Doug Grant West side of St. Paul St.
1953 This is a rare view of the old Gas Works which stood for over a 100 years on the west side of St. Paul St., south of King. This photograph was published in the RECORDER & TIMES on October 6, 1953, along with an article commemorating the 100-year anniversary of gas production in Brockville. As you may see, in the background is the rear wall of our present BROCKVILLE ARTS CENTRE. The first of the buildings pictured here were started in September 1853, for the newly-incorporated BROCKVILLE GAS LIGHT CO., who’s shareholders included some of the leading businessmen of the town. The first board of management was led by president David B. Ogden Ford, a local lawyer. The plot of land on St. Paul St. was sold to the company by James Perry, one of the shareholders. The business was established to manufacture gas by the distillation of soft coal. The general contractor for the new buildings was William Holmes, assisted by Thomas Price who built the masonry. The initial cost of construction and street piping was said to be £3,790. James Perry was the construction superintendent. By January of 1854, the first gas jets were lit. This was a very progressive development for Brockville. The town council arranged for the installation of 30 new gas lamps on © copyright -
November 2009
the main street. Soon, the gas company had signed up 200 interested customers, including 25 of the retail merchants on King Street. The first manager of the Gas Works was Arthur Perry, the brother of James Perry. He was succeeded in 1858 by Thomas Wilkinson, a young plumber from Scotland who had studied the gas system of Toronto. The company prospered under the management of Wilkinson for the next 30 years. Tom Wilkinson also started a coal company he named the CENTRAL CANADA COAL CO. The company was incorporated in 1874, and by 1893 he had acquired complete control by purchasing all the shares of the other stockholders. In the 1880s, the first experiments with electricity and electrical lighting was beginning in the world. Thomas Wilkinson went to Belleville, where that town had installed a direct-current electricity system based on the designs of the BALL ELECTRIC LIGHT CO. of Toronto. This led, in 1886, to the board of the gas company agreeing to built a new electricity manufacturing plant further west on the shore south of Hartley St. This is where Cunningham Park is now located, and the entrance road was named Thomas St. Thomas Wilkinson signed a contract with the town in 1888 to install a number of arc lamps at main intersections of the town. These were powered by direct current. The story of electricity to be continued next week.
These articles can now be found online in the Web Site: The Doug Grant Building -doug-grant.weebly.com