Gender Male
Thomas Ahearn, born in Ottawa, began his career by joining the JR Booth company to offer his services for free in exchange for a chance to learn the exciting new technology of telegraphy. Warren Y. Soper was born in Maine but came to Ottawa as a small child. They were both expert telegraph operators in Ottawa while still in their teens. Ahearn
spent some time with the Western Union Telegraph Company in New York City, then while still very young, was appointed local manager of the Bell Telephone Company in Ottawa. Soper became manager of the Ottawa office of the Dominion Telegraph Company. Their occupations brought them together and in 1881 they resigned their positions and formed a partnership as Ahearn and Soper, Electrical Contactors. They continued to form one innovative company after another in the field of communications, heat, light, power (they became representatives of the Westinghouse Electric Manufacturing company) and the electric street railway.
