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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1973-10-18, Page 1212,1-irtIti HURON EXPOSITOR, 'SE41z,!ORTN, ONT., OOT. 1 1973 Congratulations to SEAFORTH CREAMERY LTD. On The Completion of Improvemenf; to Your Creamery We are happy to have been chosen to supply the' structural .steel, for this newpbyilding. Durst Mac' Shop 527- X80. .• Sedforth CAROLYN and LES SEILER On the completion of renovations and enlargeinent at SEAFORTil CREAMEk LTD. We are proud to have been General Contractor for.the project. • Machan Construction Company MITCHELL, ONTARIO Congratulations to SEAFORTH CREAMERY LTD on the completion of their, addition We are proud to have had a part in the excavating and supplying of granular material. JOHN H. McILWAIN Excavation Gravel 427-1253 Seaforth ROBERT CAMPBELL .< , Recall Creamery openin ‘41fe was an important product • of the Ontario farm. She churned her cream' into butter for• hou'e.e- hold use and any surplus was either sold to the town or village store for cash or traded for gro- ceries. If she had a reputation as' "a. good buttermaker „she pro-' bably was fortunate 'enough to have her own private customers whom she supplied regularly. The town or city dweller who had a good ',butter Woman" us- ually fared quite well but those who had to buy on the open' mar- ket often had to put up with but-.,- ter the quality of which, to say the least, was not always uni- form. Charlie served his time as a 'cheese. maker in Oxford County.' * By 1911 he held a certificate which allowed him to act as bead cheese maker in any factory in Ontario. Cheese making in those days was heavy, hard work with _long hours and ,not etactly the — kind• of a job that was most at- tractive to a young man who thought he could do better things. So Charlie teamed up with an old friend, Robert Johnston, and they decided to form a partner- ship and go into the creamery business. With the good judg- ment that was to often in the years to come stand the part- ners. in' good, stead, they picked Seaforth as a good town for op- ening a creamery. . The butter business was not entirely new to Seaforth. 'Be- fore the turn of the century John Hannah had operated a- butter making establishment in the town_ but after a few .years he had closed. But improvements had come* about in creamery work' and ' ' prospects of running a creamery in Seafor(th seemed good. • At Winthrop, Andrew Calder had been running a creamery since 1907 or earlier but his op- erations were largely confined to McKillop township. He ga- there,d cream from the farms with horse'-drawn wagons which made once-a-week pickups. At the farm the cream was trans- ferred by the driver to a cream pail of:Special size and con- struction and measured with a graduated dip-stick. The num"- ber of inches ,as shown on the dip.-stick was recorded and used- as the basis of payment.' After a sample for testing had been placed in a numbered bottle the ' cream was emptied into one of several 25-gallon cans on the wagon. At the creamery the cream Was transferred from the cans to an open vat 'where it was held 'for churning without the be- nefits of being pasteurized. The sample of cream-which had been, -collected were tested by the, "oil teurization was not compulsory at that time and, some creameries were still churning "raw" •but •at Seaforth creamhad 'to be heated to high temperature and properly cooled before churning. There. was a growing•deinand for prints from the local grocery ',trade and Smiths, Cardnos and Sproats alt, 11:,..ndled increasing amounts of Seaforth Creamery butter. Butter was also packed in 56-1b. boxes for the storage and export trade. Once a week the C,a,T.R, freight ran a special refrigerated butter car to Toronto. Every Tuesday Pat Box used to &ome,with his team and dray :and load the car with butter from - the creamery.' - At 'one time during the war creameries were forbidden by regulation to' 'priht any butter and all butter madejaad to,Ae put up for export.. Butter was scarce and • housewiveS often ,had re- course to .what was known as "war butter"; This was ordinary butter '"mixed up with' milk -and other ingredients to make it :go further. As a war Measure oleomargarine was introduced to the , Canadian market and it : had some acceptance but in the early '1920's-, was banned and was• not again legal until after the Second War. During the-years of the First War there were few regulations governing creameries and the making of butter. , In Ontario the Director of Dairying was at the same tithe the Director of Women's•Institutes, a dual posi- tion he• was to hold until 1925. It was not until 1922 that cream for manufacturing purposes had to he bought on basis ofbutter- fat content. - . A great deal of butter was sold ungraded. In fact there was no- Federal butter grader, in Ontario and. it. was not until' 1919' that a Provincial butter grading station was opened In Toronto. At the same time the industry' 'was beginning to groW rapidly and more and more new creameries were being opened • Charles Barber operator of the old Sealforth"Creamery and a prominent dairyman in Ontario made the Creamery well known who the first part of this century: Mr. Barber, ho lives on Goderich St. west in Seaforth is in good health at age 94. d f