Davis Tannery Documents

I took a trip through time while visiting the Queen's University Archives last week. Consider that this business is now closed, its tannery buildings demolished, and the site currently proposed for development. Yet in these shelved files, it's as if the business is still conducting business, issuing collective agreements, corresponding by letter, and preserving its detailed tanning procedures. Researchers who are interested in Kingston businesses, as I am, are fortunate to have these resources carefully organized and preserved! This post includes samples of these documents that I photographed.

Though the tannery was unionized, there seemed to be constant chafing against the union, American Federation of Labour organizer Harry Simon, and the tannery's fortunes justifying tough negotiations and conciliation to worker wages (above). Then I found the diamond-in-the-rough! Two typewritten waybill-type documents showing what I believe to be outbound loads of finished products (below). The two cars listed are CN(alternately NYC) 141278 and C&S 13870 in 1949 and 1948 respectively. It's exactly these kinds of railway-related connections I'm seeking in industry archives!

Looking into the 141278 car, it's not Canadian National because CN only had gondola cars in that series New York Central boxcars seem to start around the 170000's. So, I can't reliably pin it to a specific car, but the lading is the lading, nonetheless! Here's a photo of a similar Colorado & Southern boxcar, part of the Burlington Route car fleet:

A sample tanning procedure. I don't expect to become an expert in the process or the appearance of these products, nor the machinery and solutions used. I am, however, interested in how they got to and from the plant by rail!

I read through half a bound 6x7-inch notebook of these employee instructions. Signed by Mr Davis, they are addressed to the appropriate foreman, duplicate, with room for resolution sign-off of the issue. By today's terms, they would be termed micro-management, but remembering this was a family business, they're not surprising. One even asked the maintenance foreman to plane the office door, as it wasn't closing completely! I found this one especially micro, and cost-cutting. Why produce more wattage if not needed?

Stephen Davis' 'bible' of methods, from the time of sale of the plant to Dominion Tanners in 1973:

I couldn't believe this diagram. Hand-drawn, coloured, immaculate lettering, graph paper stapled to cardboard, 1965. A real one-shot work of art!

Earlier collective agreements showed an 8-minute break morning and afternoon, now just afternoon in the 1968 agreement. Lunch was 45 minutes.

As requested, here are four pages of the tannery's 1965 seniority list, starting from Page 4:

Click image for larger version

 

Swamp Ward Map 1930's-50's

In the lobby of the Queen's University Archives at Kathleen Ryan Hall on the Medical Quadrangle, there is peace and stillness. And an interesting display in glass cases! Someone has worked very hard to map major employers, tire dealers, scrap dealers and even barbers in the Swamp Ward. On the other side of the map, is a legend for places of worship, shoe repairs, confectioners, bakers, grocers etc. All presented with tiny coloured numbers and hand-written. This is some interesting information all in one place - from an earlier time.

Going Back. In Time. At the archives

Until March 9, 2020 I had enjoyed nearly a year of weekly trips to the Queen's University Archives. The pandemic paused and postponed that pleasant practice. Not permanently. 

I had garnered and gleaned information that went into two books that I published in November, 2020 and August, 2021. I continued blogging and researching, and adding to my Hanley Spur home layout because I also had enough building projects and materials to work on during shutdowns. Research turned up more leads and I wanted to return to the archives when safe to do so.

With classes over and exams beginning, I guessed that the archives reading room would no longer be needed by students and that a cannon could be fireable through campus. I was right. I hopped on Kingston Transit and put in a solid shift today. The staff were as helpful as ever, and one or two other researchers came and went. There was masking, some plexiglas, signage and sanitizer. It felt safe. I started out witth the Davis Tannery Fonds, quite corporate and technical but lots of interesting tidbits resulting in 70+ images.

It was good to be back. In time.

 

Walking the Waterfront, April 2022

My walking route took me today from Cataraqui to Wellington Streets - covering some familiar territory on a sunny afternoon. South end of the Woolen Mill (above) and a view from Orchard Street:

That expanse of brick and glass:

The Bailey Broom Factory parking lot was quite full:

You're warned twice going down Cataraqui that there is No Exit. 

Surprisingly, the National Grocers building for lease, its end offices looking vacant.

Centre wall sections up - Queen City Oil at the foot of North Street:

At least three vessels in the former Canadian Dredge & Dock drydock: Papoose, a sailboat and a spud barge with excavator, as seen from Wellington Street:

Canadian Empress gets some finishing touches. Cruises are advertised daily on local TV.

