News from the Mapleton Township area in 1904, 1980
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.
March 1904
122 years ago
Drayton area residents endured the worst winter in a generation in 1904.
Storm after storm dumped huge quantities of snow on the countryside. Church attendance suffered, with a blizzard sweeping through on every Sunday in February and March.
Transportation broke down completely, with roads plugged and impassible. Snowdrifts bested the locomotives on the railways.
During the second week of February the lines saw no trains for several days. Nothing moved in the normally bustling yards at Palmerston, and an eastbound Canadian Pacific train was stranded near Arthur.
The lines bogged down again in March. Drifts shut down the main line from Palmerston to Guelph, and a derailment near Alma further aggravated the situation. To the north it was worse: no train entered or left Owen Sound for two weeks.
Transportation routes were back in service by the third week of March, but winter still lingered, dashing hopes of an early spring. Despite the weather, business and normal activities continued.
Postmaster Hambly of Drayton, after receiving no mail for five days, was deluged with 33 full bags on March 10. With assistance he got most of it sorted that day, and kept the office open until 1am so that residents could pick up their letters and papers.
Aggravating the situation was a coal shortage. One of the Drayton dealers received a carload at the end of March, the first in almost a month. Shivering householders burned whatever firewood they could scrounge, and a few braver ones went to Elora and Elmira for a couple of 100-pound sacks of the black nuggets. Dealers in those towns refused to sell more, preferring to look after their local customers first.
A pause in the string of blizzards permitted O.E. Lowes to hold a successful farm auction, the first of the year in the area. His horses sold for $97 to $150, cows for $40 to $95, and small pigs for $4 each.
On March 3, promoters of the Drayton High School district held a meeting at the Town Hall, with support growing for the concept. A petition in favour of the project was started. To reflect the area to be served by the school, the new board would have two members from each of Drayton, Peel and Maryborough.
Progress was less favourable in the north corner of Peel, where residents had taken steps to establish a new school section. Two suitable sites were available, and support was evenly divided for them. Some feared that a court case would be required to deal with the impasse.
The West Wellington Farmers Association held a large meeting at Rothsay’s Temperance Hall on March 4, with speeches by James McEwing and W.T. Hambly.
Confusion caught up area Liberals, who were scheduled to meet in Drayton on March 19. Party officials, on learning that a Farmers Association meeting was already scheduled for that day, cancelled the meeting after a notice had already appeared in the Drayton Advocate. Editor Coram of the paper, of course, took the brunt of the blame when scores of Liberal farmers showed up at the Town Hall.
Despite the weather, good markets kept farmers in an optimistic mood. Short & Ewing, the cattle dealers at Alma, shipped 24 head of cattle at Alma from F. Rudd, with a total weight of 33,500 pounds, at prices that delighted all concerned.
Farm prices reflected the strong markets. David Hollingshead bought a 100-acre farm from Walter Burt near Rothsay for an even $5,000.
At the end of the month, representatives of the Ontario Sugar Company were in the area, holding meetings at Drayton on March 26 and Moorefield on March 28. At these they explained the cultivation of sugar beets, and attempted to sign up new growers.
Drayton’s downtown saw several business changes. Wong Lee opened a new laundry, and slashed the rates then prevailing in town. Bill Ryan closed his grocery store; he was moving to Lynden for a partnership in a store there. He was a loss to both the business community and to the Methodist Church, where he was a very active member.
Meanwhile, O.B. Henry of Drayton was in Moorefield on behalf of the Bell Telephone Co., trying to persuade merchants there to install telephones.
March meetings of municipal councils dealt only with routine matters. Maryborough councillors did their best to stretch a slim March 12 agenda into an all-day meeting. They convened at 10am, read the minutes, then adjourned until 1pm for an ample lunch. On resumption they paid seven bills, set the date for the next meeting and went home.
In late March, an exodus from the area began. A stream of farmers, some of them longtime residents, packed up their belongings and headed for the Canadian west. A.M. Morrow of Teviotdale, Colin Thakery of Goldstone and Tom Caldwell of Rothsay were among the first to go, most with their families. Others were waiting for railway cars. Most of those moving used a boxcar to take their household belongings, implements and even livestock with them.
The outflow would continue for a few more years, and would have a lasting effect on the close-knit communities of Peel and Maryborough.
