The Rural Voice, 1988-09, Page 12picture, Young Tom Edison, at the
Majestic Theatre, with Mickey
Rooney playing the young inventor."
"Three Toronto telegraphers oper-
ated old telegraph keys in a depart-
ment store on Downie Street; other
businesses displayed mementos of the
Edison era in Stratford, and a special
train brought officials and visitors
from virtually every community on the
line between Goderich and Stratford.
Aboard the train was 93 -year-old J.
W. Browning, an Exeter physician and
oldest living telegrapher on the North
American continent, who had known
Edison and had 'talked' to him
frequently on the key."
Agricultural productivity in Perth
has long functioned with a great
natural advantage. With the source of
the Maitland, Nith, Avon, Thames,
Ausable, and Bayfield Rivers within
her boundaries, the county is one of
the best -watered areas in southern
Ontario. In glowing terms, an 1879
historical atlas referred to Perth as "the
fairest portion of the fairest province."
And with reference to the related
growth in the agriculture and indus-
trial sectors, the historian H. Belden
comments that "changes which have
occurred within a generation are so
vast as to rival fiction in their wonder-
ful reality."
As a leader in agricultural activity
in Ontario, how appropriate that one
of the earliest known Canadian
plowing matches took place here in
1846 (see sidebar). Following the
formation of the Ontario Plowmen's
Association, the International Plowing
Match itself was held in Perth in 1930
and again in 1972.
Indeed, the hard work and devo-
tion of Perth County's residents, the
diverse and unique natural features of
her land, and the amazing develop-
ments that have taken place in the
short years since the opening of the
Huron Tract in 1829, make Perth
County a very special place.0
The Stratford -Perth Archives
10 PERTH COUNTY SPECIAL EDITION
THE HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
OF A UNIQUE CANADIAN GAME
Back in 1875, in the South
Easthope hamlet of Sebastopol (now
the northern boundary of Tavistock),
a talented painter and wagon builder
named Echardt Whettlaufer fashioned
a gift for his five-year-old son.
The round wooden object, painted
red and brown and green, with stylized
yellow tulip designs, hung on a nail in
a family bedroom during periods of
inactivity. But when the long winter
evenings approached, the Whettlaufers
gathered eagerly around their kitchen
table, father fetched the piece from the
bedroom wall, and the first Canadian
family enjoyed an evening of
crokinole.
Little did Echardt realize how far
afield his creativity would reach.
From these humble beginnings in
Perth County, the game of crokinole
spread to every comer of Canada and
into half of the American states. By
1920, commercially made crokinole
boards were being peddled by Eaton's,
Simpson's, and Hudson's Bay outlets
in Canada, and in the U.S. by Sears,
Roebuck Company, Montgomery
Ward, and Butler Brothers catalogues.
Trivial Pursuit;
make room.:
That first board, though, can still
be seen. It is part of the permanent
collection on display at the Joseph
Schneider Haus Museum in
Kitchener.0
(The complete history of crokinole
can be found in The Crokinole Book,
by Wayne Kelly. Published by the
Boston Mills Press, it is available at
bookstores for $12.95.)
THE PLOWING MATCH OF 1846
from The Beacon Herald, 1916
There is nothing new about
plowing matches in Perth County, an
entry in an early minute book of the
Stratford Agricultural Society shows.
One such match was held September
25, 1846, on the farm of James
Rankin, Con. 1, Lots 34 and 35, North
Easthope, two and a half miles east of
the city on Number 7 and 8 highway,
now the property of Austin and
William Allan Bell.
The amount of prize money
offered was £6:5, top award being
£2:10. Competition commenced at 10
o'clock in the morning and concluded
at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Oxen
were given six hours for half an acre
and horses five hours.
Judges were George Wood, John
Kelly, and Adam Seegmiller. The
Prototype from John Deere.
prize winners were George Hyde,
James Rankin, Andrew Helmer, John
Kirby, and William Airth.
The committee in charge of this
first plowing match was William
Jackson, chairman, James Rankin,
and George Wood.O