Patrick Mockler was the first born son of John and Eleanor Mockler. His father, John Mockler, was an Irish emigrant from Cashel, Tipperary County, Ireland, who arrived with his father Patrick at Pictou County circa 1835. John Mockler married Eleanor McCarthy, the daughter of Irish emigrants from County Cork, was born in Nova Scotia. John and Eleanor were married on February 28, 1835 at St. Mary's Cathedral in Halifax, Nova Scotia in the presence of Eleanor's father John McCarthy. In 1836 they moved to the River John, Pictou County, Nova Scotia. By 1861 they had moved to Pugwash, Cumberland County, Nova Scotia.

Patrick's father John was a shipbuilder in River John, Nova Scotia, and as a result, young Patrick became knowledgeable and skilled at shipbuilding and seafaring. In fact, all five sons of John and Eleanor Mockler (Patrick, William, Thomas, John, and Charles) became master mariners. Patrick first attended school at River John where he received his early education. He later went to college (Dalhousie?) at Halifax. It has been reported that he was about 18 yrs. old when he first went to sea as a first mate and sailed from River John to the United States. By the age of 21 Patrick was a capable sea captain and sailed his father's ships to all parts of the world. Captain Patrick Mockler lived on Cobble Hill in Brooklyn, New York (at 175 Smith Street and Wyckhoff Street - not far from the waterfront district) between 1866 and 1868. Captain Mockler probably used this location as his home port for that period of time. He later became a successful shipbuilder building ships at Port Philip, Nova Scotia during the mid 1870s. Captain Patrick Mockler sailed for 35 years before retiring in the mid 1890s. At that time he started construction of his house at Brule, Colchester County, Nova Scotia. 

Patrick was in regular correspondance with St. Francis Xavier University President Dr. Hugh P. MacPherson at Antigonish, Nova Scotia between 1910 and up to just before his death in February 1930. This was primarily because Patrick was a Catholic and he wanted to support the young but growing Catholic school. Two of his nephews attended the school, and his neice, Maud Woodward, daughter of his deceased younger brother Charles Mockler, was a patient of the hospital there (His brother Charles was another sibling ship captain who died at sea as a passenger on the ill fated steamer, Discovery, lost off Yakutat, Alaska, while on his way back to his home in Seattle in 1903. The ship was lost in a storm and no survivors were recovered). Patrick was requested by President MacPherson in 1914 to make a donation to the school to build additional student housing in order for the school to be able to attract more students to the school. Patrick made a generous contribution of $10,000 (he actually provided the school far more money than this....but this was his single largest contribution) - a rather significant amount of money at that time - and the school honored him by naming the residence building, "Mockler Hall." This building still stands and serves the needs of students at the university today (2018). 

Patrick's date of birth (Spetember 8, 1838) on his death certifcate, completed by his nephew, Charles McKay, (the son of his sister Eleanor, who lived in Los Angeles and died there in 1927) is confirmed in a letter Patrick wrote to President MacPherson of St. Francis Xavier University at Antigonish on October 15, 1923, in which he declared, "I asked Len (last name illegible) beforeI took the trouble of going to (the) hospital if it was worth the trouble at my age. I was 85 Sept. last."