From time to time this column carries the stories of Wellington County natives who have prospered elsewhere. Another name to add to that list is Henry H. Stovel, who was an important figure in the early history of Mount Forest before moving to Winnipeg, where he did well, as did four of his sons, who achieved even more success there.
Henry H. Stovel was born in London, England in 1826. While a young man, he apprenticed as a tailor. At the age of 25 he came to Canada with his parents and 10 siblings. The family settled in Hamilton, where Henry practiced his trade. After a short time, he moved to Guelph. He married a Mount Forest girl, the daughter of George Chrichton, who farmed and later ran a tannery in Mount Forest.
His father and most of the rest of the family move on to Peel, Maryborough, and finally to Minto Township, where they secured some 800 acres of land. Young Henry worked at his trade until 1854, when he sought fresh opportunities in the north of the county, and joined his family in Minto, near Pike Lake. The couple had the first of their children there. Eventually there were five sons and a daughter.
Henry H. Stovel and his wife struggled through the severe depression of the late 1850s. In the 1860s, they moved to Mount Forest, which was then beginning a period of rapid growth and prosperity. Stovel took better advantage of the opportunities than anyone else.
His one-man tailoring shop quickly evolved into a dry goods store, which he called the London House. At the same time, Stovel took a leading role in the affairs of the local Baptist church, and in politics with the local Reform Party organization.
As a sideline, Stovel began a land and real estate business. He acted as a mortgage broker, sold insurance, and handled marriage licences. In 1867 he purchased some printing equipment, and put it to fresh use to print a new newspaper, the Mount Forest Confederate. The name did not come from sympathies for the south in the American Civil War, but to honour the Confederation that created the Dominion of Canada.
He acted as publisher. The office provided employment opportunities for his sons as they came of age. The eldest, Harry C., acted as the first editor, though he was only in his mid teens. Harry learned the mechanics of a printing office, along with his brothers, from men that their father hired to run the operation.
In the late 1860s, Stovel added another business, the Vulcan Foundry, to his holdings. By then Stovel was regarded as one of the leaders of the community, and remained so through the 1870s and early 1880s. Electors had no hesitation in sending him to Mount Forest’s council table.
In the early 1880s, H.H. Stovel invested heavily in real estate in Winnipeg and elsewhere in Manitoba. Like many others, he was caught up in the big speculative boom there that accompanied construction of the transcontinental railway.
Stovel suffered greatly when the boom collapsed. As well, a slowing economy in Mount Forest affected his local businesses, and he had to dispose of them one by one to satisfy the bill collectors hovering around the door. In 1880, Stovel had acquired his struggling competitor, the Mount Forest Examiner, and merged it with the Confederate. The newspaper was the last of his possessions to go. He sold the paper to one of his employees, Henry Benner, in 1884. One of the sons, Gus, stayed on as pressman.
Stovel’s eldest son, Harry C., started a new paper, the Mount Forest Index. It lasted less than two years. Concluding that there were few opportunities in Mount Forest, Harry convinced his father and two of his brothers, John and Chester, to relocated to Winnipeg, where Henry still had some real estate. At 58, Henry H. Stovel was still full of energy and ready to begin a new career.
The Stovel brothers found work in various printing offices in Winnipeg, while their father attempted to realize something on his real estate investments made at the beginning of the decade. He managed an insurance agency with clients across the west, and built up the business considerably. In 1889, Henry and four of his sons – Augustus had left the Confederate press room a short time before – began a modest printing office they called The Little Print Shop.
Henry H. Stovel did not live long enough to see the new business prosper. In the spring of 1890, he suffered a stroke, but by the fall of the year he was sufficiently recovered to resume work at his insurance agency. That involved a great deal of travelling. On Dec. 13, 1890, while waiting for a train a Emerson, Manitoba, he suffered a massive stroke, and died in a few minutes. He was 64.
Stovel’s four sons continued the printing business, and built it into a major commercial printing business during the 1890s.
The timing of the business, started when Winnipeg was at a low point following a boom and bust, proved to a great advantage to them. During the 1890s the city began to fill up with wholesale businesses and head offices of firms doing business in the booming western provinces. Almost all needed printing, of forms, catalogues, and brochures. The Little Print Shop was soon renamed Stovel Company Limited.
Harry C., the eldest brother, headed the firm, but his three brothers played large parts. All remained true to their Baptist religion, temperance sympathies, and Liberal politics. Among them, they had a wealth of experience in printing and publishing. All had worked at the Confederate office in Mount Forest, but they had experience as well in printing shops and newspapers elsewhere.
In 1919, Harry C. Stovel vowed to keep his plant open and operating during the Winnipeg General Strike. He succeeded to a point, but carrying on for weeks with little sleep as he trained new men and tried to keep up with orders put him under severe stress. That led to a complete nervous breakdown early in 1922.
His family sent him back to Ontario, for treatment and rest at the Homewood Sanitarium in Guelph. He died there of a stroke on July 4 of that year.
Augustus B. Stovel, with the broadest range of experience as a practical printer, suffered from various ailments in middle age. He was the first of the brothers to die, passing away at Hot Springs, West Virginia, in March 1921 while on a rest to recover his health. He was 56.
John Stovel, who split his time between the family firm and his duties as a member of the Manitoba legislature, died at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota on May 30, 1923.
After the death of his brothers, Chester D. Stovel the youngest of them, took the helm of the publishing firm, and guided it through prosperity and depression until his death on Dec. 20, 1937. Chester’s nephew, Everett C. Stovel, took over as president until his death in March 1944.
By then, the firm was the largest and oldest commercial printing firm in Winnipeg. In addition to its work for wholesalers and manufacturers, and printing and binding books, the firm also published a handful of magazines.
Most were trade journals, directed to particular professions and industries. One, National Home Monthly, enjoyed a general circulation, and was particularly popular in the west. Though they lived most of their adult lives in Winnipeg, the Stovel brothers never forgot Mount Forest, and remained on good terms with many people there. Their sister, Mrs. J.J. Cook, remained in the town all her life.
In 1947, E.P. Taylor and Bud McDougald, the largest shareholders of Taylor, McDougald and Company, purchased Stovel Company Limited, and eventually rolled it into their Argus Corporation holding company. It was a typical deal for them, involving no cash. They gave the Stovel family $600,000 in 20-year bonds and $520,000 in preference shares. It was a remarkable change in fortunes for a family that had been virtually wiped out by economic circumstances 60 years earlier.