WHAT HAMILTON HAS CONTRIBUTED TO THE FIRST INDUSTRIES
“Hamilton has an industrial history of which it may well be proud. In our last Musings we told of the first watch made in Canada being a Hamilton product made in Paul T. Ware’s watchmaking shop on King street, opposite the present site of the Royal Connaught hotel, and then of a second handmade watch, made forty years later in Thomas Lees’ shop by two young watchmakers, ‘Alf’ Baker and ‘Teddy’ Pass, who were ambitious to show what Hamilton workmen could do. And then we are told about the first threshing machine made in Canada, away back in 1833, in a shop on the site of the old Royal hotel, when it was an ancient goose pond. We are going over these first industries in order to help out Hamilton’s enterprising commissioner of industries, who is writing a booklet to tell the money-making world what an advantageous place Hamilton is to pitch their industrial tents, if they are in search of a live town in which to locate.
THE FIRST CLOTH BURIAL CASKET MADE IN CANADA
“Burial caskets is a gruesome topic to write about, but as we will all want one sooner or later, it will do us no harm to accustom ourselves to the inevitable. Away back about forty years ago, when John A. Macdonald, the father of the national policy, came to Hamilton to dedicate the Crystal Palace, and open the provincial fair, among the exhibits was a line of black cloth-covered burial caskets from a factory in the United States. At that time, there was not a cloth-covered casket made in Canada, for the tariff was so low, only 12 ½ per cent, that no Canadian manufacturer felt that he could compete against the capital and machinery of Yankee enterprise. A young Englishman, who had served seven years’ apprenticeship in his native land in an extensive woodworking shop, was attracted by the cloth caskets, and he said, in the hearing of Sir John, ‘I can make that class of work, if they will only give me a chance.’ The young man’s only capital was his brains and skill as a workman. Sir John was attracted by what the young man said, and in conversation said, ‘Canada will help you, if an addition to the tariff will do it.’ The result was that Sir John had the tariff increased, and James J. Evel, the young English woodworker, began the making of cloth-covered burial caskets, the first made in Canada, and has now one of the largest burial casket factories in Canada. But more of this great industry at some future.
THE FIRST RAILWAY LOCOMOTIVE BUILT IN CANADA WAS
MADE IN HAMILTON
“Hamilton can claim the honor of being the birthplace of the first railway locomotive built in Canada, and D.C. Gunn was the father of the industry. Mr. Gunn had a small shop at the foot of Wellington street, and when he saw the first locomotives for the Great Western road landed from the steamboats at the wharf at the foot of James street, he conceived the idea of turning his little machine shop into a big industry. Why should all the money be sent from Canada to build locomotives in the old country, when the work could be done in Hamilton, and furnish employment to Canadian machinists? His first order was for three locomotives for the Grand Trunk road, and they were christened Ham, Shep and Japhet. The Grand Trunk was then about to be opened from Montreal to Brockville, and those three engines were the pioneers on that road. The Great Western company was then running old country engines, and so well-pleased were the head officers with Mr. Gunn’s work that they gave him an order for two heavy freight engines to climb the Dundas hills, and they were christened Achilles and Bacchus. In all, Mr. Gunn built fifteen locomotives for the Grand Trunk and the Great Western, and then the panic of 1857 paralyzed Canadian industries, and dumped into the free trade heap all of its enterprising manufacturers. The United States had larger industries and more money and free trade hampered Canada could not compete against such odds. That ended Mr. Gunn and Hamilton-made locomotives.
THE FIRST SLEEPING CARS IN THE WORLD
WERE MADE IN HAMILTON
“It was Sam Sharpe, the first superintendent of the car shops of the Great Western road, who thought about and planned the first railway dining and sleeping cars that history gives us any account of and they were made under his supervision in the Great Western shops, down at the bay front. Of course, there was nothing palatial about the cars, but the idea took like wildfire among the railway companies in the United States and Wagner and Pullman followed up on Sam Sharpe’s invention and soon sleeping and dining cars came into general use. So great was the novelty of sleeping in a car running twenty and thirty miles an hour that Mr. Sharpe built a miniature sleeping car, which the Canadian government proudly exhibited at the world’s fair in London, England as the first of its kind built in the world. Only two people are now living who had a part in the construction of that miniature sleeping car, Mr. and Mrs. H.B. Witton – Mrs. Witton superintended the decorative furnishings, and Mr. Witton the artistic and decorative painting.
“Williams and Cooper, a firm of Hamilton Carriage builders, manufactured the first passenger coaches and freight cars that were made in Canada. They were made for the Great Western and the Grand Trunk roads.
FIRST SAWS MADE IN CANADA
A HAMILTON PRODUCT
“Joseph Flint owned a small saw factory in Rochester, N.Y., and as there were no saws made in Canada prior to 1854, Mr. Flint came to Hamilton on a voyage of discovery, and found it to be just the town in which to make saws. He brought with him a number of expert workmen and was building up a profitable industry, which the United States saw makers found was injuring their trade, and there being no tariff to help Flint to compete with his larger rivals, the saw-making industry became one of Hamilton’s lost arts.
