1Quoted from “Hochelaga Depicta.”
1Quoted from “Hochelaga Depicta.”
2The Sulpicians and the Grey Nuns early commenced their connection with Irish orphans. In 1758, M. de Lavalinière, a Sulpician, succeeded by his entreaties and promises in rescuing an Irish child of the name of O’Flaherty from the hands of fierce Indians. She was but a few months old and was already tied to the stake to be burned alive with her mother when the generous liberator came to the rescue. Madame d’Youville voluntarily consented to take charge of her, and the child became a Grey Nun.
2The Sulpicians and the Grey Nuns early commenced their connection with Irish orphans. In 1758, M. de Lavalinière, a Sulpician, succeeded by his entreaties and promises in rescuing an Irish child of the name of O’Flaherty from the hands of fierce Indians. She was but a few months old and was already tied to the stake to be burned alive with her mother when the generous liberator came to the rescue. Madame d’Youville voluntarily consented to take charge of her, and the child became a Grey Nun.
3Cf. the reminiscences of a leading citizen given in the Montreal Star of January 2, 1912. The work itself is so well known that the writer has thought it necessary to indicate only its general history.
3Cf. the reminiscences of a leading citizen given in the Montreal Star of January 2, 1912. The work itself is so well known that the writer has thought it necessary to indicate only its general history.
COMMERCIAL HISTORY BEFORE THE UNION
MONTREAL’S EARLY BUSINESS FIRMS—A PROPHECY AT BEGINNING OF NINETEENTH CENTURY—CULTIVATION OF HEMP—ST. PAUL STREET—SLAVES IN MONTREAL—DOCTORS AND DRUGS IN 1815—WHOLESALE FIRMS IN 1816—FIRST MEETING OF COMMITTEE OF TRADE—NOTRE DAME STREET—M’GILL STREET—FRENCH CANADIAN BUSINESSES—SHIP CARGOES—THE SHOP FRONTS IN 1839.
The early struggle of Montreal to assume the mastery of the commercial supremacy has been indicated by its continuance of the great fur trading industry which became amalgamated in the North West Company, and by the establishment of its general merchant class. After the American war of 1775, business began to flourish. One of the earliest of the firms of this period was the tailor business founded by Benaiah Gibb, whose son, also Benaiah, became a benefactor to the Art Association of Montreal. Benaiah Gibb, who came in 1774, at the age of twenty years, succeeded to a Mr. McFarlain. In 1782 there came Mr. John Molson, who started a brewery in the east end, and in 1809 pioneered the steamship lines of Canada. About 1800 was established the retail drug firm of (George) Wadsworth & (Lewis) Lyman. This became a wholesale business, also, in 1829, and today the Lyman Drug Company is the direct lineal descendant. The great Montreal Ogilvie flour milling business was begun in 1801 by Mr. Ogilvie at Jacques Cartier near Quebec. Shortly afterwards, perceiving that Montreal was to rise superior in the commercial world, he erected a mill on the Lachine Rapids. The Glenora Mills on the Lachine Canal were erected in 1852 by his grandsons, A.W., John and W.W. Ogilvie. The Ogilvie mills have since spread over the Dominion.
There were far-seeing men, at the beginning of the nineteenth century. A few years after its opening a visiting traveler had the following prophetic view of Montreal as the emporium of the northern world:
“The City is that subdivision which is enclosed by the ancient fortifications, the ramparts, fosse and glacis of which are suffered to go to decay. Its form is that of a trapezium, or quadrilateral figure whose sides are unequal. It is situated on an incline plane, gently descending towards the eastern branch of the St. Lawrence River, in whose ample bosom the Island itself, with all its villages, gentlemen’s seats, and cultivated farms, reposes. The following was the population about this time:
“The return of men able to bear arms give an aggregate of 3,392; but as little or no attention is given to their exercises and discipline, even that number is contemptible in the estimation of a military man, who in war justly considers an undisciplined mob as an encumbrance rather than help. Should Montreal ever be attacked it can only be defended by British troops. Without these the inhabitants would not be likely to irritate a powerful assailant by ineffectual resistance. As a military position, the place would not be worth a contest, as it would remain no longer in the hands of the garrison than they would keep possession of the high level ground that commands the city. But its local advantages for commercial purposes and manufactures are so great and various that it will inevitably become the Emporium of the Northern World.
“At the head of ship navigation, on the waters of the majestic St. Lawrence, like the heart in the human body, it will be the grand reservoir into which all the streams connected with that immense river must pour their contents. The inhabitants bordering on these waters on the lakes in the northern part of Vermont and western part of New York must necessarily make it the depot for whatever articles of export their labours may produce, and take in return whatever merchandise they consume.
“Those countries, particularly New York and Vermont, are populating so fast that the commerce of Montreal must increase rapidly unless the mechants’ inattention to their own interests should neglect to import goods in such quantity and variety as will render it unnecessary for the country traders to have recourse to the markets of New York and Boston. At present the commerce of Montreal is principally confined to the fur trade, and collateral relations, under the direction of a company of wealthy, independent, enterprising merchants, whose immense capital and judicious arrangements have set at defiance every kind of competition. But the other mercantile departments remain unoccupied, and men of industry and property might, with a well grounded prospect of success, establish houses for conducting those branches of commerce which are less expensive, troublesome and hazardous than the fur trade.”
