(1858 or 1859-1924), businessman. Born in Osnabruck Township, Stormont County. The Hoople family was of German U E Loyalist origins. Johnson Hoople had a crippled left hand and arm from his early years. In his early career Johnson Hoople travelled the countryside as a peddler selling tinware to housewives. In this occupation he took cow and calf hides in trade. He settled in the new town of Maxville about 1882, and made his career there for the remainder of his life. In Maxville, he operated a tinware shop, and also sold furniture, farm implements and carriages, and was involved with plumbing, furnace work and roofing. He became an undertaker soon after 1900, and operated the undertaking business with his son John. Johnson Hoople died in hospital in Ottawa. He was married to Edith Thompson (1862-1922), of Strathmore, Ont. They had one child, R.J. Hoople (John Hoople), who was the father of Clark Hoople. Johnson Hoople belonged to the Methodist Church, but after the Methodist services were discontinued in Maxville he attended the Presbyterian Church. He was a Mason and an Orangeman. He was an opponent, if not of the Boer War, at least of the Jameson Raid which preceded it, and was criticized by his fellow Glengarrians for this stance. In the hospital where he died, he is said to have joked to the officials that he followed the medical profession, and when they replied that he must be a doctor, he said no, he was an undertaker.
Biog. sketch of Johnson Hoople in Thomas W. Munro’s “I Remember” series, Glengarry News 16 Sept. 1938 * Maxville (1967) 68-70 * Maxville (1991) 102 (advert. of 1920 for J. Hoople & Son), 307, 308, 318-320, 581 * MacGillivray & Ross 152 (portrait) * Elizabeth L. Hoople, The Hooples of Hoople’s Creek (1967), 128, portrait op. 132 * Duncan (Darby) MacDonald, A Genealogical Sketch of the Hoople Family (1994) 11, 21, 42, 70 * gravestones, Maxville Cemetery * R. J. Hoople to marry, GN 20 May 1904 * Johnson Hoople buys Ford car, GN 8 & 15 May 1914, will build double tenement, Maxville, GN 14 Oct. 1921, he and son buy real estate and business interests, Maxville, GN 1 Dec. 1922