Over the years the Beatty Brothers firm of Fergus has been the subject of several of these columns.
The company began in 1874 on a minuscule scale, making and assembling farm implements. The first generation consisted of brothers Matthew and George Beatty. They struggled for a quarter century, achieving indifferent success at best.
Following a bankruptcy in 1896 the company reorganized, and soon the firm was in the hands of the second generation, Milton J. And William G. Beatty.
Both were sons of George, and under them the firm became the leading maker of washing machines and other appliances. Today Milt and Will Beatty are the best remembered members of the family.
But in his day their cousin, James A. Beatty, had achieved renown on his own account. Unlike Will and Milt, who returned to Fergus at the conclusion of their education, James looked to other horizons after earning an engineering degree.
James Beatty organized the firm Morrow and Beatty, which was based in Peterborough, with a branch office in Toronto. During the first third of the 20th century, Morrow and Beatty were responsible for some of the major construction projects in Ontario.
After graduating from the Fergus High School, Beatty took the University of Toronto course in civil engineering. After graduation he went to the United States as an employee of the Riter Conley Manufacturing Company of Pittsburgh, working in their drafting department.
He stayed there only briefly. His next position was with the Dupont Company in Wilmington, Delaware, where he rose to be assistant superintendent of the gunpowder division.
Beatty was one of the engineers involved in planning and building a new plant for Dupont in Birmingham, Alabama.
Tirelessly ambitious, Beatty left the Dupont Company after a couple of years, joining the American Bridge Company of Detroit. He worked on several large projects for them before resigning to return to Canada.
His new employer was the engineering firm of Ross and Holgate, who employed Beatty as a consulting engineer. With his wide range of experience, and his familiarity with large projects, he formed the firm of Morrow and Beatty in 1908.
His timing was perfect. This was the start of the period of major construction of dams, hydro-electric and paper plants in northern Ontario, and he had experience on large projects.
The new firm quickly gained the confidence of businessmen, the Ontario Hydro-Electric Power Commission, and the provincial government. One of the firm’s big projects was the huge dam and paper mill at Smooth Rock Falls, half way between Cochrane and Kapuskasing. They began that project in 1917.
Even bigger was a project at Iroquois Falls two years later. That project included a dam 700 feet long, a powerhouse 400 feet long containing 16 power generators, and a pulp and paper mill that was one of the largest in North America. The firm completed that project in only 18 months.
By then Morrow and Beatty were considered the top engineering firm in Canada for planning and building power plants.
Another major contract was the construction of a large newsprint mill at Kapuskasing. That town had its origin as an interment camp during the First World War, housing captured German military personnel.
After the war, the federal government made a failed attempt to house returned soldiers and interest them in farming in northern Ontario.
The town received a fresh start when the Spruce Falls Pulp and Paper Company began work on a new plant there. Morrow and Beatty received the contract to build the plant.
Along with their plant, the Spruce Falls company decided to build a proper town, and Morrow and Beatty received that contract as well.
The new town of Kapuskasing was a fully-planned community, one of the first in North America, and it soon came to be viewed as a model town. Work on the paper plant began in 1927.
Success was certain, because the major customer was the New York Times, which also held an interest in the company.
By the time the plant opened the population of Kapuskasing topped 4,000, and the plant was producing 550 tons of paper each day.
Power for the plant and town came from Smokey Falls. The dam built there by Morrow and Beatty was 1,700 feet long and up to 100 feet in height. Construction required the employment of 1,800 men. They poured 18,500 cubic yards of concrete, and the dam incorporated almost 10,000 tons of reinforcing steel. When completed, the dam had a potential power capacity of 250,000 horsepower.
While he was frequently on the sites of these big projects, Beatty spent much of his time at the firm’s Toronto office on Adelaide Street, just around the corner from Yonge Street. He lived in an impressive house on Bayview Avenue.
Whenever he could he made a trip back to the old home town, where he visited his aunt, Mrs. George Beatty, and his cousins Milt and Will.
It is entirely possible that Milt and Will picked up ideas useful for their own management and efficient organization of the Beatty plant in Fergus. For example, W.G. Beatty was an early advocate of town planning.
He may well have been guided in his views by his cousin’s experience in planning the town of Kapuskasing.
In late 1928 a group of men from Fergus went to Kapuskasing to view the work underway there by James Beatty. They toured the town, and then went north on the railway to inspect the dam and generating station at Smokey Falls.
On March 29, 1932, an OPP constable noticed a car parked beside the road near Pickering, east of Toronto, with a man working underneath it.
The car and man were still there when the constable passed by again about an hour later.
He investigated, and found the man, who he was able to identify as James Beatty, was apparently dead.
More police and the coroner were on the scene quickly. The car had obviously become stuck in the mud, and Beatty was attempting to jack it up and guide it out of some deep ruts. Foolishly, he had left the engine running.
The coroner concluded that Beatty had succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning, and that an inquest would be unnecessary.
James Beatty’s death shocked not only old friends and relatives in Fergus, but also senior Ontario Hydro officials and engineers across the country, who viewed Beatty as a leading member of their profession. Fred Gaby, head of the engineering department of Ontario Hydro, said that Beatty “was a very fine engineer and a man of the highest integrity and ability.”
His ability to bring in hugely complex projects within budget and often far ahead of schedule was widely admired by other engineers and industrialists.
Beatty was survived by his wife, the former Margaret Byers of Toronto, and a daughter, Catherine.
Today, James A. Beatty is largely forgotten in Fergus. His monuments are the string of dams, power generating stations and paper plants across northern Ontario – at Smooth Rock Falls, Smokey Falls, the Abitibi Canyon and elsewhere.
Those power plants are still in use, continuing to generate pollution-free power for the province as they have done for the best part of a century.