The Rural Voice, 1988-09, Page 10F
GREAT IDEAS
Perth County's Progress through History
or 35 years, Stratford has
been renowned for its
Shakespearean Festival.
Hundreds of internationally acclaimed
actors, directors, and backstage people
have drawn audiences to this creative
and artistic mecca. But apart from
these celebrated annual rites, outsiders
may know little about everyday Perth
and the historic influences that have
shaped the county.
Perth County was an early leader
in providing quality farm machinery
across the Dominion. The St. Marys
Journal of June 2, 1898 reported the
annual sale at the David Maxwell &
Sons implement factory as "one of the
forest and largest processions of
farmer's wagons laden with binders
and mowers that was ever seen in
Canada."
Built in 1888, the Maxwell factory
was the largest manufacturing concern
of its time in Perth. The St. Marys op-
eration, employing 100 men, opened a
branch office in Winnipeg in 1901 in
an effort to capture a corner of the
booming new Western trade.
The town of Mitchell boasted a
similar operation. Its turn of the
century Deering implement factory
likewise featured special equipment
sale days which attracted hundreds of
farmers.
Almost 30 years earlier, though,
the Thomson & Williams Company in
Mitchell had been the largest single
industry in Perth. As Dean Robinson,
author of Mitchell: A Reflection,
notes, "In the early 1870s Thomson &
Williams was the largest manufacturer
in the County. In 1875 Stratford resi-
dents approved a $10,000 bonus to
woo the firm from Mitchell to their
town. The offer was accepted and the
move was considered a major blow to
Mitchell's industrial fortunes."
Perth implement manufacturers
were recognized throughout North
8 PERTH COUNTY SPECIAL EDITION
Some things stay
the same: haying on
a Mennonite farm, 1988.
Sign of the Yeandle Plow.
America for providing equipment
second to none. Periodically, recog-
nition was bestowed upon individuals
such as Stratford's Thomas Yeandle,
whose Beaver Plow won international
acclaim during the mid -1870s.
Indeed, the existence of assorted
wood, metalwork, and manufacturing
concerns attests to the diverse talents
and skills of the entrepreneur and
artist alike in early Perth. From
planing mill and plowshare to cooper-
age and crokinole, innovative thinkers
have put their county on the map.
The discovery of brine wells near
Dublin in the late 1860s motivated
Joseph Kidd to establish one of the
largest salt -refining operations in the
Dominion. Wells originally sunk near
the town proved to contain insufficient
concentrations of salt, so new wells
were opened five miles west. The
early wooden pipeline that Kidd
installed proved unable to withstand
the well pressure and salt friction, so
in 1878 new iron tubing was installed
at a cost of $1,000 per mile.
Kidd recouped these costs, how-
ever: the above -ground pipeline of
metal would heat the briney flow
during the summer months, meaning
that less firewood had to be used in
the evaporation process at the Dublin
location. By 1879, the salt works
were yielding 200 barrels a day.
A great handicap stifling the
progress of many towns and villages
in 19th -century Ontario was the lack
of transportation. The primitive road
systems separating farm produce from
markets discouraged many new farm-
ers from producing more than their
family needed. The railways, though,
were destined to change that. In 1856,
not one, but two railway lines ended
commercial isolation as the first train
arrived in Stratford on September 3.
The two competitive lines operated
by the Grand Trunk Railway and the