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.
Last week’s column ended with the triumphant re-election of Charles Allan as MP for Wellington North on Aug. 14, 1858.
This week, the final column in the five-part series on Allan and pioneer politics continues with events in late 1858 and early 1859.
Charles Clarke and his radical Clear Grit cohorts in Elora had reason to celebrate the re-election of Charles Allan. He took 61 per cent of the Wellington North vote, and in doing so showed that the various shades of liberal opinion could be united in a single effort.
The results shook off the stigma of republicanism and even rebellion that had saddled the Clear Grit movement from its beginning.
Equally important, the voters repudiated the Orange Lodge and its attempt to hijack the election into an anti-Catholic referendum. From now on, the Orange Lodge would only be a minor player in Wellington politics.
Wellington North’s Liberals met in Elora on Sept. 3, 1858, three weeks after the election, in a jubilant mood. They decided to put on a political dinner with as many of the Liberal leaders of Canada as they could attract. Similar dinners were on the agenda in Hamilton, Toronto and Brantford.
Elora was a little different: it had been a hotbed for the Clear Grit movement for most of the decade. Charles Clarke, a merchant and backroom political operator, was anxious to solidify the place of Grittism in the centre of the Liberal party.
Clarke’s committee sent out invitations for the dinner, to be held on Sept. 24, 1858 in the dining room of Elora’s Commercial Hotel on Mill Street. Charles Allan agreed to pay some of the costs of the event. He was anxious to establish a place for himself amongst the leadership of the party.
Allan was a generation older than most of the Liberal leaders. Gregarious and without any entrenched ideology, he was popular with members on all sides of the legislature. He had the potential to be a patrician figure in government as a conciliator and moderating influence.
While the Liberals made their banquet plans, the full story of the August election emerged. It would rank as the most violent in Wellington history. Expecting trouble, the returning officer had authorized two special constables at each township polling station to maintain a semblance of order. In several locations this was not sufficient. The deputy returning officer in Arthur swore in two additional constables for the second day of voting. Four additional men were needed in Peel.
Mobs badly damaged the residence of William Robinson in Hustonville, the poll for Maryborough. Orangemen had clashed with Allan’s Maryborough supporters several times in the days before the election, causing some property damage besides thick lips, blackened eyes and cauliflower ears. The Deputy Returning Officer swore in 10 additional constables, but these proved ineffective when most of them could not restrain their own political feelings.
There were more hard feelings when authorities announced that no money was available to pay the special constables. Richard Moore, the DRO pleaded with authorities for at least a token payment for them, but noted that “some of them, I assure you, do not deserve any.”
The ugly incident on election night, when Thomas Ferguson brandished a pistol at a mob of Allan supporters in Elora, was not over. Although the magistrates acquitted Ferguson, a movement by several Elora extremists to appeal the case to a higher court was under way. Eventually they abandoned their efforts.
On the afternoon of the big banquet, Charles Clarke and other Elora Clear Grits, accompanied by the Elora Brass Band, waited for the distinguished guests at the Ponsonby hill. They came in a group from the railway station at Guelph. Clarke expressed bitter disappointment that Thomas D’Arcy McGee and George Brown were not among the visitors.
Brown had to abandon the trip due to a business crisis at the Toronto Globe.
“Can’t you do without George Brown for a single night?” barked a voice from one of the carriages. The words came from John Sandfield Macdonald, destined to be the first premier of Ontario after Confederation. In 1858, though, he was not entirely comfortable with the leadership of George Brown. The coalition of Liberal factions still hung together by threads.
After an ample meal prepared by Margaret Bain, the talking went on until the small hours of the morning. A.A. Dorion, Oliver Mowat, Luther Holton, Sandfield Macdonald, old Adam Ferguson, and Charles Allan all gave lengthy speeches.
The election day mobs had not yet disbanded. Allan’s supporters announced their intentions to hang in effigy various prominent Conservatives from the telegraph poles on Mill Street. Their plans failed. A much larger Conservative group maintained control of the street. In the end, George Brown and Charles Allan hung from the poles in effigy, and later that night the mob burned them.
The morning after the banquet, Charles Allan had to face realities. The economy had entered its worst period since the late 1830s, and Wellington was experiencing a failure with the 1858 crop. Allan owned several farms and more than 2,000 village lots in various locations in Wellington and elsewhere. New sales had ceased completely, and instalment payments from buyers trickled to almost nothing.
Allan had spent a great deal on the election, and seemed more interested in a political career than in continuing as a businessman and developer. Expenses for his various developments continued to mount, but his income in 1858 would be less than the property taxes on his land holdings.
More trouble for him surfaced in August, with charges that he had made special deals with the Crown Lands Department for his Rothsay townsite. This scandal dragged on into the last days of 1858, threatening to drag down Allan’s political career. No real evidence, either supporting or refuting the charges, ever appeared.
After a modest New Year’s celebration, Allan resumed his efforts to save something of his crumbling financial and real estate empire in January 1859. On Jan. 13 he was in Hamilton to transact some business regarding a subdivision he owned in Dundas. He collapsed suddenly, and was rushed to the residence of James Mathieson, a wholesale merchant and business partner in some of Allan’s land deals.
A few hours later, Allan was dead at 58 of a paralytic stroke. The funeral, in Fergus on Jan. 18, brought out the largest assemblage of people and carriages ever seen in Wellington County.
The Fergus newspaper, which had been his severest political foe, had nothing but praise for Allan: “To his energy and perseverance is due a great part of the progress made by the Village of Elora, and the opening of the road from that place to the new country west of it.”
Charles Allan left his business affairs in a mess. The executors and lawyers spent years sorting it all out. For his widow, Grace Allan, the biggest worry was a drawer full of unpaid bills. Some lots in Allan’s various developments eventually found buyers, but others, a century and a half after his death, are still vacant.
Politically, Charles Allan left a legacy with his terms as reeve of Pilkington and warden of Wellington County. He died before he could make much of a mark on the provincial scene.
During his 26 years in Canada he had risen from a semi-literate carpenter to a contractor, and ultimately to a major developer who did as much as anyone to shape the future of the county. A Guelph artist painted a portrait of him posthumously and then sold photographic copies of the painting. Allan’s photos were still for sale in the mid 1860s.
Meanwhile, politics carried on. Authorities called another by-election for Feb. 18, 1859. Wellington North’s voters were headed for the polls for the third time in 14 months.
*This column was originally published in the Advertiser on Oct. 26, 2001.
