Showing 14 results

Authority record
Tantramar Heritage Trust

Sackville Harness Shop

  • MC-23
  • Corporate body
  • 1919-2020

The Sackville Harness Shop was founded in 1919 by Aretus C. Anderson, Albert Anderson, J. L. Dixon, Frank W. Fullerton, Clarence Griffin, and William W. Ward. However, according to an interview from Rural Heritage magazine in 2000, a long-time employee Paul Blakeny noted that his father, Arthur Blakeny was also one of the founders of the Harness Shop. Arthur and several others were employees of the old A. E. Wry Standard (another harness manufacturer), and Paul said that they were not satisfied with their conditions so they went on strike, and left to start the Sackville Harness Shop in 1919. The building that housed the shop from 1920 onwards was built in Sackville, New Brunswick by Samuel Freeze Black (1806-1880), the uncle of the prominent Sackville merchant Joseph L. Black, in 1846. After the founding owners, the Harness shop was owned by the Estabrooks brothers Bob, Bonar, Louis, and Bill and there were six employees. Bill Long began working at the shop in 1978 (after being laid off from a job at Moloney Electric). Bill Long was hired as a collar maker in 1978. He trained under the master craftsman/collar-maker, Jack McKenzie, who himself trained under one of the founders, Clarence Griffin. Long purchased the business in 1991 and retired in May 2021, ending approximately 30 years of ownership and 101 years of the business operation. The Harness Shop was well-known for their handcrafted leather harnesses and their handmade straw collars (which was one of the Harness Shop’s signature products). The shop had expanded into other areas, including making belts, bags, and jingle bell straps, as well as selling other leather goods and horse care products. At the time of the shop’s closure (and for many years prior), the Sackville Harness Shop was the only manufacturer of handmade straw collars in North America and of hand-made horse tack. The shop also had some notable customers over the years, including making a 34 inch collar for the world’s (allegedly) biggest and heaviest horse in Washington state; collars for the Budweiser Brewery Clydesdales team in St. Louis Missouri, USA; and collars for the Carlsberg Brewery Belgians Team in Toronto, Ontario.

Richard Lowerison

  • MC-32
  • Person
  • 1809-1875

Captain Richard Lowerison was born in Aulac, Westmorland County on April 22, 1822. At age 35 on December 29, 1857, he married Mary Keillor, daughter of Thomas Coates Keillor (1788-?) and Mary Jones (1799-?). Richard and Mary had 4 children between 1859 and 1868: Alice Bertha Lowerison, Elmore Harold Lowerison (MD), Mabel Mary Aravessa (Horace Ellsworth Fawcett), and Ethel Ellen Lowerison. Census and ship records confirm that the Captain worked as a Master Mariner and ship owner from 1839 to some time between the last ship record (1873) and the first census report where his occupation is listed as retired (1881). Throughout his time as a Master Mariner, he owned shares in many locally built ships, and frequently did business with close friend and notable Dorchester, New Brunswick ship builder, Gideon Palmer. He moved to Amherst in 1872 and spent several years in retirement then took up the position of Registrar or Probate in Amherst, Cumberland County, Nova Scotia in approximately 1892. Captain Lowerison died January 29, 1904 in Cumberland County.

Marion Carter

  • MC-62
  • Person
  • 1928-Living

Marion Carter was born in 1928 in Frosty Hollow, New Brunswick (just outside of Sackville), the first of three daughters. She lived on her family’s farm until she moved to Kirk Street in Sackville, New Brunswick on October 31, 1988. She attended Frosty Hollow School until grade 8, after which she attended Allison High School in Sackville. After graduation, Marion attended the Secretarial program at Mount Allison’s Commercial College. Upon completion, on June 28th, 1945, she began working as a secretary in payroll and purchasing under President Frederick Fisher at the Enterprise Foundry in Sackville, New Brunswick. Marion eventually headed this department. In 1976, she became head of the Personnel Department which had originally been handled by the Payroll department. Marion worked with many personnel at the foundry over her career (which at its height had over 400 employees) and due to the nature of her positions she knew all of the employee’s names. Her duties included sitting in on the negotiations of contracts between the foundry’s lawyer and the union leaders. When the Enterprise Foundry went into receivership for the second time in 1983, she went to work at Lockwood for the last ten years of her career and retired in 1993.

