Moses Springer
Encyclopedia
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
businessman and political figure. He represented Waterloo North
Waterloo North
Waterloo North was a federal electoral district represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1867 to 1968. It was located in the province of Ontario...
in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario
Legislative Assembly of Ontario
The Legislative Assembly of Ontario , is the legislature of the Canadian province of Ontario, and is the second largest provincial legislature of Canada...
as a Liberal
Ontario Liberal Party
The Ontario Liberal Party is a provincial political party in the province of Ontario, Canada. It has formed the Government of Ontario since the provincial election of 2003. The party is ideologically aligned with the Liberal Party of Canada but the two parties are organizationally independent and...
member from 1867 to 1881. He was also the first mayor of Waterloo, Ontario
Waterloo, Ontario
Waterloo is a city in Southern Ontario, Canada. It is the smallest of the three cities in the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, and is adjacent to the city of Kitchener....
.
He was born in Doon in Upper Canada
Upper Canada
The Province of Upper Canada was a political division in British Canada established in 1791 by the British Empire to govern the central third of the lands in British North America and to accommodate Loyalist refugees from the United States of America after the American Revolution...
in 1824 and was orphaned during a cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
epidemic. He was then adopted and raised by Mennonite
Mennonite
The Mennonites are a group of Christian Anabaptist denominations named after the Frisian Menno Simons , who, through his writings, articulated and thereby formalized the teachings of earlier Swiss founders...
bishop Joseph B. Hagey
Joseph B. Hagey
Joseph B. Hagey was the Bishop of the Mennonite Church in Ontario from 1852 until his death in 1876. Bishop Hagey presided over a time of disagreement and schism within the Mennonite Church in Canada. He was married to Sophia Bricker, the daughter of notable Mennonite Samuel Bricker...
. He worked as a farm hand, taught school and served as a provincial land surveyor in Woolwich Township
Woolwich, Ontario
The Township of Woolwich is a rural township in Ontario, Canada. It is part of the Region of Waterloo, immediately to the north and east of the City of Waterloo. Its 2006 census population was 19,658.-Communities:*Bloomingdale*Breslau*Conestogo*Elmira...
. In 1854, he moved to Waterloo where he became the owner and publisher of the German language
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
newspaper Der Canadische Bauernfreund. He opened a store there in 1856. He was the president of the Waterloo Mutual Fire Insurance Company and helped found the Ontario Mutual Life Assurance Company, later Clarica Life Assurance, in 1868. He was the first reeve of the village of Waterloo and served as reeve for a total of 12 years, served 11 years on the county council and became the first mayor when Waterloo was incorporated as a town in 1876. In 1881, Springer became sheriff for Waterloo County
Waterloo County, Ontario
Waterloo County, created in 1853 and dissolved in 1973, was the forerunner of the Regional Municipality of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. It consisted of five townships: Woolwich, Wellesley, Wilmot, Waterloo, and North Dumfries...
and served in that post until his death in 1898.