End of year Potpourri

To end the year I am going to offer you a variety of remarkable and interesting events that took place in Cornwall and SD & G.

Thomas Edison Turns on the Switch. One of the most famous events is the electrification of Canada Mills’ Weave Shed by Thomas Edison, in early April 1883.
Canada’s first factory to be electrically lighted, the demonstration nearly turned into a fiasco when moments after the lights went on, many bulbs burnt out.
R. Hitchcock, the son of M.J. Hitchcock one of the project’s primary participants, described the show in 1943.

After the light switch was turned on by Edison to a “gasping crowd…that stood back in awe, gazing in wonderment at the marvelous spectacle before them…all at once…wild cheering shook the rafter’s of the enclosure.”

“Just at that moment, a little technical difficulty arose. In their eagerness to make the lighting as brilliant as possible, the electricians allowed the voltage to build up, burning out many globes,” to be quickly replaced by M.J. Hitchcock and his men making the event “a success.”

Oldest Fair. Williamstown Fair, started in 1812, is Canada’s oldest country fair.

Canada’s Paul Revere. On November 5, 1813, Lieutenant Duncan Clark of the Dundas Militia became Canada’s Paul Revere, after spotting American Major-General Wilkinson’s invasion force sailing up the St. Lawrence River towards Cornwall. In response to this threat, Clark commandeered a plough-horse, and rode “furiously,” down the Canadian side of the River to warn our troops of the impending invasion.

Thinking Big. From time to time Cornwall’s elected officials have dreamt in techicolour. The tradition towards grandiosity can be traced to 1835, when Cornwall’s Village Council made plans to annex Montreal Island and then west by taking Vaudreuil County to the Ontario border.

Cornwall Money. In 1859 the Cornwall branch of the Bank of Montreal issued Cornwall’s first and only dollar bill.

A Gold Rush nearly took place in fields southeast of Chesterville in the mid 1890s after small deposits of the metal were found in farmer’s fields. Naming the place Goldfield, speculators drilled a few test holes only to discover that there were insufficient amounts of the metal to making mining financially viable.

Today only the name remains. While the fields didn’t yield very much gold, they did prove ideal for dairy farming prompting the Ontario and Quebec Railway (CPR-Winchester subdivision) to stop at a “Milk/Flag” station here until 1960.

Independent Glengarry. Glengarrians have traditionally held that their County is a unique constituency. In an attempt to prove their independence, a referendum was held on January 6, 1908 asking the residents if they wanted to remain part of the United Counties of S.D. & G. The proposal was defeated by a margin of 280 votes, with 2,263 people voting to stay and 2,083 wanting to separate. To this day you can find Glengarrians who lament the outcome.
First All-steel Vessel. Roy Bingley Engineering of Cornwall built and launched the Albert L., Canada’s first all-style vessel of her class, on May 6, 1946 from the Cornwall drydocks.

Fallout Shelter. Canada’s first radiation fallout shelter was officially opened on the south side of Cornwall City Hall, under the authority of Canada’s new Emergency Measures Organization on June 27, 1960.

First Woman Bank Manager. Even though women made-up 56% of the workforce in Canadian banks in the early 1960s, it wasn’t until 1961 that the Bank of Nova Scotia became the first bank to promote two women to be branch managers. One of these women was Gladys A. Marcellus (1922 – 2003), of Chesterville , who was given charge of a urban Ottawa branch. Making national headlines, Nova Scotia Bank President F.W. Nicks, in what canonly be called an understatement said, that promoting women to managerial positions “…was a very natural development.”

To learn more about the achievements of Marcellus and other local women be sure to buy a copy of Ginette Guy Mayer’s recently released ground breaking book The Women of SDG & Akwesasne, available at Red Cart Books Cornwall.

Cornwall Television. On January 23, 1978, Cable 11/COGECO (YourTVCornwall) became the first television station in Eastern Ontario to broadcasts live City Council Meetings. Councillors were not sure how to respond to this platform, and some of them turned it into an unscripted “Gong Show,” inadvertently turning it into Cornwall’s most popular comedy!

Noteworthy No Longer? Inverarden House, which operated as Cornwall’s premiere tourist site under the name Inverarden Regency Cottage (Museum), from 1979 to 1999, was listed as one of the Federal Government’s ten most derelict historic properties in the early 2000s. Even though Parks Canada’s administrators have deigned that some select people are worthy enough to visit the site, and have told me that the condition is “not that bad,” I wonder, as the porch on this boarded up house, constructed in 1816, was purposely set on fire. No one expected any of this. Originally when the group that operated the house owned by Parks Canada for the City of Cornwall announced that they had to put their energies into preserving the Wood House, from the wrecker’s ball, they believed that the house would be turned over to a Metis organization to showcase their heritage, these plans fell through and the building fell into disrepair.