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Warner & McCarthy (now James Bros True Value) 2 Gore St. E. The James family of Wexford, Ireland, arrived on the Drummond Line, east of Perth, in 1817. By the 1870s, Edward James had moved into town, where he established a blacksmith shop at North and Drummond streets. His Son George S. formed a partnership with Daly Reid in 1892 and opened a hardware store in the old Graham Block (now Royal Bank site) at the corner of Gore and Herriott streets. Lawrence H. James, a brother of George, and a graduate of business college, joined the firm, which had purchased the Robert Lillie foundry in 1899 and operated an iron foundry from the old Stanley carriage-works. The firm further diversified into manufacturing by adding a machine shop and repair facility. Not only did James & Reid make and sell many of their own goods, they were aggressive in providing their own delivery wagons to service outlying districts. In 1910 the company purchased its main competitor, Warren & McCarthy, and took over its location. At a machine shop next to the store, and at its foundry, it manufactured “New Century plows, sleighs, door springs, roof ladders, rink scrapers, fire escapes, and more. Many of its inventions and gadgets were created by a gifted mechanic, Tommy Thompson. After D.W. Reid’s retirement in 1921, the firm was called James Brothers. In addition to the hardware store, foundry, and machine shop, James Brothers started a sports department (before the turn of the century selling 100 bicycles in a year, many of their own design and manufacture), car dealership, coal and wood yard, and poster advertising business, and it ran two service stations and garages. On their own, the James family operated the old hockey rink and, at the end of the Second World War, started Jamesville, a subdivision (Perth’s first suburb) between the town and Highway 7. By the 1950s, the firm had 50 people on the payroll and considered its market to be within a 30 mile radius of Perth. The James & Reid operation established an important local link between manufacturing and retail sales. James Brothers effectively bridged the gap between an economy based on the horse and carriage and one based on the automobile. It grasped the critical importance of servicing the growing recreational and tourist community on the surrounding Lakes; it was building and selling motorboats soon after 1900 and was promoting “50 lakes within 50 miles” as an incentive to tourists. Besides having a well-equipped fishing section in its store, it sponsored for many years a big-fish contest that sustained widespread interest. In 1952, under the direction of new partner and George’s son, Alan James, the company sent 3,000 fishing calendars to customers in the United States. A lot of the original character of the James Brothers store was lost in modernization. The name, however, is still a familiar landmark in Perth.
Perth, Tradition &
Style in Eastern Ontario by Larry Turner, 1992,
published by Natural Heritage, Pages75 &
76. |