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Up the Gatineau! Article

This article was first published in Up the Gatineau! Volume 14.

Maclaren’s General Store Circa 1900: A Sketch

Judith Geggie (1974)

In the 1840s, David Maclaren, a successful hardware merchant originally from Glasgow, Scotland and more immediately from the Township of Torbolton in Ontario, moved with his family to Wakefield, Quebec. His sons established a successful business comprising a lumbering firm, grist mill, woollen factory, brickmaking plant and a general store. In later years, Maclaren's store was well known in the village, but in the earliest years it was only a small log building. It was inside the shop that the owners would roll up their blankets and sleep at the day's end.1 From these simple beginnings, the store expanded until at its peak in the early 1900s, Maclaren‘s General Store was functioning as a typical, thriving country store — a virtual beehive.

Lutheran parsonage in Ladysmith
Maclaren's General Store. Mr. Iveson is on the left, Mrs. Alex Austin is beside him and Miss Mary Robb is third from the left. Collection of Stuart Geggie (GVHS 410/4)

Edith Allen. (the late Mrs. Alex Austin) came as an employee to Maclaren's around 1900. She remembered the store as being “a nice modern building”. Situated at the corner of Highway 105 and the Mill Road, where A.T. Broom's Garage was, the store was a two and a half storey brick building with a tin roof. It was rectangular in structure, approximately eighty feet long and thirty feet wide, facing and running back from the Gatineau River. There were several one-storey outbuildings, one of which was a barn stabling the store's horses and another a warehouse. The windows were at the front of the store. The south side carried dry goods and the north side, groceries. Upstairs, clothing was sold.

Although the villagers used oil lamps to light their houses, the store was lit by electricity supplied by Maclaren's own generator which was situated at the Mill complex. Later on, Freeman Cross from Farm Point had an electric plant which is remembered as being not very dependable!

As the store grew, it became more than just a place to shop or buy essentials. In 1848 the first post office at Wakefield was established in the store. Moreover, there being no public bank in the village, Maclaren‘s carried on a banking business in the store, allowing people to deposit money in their vault. As an added bonus for Wakefielders, the interest rate of 3 1/2% was higher than the customary 3% in the city.

Alexander Maclaren, son of David Maclaren, owned the store at the turn of the century, although he did not live in Wakefield because his major industrial interest was in Buckingham. He entrusted the store to the supervision of John Reid, who at this time lived in the Maclaren home that in 1952 became the Gatineau Memorial Hospital. About twice a year, Alexander Maclaren caught the train up to Wakefield2 to consult with his general manager and to inspect the books of the store and Mill complex.

On the ground floor of the store about ten people were employed. One of the salesmen was Jack H. Macdonald, in her History of Wakefield Village, A.B. Robb tells of a humorous incident that Macdonald handled rather skillfully.

A notable farm butter-maker brought in a tub of her famous butter for sale. Speaking very confidentially to the salesman, Jack Macdonald by name, she confided a mouse had fallen into the cream to an untimely death.

“I couldn't bear to throw out all that cream, but of course I couldn't use it. Couldn't you just exchange it for me? For what the eye don't see, the belly don't taste.”

The courteous and understanding employee took the tub of butter, turned the butter into a different tub, and returned a different tub but the same butter to the lady, while repeating her own words, “What the eye doesn't see, the belly doesn't taste."3

As one might conclude from this story, there was no butter factory at Masham in the early 1900s. The store sold butter and cheese, although not milk and cream, these being delivered by a Masham woman to the villagers‘ doors. The only meat sold at the store was either salted or smoked. A butcher and baker came up from Ottawa about twice a week and delivered to peoples’ homes. Notwithstanding the visits of the Ottawa baker who sold his bread at a cost of about eight cents a loaf, most people baked their own bread from flour made at the grist mill.

Due to the lack of refined grinding methods, the flour produced at the mill was dark, and when used for baking, the bread was brown. The Mill also turned out cereals such as oatmeal and cracked wheat. Apart from these locally-produced items, most of the store's merchandise came by train to the station, which was situated south of what is now Manse Road. Dry goods such as sugar, flour and cookies were not sold in packages but were kept in bulk. One pound of sugar cost roughly five cents.