a C b easier product than farm daify 1 , butter to handle and town people - graddally turned to creamery butter rather than the dairy butter r on which they had been brought' up. Even the h,ousewife who made her own'scones or tea biscuits 'was glad to make use fa creamery buttermilk and Charlie's sign on the creamery wall. advertising buttermilk at Imo per •gallon resulted in lots of business. Before the creamery had been • running six month war brok e out in Europe. SoOri,there was a demand Mr more food production and the call for 'butter grew. Farmers with an assured tharket for their cream and the prospect of good prices turned to milking more cows„ Within a year or two, there was enough cream7being .produced to warrant a pick-up service at the farms and wagons drawn, by horses were sent out to pick up cream for the ,creamery. • The quality of the cream in the early years 9f operation of Seaforth Creamery was not • always as good as it was to be in later years. Farmerq sometimes . saved their cream until they had enough to fill a can 11efore taking 'it•to the creamery' by which time it was apt to be past its best. There was no cream grading and at the creamery all cream was pasteurized ---,and churned together. Butter in 'war time Seaforth Creamery soon built a reputation for good butter and before long had developed a trade .in print ,butter. Charlie Barber _was •particular about the kind of butter the. creamery Was turning out and always insiated on methods, of Manufacture • being kept up to a high standard. Pas- all-the time. Problems were beginning to 'develop in a new and growing industry. 'To discuss some of these problems' a meeting of 'creamery operators was held ;in Toronto in 1916. From this . meeting grew an organization which was to later become the. Ontario Creamery Association.- This association in the years to come was to work closely with the, goiernment in regulating the ,industry and bringing it to 'a "higher standard. Charlie Barber was a charter member' of this association and throughput the years was always a strong sup- porter. He- was also a con- sistent supporter of the wes- tern Ontario Dairyman's Asso- • ciation in recognition of 'which he was elected president. Creamery prospers By 1918 there was' too much' cream being produced on the routes for Bill Oke to, haul with a team of horsei. The creamery had now been ,going four years • and the business was becoming established and farmers were Producing more and more cream. To handle the extra creath that was now being offered Charlie Barber bought a 1 - ton Model T. Ford truck from Jack Daly. This truck was provided with' a long narrow box and above the box was a canopy top. Like -all Ford trucks it had the same motor as the cars and was provided with the same planetary transmission. The engine had to be started with a crank because in those days a, self-starter on Fords was an unheard-of luxury. .. 'Bill. collected , cream from three routes, twice a week in summer. One was out around Staffa, another was back in McKillop and the third in around Varna. Bill was a good truck driver, always in good humour and popular with the - patrons. About this , time Charlie Barber began to open cream receiving stations in villages around the country because with a truck they' could now be given By Harry Hinchley Charlie Barber is one of the then still alive who is right- ly a pioneer in a great Indus- ' try which at one time had a place of importance in Canadian, agriculttire. 'This industry was the manufacture of butter from cream separated at the farm,and then taken to the creamery in individual cans. At one time, just before the • war, there were 330 creameries making butter in Ontario. Today,. while exact figures• are not avail- able, there are likely less than .100. Butter• is now principally produces' from milk in. large plants and the day' of the small creamery operated on farm-se- parated cream is just about over. Early days Charlie Barber entered the dairy industry in 'the days when cream-gathering creameries were few and dairy .butter or butter churned by the farmeCs. test" which was au early method of determining butter-fat con tent which has long been dis carded as inaccurate. Seaforth Creamery neve used the "oil-testa '•but from the start used the Babcock test which has quite 'accurate and, had the . advantage of gii'ing a higher read, fng time the "oil-test." But even so there were those, who thought their test was not as high as it should be. Charlie tells of one lady who complained thsther test was not as high as her neigh- "bor was getting. "Why", .she said "nly cream is just as good as heri. Our cows all drink froret• the same creek." Creamery opened • • In 1913 Barber and Johnston bought the old brick building which Scott Bros. had used for years as an' electric light plant. It was Well coastructed• and with a minimum •of changes made an ideal creamery. The first, thing they did was drill a well to make sure of a supply of watet. For- tunately at 90 feet they struck all they needed and which in the years to comethey were never able to pump drra They installe(d all new machinery which was of the up-, to-date, design of the time. This was all driven by belts from an overhead line Shaft. The power -came from a. 15 ii.p. electric motor which was connectedto