The Farley House
145 Champlain Street

Stanislas B. Simon moved to Hull before 1872. He started out as a sales clerk, and became a grocer. He married Elisa Corbeil, four of whose brothers became priests. The couple had four children: Marie-Thérèse, who died in La Tuque in 1915, Charles-Auguste, Mrs. Jean Matte and a nun, Sister Marie-Lorette. In 1884, the family lived in a wooden house on this lot, which also had several adjacent buildings. Immediately after a neighbourhood fire in 1888, Simon built a brick house of the same dimensions, which he left after the death of his wife in 1908. At the age of 77, after six months of paralysis, he died on November 20, 1920, at his daughter's home in Montreal. The viewing of the body was held in Hull, at the home of his son, Charles-Auguste. Stanislas Simon had been organist of Notre-Dame Church for 35 years. The elaborate funeral service was celebrated by his uncle, Mgr. J.-O. Routhier of Ottawa, his brother-in-law, the Reverend Sylvain Corbeil, principal of the Hull teachers' college, and another priest. The atmosphere of the funeral was cultural as well as religious: it ended with Eugène Leduc singing "Crucifix", by Gabriel Fauré.

Two months before the fire of 1900, Simon and his wife Elisa, had mortgaged their house with Gonzague Routhier, an Ottawa doctor. In 1903, Routhier transferred the mortgage to Benjamin Stackhouse, a Lachute dentist. Dollard Parent is registered as the owner of the property in 1907-1908. This secretary-treasurer of the school commission was accused of embezzlement and fled to the United States. In the lawsuit that followed in 1909, the school commission became the owner of the building, which it sold to Louis-Martial Pelletier, a Hull physician, on October 26, 1909. After installing electricity, Pelletier resold the house in 1912 to Georges Montpetit.

On November 28, 1916, Gracia Lafond bought the house. She was born in 1884, daughter of the merchant Gédéon Lafond and Elvina Grondin of Hull. Around 1910, she married Arthur Raymond Farley. The young couple first settled in the new Massé House at 133 Champlain Street. Like all middle-class women of the period, she did not work outside the home, but participated in parish organizations, such as the Congrégation des Dames de Sainte-Anne and the Third Order of St. Francis.

Her husband, Arthur-Raymond Farley, born in Saint-Gabriel de Brandon, moved to Hull in 1904. A prominent pharmacist, he had a laboratory where he made medicines, including Antalgine, an analgesic for the relief of headaches. Farley was known beyond Canada's borders. He was honorary director of the École de pharmacie de Montréal (Montreal School of Pharmacy), a founder and first president of the company Pharmacies universelles Ltée., and director of Farex Ltée., both specializing in wholesale pharmaceuticals. He was an examiner at the Collège des pharmaciens de la province de Québec (Quebec College of Pharmacists) for some thirty years. He was involved in several of Hull's social organizations, including the Rotary Club, the Knights of Columbus and the Action catholique. To keep up to date professionally, Farley travelled extensively in Europe, the United States, the Antilles and the West. His pharmacy was a landmark in the downtown Hull of yesteryear.

Farley died in Hull on January 11, 1954. The list of prominent priests and citizens who attended the funeral attests to the importance of this man in the Hull community. His wife died two years later, on January 11, 1956. The bodies were viewed in their home - a common practice at the time - although the burials were handled by the mortician Gauthier, whose funeral home was located nearby.

The Farleys had four children. The eldest, Raymond, was born in 1911 and died when he was eleven. Rodrigue (1913-1997) became lawyer. On May 4, 1946, he married Raymonde, daughter of Alphonse Fournier, who was the Representative for Hull from 1930 to 1953, Minister of Public Works, and then a Judge of the Exchequer Court. Mackenzie King attended the wedding. Louis (1915-1968) married Julienne Brisson of Laprairie. He became a judge in October 1960, and died in Hull on March 10, 1968. Marie, born in 1918, married Jacques Boucher (1913 - ca. 1989) on October 19, 1945. He became a lawyer in 1937, and was appointed judge on July 8, 1950.

The Farley children all lived in the Aylmer region. They sold the house in 1957. Jean-Jacques Gariepy, a doctor, purchased it that year, but deeded it back to Marie Farley-Boucher five years later. She divided it into apartments and resold it to civil servant Robert Danis in October 1963. This beautiful corner residence, surrounded by trees, testifies to the more glorious past of the historic district around the Canadian Museum of Civilization.