Joseph Doutre was born on March 11, 1825, in Beauharnois, Lower Canada.

He was a journalist, writer, and lawyer. He was educated at Montreal College and began to write and publish even before he was called to the bar of Lower Canada in 1847. He contributed articles to Les Mélanges Religieux, L'Aurore des Canadas, Le Courrier des Etats-Unis (New York), and the Lower Canada Jurist. He was one of the founders of Le Pays, and he contributed a series of contemporary biographies to Papineau's L'Avenir. He was made Queen’s Counsel in 1863. Though he never sat in Parliament, he was one of the leading members of the Parti rouge and it was under his presidency that the Institut Canadien was incorporated in 1852. He was an advocate of the abolition of seigniorial tenure in Lower Canada. He fought a duel with George Etienne Cartier, and he opposed, vehemently and successfully, the attempt of Bishop Bourget and other ecclesiastics to crush Liberalism in the province of Quebec. Especially noteworthy was his battle with Bishop Bourget over the Guibord case in 1869. He published two novels, “Les fiancés de 1812” (1844) and “Le frère et la soeur” (1846).

In 1858, he married Angelique Caron Epicier Varin (1840–1860) and in 1862, he remarried Harriett Calvin Greene (1848–1924). He died on February 3, 1886, in Montreal, Quebec.