In 1802 an act (George III, 1802, Cap. V) provided for the application of £1,200 currency to enable the inhabitants to “enter on the culture of hemp with facility and advantage.” The hemp was to be used for cordage for the Royal Navy. Committees were formed at Quebec and Montreal. The following advertisement appeared in the official gazette in English and French:“Notice is hereby given to persons inclined to raise hemp that seed will be delivered gratis at Quebec and Montreal to such persons as will engage to sow the same, not exceeding two and one-half bushels to one person, and that nine pence per pound will be paid for clean hemp of the growth of Lower Canada equal to samples of Russian clean hemp to be seen at Quebec and Montreal, and delivered on or before the 30th of September, 1803, and 12 shillings and 6 pence per bushel for good ripe hemp seed delivered on or before the 1st of January, 1803.” Premiums were offered to societies and in 1804 Mr. Isaac Winslow Clarke, chairman of the Montreal committee, received the gold medal from the Society of Arts for hemp grown in Lower Canada. Great interest was sustained for a time, but it was found useless to compete with Russia. Sir Joseph Banks, the president of the Royal Society, in reply to a reference from the Board of Trade, concluded that the exportation of hemp from Russia could not be stopped, that no matter at how low a price the British or colonial producer offered it, Russian hemp would still be lower.
Meanwhile the principal retail businesses, the butchers, the bakers, the candlestick makers, and the rest, were growing in importance in their shops on St. Paul Street over which they and their families lived. The historian, Heriot, says of these in 1805: “The habitations of the principal merchants are neat and commodious and their storehouses are spacious and secured against loss from fire, being covered with sheet iron or tin.” Speaking of the markets he also says: “The markets of Montreal are more abundantly supplied than those of Quebec, and articles are sold at more reasonable prices, especially in winter, when the inhabitants of the United States who reside on the borders of Canada bring for sale a part of the produce of their farms. Quantities of fish are likewise conveyed thither in sleighs from Boston.”
At this time there were 142 slaves in the Montreal district, although their importation had been forbidden in Canada since 1793, and their perpetuation in Lower Canada was disfavoured by the bill of 1799, in which year there was a petition of Montreal citizens to secure master’s rights over them. In the first issue of the Montreal Gazette of June 3, 1778, the following advertisement appeared: “Ran away on the 14th inst., a slave belonging to the widow Dufy Desaulniers, aged about thirty-five years, dressed in striped calico of the ordinary cut, of tolerable stoutness. Whoever will bring her back will receive a reward of $6.00 and will be repaid any costs that may be proved to have been incurred in finding her.”
In 1807 with the growing trade an act was passed for a new market house in Montreal. The year 1808 marks the advent of a second brewery firm, that of Dow & Dunn, with D. & D. on their bottles of beer and whiskey. The first brewery was at La Prairie and the liquor was shipped across the river. The business was started by Mr. Dow who shortly took Mr. J. Dunn into partnership. Its lineage is Dow, Dunn, White, Harris, Scott, Hooper, and it is now merged, about 1911, into the National Breweries Company, into which the Molson firm never entered.
In 1809 Mr. John Frothingham founded the firm now known as Frothingham & Workman. The factory was at Côte St. Paul and was the pioneer business to introduce the ax and tool industry generally into Canada. An interesting relic retained by the firm is an invoice for shelf hardware imported from England in the spring of 1815 and contains this note at the bottom: “The premium on insurance has risen since the reappearance of Bonaparte and the above is the best terms we could obtain.” The reappearance was due to Napoleon’s escape from Elba. In 1850 William Workman was admitted to the firm. He was the well known alderman, mayor, member of parliament—a good citizen. In 1809 theprospects of trade were heightened by Molson’s introduction of steamships in Canada. A third brewery was started in 1811 by Mr. Thomas A. Dawes. It was located at Lachine, probably for two reasons, the water supply and the opportunity to supply the northwestern expeditions into the fur lands directed by Sir George Simpson, the governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, whose headquarters were at Lachine. The Dawes firm also lately became merged in the National Breweries Company.
A faded ledger of 1815, begun by Joseph Beckett & Company on St. Paul Street, marks the foundation of a Montreal drug firm almost a century old which, through Beckett & Company, Carter & McDonald, John Carter & Company, John Birks & Company, John Carter & Company, Carter, Kerry & Company, Kerry Brothers & Company, Weston & Company, leads to the National Drug Company. The ledger above mentioned is historically interesting, as it reveals some of the names of the leaders of social life in the early days of the nineteenth century. A study of it reveals the following facts:
First of all there are the Earl and Countess of Selkirk—regular customers of the firm, buying powders and pomades and perfume, attar of roses, and the like, as becomes extreme delicacy, high position and a super-refinement, not forgotten in a raw community.
We have Colonels and Captains and Lieutenants, who were in abundant evidence in the life of the city at the time; medical men; esquires by the score—all in account with Mr. Beckett for prescriptions and toilet articles, and delicate perfumes and aromatic waters and powders and lip salve and pomades to give the skin a satin appearance, and other mysteries of the feminine toilet—for the account is a family one, in each case.
We have General Proctor, Captain Thomas, Captain Barnes, Captain Despard, Colonel Dechambault, Major Courtenay, Captain Castle, the Hon. Judge Monk, the Hon. William McGillivray, the Hon. Judge Sewell, Major McGregor, Captain Weeks—but, really the military march through the pages, as thick as “autumnal leaves in Vallombrosa.” As for the medical men, their name is legion—Doctors Andrews, Arnoldi, Bender, Badgely, Brown, Dillon, Davis, Cazieu (Chateauguay), Emerson, Ferris, Forsyth, Grassett, Irving, Kennedy, Kimber, Lee, Morris, McLeod, McGale, Osborne, Nelson, Sleigh, Seilby, Stansfield—and many more. Evidently the people did not suffer for lack of medical advice a century ago in Montreal.
The doctors are down, of course, for the ingredients with which they compounded their own prescriptions, which was the general practice of the time.
We see that Mr. William Gray, founder of The Herald, had an account with Mr. Beckett, while John Kyte, Esq., is indebted in the sum of £6 8s for a new green coat, and £1 5s for a new waistcoat. This might seem incongruous, as drugs and dry goods do not mix too well; but in another page we notice that a member of General Proctor’s household has had a tooth extracted in the establishment—thus testifying to the eclectic nature of the business in that early day, when the departmental store had yet to be evolved.
