal by retiring to a farm upriver in Onslow in present-day Pontiac County where, in a state of declining health, he confessed the wrong he had done to his grandchildren and, after a life of merely conventional piety, welcomed the ministrations of a clergyman of whom his sons strongly disapproved.

While Philemon Wright is remembered primarily as the founder of Hull, his contribution was ambiguous. It was only after the establishment of sawmills on the south shore in the s that the village of Hull began to grow, and then it became a community of cheap housing for mill workers rather than a commercial centre of any importance. Endnotes: 1. Thank you for your submission Our team will be reviewing your submission and get back to you with any further questions. Thanks for contributing to The Canadian Encyclopedia.

Article by Christopher G. Colonizer, farmer and businessman Philemon Wright, pictured here c. Wright was the founder of Wrightstown later Hull. Portrait by John James. Geneanet Geneastar. Deceased on june 03 Report an error. Wright Joseph - Hassell Elizabeth - Patten Thomas - Payne Rebecca - Chandler William -