'Grande' fireboat I've ever seen produced by MetalCraft Marine. Heading to Italy?

Like any good piece of fire apparatus, it looks like it can spray lots of water.
 

Modelling Some CLC RBT's

When Kingston's Canadian Locomotive Company was running short on locomotive orders, the plant diversified into construction equipment and other non-railway products for construction, mining and other industries. I call all these "RBT's" = Really Big Things. They are prototypically correct for my modelled era and I featured a two-post series among the first posts on this blog. In my main railway blog  there are RBT's among interesting car loads. However, to model these in HO scale, I don't attempt to build RBT's from photos.

Instead, I am continually on the lookout for RBT parts. These could be any plastic part I come across around the house and go in a designated box. A recent gold-mine has been in toys for our grandsons. As you may know, no toy just pops out of a box anymore. Instead, they're wired and constrained such that any trip to Toys R Us ends up with a 15-minute unboxing period before the kids can enjoy the toys. But these clever and tamper-proof security features make neat RBT parts! The car in the top photo also employs some wooden end-bracing from my recent Sowards coal shed extension. I painted them with light-brown hobby paint to represent individual boards nailed together to support the RBT.

I made these two RBT's this week from a collection of thread spools, tape-runner parts from my wife's craft-room castaways, a three-prong plug cover from an electrical appliance, a car wheel from a toy antique auto, window-blind brackets and a few choice other parts I've been saving.for awhile, including laboratory disposable test cuvettes. Like an old house, an RBT made of such parts glued together looks good with a coat of paint. In this case, grey dollar-store craft paint. Here are constituent parts, some of which require pre-painting before assembly due to the numerous interior nooks and crannies:

The only requirement for my RBT's is that they can fit inside a gondola or flat car, they are drop-in, and that they resemble actual loads like driers and classifiers built at CLC. In fact, the chances that anyone will say these RBT's somehow aren't correct will likely never realize that such interesting loads were made right here in Kingston! Built in the sunroom, ready for the layout, these two CLC'ers are checking out their latest shipment:

 

Modelling a Steam Fire Engine

In my previous post, the 1910 Waterous horse-pulled steam fire engine was highlighted, found by an intrepid Whig photographer to still be in service at Cohen's scrap yard. Well, I have a scrap yard on my HO scale Hanley Spur layout, so today I decided I needed a quick model-building project/fix so I spent a couple of hours building a version of that fire engine for the layout. Nominally, the signs at the scrap yard say KIMCO, and the Cohen scrap yard that actually had a CP spur was located west of Rideau and south of Railway.  But I had about 60 square inches of space that could accommodate a scrap yard, so here it is.

I printed off the Whig photo and some clip art images for modelling inspiration. I don't work well with a computer image, and it's way too easy for me to clumsily get paint, styrene pieces and other modelling detritus beneath the laptop keys, hence good ol' paper to the rescue. My next step was to go through my scrap box, as well as my sets of plastic drawers in which I organize useful parts collected over the years (top photo).

• I had the front set of spoked wheels and tongue from a soft-metal grain wagon I'd never built. 
• The back wheels were saved from an antique toy car. They looke like rubber tires, but they're the only ones I had, and ya go with the army ya got. I did not want to destroy my Airfix British World War I artillery piece just for this project!
• The boiler is a toy fire hydrant from a dollar-store set, with the rounded top Dremel'd off. 
• The chassis is made from sprues that I cut, filed and glued together to produce that classic gooseneck profile.  
• The driver's seat is a piece of picket fence bent on the edge of my table. 
• The driver's controls I saved from a toy car that my grandson recently broke them off from.
• The spare section of hose is a piece of styrene sprue that also got the edge-of-table treatment.
• The back steps are from a structure kit.
• All the other parts are from the scrap box, glued together to look 'right'.

The paint job is imaginary, as the prototype photo is black and white. Again, I painted it until it looked 'right'. In future, if I have room, I'll position this relic in my model scrapyard and have a worker processing the batteries to make money for Cohen. Because who knows, maybe it was still there in 1970!

 

Pumper Put-out to Pasture

Literally*. 

Though I don't purport to publish much Kingston Fire Department history here, there's no doubt that KFD had a significant presence along the waterfront. The Ontario Street Fire Hall's prominent hose-drying tower graced the city skyline just as much as City Hall's dome.