March 1980
46 years ago
The big news at the beginning of March 1980 was the sale of Community Telephone Ontario Ltd. to Bell Telephone.
The firm, itself an amalgamation of many small local telephone systems, including the one in the Drayton area, operated 21 exchanges across Ontario, and served some 33,000 businesses and households.
Along with the sale came an announcement that rates would increase 80 per cent. Prior to regulatory approval, affected telephone users had the opportunity to voice their comments at a series of hearings, including one at Drayton on March 4. Elbert van Donkersgood led the local committee to oppose the new rates.
More agreeable news came from the Peel & Maryborough Mutual Insurance Co. Its annual statement came out in early March, and showed a considerable increase in business during 1979. Assets stood at $1.6-million; liabilities at $446,000. Premium income was up 18% to $706,000, and claims for the year totalled $375,000, resulting in a sizable increase in reserves.
A Ministry of the Environment survey showed that 94% of Drayton’s septic systems were substandard, and some severely so. More serious were the contaminated wells: about a dozen of the village’s 120 wells produced severely contaminated water.
The MOE suggested the village construct a lagoon-type sewage system, with the lagoons on a 106-acre parcel owned by Arend Flinkert in Maryborough. The report concluded that a deep well drilled for the village’s health clinic in 1967 had sufficient capacity to supply most of the village.
Meanwhile, new construction continued. Council reached an agreement with Albert Meisler to develop eight lots facing Queen, Mill and King Streets. He would be responsible for bringing the streets up to standard and providing storm drainage.
Hockey season reached its peak in March, with Drayton teams involved in playoffs. The Intermediate team took on Ripley in a five-game series and disposed of them handily. The local Dragons were much less successful when they began a series against the Goderich Panthers, losing the first game of that series 10-7. For the second game on March 21 at Goderich, Drayton area fans chartered two buses to take enthusiastic supporters to Goderich.
The local minor hockey group organized a full-day tournament on March 8, with play beginning at 8am. House league, tykes, atoms, and peewees filled the day with steady play. The event concluded with a fundraising dance in the evening.
Other Drayton organizations made plans for events. The Kinsmen scheduled the first of three local talent contests for March 29, featuring Hoppy, a popular Kitchener broadcasting personality. The Rotary Club was busy organizing a walkathon, with proceeds earmarked for the paving of the parking lot at the arena.
A petition to the Wellington County School Board from 11 parents in the Yatton-Wallenstein area caused some concern. They wanted their children to attend Floradale school in Waterloo region, rather than Centre Peel and Drayton schools.
The later already was experiencing declining enrolment, and some feared that it might be closed after the loss of more students. Floradale was only a couple of miles from their homes, while Centre Peel was about six miles and Drayton 13.
On March 10 the Arena Board set its budget for 1980. The board requested $20,000 in operating grants, and $27,000 in capital grants, most of the latter allocated to paving the arena parking lot.
Board members were delighted with arena manager Peter Robertson’s report. His conservation program had reduced electrical consumption by 30% in January. Costs of operating the arena were reduced considerably by the fundraising activities of various user and community groups, including Rotary and the Hockey Moms.
Light snow-cover frustrated local snowmobile enthusiasts. The Lake Conestoga Snowmobile Club, working with the Ministry of Natural Resources and the conservation authority, laid out a 75km trail around the lake, but lack of snow in February and March made it largely unusable. The club, founded in 1974, had grown to 50 members by 1980.
Drayton’s Figure Skating Club began a major fundraising drive, asking supporters and friends to save proof-of-purchase labels for 11 Colgate-Palmolive products. The firm promised to give 10 to 40 cents for each one turned in. Several businesses volunteered to be collection points.
Drayton’s Curling Club held its combination awards night and annual meeting on March 24. Ron Schieck and Ken Fisher skipped the top teams during the season. The club ended the season with 46 paid-up members and a surplus of $886.
A downtown business location, vacant since summer 1979, seemed destined to remain so. An auctioneer tried to sell the Drayton Variety and Pool Hall on March 22. The only bid offered was far below the reserve. The business had closed with the bankruptcy of Bob and Shelda Geff, the last operators.
*This column was originally published in the Drayton Community News on March 26, 2004 and March 4, 2005.