Village Squire, 1977-01, Page 7He was quite a man, recalled Robert Newcombe of Blyth, in
a letter published in the Blyth Standard in 1951. Mr.
Newcombe was 11 years old when the railway arrived in Blyth
and he remembered Kelly well. He was nicknamed Buffalo
Pad. Mr. Newcombe recalled, because KeIIy was a friend of
Sir John A. MacDonald and when visiting Ottawa one time
was presented with a buffalo coat by the Prime Minister.
This was the kind of influential man Kelly was. He had
developed a Targe export trade from his lumber business but
had encountered the problem of transportation. He had tohaul
the lumber by horse and wagon 11 miles to Clinton the
nearest railway station where it was shipped via the Grand
Truck Railway to the Atlantic Seaboard. Competition became
steep however and the cost of transportation too much and the
export trade had to be abandoned. The solution to the
problem to Kelly, however, was a railway that would serve his
town and his enterprises.
First he approached the Grand Trunk Railway Company
but they turned him down. Not to be dissuaded. KeIIy set
off for Hamilton to talk to the Great Western Company which
had recently built a railway through London to Sarnia.
He went armed with all the facts to back up his argument,
the value of goods to be shipped from the county such as
firewood, tan bark, sheep and cattle for the Buffalo market
and flour.
The officials, apparently impressed with his argument, told
him to go back to Huron and arrange for subsidies from the
various municipalities to help build the road.
. It was a favourite way of building a railway in those days.
The coming of the railway made the difference as to whether a
town boomed or shrivelled. Faced with such a choice, most
municipal councillors were more than happy to pay a subsidy
for a railway to come through their town or township. The
going rate for most of the northern municipalities along the
route for the Butter and Eggs Special was $25,000, a
considerable amount in those days.
Originally the railway was to run only to Blyth but further
subsidies were raised from the townships of East Wawanosh,
and Morris and from the village of Wingham to pay for the
extension to Wingham. Not so co-operative though were the
township of Biddulph and the village of Lucan to the south. It
seemed logical to them that the only route the railway could
follow was the direct one on the way to London through
Biddulph and Lucan, so they refused to give a subsidy
figuring they could have the benefits without the expense.
The railway, however, wasn't about to be done in and so a
new route was surveyed to the west, by-passing both and thus
creating the villages of Denfield and Ilderton.
The building of the railway began in the spring of 1875 with
work crews working at various points along the line. Tenders
were called and let for the provision of lumber for ties and
telegraph poles and local contractors were soon busy
employing men to cut and haul the lumber to the required
points. The project brought a quick boom to many
communities. The Blyth correspondent to the Clinton News
Era reported that the village had been turned into a beehive
of activity and that all the hotels were filled with men working
on the building of the railway.
It was relatively good terrain for railway building with few
large rivers to be crossed and mostly flat ground. The work
went fast compared to work on the giant Canadian Pacific
Railway project which was underway at the same time.
By November there was excitement wondering when the
first train was going to roll on the line. On Nov. 11 a train
loaded with officials of the company left London headed
northward on an inspection trip as far north as Clinton. The
train stopped overnight in Exeter then went on to Clinton the
next day. It then returned to London taking five hours to make
the return trip. Then on December 11. 1875 the first
scheduled trip from Wingham to London was made along the
line and the service was begun.
Reeve and councillors from municipalities all along the line
were on that first train. They were taken to London where a
banquet was held to mark the opening of the line. London
Mayor Benjamin Cronyn was chairman for the banquet for
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Telephone
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Friday 9-9
Saturday 9-6
Sunday 1-6
Village Squire/January-1977, 3