The Hudson’s Bay Company has an account. The Orkney family got their perfumes and toilet articles from the firm. The Orkney family had a large property facing on St. Catherine Street before the latter was homologated—property which extended below Beaver Hall Hill. Many will remember the family mansion,standing in off the street, near Phillips Square—a big, old-fashioned residence in the colonial style, with ample grounds.
These itemized accounts touch life in an intimate and confidential way. That this ledger should have been preserved all these years in such good condition, each page telling its own story of status and pride and mode of living—is remarkable. It is also interesting to note the copies of letters which Mr. Beckett transferred to the pages of the ledger from time to time—letters of business, but showing a perfection of chirography which would be the despair of the slap-dash writer of the present day—delicate, spiderylike copperplate, with delectable involutions, hinting leisure, and the aesthetic sense. By comparison, the horror of the typewriter is intolerable. The ledger is regarded as an heirloom to be carefully preserved by the National Drug Company, whose offices are now on St. Gabriel Street, though the original firm of Dr. Beckett a century ago, was on St. Paul Street.
Business was growing in 1815 and St. Paul Street was flourishing. In November of that year, through the exertions of Mr. Samuel Dawson, part of St. Paul Street was lighted by twenty-two lamps, costing $7.00 each. Business commenced to pick up after this.
In 1816 the principal wholesale firms doing business in Montreal were: McGillivray, Thain & Co., otherwise called the “Northwest Company;” Forsythe, Richardson & Co., who were agents of the East India Company; Maitlands, Garden & Auldjo; Gerrard, Gillespie, Moffatt & Co., then agents of the Phoenix Fire Insurance Company, of London; H. Gates & Co.; Allison, Turner & Co.; Desrivières, Blackwood & Co.; Blackwood, La Rogue & Co.; Robinson, Masson & Co.; Hector Russell & Co., also retailing fancy dress goods—the great retail dry goods house of that time; Miller, Parlane & Co., James Miller left the firm in 1819 and engaged exclusively in shipbuilding, and was one of the founders of the Allan line of steamships; James McDougall & Co., merchants and brokers; Hart, Logan & Co.; George Platt & Co., hardware; J. and J.M. Frothingham, hardware; J.T. Barrett, hardware; Jacob DeWitt, hardware; Lewis Lyman, druggist, founder of the house of Lyman’s Sons & Co.; Day, Gelston & Co., druggists, Mr. Day being the father of the late Judge Day; Wadsworth & Nichols, druggists; Thomas Torrance and John Torrance, both wholesale and retail grocers; Bowman & Smith, grocers; Zabdiel Thayer, crockery; Toussaint Peltier, grain merchant; Felix Souligny, do.; McNider, Aird & White, auctioneers; M.C. Culliver & Co., do.; and Bridge & Penn, ditto.
Most of these firms did what was then considered a very large business and many of the men composing them were reputed to be wealthy. The possession of $25,000 in those days made a rich man, and $100,000 a very wealthy man.
The business needs required a bank and the Montreal Bank was started in 1817 without a charter. This was secured in 1822. Its story is told elsewhere.
In 1820 John D. Ward built the Eagle foundry on Queen Street and with his brothers, Lebbeus and Samuel, provided engines for many steamboats on the St. Lawrence. The successor of the firm was George Brush. In 1821 Sherman & Co. formed a sculptory business. Its successors were Hyatt & Co., James Mavor and Robert Reid.
The first meeting of the committee of trade on April 23, 1822, indicates anotherlink in the chain of progress of mercantile solidarity. This was to become the parent of the present Board of Trade.
The earliest boot and shoe factory was established on St. Paul Street in 1824 by Alexander Bell, the founder of the J.T. Bell Company of today. Among the first important industries of Montreal also must be mentioned the hemp factory, established in 1825 and owned by Mr. J.A. Converse. The Mussen grocery firm opened in the spring of 1827 with a store in Mrs. Ousteroute’s building on the south side of St. Paul Street facing Vaudreuil Lane. In 1837 his third location at the corner of Notre Dame and St. Gabriel streets marks a historic move and one thought daring. Hitherto trade had centered on St. Paul and Commissioners streets, between Custom House Square and Bonsecours Street, while Notre Dame, Little and Great St. James, Craig and intersecting streets were the residential part of the city. His example was successful and Notre Dame Street then became the principal retail street of the time. Birks’ famous chemist’s store was opened by Dr. F. Fraser in 1828, to be succeeded by R.W. Rexford and by Mr. R. Birks in 1846. His famous store was first near the old Albion Hotel from which the stage coaches started, and afterwards at the corner of Recollet and McGill streets, and has only recently been demolished to make room for the McGill building. In 1829 the wholesale dry goods importing firm of J.G. McKenzie & Co. was founded, though a legitimate successor of one of the business ventures of Horatio Gates, a merchant of great renown, and one of the incorporators of the Bank of Montreal. This year also saw the birth of Morton Phillips & Co., a firm of stationers.
With the date of 1829 we may associate a note on the Montreal lines of stages which were conducted as follows: “between Montreal and Prescott, every week day except Saturday, proprietors H. Dickerson & Company, St. Paul Street; between Quebec and Montreal, every week day except Saturday, proprietors H. Dickerson & Company, of St. Paul Street, and John Cody, Quebec; between Montreal and Bytown (Ottawa), twice a week, Tuesday and Friday morning, proprietor E. Cushing, Haymarket, Montreal; between Montreal and Albany, twice a week, proprietor, E. Cushing; between Montreal and Albany, thrice a week, proprietor, John Esinhart & Company (St. John).”
