1919-02-01

 

         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.”

 

 

1919-03-08

Saturday Musings

Spectator March 08, 1919

LOOK AT BOTH SIDES OF THE QUESTION

        ‘First, let us glance backward, say sixty-five or seventy years, and then open our eyes and look at what may be in the future. On the sixth day of March, 1834 – the year the Old Muser was born – when William IV was king, and Upper Canada was almost a wilderness, the legislature passed an act incorporating the London and Gore railway, on a petition from certain inhabitants of Hamilton and of this district. There were no railroads in Canada then, but two years later, there was a short line between LaPrairie and St. John’s, on the borderline between Canada and the United States. Hamilton had a few enterprising businessmen in 1834, and while they had all the advantages of being at the Head of the Lake, they were ambitious to reach out and see what London-in-the-Woods looked like. Well, not to waste time looking backward, Hamilton decided that the only way to get to London was to build a railway, and Sir Allan MacNab was sent to see what the west looked like, and if the outlook was encouraging, this old town would construct a railway at least that far, and depend upon Providence for the future. When Sir Allan came back and reported favorably, a number of Hamilton men formed themselves into a company, and here are the names : Allan Napier MacNab, Colin Campbell Ferrie, John Young, Ebenezer Stinson, Samuel Mills, George T. Tiffany, Peter Hunter Hamilton, Oliver Tiffany, Dr. William Case (the dear old man whose bones have long since crumbled to dust on the wayside at the head of John street, on the road to the mountain top), A. Smith, John Law and Miles O’Reilly, and Dundas was represented by Mayor Notman, Peter Bamberger, Manuel Overfield and a few others whose names are forgotten. Now there you have the names of the men who built the first railway in Upper Canada. A few English capitalists opened their eyes at the temerity of a handful of Canadians thinking of such a thing as building a railway, but John Bull, the cute old fellow, thought there might be money in it for him, so in 1846, John was ready to invest a trifle and get control. About all the money the English capitalists expected to invest was in the purchase of the bonds, which would be gilt-edged and pay 6 per cent dividend, in gold. On the 23^rd of July, 1850, the legislature passed an act empowering municipal corporations along the proposed line to subscribe for the stock. Hamilton was the daddy of the proposed road, and the town subscribed $50,000 in stock, and the business men invested liberally also, and, within a few weeks, every municipality between Niagara Falls and Windsor was enrolled on the list of shareholders. Indeed, everybody that could raise the price of a share of stock chipped in, so that the proposed line was substantially financed. That is the way that Hamilton built the first line of railway in Canada.

                        WHAT IT COST TO BUILD THE

                          GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY

“In these days when Hamilton is invited to involve itself  to the Hydro commission in the modest sum of nearly six millions of dollars as a part of its share toward building a line from Port Credit to St. Catharines to connect with a through line from Toronto to London. Let us look at the amount the Hydro commission demands  from Hamilton for a road practically about sixty miles long, and compare the figures with the cost of building the main track of the Great Western railway from Niagara Falls to Windsor, a distance of 227 miles in length, and branches to Galt and to Port Sarnia. According to the report of Charles Stuart, the chief engineer of the construction department, to the board of directors, the total cost was $5,617,730; and the total cost for constructing equipping 350 miles of road was $21,071,776.

“Take a look at the amount asked by the Hydro commission to construct 60 miles of radial road from Port Credit to St. Catharines and compare the figures with the cost for construction and equipping 350 miles of the Great Western steam railway. The Hydro commission makes a demand for $11,360,363 for its sixty miles of radial road, of which Hamilton must pay $5,869,286, or nearly one-half, while the township of Toronto, the starting of the Toronto and London road, is only called to pay $243,087; and St. Catharines, the terminal, to pay $623,750. For the privilege of being a way station between Toronto and St. Catharines, Hamilton must become liable for nearly six millions of dollars besides furnishing free right-of-way through the finest parks in Canada and through the streets of the city. Put it in this way and see where Hamilton is at. It has to pay not less than two millions of dollars a mile for the privilege of the radial road running not more than three miles through the city, and then Hamilton will not have a word to say about the management for its six millions of dollars. Toronto being the starting point, and St. Catharines, the terminal, the headquarters for offices and workshops will naturally be at those points. A good thing for labor at Toronto and St. Catharines, but a mighty poor show for labor in Hamilton. Probably Hamilton ought to feel thankful that it can walk out to Dundurn park and see the wheels of the electric cars go round, but six millions is a mighty big price to pay for that privilege.