Margaret 'Marcie' (Morice) Fullerton

  • MC-53
  • Person
  • 1920-2015

Margaret Elizabeth “Marcie” (Morice) Fullerton was born on 25 February 1920 in Middle Sackville, New Brunswick to John Wright Morice (1902-1981) and Edith (Campbell) Morice (1901-1972). She was educated in local schools and graduated from the Middle Sackville Superior School. She later attended the Mount Allison Commercial College where she completed her certificate in secretarial studies in 1937. A lifelong resident of Middle Sackville, New Brunswick. Marcie was the secretary to five Mount Allison University presidents between 1945 and 1986 including: George J. Trueman, W.T. Ross Flemington, Bill Crawford, Laurence Cragg, and Guy MacLean. She married Charles Russell Fullerton (1923-2007) on April 24, 1943 and the couple had one child, David Fullerton. Marcie was President and founder of the Sackville branch of The Business and Professional Woman’s club. Marcie had a passion for collecting textual records and photographs pertaining to the history of Sackville. She died in Saint John, New Brunswick on 11 April 2015. She is interred in the Westcock Cemetery in Westcock, New Brunswick.

James and Abner Smith

  • MC-16
  • Family
  • 1844-1854, [1880-?], 1887-1890.

James Smith was born in MacDuff, Scotland on 18 March 1793 and died in Sackville, New Brunswick on 16 August, 1865. He married Isobell Bruce in 1815 and had eight children with her, one of them being Abner Smith (1835-1904), born in Shemogue, New Brunswick. Isobell died in 1842 in Shemogue, New Brunswick. James later married Abigail Peirse in Amherst, Nova Scotia in 1845. During the first half of the 19th century, James Smith manufactured harnesses, boots, and shoes, and by the 1850s his was one of at least seven tanneries located in Middle Sackville. Abner carried on his father’s large-scale boot and shoe operation and in 1865 he established Abner Smith’s Manufacturer of Boots and Shoes in Middle Sackville, New Brunswick. The company remained active for thirty-seven years until it was purchased by the Standard Manufacturing Company organized by A. E. Wry in 1903 (renamed A. E. Wry Standard, Ltd in 1914).

Intercolonial Railway

  • MC-59
  • Corporate body
  • 1872-1918

The Intercolonial Railway (ICR) was the first infrastructure project of the Dominion of Canada and linked Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to Upper and Lower Canada fulfilling a demand of the Maritime provinces to join Confederation. The first ICR train arrived at the Sackville, New Brunswick station on December 2, 1869, although the entire government owned rail system was not completed until 1872. The ICR moved goods, mail, and passengers between the many new towns and cities and gave the central provinces access to the seaboard and opened the larger interior markets to the Maritimes. In 1919 the Canadian government combined the ICR with five other railways making it into one national company, the Canadian National Railway.

Grand Division of the Sons of Temperance Midgic, New Brunswick

  • MC-69
  • Corporate body
  • 1910

The Temperance movement formed to make the consumption of alcohol illegal. The Canada Temperance Act (Scott Act) of 1878 gave local governments the option to ban the sale of alcohol. The Cookeville-Midgic Women's Institute Hall in Midgic, New Brunswick, is believed to have been a Temperance meeting place. Midgic, is a rural community just north of Sackville in Westmorland County, New Brunswick, Canada.

George Rogers

  • MC-56
  • Person
  • 1867-1952

George Leban Rogers was born December 16, 1867 in Westcock, New Brunswick to John Rogers, who had emigrated from Scotland, and his wife Emily Lawrence. George was christened at St. Anne's Anglican Church, British Settlement, New Brunswick. From his early teens through his adulthood he lived on the shores of Morice’s Mill Pond, later known as Silver Lake, in Sackville, New Brunswick. George married his first wife Priscella Estabrooks on February 26, 1890. Priscella was born on September 14, 1872, and died in 1905 at 33 years of age. Together, they had seven children: Norman, George W., Marguerita, Hazel, John “Jack”, Clinton “Ted”, Picard “Pick” Hamilton, and Charles B. In 1902, the family moved to the old Beal residence located on the edge of Morice’s Mill Pond (Silver Lake). George continued to live in the house for the rest of his life with his youngest son Abner G. Rogers. After Priscella died in 1905, George was left with seven children, but two years later, he married Flossie Estabrooks (Priscella’s younger sister) on April 24, 1907. George and Flossie had five children together: Edith P., Dexter C., Herman, Donald F., and Abner G.. Flossie died in 1944 after she was hit by a truck in Middle Sackville. George worked for 64 years at the Campbell Carriage Factory as a master wheelwright, wagon, carriage, and sleigh manufacturer in Sackville, New Brunswick. He first appears on the payroll of the Carriage Factory on December 1, 1884, shortly before he turned 17 and continued to work at the Carriage Factory until his 81st year and was one of the factory’s last two employees. George temporarily left the factory in 1916 to enlist in the 145th Regiment in Moncton, New Brunswick. He served overseas in the latter part of WWI with his sons, Jack and Clinton in the 145th Battalion, while his other son, Norman served in the 27th Battalion. George played multiple instruments with the “Middle Sackville” and the “Westmorland and Kent Battalion'' bands. He was an active member of the Royal Canadian Legion from its formation in 1926, becoming the first member to receive a Life Membership from them. George died on April 30, 1952, at the Lancaster Military Hospital in Saint John, New Brunswick.