THE FIRST FILES MADE IN
CANADA
“Another of Hamilton’s infant industries was the making of files, and fortunately the tariff has been a healthy nursing mother, and files are yet made in Hamilton. They are hand-made and command a higher price because of the superiority. Prior to1858, all files were manufactured by hand. A man named Beech came from England to Hamilton about 1865, and started a little shop down near the Great Western railway station. At first he did not do much in the way of making new files, as he got all the work he was able to do in recutting old files. At that time file-making was all done by hand as machinery for their manufacture had not yet been invented. It is only within the last thirty-five or forty years that the first factory started in Sheffield, England for the manufacture of Machine-made files. The handmade files manufactured by Beech were always in demand in preference to the machine-made and for sixty years Hamilton has had quite a monopoly of that trade. There are only two file factories in Canada, the Ostler Company in Canada and one at Port Hope.
ACETYLENE GAS FIRST DISCOVERED’
In Hamilton
“It was all an accident, but the first discovery was made by Charles Willson, a young drug clerk in Hamilton. When emptying some chemical jars in the back yard of the drug store in which he was employed, he was surprised to see a flame burst out as the refuse of two chemicals came together, and being of an inquiring mind, he began to study the cause. Not one in a thousand boys would have given a second thought to the result by mixing two chemicals, but young Willson was somewhat of a dabbler in science, and he followed up his discovery, devoting his leisure hours to experimenting in Chemicals, his laboratory being in the second story over a dingy old blacksmith shop on York street. The final result was the discovery and perfection of acetylene gas, which is now used in every country in the lighthouses and for buoys, and in every department in the marine service. Homes, public buildings and factories find it valuable as an illuminator, and later has come into use for welding metals. Charles Willson did live many years to enjoy the profits of his great discovery. Charles was born in Winona, and educated in the Central school in Hamilton, when Professor Sangster was the head master. He was a descendant of the Hon. John Willson, the first speaker of the Upper Canada parliament.
THE FIRST LIFE INSURANCE
IN CANADA
“Hamilton brains and capital conceived the organization of the Canada Life Insurance company, the first one started in Canada. It was the pride of the old town, and made happy thousands of families of its insured. It grew in wealth and prosperity, and every sensible man in Hamilton carried a policy of insurance with the company. Toronto wanted that insurance company, and gradually bought up its stock until it had enough to control it, and one day Hamilton woke up to the fact that the Canada Life was going to move its head offices to Toronto.
THE FIRST PHONOGRAPH MADE
IN CANADA WAS THE
HANDIWORK OF
A HAMILTONCABINET-MAKER
“Robert P. Newbigging can claim the honor of making the first complete phonograph manufactured in Canada. When the phonograph was first put on the market, the owners of the American patents, in order to escape paying duty, had the cases made in Canada, but the internal machinery they brought in from the United States, and had it assembled here. Mr. Newbigging was an expert cabinet-maker, having learned the trade in James Reid’s factory on King street, now owned by the Malcolm Souter company, and he had several contracts for making phonograph cases. At that time the phonograph had a horn attachment which did not add to the sweetness of the tone, and Mr. Newbigging began experiments to do away with the horn and substitute in its place a tone arm and a motor. It proved to be a success, and he got in correspondence with the patent right solicitors in New York to have his improvement patented. Being delayed in completing some of the necessary papers, when he went to Washington to secure his patent, he learned that only a few days before another party had secured a patent on the hornless principal in phonographs. This cut him out. However, he determined to use his improvement and to that end completed his patterns and had a Hamilton firm do the castings.
“While Mr. Newbigging does not claim to be one of the inventors of the original phonograph, he does lay claim to the improvement of the hornless machine. Some of his first machines are still in use in Hamilton. Not feeling that he could stand a lawsuit for infringement on the hornless phonograph, Mr. Newbigging was advised by his attorney not to make a fight. However, he has still large contracts for the making of cases, and gives employment to at least a dozen expert cabinet makers. He is now manufacturing a new design in cases, in the form of a library table, for which he has a large order.
AND YET THERE ARE OTHER
FIRST INDUSTRIES
“Hamilton can lay claim to many minor industries which were first introduced in Canada in Hamilton workshops.
“Young and Brother, who kept a plumber shop on John street, in the Elgin block, made and introduced the first coal-oil burners manufactured in Canada and the lathe on which the burners were turned is reverently stored away in Stewart’s warehouse, on Hughson street south. Among the first promoters in the Canadian coal-oil fields were a number of Hamilton capitalists.
“The first experiment in electric lighting in Canada was made by George Black, manager of the Northwestern Telegraph office in Hamilton. It was made on the night of the first Dominion day in Canada.
“The first cannon cast in Canada was by the Gartshore company, of Dundas, and was the pride of Captain Notman’s one-gun battery.
“The first iron steamboat that sailed on any lake or river in North America was built and owned by Hamilton capital, and was called the Magnet, commanded by Captain Sutherland, a Hamilton sailorman, and was built for the route between Hamilton and Kingston. The name of the steamboat was afterward changed to that of Hamilton. Captain Fairgrieve and Frederick W. Fearman were officers on the Magnet in their younger days. Captain Sutherland lost his life in the Desjardins canal accident on the evening of March 12, 1857.
“If ancient history is to be believed, and we have no reason to doubt it, natural gas was first discovered in Canada at the Albion mills, a few miles southeast of Hamilton. It was discovered by accident while workmen were digging a foundation for the settling of mill stones. When the first flash of light from natural gas brightened up the pit, the workmen scampered off thinking Hades had broken loose, and his satanic majesty had established headquarters in the beautiful valley. There may be some truth, after all, in the ancient story, for history tells us that the romantic Jane Relly took the leap from the towering rocks because her lover failed to come to time at the marriage altar.”
