HEA, JOHN (1798-1868)

HEA, JOHN, hotel keeper and political activist; b. Co. Cork, Ireland, c1798; m. 1820, Catherine Beek, of Bandon, Co. Cork; d. Bras d'Or Lake, Victoria Co., Cape Breton, N.S., 20 Feb 1868.

Hea (more commonly, O'Hea) is the surname of an ancient Cork family, most of whose members have been Catholic. When "John Hea, Esq." was married in Kilbrogan (Anglican) Church in Bandon in May 1820 his place of residence was given as Abbeymahon, a civil parish "in the heart of the O'Hea country," about ten miles south of Bandon. His wife could have been a daughter of John Beek, a draper, who was listed among the "traders and gentry of Bandon" in an 1820 directory.

Hea came to the Miramichi in 1823, at which time he and his wife had at least one child. Soon after his arrival he applied for a teacher's license, stating in his letter that he was "capable of instructing youth in various branches of literature." He was granted the license and planned to start a school, but there is nothing to show that he did so. He was described as a merchant in 1825. A Mrs Hea, however, probably his wife, began to teach a girls' school about 1827 in the vicinity of Chatham. Her school, which was moved to town in 1831, had a management committee composed of socially-prominent women, and its pupils included children of some of the leading families of Chatham.

In 1832 Hea announced that he was opening a hotel for "respectable boarders" in his home, which was near the Royal Hotel and White's Hotel in downtown Chatham. Hea's Hotel was an arrival and departure depot for stagecoaches in the 1830s, and it may have enjoyed a period of prosperity, but the business was in serious financial trouble in 1844, and the hotel soon passed into the possession of Joseph Cunard & Co. Hea later supplied livery stable and stagecoach services to the public. He offered private transportation anywhere in the province and was often engaged to convey arrested persons to court or prisoners to jail.

Hea played a crucial role in the provincial election of 1842-43. His formal involvement began when he was called upon to chair the meeting of electors held in Chatham in 1842 to protest the fact that neither of the two members representing Northumberland County in the provincial Assembly - that is, neither Alexander Rankin nor John Ambrose Street - was from Chatham. The outcome of the meeting was that John T. Williston was nominated as the candidate of "the people" to oppose the two sitting members at the polls.

Hea's principal activity during the election was to lead a party of Williston sympathizers, consisting largely, it would seem, of Chatham laborers of Irish origin or extraction, around the polling stations. He did this, he said, not to provoke confrontation, but simply to ensure that the voting was conducted honestly, and he had no apology to offer for creating apprehension when he addressed his "troops" in their "native language" (Irish Gaelic), insisting that he said nothing to them that he would not have said in English. He refused to accept any responsibility for the serious acts of violence and intimidation committed by the Chatham street mob (as elsewhere noted in some detail).

Hea's first-hand account of the events of the election appeared as a series of letters in The Gleaner in the winter and spring of 1843. While many may have taken a dim view of his indignation, his partisanship, and his candor, the fact that his account was not effectively challenged in its particulars gives credence to his claim that he stated the truth as he saw it. After the letters had run their course in the paper he had them collected and printed as A Narrative of Facts and Circumstances connected with the Northumberland Election which took place in the Winter of 1842-3...etc. From a literary standpoint, the letters are intelligent, lucid, sometimes humorous, and without parallel in the canon of 19th century Miramichi writing.

More than any other participant in the events of the election, however, Hea incited anger in the opposing political camp. "I should indeed feel myself degraded in the extreme," wrote John Ambrose Street, "were I to condescend to reply to the sayings and writings of so vile and detestable a character. Nature has given to the man a countenance which characterizes the Fiend in the worst of forms, and all who know him, know by his actions, that his countenance is an Index to his mind." Street placed Hea high on the list of "leaders and ring leaders" responsible for the entire election debacle, assigning greater blame only to "a member of the Executive Government"; that is, to Joseph Cunard, for not using his influence to prevent the breakdown of law and order.

The particulars of Hea's role in the follow-up, or "Fighting Election" of the summer of 1843 are not well-documented. William F. Ganong was informed in 1891 that on election day the laborers from Cunard's yard in Chatham, "under the leadership of a large, rawboned Irishman named John Hea," marched to the courthouse in Newcastle and mounted a savage attack on their political opponents, but such a crude, simplistic statement cannot be taken seriously.

Any admiration which Hea may have had for John T. Williston had vanished by 1850 when he accused Williston of having failed to pay for transportation services supplied to him in connection with his political activities. He set out the particulars in a letter addressed to The Gleaner which, in the absence of the editor, he convinced the assistant to publish as a paid advertisement. Instead of taking Hea to task, Williston sued the editor, James A. Pierce, for printing the letter, thereby launching one of the strangest cases to come before the courts in that era.

In the provincial election of 1850 Hea came forward himself as a candidate, although by refusing to campaign, and by making disparaging remarks concerning the unreadiness of the electorate for ideas such as he held, he ensured himself a place at the bottom of the poll. His purpose in running was evidently to make the other candidates squirm by having to listen politely while he expressed his 'radical' views at the nomination meeting. Among his proposals was that corruption be eliminated from the judiciary by placing judges on salaries instead of having them collect fees for services; that justices of the peace (then county councillors, in effect) be elected rather than appointed; and that a secret ballot be introduced to end the intimidation of electors. "I do not feel disposed in any respect," he stated, "to lag behind the times." Alexander Rankin led the poll with 997 votes. The candidate who placed ninth received 153 votes, and Hea placed last with fifty-one votes.

Together with Robert Morrow and others, Hea was a founder of the Methodist church in Chatham. In 1847 he was one of the seventeen incorporators of the Miramichi Mechanics' Institute. He assumed his share of civic responsibilities, including the parish offices of tax assessor and overseer of the poor. He left the Miramichi around 1856 and later made his home at Horton and Wolfville N.S., where his son Joseph R. Hea lived. In the winter of 1868 he died tragically on Bras d'Or Lake on Cape Breton Island after driving his horse out on thin ice by mistake. He was survived by his wife, Catherine Beek, and two sons.