The railway era started in 1831, when the charter for the first railway in Canada between La Prairie and St. John was granted. All this was to mean great extension to Montreal business. To the date of 1833 is to be attributed the original foundation of Kenneth, Campbell & Co., wholesale druggists, through D. Michael McCulloch, Alexander Urquhart, Dr. William McDonald, John Birks (for Carter, Kerry & Co.), and Johnson & Beers, passing to Kenneth Campbell in 1850.
At this time the grocery business of Hudon Hebert, established on St. Paul Street near Jacques Cartier Square since 1839, and that of Chaput, Fils, on Youville Place in 1842, mark early French-Canadian enterprise.
McGill Street before the ’40s was considered in the country, when Samuel Mathewson started his present grocery business there. For a long time the street as it grew up was a frowsy affair, till the Grand Trunk offices set the way to higher ideals. The street has begun its transformation period during the last four years. Mathewson & Co. was established by Samuel Mathewson on May 1,1834, on St. Paul Street. In 1840 he moved to McGill Street and was thought to be moving into the country.
It has been found difficult to trace the history of the chief French-Canadian firms. The advent of the Banque du Peuple originally established in 1835 as a private bank under the title of Viger, DeWitt & Cie, shows that this portion of the population was becoming financially stronger. In 1843 the Banque du Peuple as such was started. The petitioners for incorporation were Messrs. Louis Viger, Jacob DeWitt, John Donegani, Pierre Beaubien, Augustin Tulloch, Hosea Baillou Smith, Ronald Trudeau and Pierre Jodoin, Esquires, of Montreal; Alexis Sauvageau, Esquire, of La Prairie; Timothée Franchère, Esquire, of St. Mathias; Joseph Frederick Allard, Esquire, of Chambly; and Alexis Montmarquet, Esquire, of Carillon. It will be noted that we have not treated of the banks and insurance businesses which are so closely connected with the commercial growth of the city. These are treated separately in another place.
The state of commerce about this time will appear from the following scale of vessels and their tonnage, which arrived at Montreal:
Of these vessels and their cargoes, by far the greater part were from England and Scotland. A few came every year from Halifax and other British ports in North America and sometimes cargoes of grain, etc., from other ports in Europe.
The state of the store fronts of this period immediately preceding the Union will afford a picture of the commercial streets of the city.
In 1839 Mr. H. Greig wrote in his History of Montreal: “Both in Quebec and Montreal the windows in many of the old stores and shops are small, not larger than those of ordinary dwelling houses, very little calculated for display and not giving indications of the extensive depositories of goods that may be found within.
“A very great number of the recent shops are elegantly, and some of them splendidly, fitted up. Perhaps there is in scarcely any part of the commercial world, either in Europe or America, a more superb or exquisitely finished room, for its size, than the shop of Mr. McDonald, at the corner of Place d’Armes and Notre Dame Street.”
If Mr. Greig were only privileged to take a walk along St. Catherine Street now!
COMMERCIAL HISTORY SINCE THE UNION
THE RISE OF MODERN MANUFACTURES AND INDUSTRIES
MONTREAL CENTER OF CANADIAN TRADE—LORD ELGIN’S OPINION OF THE CANADA CORN ACT—TRADE DEPRESSION BEGINNING IN 1847—SUGAR AND FLOUR INDUSTRIES—THE PANIC OF 1860—A PROSPEROUS DECADE—ANOTHER DEPRESSION—THE NATIONAL POLICY—PROSPERITY AGAIN IN THE EIGHTIES—ST. CATHERINE STREET—THE RISE OF FURTHER INDUSTRIES—THE RISE OF THE COMMERCIAL ASSOCIATIONS—THE COMMITTEE OF TRADE—ITS ACTIVITIES—THE BOARD OF TRADE—ITS ACTIVITIES IN CANAL, PORT, RAILWAY, CANADIAN AND EMPIRE EXPANSION—ITS INTEREST IN CIVIC GOVERNMENT AND GENERAL CIVIC BETTERMENT—ITS BUILDING—ITS SOCIAL FUNCTIONS—THE “CHAMBRE DE COMMERCE”—ITS ORIGIN—THE OTHER MERCHANTS’ ASSOCIATIONS OF THE CITY—A TRIBUTE TO THE MERCHANTS OF MONTREAL. NOTES: PRESIDENTS OF THE BOARD OF TRADE—CENSUS (1912) OF MONTREAL MANUFACTURES.
Trade at the time of the Union centered at Montreal. Quebec had been left behind. The Canada corn act brought in by Lord Stanley, the colonial secretary in Robert Peel’s cabinet, while it cheapened corn in England stimulated business in Canada, for the act lowered the duty on Canadian wheat and flour to one shilling in the quarter upon the condition that Canada should impose a duty of three shillings upon United States wheat. Montreal became the center of its distribution. This success was dashed to disappointment by Peel’s bill of 1846, described by Lord Elgin in writing to a friend shortly after, as drawing “the whole of the produce down the New York channels of communication, destroying the revenue which Canada expected to derive from canal duties and ruining at once mill owners, forwarders and merchants. The consequence is that private property is unsalable in Canada; not a shilling can be raised on the credit of the province.” To crown the disasters in 1847 there was the ship fever in the city. In 1848 the depression was continued, followed next year by the riots over the rebellion losses bill, so that many were ready in the same year for the annexation to the United States as a desperate remedy.
The year 1850 was not commercially satisfactory, but remains bright in the annals of trade on account of a most successful fair opened in Bonsecours Hall, October 17th, and attended by from 20,000 to 30,000 people. This fair was held in order to prepare for the great International Exhibition in London in the following year, and resulted in 200 packages being sent forward, by which the attention of Great Britain was called to Canada in a most practical manner. The warbetween Great Britain and Russia in 1854, while improving the demand for cereals, injuriously affected commerce in Montreal through stringent European money markets, etc., while American tourists, upon whom the retail trader then as now relied for no small portion of his summer trade, were deterred from visiting the city through the prevalence of cholera. This, coupled with the unusually late arrival of the spring importations, resulted in leaving large stocks on hand.
In 1854 the Canada Sugar Refinery business was established by Mr. John Redpath. The late Sir George Drummond was early connected with it as general manager.
An improvement in business characterized the following year, while the city was thronged in March with visitors to a fair held in anticipation of the Paris Exhibition, and which was very successful. In the same year Montreal was visited by Admiral Betveze to arrange for closer trade relations between Canada and France. The reciprocity treaty also of 1855, followed by the American Civil war, led to increased activity of trade in Montreal, her citizens, as well as those of other Canadian cities, supplying many of the needs of the army of 1,000,000 taken from pen and plough in those days of trial.
In 1858 a torchlight procession of about twenty thousand souls (including spectators), a general illumination and a military parade, expressed the jubilation of Montreal over the successful laying of the first Atlantic cable. The procession, composed of tradesmen and handicraftsmen, was a mile long and marched six abreast.
In 1859 the Victoria Tubular bridge was opened, but just before its completion in 1860, commercial panic struck the country, with disastrous effects.
The greatest disasters were those in the United States, where every bank but one suspended payment; but the calamity was sympathetically reflected in the Dominion.
The Bank of Montreal remained firm, thanks to Mr. Davidson, the cashier, who carried the Montreal merchants through that black time. It may be said that Mr. Davidson founded a school of banking.
Manufacturing made great progress in the ’60s, owing to the Civil war in the United States taking millions of men from the ordinary activities of the country to the battlefields, thus stimulating Canadians to manufacture sufficient to supply the resultant demand.
In the decade from 1860 to 1870, the investment in Montreal industries leaped from $800,000 to $11,000,000. Just about then, however, a period of depression set in, due to a variety of causes.
Chief among these were the inevitable slackening in Canadian outputs due to production being resumed in the United States, and the general stress caused by the financial losses incurred through wars both on this continent and in Europe. During this period the manufacturers of Montreal suffered possibly more than any other body; for the great population and easier developed natural resources of the United States, with other contributing factors, enabled nearly all lines of goods to be produced there at a lower cost; and with his goods barred from the States by high tariffs and his home market thrown open to American factories, the Montreal manufacturer suffered from his nearness to the American border, suffered, perhaps, more acutely than other Canadians. With the inauguration of the National Policy in 1879 conditions changed materially, and the beginningof 1880 found business booming again. Meanwhile St. James Street had become the chief business street. Morgan’s Colonial House was at the northeast corner abutting Victoria Square. When the head of the firm took an idea to open on St. Catherine Street, as yet an unimportant business thoroughfare, in the present location, it was a dangerous move according to the wiseacres, but instantly justified, being followed by other great departmental stores, such as Murphy’s, Hamilton’s and the rest. Substantial and steady progress was made in the ensuing twenty years, the products of the various factories doubling in value in each decade. Then came the remarkable development of the city, beginning about 1898, and in the ten years from 1900 to 1910 the production increased from about eighty-five million dollars to two hundred millions.
The origin of some further of our chief industries may now be recorded.
The cotton industry originated in the old Hudon Mill at Hochelaga, which was started in 1874. When founded there were employed at this mill some three hundred hands, and the buildings and plant were quite small. As the mill stands today, the ground covered is about four times that originally built upon and the number of men employed is upwards of eleven hundred.
The four other cotton mills of Montreal, all of which are under the ownership or control of the Dominion Textile Company, provide employment for between five thousand and six thousand persons in this city and must therefore be accounted amongst its very greatest industries. Some idea of the magnitude of the industry may be formed from the fact that the capitalization amounts to $13,500,000, including bonds. It may be noted in passing that the Dominion Textile Company, the chief offices of which are in this city, controls many other mills, some of them at considerable distances from Montreal.
Prior to 1883 there were no metal bridges manufactured in Montreal or vicinity and practically no structural steel work for buildings.
Since 1883, bridge and structural steel manufacture has developed greatly in Montreal. And there are now three large concerns engaged in this line of business: the Dominion Bridge Company, Limited, the National Bridge Company, Limited, and the Phoenix Bridge and Iron Works.
It is estimated that the combined output of these companies for 1912 was between seventy-five thousand and eighty thousand tons of bridge and building work, having a value of about four million and a half dollars.
It is also estimated that the number of hands employed in the shops and offices of these companies is about eighteen hundred, with a pay roll of about a million and a quarter dollars.
NATURAL ADVANTAGES
Of the great variety of natural advantages for manufacturing possessed by Montreal, it would be difficult to say which is the most important. With cheap transportation, it can assemble raw material and ship finished product with far greater facility than any other city on the American continent. Other cities have possibly equally good railway facilities, others have lake transportation; and other manufacturing cities, but not many, are ocean ports. No other city on the continent, however, combines all three advantages.
Coupled with these, Montreal has an important and rapidly expanding tributaryterritory in the Dominion, for products of its factories find their way all over Canada; it has a large class of skilled labor to draw on; and it commands cheaper power. Every requisite for successful manufacturing is found here. The cheapness with which power can be secured is a very important factor and with the development of important hydro-electric properties in the immediate vicinity industrial power costs are likely to be materially reduced in the near future. With both ocean and lake navigation at its disposal, Montreal taps both the Nova Scotia and the American coalfields and thus has unlimited supplies of fuel to draw on, which can be delivered here at a very low cost. Some of the largest ocean-going bulk cargo carriers in the world are running between the St. Lawrence ports and the Sydneys, freighting coal here at the lowest figures achieved anywhere for ocean transportation.