This Waterous steam fire engine was at one time the pride of the firehouse. Equipped with a 1,600-gallon boiler, the rig could pump water at 600 gallons per minute. Receiving its initial testing after its purchase in March, 1910 the $5,500 purchase price included a three-horse hitch and runners for winter use. Two horses were adequate in summer, but three were needed in the snow. A crew of two - fireman and engineer - would ride on board. 

Waterous dominated the Canadian fire engine market at the turn of the 20th century, having built an excellent reputation. With a factory in Brantford, their first motor fire engine was built in 1906. It seems that the steam fire engine would have arrived in Kingston by rail, depending on whether it could fit in a box car, possibly shipped on a flat car.

An interesting mechanical feature was how the boiler was started upon receipt of a fire call. At the Brock Street station, a gas-jet appliance was installed in the floor. As the steam engine was pulled out of the firehouse, a pilot light received the blast of gas and was ignited to a roaring flame. Then, kindling was ignited and steam already being produce on the way to the fire. Upon arrival, up to 40 pounds of steam pressure had already been produced.

The Waterous was out of work by 1924 when replaced by a motor pumper. Held in reserve until 1935 when sold to Mr. Cohen it ignited only an ignominious introduction to the next stage of its life. Rusting in Cohen's scrap yard when photographed in 1947, it began a new life when an industrious but anonymous plumber added a water intake pipe, a steam outlet pipe, and gave the engine a good cleaning. Upon lighting-up, 20 pounds of pressure could still be made. The emergency steam valve then cut in to release boiler pressure. All of this to what end, you may ask? 

The rig was enjoying a second career for an unknown number of years, being used to loosen aluminum grills inside battery cases. The grills were then re-sold. Early sustainability, helping the environment, a creative re-use for paid-off machinery, and generating a company profit all the while. 

(Watch for future KFD-based posts, if I'm able to light a fire under myself to do so. This post just might just make firemen cry in their beer. What if this relic had been maintained and preserved? Today's generations would not believe such a primitive machine ever existed for firefighting in the city!)

It seems likely the steam fire engine would have arrived in Kingston by rail (whether in a boxcar or on a flatcar is unknown). This unrelated photo, taken during a fire at the Grand Trunk shops in Hamilton in 1913, shows a different model of steam fire engine jury-rigged on an L&N flat car while fighting the fire. It appears the hose in the steam engine tender is supplying water being pumped. (Vintage Hamilton Facebook photo)

Three Library and Archives Canada photos of Waterous engines being shipped by rail:

*Or, You're Fired! Or, Before History and Innovation Thrived. There are many potential post titles possible. 

That's One Way to Change

Vintage views of Brock and Princess Streets show two-way traffic on these downtown thoroughfares. Most of us can only remember these streets being one-way. The top photo shows Kingston Transit System bus 6222 on one-way Princess Street in August, 1966 (Queen's University Archives photo).

During 1965, a major project was undertaken to 'pair' downtown streets, making one of each pair one-way in opposite directions: Princess east and Queen west; Johnson east and Brock west. The change affected 65 blocks on five streets. The changes were spearheaded by Alderman, later Mayor E. Valorie Swain, in his role of chair of the city Traffic and Streets Committee.

The transition was slated to take place on Sunday, September 12, 1965, with ads placed in the Whig. Radio, TV and print ads, even a police car blaring advice from its PA system and signage would make Kingstonians aware. A follow-up ad on September 21 said the system was already working well! All kinds of issues had been raised prior to implementation: the number and location of bus stops, confusion leading to collisions, traffic jams, and youths turning the one-ways into drag strips. Indeed, 100 speeding tickets were issued in the first two weeks after implementation!

Bajus Brewery - History

A brewery was first built on this site in 1794, purchased by Philip Wenz in 1826 then joined in business by his nephew Jacob Bajus, whose name the business was known by. In operation until 1922, the current 1835 stone structure replaced an original wooden structure that was torn down to make way for the construction of Wellington and Bay Sts. Stone additions were built in 1857 and 1861, designed by noted local architect William Coverdale. After the brewery ceased operation, the building was used as warehouse space for local businesses and residential space, currently known as The Bajus [Place Condominiums] that were added in 1986. My photo (top) was taken in April, 1980.

At the March, 2019 Associated Railroaders of Kingston meeting, I was pleased to meet Courtney Matheson Mahoney. Courtney's office at Malroz Engineering Environmental Scientists and Engineers is actually located in The Bajus! Courtney kindly provided an architectural appraisal and photos of this historic building. I'm looking forward to touring and learning more! 

