The following is a re-print of a past column by former Advertiser columnist Stephen Thorning, who passed away on Feb. 23, 2015.
Some text has been updated to reflect changes since the original publication and any images used may not be the same as those that accompanied the original publication.
July/August 1901 121 years ago
Insect pests tried the patience of both farmers and homemakers 121 years ago.
Who can remember Tanglefoot flypaper? It came in sheets that could be tacked up or left on a table or counter. It was a messy product compared to the thumbtack-and-ribbon fly catcher version that later became popular.
Paris green was a notably vile and dangerous compound of arsenic and copper acetate that was widely used as an insecticide. In 1901 it was the only effective weapon against pests such as potato bugs.
Drayton residents could stroll around town without stumbling on rotted boards or stones in August 1901. Conery & Co. of Guelph finished up their contract that provided the village with over two miles of cement sidewalks, on both sides of Main and Wellington Streets, and some on Wood Street. Council had debentured $5,000 on the project. About 20% of the cost was for grading and gravel to level up the numerous dips and irregularities along the sides of the streets.
Baseball games were chief attractions. Drayton staged a concert in the evening, featuring John Peel’s Drayton Quartet as the warm up act for James Fax, a popular comic musical performer. Palmerston requested the Grand Trunk Railway to sell half-price excursion tickets to encourage large crowds on their holiday.
Although baseball was unchallenged as the most popular sport, there was also some interest in football, with teams organized at Moorefield and Palmerston. There does not appear to have been a formal league at this time, but both teams played Listowel at least once during the summer.
Hay yields were excellent in 1901. A hay press operated at Goldstone Station, where hay was shipped to Toronto by the carload. Mid August arrived with excellent harvesting conditions and expectations of a good crop. The new Moorefield Flax Mill advertised for 500 tons of flax. The weather was dry, but the drought came too late to damage most crops.
Then the rains came. On Aug. 19 a severe thunderstorm approached from the west in late afternoon, with hair-raising lightning and thunder that shook the ground. Rain fell in torrents, and did not let up until midnight. It was the worst thunder storm in years.
The damage was immense everywhere, and worst in the Glen Allan area, where flood waters swept stocks of grain against fences and into ditches, and flattened crops not yet cut. Water stood in some fields to a depth of 18 inches. Swollen streams washed out four culverts in Peel.
More damaging were lightning-induced barn fires. Wesley Cosford lost his six-year-old barn, filled with his grain crop, livestock and implements. Three more barns went up in the Alma and Parker areas, with at least another half-dozen lightning strikes that did not start fires.
As an encore, another storm swept through on Aug. 23. This one destroyed John Eaton’s barn on Concession 6 of Peel. The mood at the Peel and Maryborough Fire Insurance Co. was subdued at the end of August: the company paid out over $7,000 in claims, equivalent to about $600,000 in present-day dollars, (over $1 million in 2022).
A couple of fires resulted from causes other than the storms. A fire in a woodpile caused damage to the Moorefield grain elevator before alert passersby extinguished the blaze.
In Harriston, the engineer on a Sam northbound freight train noticed flames coming from the Howes and Leighton sawmill. He began blowing the locomotive whistle frantically to arouse the town, but it was too late. The sawmill burned to the ground, and also closed down the Harriston electrical plant, which was on the property. It was out of service for more than a week until the boiler and engine could be put back in service.
New barns went up faster than older ones burned in 1901. Harry Cousins of Alma embarked on a new career as a barn builder during the summer. Through serendipitous circumstances, he found himself the supervisor of a barn raising on the Rudd farm in July when the man originally hired could not come.
Harry had never built a barn before. Rather than hoist individual timbers, he constructed the bents on the ground, then hoisted them into place. This technique had not been used locally before.
Word soon got around the area and, by August, Harry Cousins had more work than he could handle. He displayed a natural ability to co-ordinate and organize work, and was able to complete a job in less time than anyone else.
Other construction during the summer included major work on the Alma Methodist church, and an addition to the old Stirton store and post office, which was the new location of the Stirton Flax Mill Store. In Moorefield, hardware merchant George Simpson installed a windmill and water trough at the weigh scales so that visitors to the village could water their horses.