                        LOOK AGAIN AY WHAT IT COST TO

                           CONSTRUCT AND EQUIP THE

                             GREAT WESTERN ROAD

“And then compare the figures with the amount Sir Adam Beck wants to build the sixty miles of road from Port Credit to  St. Catharines. It may be reiteration, but on an important questions like Hamilton is confronted with, it will do no harm to repeat the cost. Sir Adam wants $11,360,363 to build his sixty miles of road from Port Credit to St. Catharines. The Great Western railway built and equipped 350 miles of steam railway for $21, 071, 770, or less than double what Sir Adam wants for his sixty miles of radial road. Quite a difference. Here is Chief Engineer Charles Stuart’s estimate of what it cost to build the Great Western:

                                                        Per Mile          Total

Niagara Falls to Hamilton               $22,652         $999,658

Hamilton to London                         $37,067      $3,183,036

London to Windsor                         $15,875      $1,746,329

Port Sarnia branch                         $13,312           $66,039

“Hamilton got the car shops, the machine shops, and the headquarters of the company’s office force. Out of Sir Adam’s road, Hamilton will not get a blessed thing except the privilege of handing over six millions of dollars in bonds and the payment of interest on them for fifty years.

                _________________________

                        SIXTY-FOUR YEARS AGO

“On the night of the sixth day of March, 1854, the first labor organization in Hamilton was organized. Those were the days when workingmen had to combine to get enough from their daily labor to keep body and soul together; and indeed the employers were not much better off, for things were down to a pretty low ebb for both the employer and the employed. At that time, Hamilton had five newspaper printing offices – the Daily Spectator, the semi-weekly Gazette, the semi-weekly Journal and Express, the Daily Banner and the weekly Canadian Christian Advocate. There were two other papers, both religious, The Church, published by Harcourt B. Bull, and printed in the Gazette office, and the Canadian Evangelist, a monthly, published by Rev. Robert Poden. Combine all the offices together and there were not more than forty journeymen employed, the main force being boys. For the journeymen there was no fixed scale, the rate being anywhere from $2.50 to $6 a week, and there were not many of the boys who could not equal the men in doing a day’s work in plain-typesetting. Hamilton was not alone in paying starvation wages to its printers, for the average all through Canada was not more than $7 to $8 a week, though a few might go ‘over the top’ and get $9. About the same year, or maybe a little before, the Toronto printers got their courage up and started a society and gave the scale a boost to $9 a week. This encouraged the Hamilton boys, and they determined to try their luck, and the result was that on the night of the 6^th of March, 1854, eighteen of the journeymen met in the Sons of Temperance ante-room, there not being enough of them to occupy the hall, and the Hamilton Typographical society was duly and solemnly organized. There were more journeymen in town, but they were cautious fellows and wanted to see how the society would take with the employers, before venturing into its membership. All of the boys were enthusiastic to join, but in those days, it required an apprenticeship of five years to be admitted into a trade society.

“Of the eighteen journeymen who met on that March night sixty-five years ago, only one of the charter members still lives, and he is the writer of this bit of history. Let us call the roll ; William Cliff, president; Charles Kidner, vice-president; Richard R. Donnelly, treasurer. Committee – D.G. Mitchell, Walter Campbell, Richard Butler, chairman. Members – John Blake, William Burniss, John Christian, William Cullin, J. Gregory, Alexander Linkster, John Love, Thomas McNamara, Henry Richards, Charles Roberston, William Rowland.