Enamel and Heating Products Ltd.

  • MC-21
  • Corporate body
  • 1852-2012

The Fawcett Foundry was opened in 1852 by John and Charles Fawcett on the corner of Main and King Streets in Sackville, New Brunswick as a small tin shop producing stoves. The establishment of the Intercolonial Railway in 1869 allowed the foundry to expand because it gave them a way to ship goods worldwide.
In December of 1893, the original building was destroyed by a fire but was rebuilt in February of 1894. The costs associated with the rebuilding affected employees’ salaries causing a strike later in 1894. Though not free of difficulty, the early twentieth century marked the Foundry’s shift from its beginnings as a tin shop to a wartime materials manufacturer to the enamel stoves and sanitaryware manufacturing for which it became known.
With the business success from World War 1, Fawcett Foundry underwent a rebranding to Enamel & Heating Products Ltd. in 1928. That same year they expanded into Amherst, Nova Scotia with Plant #2, then the next year, Victoria, British Columbia where they bought out the Albion Iron Works Company, Plant #3. Their expansion also allowed Enamel and Heating to keep up with exporting their products internationally, which was increasingly commonplace in the 1930s. They exported to countries including New Zealand, Argentina, and South Africa. Sackville, New Brunswick, alongside the Fawcett Foundry, Plant #1, remained the company headquarters and was under the direction of Dr. Norman A. Hesler. Hesler helped lead the Fawcett rebranding and reorganization, and he served as President and Managing Director of Enamel & Heating Products Ltd. for many years.
Enamel and Heating was very successful with a total countrywide workforce of 800, including 250 employees in Sackville. As well as the foundries they owned several branches including the Fundy and Chapman branches in New Brunswick and a Quebec branch. Representatives of Enamel and Heating presented at exhibitions across Canada – including the Hanrower Exhibition, exhibitions in Vancouver, British Columbia; St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador; Bridgewater and Halifax, Nova Scotia; and the Rand Show and Empire Exhibition in Johannesburg, South Africa.
The company was hit hard by the Depression, but World War II contracts helped keep the Sackville-based company alive. Enamel & Heating Products Ltd. devoted roughly 80% of its operation to fill war orders and even added a new building at their Sackville location to accommodate the increased production of aircraft parts, ammunition boxes, windlasses, and bilge pumps. In 1950 the company acquired the Canadian Car & Foundry Company in Amherst, Nova Scotia. After a year of operation under the name Atlantic Industries Limited, the company was fully absorbed into Enamel & Heating Products and became its Plant #4, housing both steel and aircraft divisions.
Due to changes in South African export policies, Lewis Appliance Corporation took over manufacturing of Enamel and Heating products to be sold in South Africa. The partnership with Lewis Appliances proved fruitful and Enamel and Heating, in conjunction with Lewis Appliances, hosted a contest for their Ellis de Luxe stove in South Africa in 1958.
In 1982 Enamel and Heating closed due to declining popularity of wood heating, the economy of the late 1970s, and competition from larger companies. The province bought out the assets of Enamel and Heating and their closest competitor Enterprise Foundry, also in Sackville, New Brunswick that went into receivership that same year. The old Enamel and Heating buildings were sold to Mount Allison University in 1986 for one dollar and demolished that June. A much smaller foundry opened on the old site of the Enterprise foundry and as an homage to both of the town’s foundries operated under the name Enterprise Fawcett Foundry Limited until its closing after a fire in 2012.

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