FORTY YEARS AGO

[Welland Tribune, 20 April 1894]

A Welland Newspaper of 1854

             Thanks to Mrs. Geo. Jamieson, we have before us a copy of the Welland Herald (of which the TRIBUNE is the lineal descendent) of date of Dec. 21, 1854-almost 40 years ago. A glimpse through its pages will be interesting to our readers, especially to those-alas too few-whose memories extend back to that time. The copy of the Herald referred it is numbered 29 of vol. 1, which would make the date of first publication about June 1, 1854. It was published at Fonthill, then a place of considerable importance comparatively. The place now known as the town of Welland was then a small cluster of houses, known as “Merrittville.”

             The Welland Herald in 1854, as we note from its columns, was published by the “Welland Printing and Book Company”-Capital stock, £500, of which Issac P. Willson was secretary and Alfred Willett treasurer. J. G. Judd was editor of the paper.

             The Herald’s columns remind us that at that time the Crimean was in full blast-the issue before us containing a four column account of the Great Battle of Inkerman, of which the head line says-“Another great Victory, in which 8000 English and 6000 French opposed 60,000 Russians, and after a severe battle of 8 hours, defeated them, the Russians losing 15,000 men in killed, wounded and prisoners.”

             Considerable space is also devoted to the report of the “Provisional Council of Welland,” (now called the “County” Council) which met in council in Hoover’s Inn at Merrittville, (Welland) Dec. 12, 1854, there being present the warden (Elias S. Adams of S. Catharines) and Messrs. Dell, Frazer, Matthews, McMicking, Smith, Graybiel and Vanderburgh-all alas, we believe, now numbered with the silent dead. The principal business which occupied the council then, (and for twenty-five years after) was the purchase of the marsh lands tract, for which an act to raise by way of loan the sum of five thousand pounds was moved by Mr. Hobson, seconded by Mr. Matthews, and adopted, with Mr. McMicking, only, voting nay.

             “Two more of the gang caught,” is the heading to an item relating to the capture of George King and James Smith, two of the Townsend gang, in Saltfleet township.

             A great sale of “town lots” in Port Colborne is advertised, and the public are editorially assured that the speculation is a safe one, as the lots “must in the very nature of things treble in value in five or six years.”

             An interesting political reminiscence is quoted from MacKenzie’s Message, as Wm. Lyon MacKenzie’s opinion of Dr. Frazer, thus:

             Dr. Frazer leaves today for Welland county. I’m sorry for it. Few men in the house have acted with equal courage, honesty and consistency as Dr. Frazer. He was a blessed exchange for the money-making, financering Street, whose election over that good-humored reformer McFarland astonished many.”

             The subscription price of the Herald was on a sliding scale, to wit: “Two dollars per annum if paid in advance; two dollars and a half if paid before the expiration of six months; and three dollars after the expiration of six months or at the end of the year.” The following are given as the local agents for the Herald in their respective localities:

             Mr. Ralph Disher, Point Abino (now Ridgeway)

             P. Hendershot, Stevensville

             John W. Lewis, Fort Erie

             Burch Baxter, Fort Erie

             James Weeks, Point Abino

             Charles Park, Wainfleet

             Michael Graybiel, Marshville

             Wm. Dunn, Fork’s Settlement

            Chester Kinniard, Wainfleet

             Luther Boardman, Crowland

             This was before the days of postcards or cheap postage, and instead of returning receipts by mail for monies received, remittances were acknowledged through the columns of the paper.

             At that time preparations were being made for the World’s fair at Paris, and the Fonthill Mechanics’ Institute publish up offer to forward articles for exhibition.

             It may be consoling to Mr. Anson Garner and others to know that assessment affairs were in quite as satisfactory a state forty years ago as now, so the Herald has a solid 21/2 column article complaining of the Wainfleet assessment.

             “More money for the Coalitionists,” is the heading under which the members of parliament are raked over the coals for increasing their pay from $4 to $6 per day, the Herald declaring that many of them “are really overpaid at $4 a day.”

             Among the advertisements we note:
             S.N. Pattison (Nolse) Stevensville, C.W. licensed auctioneer and wholesale dealer in ninety-five percent, alcohol (for burning fluid), proof spirits and rectified whiskey.

             Dr. M.F. Haney, office opposite the foundry, Petersburg, C.W. (now Stonebridge) is one of the three or four persons whose names are mentioned in this paper who are still in the land of the living.

             Other advertisers are:

             Hamilton & Raymond, Barristers, St. Catharines.

             Dr. T. Clarke, Mansion House, Port Robinson.

             Zenas Fell, land surveyor, St. Johns.

             Macdonald & Rykert (Rolland Macdonald and John Charles Rykert), law, chancery and conveyancing, St. Catharines.

             Thomas McGivers, hardware, groceries and liquor, Thorold.

             New firm, new goods-at the Gothic store, Merrittville, (now H.A. Rose’s stand), Griffith & Kinsman.

             Dewitt C. Weed of Buffalo, advertises the “Old Hardware Store.”

             Lumber, plaster-Andrew Murray, Port Robinson.

             Winter and Fall clothing, for sale by Henry D. Lock, Fonthill.

             Basin store, Port Colborne, by Daniel Stoner.

             Ploughs, ploughs, ploughs-Haun & Dobbie, Stonebridge foundry.

             “Morley’s Patent Ploughs”-John Morley, Thorold.

             Among the patent medicines notices are some wonderful cures related by Dr. Halsey’s Forest Wine and Morse’s Indian Root Pills.

             An interesting time table of the Buffalo & Brantford railway is published, in which it is stated “the freight and the construction trains must keep out of the way of mail and express trains,” and that “down trains will wait fifteen minutes for the up trains and then proceed.” Wm. Wallace, superintendent, Buffalo.

             The St. John’s machine shop and foundry is advertised for sale to close up the estate of the late Russel Rich.

             P.M. Cushing advertises suspension carriages and Murgatroyd buggies.

             Winter fashions for 1854-J.A. Munro & Co., Thorold, Canada West.

             Fonthill boot and shoe store-James Reilley.

             A.E. Wilson & Co., Port Robinson, and J& M Graybiel, Marshville, were among the Herald’s most liberal “double column next to reading” advertisers.

             Space will not permit of further reference here, but enough has been said to show that the Fonthill Herald of 1854 was a genuine wideawake newspaper. Indeed it compares very favorably with the better class of country papers of to-day, and in point of proof reading is away ahead of the average paper of the day in either town or country.