Interestingly, Courtney pointed out that barrels and supplies were 'rolled' out of the building and across Wellington Street to the Grand Trunk freight shed trackage. Now, that is cool. Along with the 'cheese tunnel' located under Ontario Street to the K&P/CP, it's important to remember that not every industry had its own railway spur. There are other ways to load and unload freight cars! No doubt the GTR cornered the market on use of their freight shed team tracks, and was responsible for ordering and billing cars used by shippers/consignees - for a fee.

Thank you, Courtney for reminding me that there is so much more to learn! And I have. This revamped post now merges two existing posts with additional information I've found in my research.

In 1982, an old brewery stands neglected at the top end of Wellington Street. Once surrounded by the bustle of Kingston’s harbourfront, it’s now flanked by warehouses and few small businesses. Burnt timbers poke their charred heads out between the stones. Pigeons flap and roost around the beams. When this part of town buzzed with activity, this was the largest of Kingston’s many breweries. Steam whistles from boats and factories, and the smells from local industries filled the air. Today the brewery stands empty.

Streetnames in the area changed over the years. Letter Street became Brewery Street, later Rideau Street. Quarry Street became Wellington Street. Property and houses lived in by the Bajus family are now bounded by Bay, Wellington, Ordnance and Rideau Streets. In November, 1856 a bylaw was passed to widen Wellington Street to a full width of 66 feet to its then-new termination at Bay Street.

Philip Bajus took over the operation of the brewery in the 1860’s, upon the retirement of his father, Jacob. Jacob had joined his uncle Philip Wenz in operating the brewery in the late 1820’s. The lives of the members of the Bajus family were intertwined with the life of the brewery. Children helped with their livestock and carried logs to stoke the steam boilers.  Most men in the family worked as brewers. The Bajus family name remains connected with the building to this day. 

As modern industrialization spread, the brewery increased both its manpower and its production. Five men with a total payroll of $1,924 were employed, according to 1871 census documents. Sales of ale and porter that year were 57,000 gallons. The brewery even operated a wharf across the street. In 1885, all of the Bajus property across Wellington Street was sold to Samuel Anglin for his waterfront lumberyard operation.

The storm sewers on Ordnance Street were a source of complaint, with cellars subject to floods of up to two feet in basements in the spring. Though long advocating for a walkway, a new boardwalk was built in front of the brewery in 1889, with a request for an electric light placed before the city in 1891. Until electrification, ice needed for cooling was cut from the bay in winter and stored below ground level in the brewery buildings.

The Jacob Bajus homestead house was at today’s address of 69 Rideau Street. Grace Bajus, widowed upon Philip’s death in 1893 lived at 47/51 Rideau Street. This house no longer stands, and was located at the site of the Rideau Street Canadian Tire store. The operation of the brewery was in Grace Bajus’ hands until 1922, closing abruptly in 1923 with the rise of Prohibition. Sold to the Anglin family, it was used as a warehouse and for furniture and lumber storage, with the Michea and Jackson auto body and paint shop occupying one of the original buildings in the 1940’s and 1950’s. A destructive fire in September, 1974 destroyed the second storey of the central section.\

The brewery buildings, especially the limestone brewhouse towers, with barrels inset in the masonry, dominated this part of the city’s skyline until the late 19th-century. Local, provincial and federal heritage agencies studied the site and its suitability for preservation. Other interested parties requested demolition permits! The brewery lot, large stone houses, humble cottages and limestone sheds are examples of Kingston’s lost industrial world still standing. Only the height of the Macdonald-Cartier (OHIP) building in 1983 overshadowed its dominance.

A Dec. 7, 1918 Whig ad (above). I'll include photos of the Bajus Brewery in this section:

Don McQueen photos, 1981

Undated (above) and artwork (below) from Vintage Kingston Facebook group:

Comparing the old and the new, that is. My recent photo from a Wellington Street ramble:

And this earlier photo taken on May 21, 1961 (Queen's University Archives, George Lilley fonds, V25.5-34-151 )when Anglin's building were still visible (at right) and Rideau Terrace hadn't yet got its own streetsign. Much of the pole-mounted infrastructure has since been put somewhere else.

Where are we, Tuscany? This was formerly an upper-storey loading door, flanked by beer barrels. The twelve-star staybolts are notable below:

Casky close-up:

And the twelve stars became a marketing tool, giving Bajus' Twelve-Star Lager its name. I believe this was advertised on the loading door, where in 1964, vestiges of the word 'Lager' are still visible, painted on the boards:

Twelve Star Lager is perpetuated by Stone City Ales in one of their session ales: