CHAPTER XXXV

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:

Houses. Males. Females. City of Montreal 485 1,541 1,642 St. Lawrence suburbs 514 1,292 1,488 St. Antoine do. 144 348 346 Recollet do. 187 552 620 Quebec do. 256 783 784 Grey Nunnery do. 1 38 94

“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 the prospects 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 another link 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:

No. of Date. Vessels. Tonnage. 1832 117 27,713 1833 137 30,864 1834 89 20,105 1835 108 22,729 1836 93 22,133 1837 91 22,668 1838 63 15,750

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!