The period immediately before World War I saw the peak of temperance activity locally.
For the first time in the local history of the temperance movement, which dated to the 1850s, there was a flurry of success, as villages, towns and townships voted in favour of the end of the liquor sales.
Along with the attack on the bar room there was a growing contempt for drinkers, and particularly those who drank to excess.
Imbibers came to be seen as people with contemptible moral weakness, and their drinking as an attack on the community and on civilization itself. In the end, they would inevitably become the victims of their own failings.
One example of an enthusiastic drinker was John McLelland, who farmed in East Garafraxa, southwest of the hamlet of Marsville. On April 30 of 1914, a Saturday, McLelland visited Fergus to purchase supplies.
He soon met up with some friends, and spent the evening drinking with them, as he normally did when he went into town.
McLelland was in poor shape when, early on Sunday morning, his friends helped him into his buggy. He assured them he would have no trouble getting home, slurring out his confidence that the bracing spring air would soon clear his head. Perhaps he hoped that the horse would remember the way home.
Neither McLelland nor his horse managed to recall the route. McLelland made a wrong turn, and, apparently, wandered aimlessly for most of the night, probably sleeping for at least part of it. The next morning he and his carriage were spotted, miles from home, in the area near Everton by people on their way to church. He was last seen about 11am, a short distance north of the hamlet, and presumably headed to what was then known as The Gravel Road, later Highway 24.
McLelland, though a long way from home, seemed to be headed in the right direction, but he never did arrive at his farm. The following morning a local farmer, Ed Alton found the horse and buggy on a sideroad two roads north of The Gravel Road. The horse was rooting at the side of the road, obviously famished and looking for something to eat.
The following morning another resident named Eveleigh spotted McLelland’s body in a swamp at the side of the same road a short distance from where the horse had been found the day before.
He was obviously dead, and appeared to have been dead for some time. The body was ice cold. Eveleigh at once sent a message to the corner at Guelph.
The coroner had the body moved to Guelph for an autopsy prior to a hearing before a coroner’s jury. The usual practice at that time was to perform the autopsy and hold the inquest as quickly as possible. In this case there did not seem to be any hurry. The coroner initially announced that the inquest would be held the following day. For some reason he delayed the process. The corner did not conduct the autopsy until late the following day, a Wednesday, and the inquest was not called until the following Saturday.
McLelland was a widower. He had two brothers who farmed in the area, Bill near Living Springs and Tom near Orton. After the coroner performed his examination, the family took the body to the Fergus home of McLelland’s daughter, Mrs. Jim McDonald. She took charge of the funeral arrangements. The service was conducted on May 4 with a small group of relatives and acquaintances in her living room. Burial followed in McKee’s Cemetery, not far from John’s farm.
The inquest revealed little. It appeared that John McLelland had died of exposure following a drinking binge. He had eaten nothing since leaving Fergus, and was not wearing heavy clothing that would have kept him warm through the early spring night.
The funeral was a very quiet affair, but the same cannot be said for inquest.
The deceased man’s brother, Tom, was to be a witness. Like his dead brother, he was a heavy drinker. Tom arrived in Guelph early on May 2, the day called for the inquest, which was scheduled to begin in the afternoon.
Tom was already suffering from an all night binge, and he started drinking again that morning. He forgot all about the inquest, continuing his drinking into the afternoon. A fellow imbiber recognized him in the bar room, and began admonishing Tom for neglecting to attend the inquest for his brother, which was under way at that very time.
Tom McLelland took exception to the remarks, and assaulted his challenger. Both got in a few blows before bystanders pulled them apart. Before he came to his senses Tom found himself in a small barred room, maintained at public expense for those awaiting an appointment with the magistrate.
Tom’s luck was bad that week.
On Monday morning he came up before Magistrate Frederick Watt, the most hard-nosed and humourless man to ever occupy that position in Wellington County. Watt brushed aside complaints that Tom would miss his brother’s funeral that afternoon.
Watt had little sympathy for habitual drinkers, and contempt for those who resorted to fisticuffs when drunk. He sentenced Tom McLelland to six months in the Central Prison for assault.
There seems to have been little public sympathy for either of the McLelland brothers. The death of John seemed the obvious outcome of steady drinking, and Tom’s six month sentence a deserved reward for attacking another man while in a state of intoxication.
Several municipalities in the area had plebiscites scheduled that year for the local option. The example of the McLelland brothers served the cause of the temperance advocates in those campaigns.
As well as local option votes, the licence commissioners for Wellington tightened up their requirements. The week before the McLelland inquest they had given three-month extensions to give the two remaining Elora hotels time to make improvements. In Fergus, Herb Couse was given three months to install a new heating system or face cancellation of his licence. And in Erin, the remaining hotel received a three-month window to enlarge its public facilities and to install washrooms with running water.
Those requirements by the licence commissioners made the operation of a hotel increasingly expensive at a time when other expenses were also increasing and revenue was declining, with fewer patrons coming through the door, and many of those who did drinking less than they formerly did.
Several hotels in Wellington County closed voluntarily before the electors voted in favour of the local option, and before the imposition of province-wide prohibition.
The unfortunate death of John McLelland and the jailing of his brother Tom reinforced the arguments made by prohibitionists in 1914, and they are part of the larger story of the changing role of liquor in Wellington County a century ago.