A second store in the village was George Patterson's General Store, a wooden edifice situated about five hundred feet down river from Maclaren‘s, where Cross’ store used to be. Patterson's, like Maclaren's, sold dry goods and groceries: however the latter had an added attraction - the dressmaking and millinery shops catering to the female population of the area. As a drawing card for the sale of yard goods carried by the store, a dressmaker was hired. Jessie McKillop ran the shop upstairs before she became Mrs. Foster Earle. Upon that occasion, according to custom, she terminated her job and busied herself with the running of a home. Mildred Allen had been employed at the store as a milliner, and on the departure of Mrs. Earle, she contacted her sister Edith who was living in Kemptville. Thus it was that around 1900, Edith Allen came to the village to take charge of the dressmaking department.

An agreement was made between the young lady and Maclaren with the following terms: Miss Allen was to have charge of the shop upstairs, paying no rent for the room and having a guaranteed minimum income plus the right to keep any excess. It was a satisfactory arrangement for a young woman who, at an early age, had been sent by her mother to a dressmaker to work as an apprentice without pay. In the same manner, she had a number of girls (whose average age was 20 years) working for her at Maclaren's. Among these were Mary McCortell (later Mrs. Rufus Chamberlin), a Miss Irwin from Rupert, a Miss Kingsbury, a Ruth _____ from Kazabazua and Sadie Stewart.

The clients selected a pattern from the Butterick fashion books which were sent to the shop once a month. Upon choosing a design, the customer and dressmaker went downstairs to find suitable material, as well as buttons, ribbons and thread. The latter came from Garlands, a wholesaler in Ottawa. It was acceptable for the customers to bring their own material to Miss Allen to make up instead of buying from the store; however, in all such cases, the customer was charged more. The material and design chosen, Miss Allen took the customer's measurements, and with a paste-board scale about eighteen inches long, drafted the pattern. Then she would proceed to cut it out, and the girls would baste it together; Miss Allen then fitted the dress either on a dressmakers form or on the client herself. The actual sewing was done by the apprentices. The time needed to complete a dress depended on how "fussy" it was, but usually with the girls‘ assistance, she could make a dress in one day. Without their help, about three days were needed.

Materials were mainly of blues, greens and browns. Patterned materials were not made very much. The woollen factory produced a heavy grey material that was ideal for suits. The cost of a dress depended on the material. Miss Allen charged three to five dollars for a fancy dress.

The dressmaker was employed from March 1 until shortly before Christmas. After shopping for their Christmas clothes, her customers did not plan their spring wardrobes until March. Women could buy shoes, stockings, slips, underwear, dresses and hats as well.

Miss Allen's sister, Mildred, ran a millinery shop upstairs in Maclaren's store. Milliners achieved their positions through annual conferences. A representative of Maclaren‘s General Store met Miss Mildred Allen and asked her to come to Wakefield. Like her sister, she had assistants, although in her case only two or three. The hats were made by molding buekram over a wire shape and covering it with velvet or material to match the costume.

In January of 1909, Mildred Allen left the store to marry George Earle. Four months later, Edith was married to Alexander Austin, (the son of the Presbyterian Minister in Wakefield), who ran a sash and door factory. Maclaren's hired a Miss Gibson to replace Mrs. Austin, but the dressmaking department was not kept open for very long afterwards.

It was possible for men to buy ready-made suits at the store. They could also have their clothes made by Alan Hicks, a tailor in the village. Delfis Dumouchel was the village shoemaker.

Wakefield was devastated by a fire in June of 1904. This started in Thomas‘ hotel and spread down the village, razing Patterson's General Store in addition to other buildings. The fire did not reach Maclaren’s, however. Six years later, the Mill complex was destroyed by fire. In 1941 the villagers were witness to yet another fire. This time it was the inferno which destroyed Maclaren‘s General Store, bringing to an end one hundred years of history.

Footnotes

  1. A. B. Robb. History ofwakefield Village, 1959, p. IO.
  2. During the week there were two trains 1:8 and down daily, one in the morning and one at night. On Saturdays ere were three or four trains each way.
  3. A. B. Robb, Hrsrery q,FWa.kefieldVil!age, p. ll.

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