the drive shaft. • This was a modern method because in Seaforth most of the factories were still using 'steam engines. Refrigeration was with ice cut trod' above the Egmondville dam and stored in winter in the creamery ice house. For heat in winter the make room depended on a coal burning round stove in the middle of,the floor. On February 14th, 1914 the creamery began operations. Winter dairying was not general in' Huron county at that time and there was little cream produced until spring. There was -Mit very much cream available which was, probably just as- well for there was still much, work to be dope fitting up the creamery and get- ting things into shape. By April the Creamery w*s advertising in the Huron Exposi- tor that cream was wanted and that the Creamery was "now ready for operation and in a position to handle any quantity qt' cream." "Ship us your cfeam", the ad went on, "and give us a •trial." "We will pay you twice a month, furnish two cana and pay all express charges. Cheques payable at pan," This ad was, over the name of "The Seaforth Creamery Co., C. A. Barber, Mgr." Charlie Barber Worked hard soliciting 'cream from ", the farmers and he' drove countless miles in his'Model T Ford runa- bout to call on prospective cream shippers. Cream was delivered n individual cans• loaned by, the creamery mostly by horse • and buggy because in 1914 horses far outnumbered cars arming. Huron County rural residents. Pro- ucers who did not live near Sea- orth usually shipped by express nd before long the -trains were ringing cream from Holmesville, linton, Dublin and even as far way as Whitechurch and Lucknow. Creamery popular • From the start the creamery proved popular. The ladies on . the farms came to prefer shipping their cream to the creamery rather than go to the Work of churning it into butter. Store keepers fouritt----tgaT. creamery butter was a much pick-up service. Under this- system some person, usually, a. country store-keeper was 'ap pointed to act as 1068.1 agent for the creamery. This agent gave out cream cans as required, and accepted cream which he weighed and tested and then 'shipped it to the creamery, by rail pr truck. This method of operation secured considerable cream but it was not always conducive.to the best quality so in 1938 it was . abolished by. Government regula-, Charlie Barber set up cream receiving. stations at Brussels, Walton, Holmesville Luckngw, Whitechurch and Kippen., At Walton the station was operated by Will Neal in his store and at Brussels Tom McCall used to trawl through the country collec.inc; cream from the farms. The cream• from these stations" used to be picked up by Bill Oke withae truck. .:a•. • tilitrivateo hattliays yagere al engaged fo collect cream vnth., their awn vehicles. Bill Stevens brought in a wagon load of cream once a week from.back in Hallett township, Bernie Hall used to bring in cream in a trailer hitched behind his Ford car and Elmer Finch used a small half-ton truck to collect cream around Clinton. With these improved collec- tion facilities -Seaforth greatly increased the cream receipts and in 1918 made 650,000-1b, of butter. The weather was favor- able and the farmers responded well to the patriotic call for more food in wartime. But per- haps the biggest factor was that Huron County farmers were find- ing that Charlie Barber was providing a profitable market for their cream and it was good business to milk more cows. Handling this volume of cream was almost too much for the limited equipment at Seaforth Creamery. It was only,by work- ing long hours that the staff was able to.keep up with the work. In . summer when the cream flow was greatest this meant that several of the men had to come to work at 5.30 in the morning and often they would not be finished until almost dark. in the evening. How was it possible to get men to work such long hours? One reason was that it was war time and men were very scarce and the work just had to be done . Then, , too, 'Charlie Barber was a good boss and used the men well so - that they liked him and wanted to help him. He was not afraid of work himself and used to often pitch in and work along with the . men. • Often if things were in danger of getting behind he Would get Bill Ament to help him and Charlie and Bill would churn butter at night.' But perhaps the • main reason was that the men were young and tough and strong , and were not afraid of hard work. It was in July,, 1918 that Jack Hotham, who was to be Charlie's right hand man fo%many years, started work with Seaforth Crea- mery. The previous plant fore,: man-,had suddenly quit his job and left Charlie without a qualified head buttgrmaker at the busiest time of the year. There was a fast trip to London and - when Charlie returned he had hired a buttermaker. A few days later Jack Hotham took charge at Seaforth. Jack had learnefli his trade with Silver- woods in London 'and he had a thorough knowledge of the crea- mery business. He was to remain with Charlie for a long time and under his supervision the creamery work was always well handled: • • industry grows up the 192b's and f 930's the crea- After the war and on into 0 (Continued on Page 13) • fe SEAFORTH CREAMERY' LIMITED On the completion of ,their renovations. I " " -MASONRY CONTRACTOR 4. R. R. 1, Seaforth, in Seaforth