During the first decade of the 20th century Canadian business experienced a period of consolidation. Well established firms purchased their competitors to end, in a phrase popular at the time, “ruinous competition.”
There were also a number of new conglomerates, often established by stock brokers, to buy up some of the firms in one industry or another. Such new firms were typically over-capitalized. Their owners hoped to profit from the sale of capital stock rather than the products of the firms.
An excellent example of the latter was the Canadian Cereal and Milling Company, organized on Bay Street in 1909. The firm intended to consolidate the small-town milling industry in southern Ontario, and it began to do so in 1910, acquiring, in short order, mills in London, Ayr, Fergus, Galt, Owen Sound, and other towns.
The prices offered to the old-time millers, many of whom were the second and third generation of their families in the business, were too good to turn down.
Naively, many of the millers accepted stock in the new company, rather than cash. In most cases they remained as local managers of the mills.
Not surprisingly, Canadian Cereal and Milling turned out to be a losing prospect for most of the investors other than a small group of insiders. The affairs of the company were not of a straightforward character.
Monkland Mills in Fergus, operated by the Wilson family, was one of the mills taken over, for a sale price of $150,000, a fortune in those days. Three years later the Wilsons bought back their mill for $21,000. That story appeared in this column more than a decade ago.
About the same time as the Fergus takeover, in August 1910, Canadian Cereal bought the milling operation of the Martin Brothers in Mount Forest. The purchase included an old mill and a newer one, the water privilege on the Saugeen River, and two grain elevators. The purchase price was not stated publicly, but it probably involved stock in the new company as well as some cash.
The founder of that family business, John Martin, came to Mount Forest in 1856 and constructed a small flour mill. From the beginning he did very well.
Ten years later he added an oatmeal mill to the property, and a decade later he expanded further, with a sawmill, barrel making operation, and a shingle mill.
In 1879, Martin took his sons Tom and Alex into the business as partners. They operated as Martin Brothers after the death of their father in 1883.
The sons carried on the expansionist policy of their father, adding a huge elevator, accessible to the Grand Trunk and Canadian Pacific Railways, in 1891.
By the 1890s, the public regarded Tom Martin, the elder brother, as one of the important businessmen of Mount Forest. Unlike many millers, who succumbed to bankruptcy during the 1870s and 1880s, Martin had adjusted to changing circumstances in the milling industry. Oatmeal, rather than flour, became the primary product of the mill by the 1890s.
Tom Martin won election as Liberal MP for North Wellington, serving until his death in 1907. About the time of his election, his son Robert joined the milling firm.
Following the death of Thomas Martin the voters elected brother Alex Martin as MP. He found it difficult to look after the management of the mill and fulfill his parliamentary duties at the same time.
He welcomed the sale of the mill to Canadian Cereal. He would be able to devote all his time to his role as MP.
The new owners took over the management of the Martin mills in September of 1910, under the supervision of T.H. Ellis, the owner of a grain business in Owen Sound. It appears that the Martins still had some involvement with the operation, perhaps on an advisory basis. Details of the business relationship between Ellis and Canadian Cereal are also unclear.
In any case, the new owners continued operations for little more than a year, and then removed most of the milling equipment for use elsewhere.
Late on the night of Feb. 17, 1912, the town’s fire alarm summoned brigade to the mill, which at that point was vacant and not in use except for the attached drying kiln.
By then a blaze was already under way. The mill was beyond the reach of the town’s water supply.
Most of the efforts of the firefighters and dozens of volunteers went into saving grain and a few pieces of machinery. Several hundred spectators cheered them on.
Alex Martin Jr. had been through the mill complex about 11pm that night. Less than an hour later his aunt, Mrs. Thomas Martin noticed flames in the mill from her residence across the street from the mill. She gave the initial alarm.
Eventually a bucket brigade brought a supply of water to the mill, and efforts went to saving the elevator on one side of the vacant mill. On the other side was an old building, the original oatmeal mill, in use at the time as a chopping mill. Both were saved by the sweating volunteers, but with some damage.
Volunteers pulled what equipment they could reach out of the mill, while others succeeded in opening the gates to the elevator, draining the oats onto the ground.
Flames scorched the wall of the chopping mill adjacent to the fire. A sheathing of corrugated metal prevented serious damage to the elevator. The heat ignited some timbers inside each of those structures but the bucket brigade dealt with those outbreaks effectively. Two volunteers, Charlie Greensides and Vincent Murphy, dealt with sparks and embers that landed on the roof of the chopping mill.
Investigators were not certain of the fire, but it apparently started in the drying kiln that was operating day and night to dry grain salvaged from an elevator in Owen Sound owned by Ellis. It had been soaked by water during a fire in his elevator there. The company planned to dry the grain and then chop it for livestock feed.
W.H. Ellis estimated the damage at $1,000, but that was only for some of the damaged equipment and grain. That estimate is suspiciously low. He carried fire insurance covering only a portion of his loss. Some of the grain being dried belonged to Murphy and Company, who were associated with Ellis in his Owen Sound operations. The building itself was partially covered by insurance carried by Canadian Cereal and Milling, a requirement made by the bankers who were underwriting the conglomerate.
The assignment of the losses to the various parties owning property and grain was a difficult one: Canadian Cereal, who owned the buildings, T.H. Ellis, who leased a portion of it and owned some of the equipment and grain, Murphy and Company, who owned some of the grain, and the Martins, who still seemed to still have some involvement. Canadian Cereal sent a man from Toronto to keep an eye on activities after the fire, and insurance adjusters were in Mount Forest before the ashes had cooled.
Several members of the Martin family had moved away in the decade before the fire, and the exodus continued after the fire. Several members of the family had moved to the west and to the United States. Alex Martin lost his North Wellington seat in the general election of 1911, and a couple of months after the fire he moved to Saskatchewan.
Tom Martin had a twin brother, William Munro Martin, who eschewed the milling business and became a minister, serving in Saskatchewan. His son, William Melville Martin, was elected an MP from Saskatchewan in 1908.
Eight years later he became premier of the province. He died in Regina in 1970 at the age of 93. Other members of the family also achieved prominence and distinction elsewhere.
The Martins in the west maintained contact with old friends and relatives in Mount Forest for decades, visiting in the old home town from time to time, and retaining their interest in the town in which the family had played such an important part in both business and social circles for more than a half century.