As far back as 1859 Sir William Dawson, the principal of McGill University, referred to Montreal’s position for commerce in words as apropos today as they were then:
“In its situation at the confluence of the two greatest rivers, the St. Lawrence and Ottawa; opposite the great natural highway of the Hudson and Champlain valley; at the point where the St. Lawrence ceases to be navigable for ocean ships, and where the great river, for the last time in its course to the sea, affords a gigantic water power; at the meeting point of the two races that divide Canada, and in the center of a fertile plain nearly as large as all England: in these we recognize a guarantee for the future greatness of Montreal, not based on the frail tenure of human legislation, but in the unchanging decrees of the Eternal, as stamped on the world he has made. We know from the study of these indications that were Canada to be again a wilderness, and were a second Cartier to explore it he might wander over all the great regions of Canada and the West, and, returning to our mountain ridge, call it again Mount Royal, and say that to this point the wealth and trade of Canada must turn.”
At this time of writing the industries have grown so numerous that the chronological method of relating their rise is impossible. We shall present a brief indicaton of their number and scope besides adding in tabulated form various statistical facts which will sum up the variety of the industries engaging attention in Montreal in 1912. Probably the most important industry of the city is the manufacture of clothing, both custom and factory. Nearly ten per cent of the factory workers of the city are engaged in this trade and they furnish two-thirds of the annual Canadian production.
But apart from this industry, manufacuring in Montreal covers a very wide range, embracing the chief Canadian car and engine manufactories, structural works, cotton factories, sugar refineries, rubber manufactories, rolling mills, cement works, and leather manufactories. In extent and value of output it easily heads the list of Canadian cities, having double the output of its two nearest competitors, Toronto and Hamilton. The extent to which manufacturing is carried on is strikingly shown by the per capita valuation of its product, which is $360 annually.
Tobacco is a principal single industry, while boots and shoes come next in importance. As to textiles, cotton takes the first place. Among food products, slaughtering and meat packing rank with flour, the largest flour mill in theBritish Empire being situated in Montreal. Of the miscellaneous industries, electric light and power and electrical apparatus and supplies are the chief.
Immediately outside of Montreal is a large business in iron and steel products. Among the largest are the Dominion Bridge Company’s works at Lachine and the Montreal Locomotive Works and the Structural Steel Company’s works at Longue Pointe. Again, in Montreal are to be found the great car and repair shops of the two chief railways: the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Grand Trunk Railway System.
The city is also the center of several industries, which though not actually situated in Montreal, are yet managed from it. The pulp industry is an example, yet there is not actually a single pulp mill in Montreal.
In the president’s address to the Canadian Manufacturers Association in September, 1912, it was pointed out that in the ten-year period Canadian exports showed an increase of $110,000,000, while manufactured articles showed an increase of $683,000,000. Probably no other country in the world can show such a satisfactory record as this. And when it is considered that more than one-sixth of all the manufactures in the Dominion come from Montreal, the part which the city has taken in this great industrial evolution will be appreciated.
Montreal is most favourably situated with regard to obtaining cheap power. Canada is essentially a land of rivers and lakes, and her water-power is undoubtedly her greatest asset. In 1911 the total electrical energy developed from Canada’s water-power was 1,016,521 horse-power, of which the province of Quebec developed 300,153 horse-power. At twenty-two tons of coal per horse-power per annum, this is the equivalent of about six and one-half million tons of coal. Eighty per cent of the power used in the province of Quebec is water-power.
The wood pulp and paper industry have contributed very largely to the development of this kind of industry, but other industries have taken advantage of it, such as lumber mills, textile mills and rubber factories.
The following companies supply power in Montreal:
1. The Montreal Light, Heat and Power Company, Limited, act as distributing agents in the City of Montreal for the Shawinigan Water and Power Company, whose plant is situated at Shawinigan Falls, on the St. Maurice River, eighty-four miles from Montreal. There is a fall of 135 feet, and 107,000 horse-power has been developed. The electricity is transmitted to Montreal and the Eastern Townships; a large portion supplying the asbestos mines with power. Thirty thousand horse-power is used in Shawinigan itself for the production of aluminum and carbide.
The company also obtains power from Chambly on the Richelieu River, and from the Lachine Rapids and the Soulange Canal.
2. The Montreal Public Service Corporation act as distributing agents in the City of Montreal for the Canadian Light and Power Company, which has a plant at St. Timothée, where 30,000 horse-power has been developed. Electrical and other power is also obtained from the Lachine Canal, where there is a total fall of thirty-five feet, to the extent of 4,642 horse-power. This is used for flour mills, rolling mills, and many others.
There are, in addition, one or two other power plants in process of development.
The manufactures carried on in Montreal are very varied, but of these we cannot speak in detail.1
OFFICIAL BUSINESS ASSOCIATIONS
Before closing this chapter showing the rise of many of the individual conmercial enterprises of our merchants we must refer to them again in a collective fashion. We have already indicated their combined effort in securing advanced governmental and municipal action. This has been carried on by the great official bodies or associations of commercial men organized during the last few decades of the commercial expansion of the city. The first of such organizations to arise was the Committee of Trade.
COMMITTEE OF TRADE
(1822)
Early in the last century, the merchants of Montreal realized that a country’s trade and progress are to be measured by its transportation facilities, and that until these are secured, there can be little advance. Accordingly, when on July 19, 1821, the first sod of the Lachine Canal was turned by one of their number, the Hon. John Richardson, a vista of a future inland waterway system and consequent commercial progress was unfolded. Individual action had prevailed so far, but now the value of union among the merchants was seized upon. A few months later, on April 11, 1822, the Hon. John Richardson presided at a preliminary meeting held in the Exchange on St. Joseph Street (St. Sulpice) of merchants and others interested in commerce, which gave birth to the “Committee of Trade.”