A steady stream of visitors went to Buffalo for a few days or a week to visit the Pan American Exhibition. Dr. N.C. Wallace of Alma planned the longest trip. He visited the exhibition after a journey west to Winnipeg and Vancouver.
July/August 1926 96 years ago
Hot weather in July 1926 brought with it some violent thunderstorms. A lightning strike and subsequent fire claimed a large barn owned by Ferguson Bros., on Wellington Road 7 near Teviotdale. A couple of other barn fires resulted from spontaneous combustion in green hay.
Overall, the 1926 crops looked good in mid-summer, and farmers eagerly anticipated the all-too-rare combination of above-average yields and high market prices.
The optimism was dampened somewhat in late August, when root maggots and plant lice overwhelmed the turnip crop. Wellington County farmers grew more than 10,000 acres of turnips in the 1920s, with between 10% and 15% of this acreage in Peel and Maryborough.
R.H. Clemens, the Ag. Rep. based at Arthur, after a tour of affected farms, concluded that most of the 1926 turnip crop would be a total loss. The oats crop also suffered as harvest time neared, with twin plagues of rust and wire worms.
Poultrymen had their worries as well, when chicken thieves made their presence known in Wallace and Maryborough Townships. Authorities eventually apprehended a father-and-son team from Palmerston. After conviction they served a term in the hoosegow.
Palmerston’s new fountain in the small park on William Street, near the station, attracted many admirers. It featured a cast iron fountain on a stone base, with a concrete basin holding the water. With the hot weather, the small pool attracted dozens of boys, some wearing swim suits, wading through the cool water.
Others cooled off by taking a dip in one of the rivers. This proved to be a poor idea for some boys who took a skinny dip in the Maitland near Harriston. As they waded out of the water, they saw a couple of cows munching at their clothes. One of boys covered himself as best he could; and went off to borrow some garments.
Highway traffic hit new peaks through the summer of 1926, especially on the holiday weekends. Officials did an actual count on the county road at Rothsay, which was under consideration as a provincial highway. On Civic holiday weekend, more than a thousand cars passed through the hamlet on the Saturday, and about 2,000 on Monday.
Drivers between Fergus and Arthur complained of liquid tar on the road in late July. They had to slow down to a crawl to keep it from splashing all over their vehicles. The oil had been sprayed on the road by the Toronto Road Construction Co., who had the contract for resurfacing the road. The company used 32,000 gallons of oil and 43 carloads of crushed stone on the 12-mile section. The work was completed just in time for the Civic Holiday weekend.
The other major road project underway was the paving of the main street of Moorefield, which began in mid August.
Though highway traffic was up, the railways enjoyed record business in passengers and a boom in freight. Canadian National had sped up its schedules to attract and retain passengers. The schedule board at the Palmerston station listed 27 passengers trains in 1926.
Officials liked to run freight trains on Sunday, when there were no passenger trains. One Sunday morning, on July 25, two freight trains from Guelph, one with 56 cars and the other with 34, arrived within an hour at Palmerston. Yard crews had a full day’s work breaking them up and making up new trains bound for Durham, Owen Sound, Southampton and Kincardine.
There was no major construction in Drayton during the summer of 1926, but carpenters and tradesmen worked overtime tackling renovation and repair work.
A minor building boom seemed to be under way in Alma. Charles Smith had a new house under construction. A rumour circulated that the site of the old Farrelly hotel would be the location of a feed mill. There were also plans for at least two more houses in Alma.
The major social event of August 1926 was the Moorefield Big Day on Aug. 12. The all-day program featured races, ball games, a fiddling contest, a ladies’ tug-of-war, a ladies’ baby carriage race, and an evening concert. The Palmerston Brass Band and other local talent played throughout the day and the evening concert featured the popular Brunswick Trio. Proceeds went to improvements at Moorefield Park.
Many public schools in the area sponsored garden competitions for their students, with judging in late July and early August. Competition at Drayton Public School was keen. Marion Jackson and Ora Morgan led the list of winners.
Aided by a $200 grant from county council, Ag. Rep. R.H. Clemens asked the numerous agricultural and horticultural groups in the area to assist with a Wellington County exhibit at the 1926 Canadian National Exhibition. The display featured locally grown flowers and examples of the agricultural products of Wellington.
*This column was originally published in the Drayton Community News on July 27 and Aug. 3, 2001.
