Hotels were the key businesses at most of the small hamlets founded in the 19th century.
There were 30 or 40 such hamlets in Wellington County. Today few of them have any operating businesses. A house or two, and sometimes a sign on the road, are the only clues that something more important once existed at the location.
Virtually all those hotels opened in the days before railways, when horse-drawn wagons were the only means of transportation for agricultural products. By 1860, hotels dotted the major roads at intervals of five or six miles. Wagon masters and herdsmen driving cattle would stop there for food and drink, and sometimes for a night’s lodging.
The Grand Trunk and Great Western Railways opened stations in Guelph in 1856. For the next 15 years, Guelph prospered as the major shipping point in Wellington County. That all changed when branch lines reached through Wellington County beginning in 1870. Most of the small towns became shipping points, and the bustling trade enjoyed by the hotels on the main roads dwindled. Some closed through lack of business, and others closed when ratepayers voted in favour of the local option in the years immediately after 1900. Others struggled along until the Ontario Temperance Act closed their bar rooms during World War I.
Hotels initially were regulated by municipalities, which licensed them to sell liquor. In return, they had to maintain specified standards of conduct in their beverage rooms, and have available at least six bedrooms for overnight lodgers. Meals had to be available at any time for travellers, and their proprietors had to maintain stabling and feed for horses and livestock.
The hamlet of Marden, in Guelph Township, about four miles from downtown Guelph, attracted three hotels. Many farmers and teamsters preferred to spend a night outside Guelph, entering the town early in the morning to transact their business. Marden was also at the junction of major roads to Fergus and Elora, and points north of those towns.
Oldest of the Marden hotels was the one operated by Alex Blyth, at the southeast corner of what is now the intersection of Highway 6 and County Road 30. Blyth purchased a portion of a farm there in 1833, building and operating a tavern.
Previously he had operated a tavern on the north end of Guelph. He constructed a second, and much larger, building in 1846. That three-storey structure, altered and renovated several times, survives today.
That second building had its bar room to the left of the front door as patrons entered, and a parlour to the right, with the dining room at its rear. Upstairs were eight bedrooms, and three more on the third floor. An ample wooden porch and balcony graced the front of the building.
The Marden post office operated from the hotel when it opened in 1859, with Blyth’s son, Colin, acting as postmaster.
By then, Alex Blyth had competition. Another hotel, about which little is known, operated on the west side of the road about a half mile nearer Guelph. As traffic increased through the 1850s a third hotel opened, located where the roads to Fergus and Elora split, and appropriately named the Junction Tavern.
William Griffith purchased that triangular piece of property from farmer William Darby in 1856, and constructed the three storey wedge-shaped building that summer of local brick, with a stone extension at the rear. Guelph Township council granted him a licence in 1857.
Griffith offered a free room for township council meetings, but councillors stayed with their existing quarters at Blyth’s Hotel, where they used one of the third-floor rooms as often as they wanted for a flat $24 per year. Hotel operators were happy to host council meetings: they brought ample contributions to bar room and dining room receipts from councillors and visitors.
All three of the Marden hotels enjoyed boom times through the 1860s. Griffith constructed additional stabling across the Fergus Road from the Junction Hotel to handle the herds on their way to Guelph. The golden age ended suddenly in the summer of 1870, when the Wellington, Grey and Bruce Railway opened stations in Fergus and Elora. Marden had its own station, but that was small comfort to the hotel men.
The Junction Hotel and Blyth’s limped along through the rest of the 19th century, serving mostly a local clientele, welcoming occasional lodgers, and struggling against the rising tide of temperance.
The Blyth family, seeking better opportunities, sold out in 1879. A succession of operators ran the business for another 37 years. Most notable of them was James Burns, who bought the business and all buildings in 1888 for $3,000, a fraction of its value 20 years earlier. He operated the hotel until the business closed in 1916 with the coming of temperance.
The Junction Tavern had a rockier history for a few years. Some hotel men never owned their hotels, but rented them for a year or two, then moved on. The same names pop up all over the county through the latter part of the 19th century. The list for the old Junction Hotel between 1867 and 1873 includes John Lilly, Henry Benn, John Hazleton, and finally John Heffernan. For a while in the 1870s a cider mill operated in an outbuilding no longer required for stabling livestock.
In 1902, Heffernan sold out to James Burns, operator of Blyth’s Hotel, which was then doing the lion’s share of business at Marden. Burns did not renew the Junction’s licence. Instead, he offered the building for rent as a residential property.
In 1920, Blyth’s Hotel re-opened as a general store, with Joseph Cole behind the counter. Two years later, James Checkley took over, and hung out a sign, The Dew Drop Inn, on the front verandah. He served local customers and offered snacks and gasoline to passing motorists. John A. Smith followed Checkley for a few years.
James McIntosh took over the store in 1928, and passed it on to his son, Alvin, who closed it in 1976. He continued to live in the building until he died in 1987. The contents of the building were sold at auction on Good Friday of that year. There were fears that the building would be demolished, but eventually it was renovated into commercial space.
The old Junction Hotel did not fare as well. For a time, tenants moved in and out at frequent intervals. More stability came in 1922 when George Prior and his wife bought the property. Both were eccentrics. George operated a painting and paper hanging business, using a motorcycle and sidecar to transport his paints and ladders from job to job.
The couple planted a huge garden at the rear of the property, and kept flocks of exotic poultry. She enjoyed raising singing canaries, and in summer operated an ice cream stand at the front of the building. The Priors never installed running water or electricity, though hydro lines ran on both sides of the building.
In the motor age, the hotel building was in a dangerous place. Before they were rebuilt, the two highways ran much closer to the building, with a dangerous Y intersection very close to the front of it. Over the years, several motorists, unable to decide whether to go to Elora or Fergus, split the difference and ran into the old hotel, causing considerable damage to the porch each time.
The worst example was in 1940, when a car smashed through the wall, coming to rest in the Prior’s kitchen. Modern brick was used to rebuild the wall; it provided an obvious reminder of that motorist’s indecision on which route to take.
Other than repairing the demolished wall, the Priors did little in the way of maintenance. By the 1960s, the building was in poor repair, and Mrs. Prior spent most her time elsewhere. Abandoned in the 1970s, the structure was demolished in the late 1980s with no fanfare.