At this meeting a resolution was adopted stating “that the ruinous consequences now apprehended from the growing embarrassments of Canadian commerce can no longer be averted or even delayed by the solitary exertions of individuals or by the occasional hasty and inadequate deliberations of public meetings, and that the present alarming crisis demands the establishment of a standing committee of merchants to be authorized by their constituents to watch over the general interests of the trade of the country.”
The subscription of the members of this organization was placed at three guineas per annum, and the original subscribers numbered fifty-four, who elected the following thirteen gentlemen as the first committee of trade: Horatio Gates, George Auldjo, George Moffatt, Henry McKenzie, Campbell Sweeney, John Forsyth, Peter McGill, F.A. Larocque, John Fleming, Samuel Gerrard, Thomas Blackwood, Charles L. Ogden, James Leslie. This committee began its operations in a very humble way, for at its second meeting Mr. Auldjo was authorized to finish the proposed agreement with Mr. A.L. Macnider for a room for the accommodation of the committee, including fuel and attendance at the rate of thirty pounds per annum. The population of Montreal at this time was 18,767, increasing to 27,997 by 1831.
From the records we possess of this Committee of Trade, it is clear that Montreal recognized early its vocation as the commercial metropolis of Canada, for its rules “authorized and required the Committee to make to His Majesty and the Legislature of the United Kingdom, and others in authority, such representations on Trade matters as might be deemed advisable in the defence of such suits as involved the General Trade of the country.”
The securing of the construction of the Lachine Canal warranted this assumption of authority by the merchants of Montreal, who were not unopposed in Upper Canada through mistaken motives of jealousy. The Committee of Trade foreseeing that Montreal was to become the commercial port of Canada, set to work at once to encourage large vessels to come to the St. Lawrence. In 1825, it made strong efforts to induce the Government to deepen the channel in Lake St. Peter so that “vessels of nearly 250 tons burthen, might reach Montreal fully laden during the whole season.” It is a far cry from such vessels to the magnificent steamers which now perform the service between Great Britain and Montreal, some of which are nearly fifteen thousand tons.
Steadily the Committee of Trade began to prepare for the future destiny of the port. One of its number, the Hon. James Leslie, presented in Parliament a petition praying for aid to deepen the channel to sixteen feet. In spite of the cholera outbreaks of 1832 and 1834 and the rebellion of 1837 and 1838, the Committee of Trade went on, until 1839, effecting further improvements.
THE MONTREAL BOARD OF TRADE
(1842)
In April, 1840, when the Union was in the air, at a meeting under the chairmanship of the Hon. Peter McGill, the more active members of this committee took steps to reorganize as a Board of Trade, an act of incorporation being procured in 1841, but as in those days all important bills were “reserved,” it was not till March 2, 1842, that the Royal assent was signed by proclamation and the present Board of Trade came into existence, the number of original members being 106. On April 1st of that year the first meeting of the newly incorporated board was held, at which Mr. J.T. Brondgeest was elected chairman; Mr. Thomas Cringan, vice president; and Mr. J.W. Dunscomb, treasurer.
The board under its new name, pursued the same policy as hitherto. Realizing the value of Montreal’s water position, that all trade had to follow the waterways and that all the waters of the West flowed past Montreal, the merchant members of the board secured the fastest ships to Montreal and early controlled the import trade. The Lachine Canal had been opened in 1825 and in the first decade of the new board they had the satisfaction of seeing the whole magnificent St. Lawrence system of inland water communication fully opened up through the foresight and initial push of Montreal merchants.
In 1853 the first ocean steamer, the Genova, arrived, the new channel having been deepened to fifteen feet two inches and later to sixteen feet six inches. But in 1854 and 1855 this prosperity experienced a check, for during those years no ocean vessel reached Montreal; its rival, New York, with its navigation open all the year, had greater attractions for shipping. Trade became alarmingly bad, butthe Montreal merchants were not supine, they rose to the occasion and determined to deepen the channel to twenty feet, and (in 1856) the Allan Brothers came to the rescue, establishing the Montreal Ocean Steamship Company, which commenced a fortnightly service with four steamers. Since then the shipping trade has prospered continuously. The Board of Trade has continuously urged and secured improvements along the St. Lawrence route, the channel depth having been gradually increased to thirty feet and a further increase to thirty-five feet has been promised by the Dominion Government.
A few other activities of the board, which are synonymous with those of the representative merchants of the city, may be here mentioned in connection with the port. The office of port warden was established through the board and its work of overseeing the loading of vessels sailing from this port has entirely prevented the sad loss of life and property which at one time so frequently resulted from the faulty loading of cargo. The question of harbour improvement and development has always received the earnest attention of the board and the council’s representations to the Government in 1906, urging that instead of eleven commissioners there should be three, were instrumental in securing such reduction. The result of the work of the smaller board has exceeded all expectations. The Board of Trade for many years agitated for the relief of the Harbour Commissioners from the cost of the channel through Lake St. Peter on the ground that it was a national work for the national waterway, and this agitation resulted successfully, for in 1888 the Dominion Government assumed the debt, which action relieved the Harbour Commissioners from the burdensome charge for interest on such expense. Similarly the board has succeeded in its efforts to induce the Dominion Government to free the canals from tolls. But while so much improvement has been obtained, there is at present one most urgent need, viz.: the establishment on the St. Lawrence of the dry dock now constructed in which the largest vessels trading on our river can be repaired in case of emergency.
Montreal has yet to become a free port. The Board of Trade hopes that its ceaseless representations to the Government on this matter will ultimately be successful.
