In private life he was remarkable for his generous hospitality and urbanity, for his kindly disposition and the constancy of his friendship. He was ever ready to listen to all who sought his counsel or assistance, and very many were the recipients of both. Time appeared to have laid its hand gently upon him. He was never known to the world as an ailing man. His erect figure, firm step, and good spirits gave promise of a long continuance of life, when a sudden attack, indicating severe organic derangement, confined him to his room. After a few months of suffering, which he bore with decorous fortitude, and during which he exhibited the most thoughtful concern for those who were in immediate attendance upon him, as well as for the more intimate of his friends who were absent, he passed away on the morning of Tuesday, the eighteenth of June, 1867, at the age of seventy-two years and two months. “The fine old English gentleman,” said the _Islander_, “the fond father, the wise and prudent counsellor, the useful and honored citizen has been laid in the grave, leaving a memory which will long be cherished and revered in _this_ the land of his adoption.”
At this time the Honorable Edward Whelan was the correspondent, in Charlottetown, of the _Montreal Gazette_. Though politically opposed to Mr. Haviland, he alluded, in a letter to the _Gazette_,—which was published on the fifth of July, 1867,—to the deceased gentleman in the following touching terms: “The vacancy in the mayoralty is caused by the demise of the Honorable T. H. Haviland. He was _the_ representative man of the old conservative party. Without brilliant talents, his judgment was of the highest order; he filled every situation in the colony to which a colonist could aspire, short of the gubernatorial chair; his manners to friend and opponent were always the essence of dignity, urbanity, and courtesy; and, passing through much of the contention of political life, leaving his impress on our small society, by his many useful labors, he was singularly fortunate, by his kindly nature, in disarming all opponents of the shadow of rancorous hostility.”
The Honorable Edward Whelan died at his residence, in Charlottetown, on the tenth of December, 1867, at the comparatively early age of forty-three. He was born in County Mayo, Ireland, in 1824, and received the rudiments of education in his native town. At an early age he emigrated to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where, shortly after his arrival, he entered the printing-office of the Honorable Joseph Howe, then a newspaper publisher in that city. Here he gave such proofs of that great facility for newspaper writing which distinguished him in after life that he was occasionally employed to write editorial articles for Mr. Howe’s newspaper during the absence or illness of the latter. At the age of eighteen he came to Prince Edward Island, which was then ruled by parties who could scarcely be said to be amenable to public opinion. Mr. Whelan, ranging himself on the side of the people, threw the weight of his influence as a journalist into the struggle for popular rights.