“At the first meeting, provision was made for the admission of apprentices in their last year. These boys were drawing as much wages as some of the men at that time, but the rule was that one had to be a full-fledged printer to entitle him to membership. At the second meeting Thomas Hynds, A.T. Freed, Reese Evans and William Nixon knocked at the door and were joyfully admitted. The two Hooper brothers, John and William, had arrived from England a few months later, and William J. McAllister came up from Toronto, and they became members. When the cautious ones saw that there was no danger in joining the society, nearly of the journeymen became enrolled as members.

“After the first meeting came the tug of war; a constitution had to be adopted and a scale of prices decided upon. What a modest lot of printers there was in those days! They did not want the earth, but they wanted to keep out of the house of refuge, and they set the scale so low that the employers could not reasonably complain of extortion. Nine dollars a week and twenty-seven cents a thousand (illegible) for place hands! Well, it was not so bad in those days, especially as other trades were paying less for their labor. Only one of the employing printers demurred when the scale was presented to him by the committee for his approval. Robert Smiley, the editor of the Spectator, would not sanction the scale, not that he thought it out of the way, but objected to allowing any society of workmen to fix the price for their work. All of the other employers promptly acceded, and paid the society the compliment of being moderate and fair in its demand. Mr. Smiley held out for a week or more, and then very gracefully notified the committee to send his men back to work. For sixty-five years, every printing office in Hamilton has paid the union scale of wages, and from $9 a week it has steadily increased till today the weekly pay envelope bulges out with not less than $25,

“And then, the best of all is, that no employee in a Hamilton printing office has to go home at the end of the week without his pay envelop and every dollar of his earnings in it. It was different sixty-five years ago, when one went home with half, or less, of his week’s wages in cash, and the balance in orders on some store in town. It might not be out of place to insert just here that in the spring of 1855 Robert Smiley died, a comparatively rich man for those days. In 1846, he came to Hamilton from Montreal, where he was employed in the government printing office, with less ready money in his pocket than the average printer now carries home in his weekly pay envelope. It was not meaness that made him refuse the scale of prices, but merely stubbornness of an Irishman who would not be dictated to.

“In the early days the printers’ union made it a rule to change officers every two years, in order to give all the boys a chance to reach the top. In 1856, the officers elected were : Charles Kidner, president; Alex. Linkster, vice-president; Richard Butler, secretary; R.L. Gay, treasurer. In 1857, there was another whirl, and Richard Butler was elected president; John Blake, vice-president; Allan A. Shepard, secretary; Charles Kidner, treasurer; W.J. McAllister, William Hooper, William Nixon, vigilance committee.

“Under the rules of the International Typographical union, no such ting a a sympathetic strike is permitted, the union holding to the honorable idea that the local unions should keep faith with the employing printers; and a local union must show good reasons for a strike before one is permitted. The International union provides a pension fund of $5 a week for all men over 60 years of age who have been members of local unions for a certain number of years. There are a few old-time Hamiltonians enjoying the benefits of the pension fund. Added to the pension is a mortuary fund.

“In the old days there was in every printing office a father of the chapel, who presided at all office meetings and smoothed over many of the trifling troubles that now and then arise among a lot of men of different temperaments.

“But few of the old-timers who belonged to the local union forty and fifty years ago are enjoying the fat pay envelopes of the present day, but fortunately, they were careful in their younger days, and the house of refuge had no horrors for them. Among the ancients, Jim Allan, Geo. R. Allan, John O’Neil, Frank Kidner, Billy Kingdon, John Burns and little Geordie Henderson answer the cashier’s roll call in

   the Spectator office every Friday and draw their pay checks. Over in the Times office, George Bagwell, till recently, was on duty every day. In the Herald office, Henry and Phil Obermeyer still hold forth to rejoice that they are still alive. There are a few like Justus Griffin, George Redmond, the Raw boys, John Macleod, Harry Drope, Sam Trueman, Bill Barringer and others we cannot remember.

“The next labor union to start in Hamilton about the year 1855 was the cigarmakers’. George Tuckett was one of the charter members.