It would be interesting similarly to trace the efforts of members of the Board of Trade and other Montreal merchants towards the provision of the great railways emanating from our city as their center. Space limit will only allow us to indicate, that when shortly before the canal system was perfected it began to be seen that the waterways would not be sufficient to accommodate the ever growing trade of Canada, Montreal men faced the railway transportation problem and greatly contributed to its present success. In this they were largely helped by the Grand Trunk Railway which, originally backed by English money, made splendid sacrifices for Canada. The Grand Trunk Railway has not always received its just need of appreciation, but it is now a great national institution stretching its arms across the Dominion and receiving its just reward. The enterprise of Montreal merchants, is, however, mostly to be discerned in that wonderful system of railroads, with its headquarters in Montreal—the Canadian Pacific Railway, which, conceived by Canadian brains, was started by Montreal men and carried out by Canadian executive force and capital. Men of wonderful courage, skill and judgment, prominent members of the Montreal Board of Trade, concluded a contract with the Government in 1880 to complete the whole road by May 1, 1891. Onthe 28th of June, 1886, the first through train to the Pacific Coast left Montreal for the Pacific terminus, Vancouver. On the first board of directors (1880) of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company we find the names of Mr. George Stephen (now Lord Mount Stephen), president; Mr. Donald A. Smith (Lord Strathcona), vice president; Messrs. R.B. Angus, Duncan McIntyre, and C.B. Rose; leading members of the Board of Trade.
With regard to the water transportation of the Dominion the Georgian Bay Canal prospect has been for some years the object of the Board of Trade and on March 14, 1912, a large deputation of boards of trade and municipal councils urged upon the Dominion Government an immediate commencement of work upon the Georgian Bay Canal.
The Premier promised his earnest consideration of the great question involved but said that the Government must have time for a full investigation.
In the spring of 1914 an immense delegation organized by the Chambre de Commerce of Montréal also approached the Government to the same effect.
All praise to the merchants of the Board of Trade, who by their undaunted push, character and political foresight have written their names in the history of the development of Canada, and have bound the Mother Country, through Montreal, by bands of steel and water to the extreme ends of the Dominion. Their influence extends even further, for it is a matter of record that the congresses of the chambers of commerce of the Empire are the result of a suggestion made by the Council of the Board. The last congress was held in September, 1909, in Sydney, Australia, where the board was represented by Mr. H.B. Ames, M.P., and its secretary, Mr. George Hadrill. Nothing but good for Empire trade can come of such conventions.
Again the Board of Trade looks far and wide. Apart from its present trade working relations between South Africa and Mexico it is looking for a larger and most interesting exchange of business, for a year ago an Imperial Royal Commission sat in the board’s rooms taking evidence regarding the trade between Canada and the West Indies.
By its internal constitution, as we have noticed, the Board of Trade is ever on the alert watching Dominion, Provincial and Civic legislation.
In the municipal life of the city it has urged improvements in the fire service, the water supply, the lighting service and the betterment of streets and interested itself in various other spheres of municipal government reform, among them the securing of the great modern amendment of the city charter which has necessitated the reduction of the number of aldermen to one for each ward, and the creation of a board of five commissioners for the disbursement of money, the awarding of contracts and the purchase of material.
It would be tedious to enumerate further the home activities of the Board of Trade, but this feature should not be omitted, viz.: that its work has made this city a manufacturing center of ever increasing possibilities. Montreal, as a manufacturing center, is hardly sufficiently advertised; Montreal should be made known not only as a gateway for export and import transportation, but also as the busy center of headquarters of numerous and constantly growing industries of its own. It is a distributing source of cheap power, light and heat. All that goes towards the making of a great and successful commercial metropolis has been planned by the merchants of modern Montreal, whose predecessors began humblyin 1822, and ever conscious of the future destiny of their city, were always led by visions of its future greatness as the commercial metropolis of Canada.
It has made representations to the Dominion and Provincial governments on the subject of industrial and technical education for the workers and has taken a lofty and ideal stand in more recent philanthropical and civic betterment schemes.
The Board since 1893 has occupied quarters in its own building, though the first building was destroyed by fire on the 23d of January, 1901. The present building which was entered into in May, 1903, while built on the same site and on a similar plan to the first, is of fireproof construction and, like the former building, faces on four streets. The board occupies the greater portion of the fourth floor, its premises consisting of a handsome exchange hall, branch association room, reading room, secretary’s office, council chamber and committee room. It has a membership of 1,400 and there are daily gatherings of various of its affiliated commercial associations.
In addition to being the center of the commercial life of Montreal, the building has been the locale of several important social functions, the most notable being its inauguration of the evening of 17th August, 1903, by the Rt. Hon. Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, G.C.M.G., which was attended by the members of the board and the delegates to the Fifth Congress of Chambers of Commerce of the Empire (which was held in Montreal that year) and the president of the congress, the Rt. Hon. Lord Brassey, K.C.B.; the reception of Their Excellencies the Rt. Hon. Earl Grey, G.C.M.G., and the Countess Grey on the evening of the 24th of January, 1905, to welcome them on their arrival in this country, which, attended by over twelve hundred guests, was pronounced one of the most brilliant social functions in the history of the city.
CHAMBRE DE COMMERCE
(1887)
The next great commercial association was the “Chambre de Commerce,” of French business men. Up to 1886 the Board of Trade had been alone, though with individual French citizens, as at present, among its members, but in this year Mr. J.X. Perrault, not without opposition even among his compatriots, took the initiative of forming a second board to group together French-speaking citizens. An act of incorporation was applied for from the government at Ottawa and was granted on January 1, 1887. On February 2, 1887, the first reunion of French business representatives took place under the chairmanship of Mr. Jacques Grenier, the mayor of the city, and then president of “La Banque du Peuple,” in the offices of G.W. Parent, at the corner of St. Lambert and St. James streets. Its few hundreds of members have now surpassed a thousand. Its activities are similar to those of the Board of Trade with which there is mutual cooperation in points of common, civic, provincial and federal import. It has taken a great interest in the future commercial education of the merchant by promoting the “Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales” recently erected.