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| i a esta a ------ a -------- Mr ee ey) te pnt gin, JE S-- " - -- A SI NE i «a EE, = fet ' . . "A Family Tradition for 131 Years" PORT PERRY STAR - Tuesday, November 11, 1997 - 19 Scugog by Paul Arculus This particular article marks the beginning of the fifth year of "Sketches of Scugog". In order to give emphasis to this anniversary, today's article will digress from the present series on the Port Whitby Port Perry Railway. One of the particular pleasures derived from writing these articles is the opportunity to meet and talk with so many interesting people. Bill Carnegie: Recently I had the pleasure of spending time with William (Bill) Carnegie and his lovely wife Laura, dis- cussing their memories of the old days. Kathleen. Many readers will remember Bill as the last Bigelow descendant to live in the glorious Italianate Bigelow House on Cochrane Street. This yellow brick home was built for Joseph Bigelow in 1877. Bill and Laura were finding that the immense six bedroomed home was tak- ing too much time and energy to maintain, so they sold it in 1980 and moved to a comfortable apartment in Oshawa. Joseph Bigelow came to Port Perry in 1850 and, after the death of Peter Perry in 1851, became the leading developer of commerce and industry in this community. As regular readers are aware, Bigelow was also deeply involved in bringing the railway to Port Perry. Some of his businesses involved partnerships with William, Thomas and George Paxton. Thomas had built a lumber mill on the waterfront where the new library is located. Bigelow joined him in this enterprise. Paxton later sold his interest in the mill to W. J. Trounce. Bigelow married William Paxton's daughter Elizabeth in 1854. James Carnegie: James Carnegie came to Canada from Scotland in 1865 at the age of 22. His business ventures in Reach Township started east of Utica where he operated a flour mill. He sold this business and expanded to flour and saw mills on a 50 acre property at Raglan in 1877. Eleven years later, he sold his Raglan business and moved to Port Perry. When Joseph Bigelow decided to retire in 1887, he sold his interest in his waterfront flour and planing mill to his partner, W. J. Trounce. The next year, 1888, Trounce sold the entire business and property to James Carnegie. This property on Water Street at the foot of North Street extended north from the present marina to include all of the library property. The flour mill was a three storey wooden structure. This was destroyed by fire in 1902 and replaced by a brick building of the same size. A saw mill was built at the south end of the cluster of buildings. This was fed largely by logs from lands surrounding Lake Scugog and Sturgeon Lake. Carnegie Photo of the eight McCaw girls who were raised in the Bigelow home on Cochrane St. They are, Perry. The house was large in no particular order, Elizabeth, Mabel, Cora, Emma, Florence, Marion, and twins Aileen and enough to accommodate the Interview with Bill and Laura Carnegie Memories of the Bigelow family had his twenty or so workers carry out logging work in ~~ with W. H. McCaw, asking for the hand of one of his the winter time, cutting down the trees and hauling daughters in marriage. He would then have to review his them to the water's edge and then organizing the logs in future prospects with the conscientious father, not a task booms or rafts to be drawn down to his saw mill at Port for the faint hearted or untalented. Two sons of James Perry in the spring. Carnegie, Arthur and David, each courted and eventual- In order to carry out this part of his lumber business, ly married a McCaw girl. Carnegie bought the steamboat, the Stranger from Elizabeth was the first born of the McCaw girls. She George Crandell. In 1907, James Carnegie sold his busi- never married and lived to be 99 years old. Mabel was ness to his sons David and Arthur Carnegie. the second oldest. She married Art Carnegie. The third On Monday, July 20, 1908, the Stranger was daughter, Cora, was an extremely talented artist and destroyed by fire off Ball Point at the north end of Lake married Frank Coone. Emma was next in line and Scugog. To replace the vessel, the Carnegies bought the married John MacDonald. Florence, who married Frank Cora from John Bowerman. Naismith, lived to be 102 years old. Dave Carnegie Bills' father sold the property to the Farmers' Union married Marion McCaw, the sixth daughter. Aileen and Mills. The property was later Kathleen were twins and were the last of the McCaw split and in 1934 Sam Griffen girls. Aileen married Harold Emmerson, father of George bought the lumber mill and some Emmerson, and Kathleen married Morley Honey. of the buildings to establish the Art and Mable had four children; Jack, Louise, Lake Scugog Coal and Lumber William and Arthur. Bill, born in 1911, is justifiably Company. Sam's son, Ted, took proud to claim that Joseph Bigelow was his great-grand- over the business, built a new father and James Carnegie was his grandfather. Bill truss plant on the southern edge recalls that his aunts were extremely affectionate and of Port Perry on Simcoe Street in happy. "Very close girls", he says. 1976. The Port Perry waterfront Bill is now 86 years young. I talked with him at property, the site of the Carnegie length about his aunts, his father's involvement in the mill, was sold to the town to early lumber industry, and the steamboats. He remem- accommodate the new library. bers his father acquiring the rights to cut down what The McCaw Girls: was probably the last major stand of timber on Scugog Joseph Bigelow and his wife ~~ Island. Margaret Paxton had only one "My father bought some property at the corner of daughter, Emma Josephine. W. Carnegie Street and what is now Highway 7A. The bowl- H. McCaw was a jeweller who ing alley is there now. He set up an open air saw mill had his store in the Bigelow pro- there using two steam powered machines to cut the lum- perty on Queen Street where the ber. I think that the stand was on the Redman property Settlement House is now located. on the south east side of Scugog Island and this all hap- In what was Port Perry's big- pened just before 1940. My father bought land at gest wedding of 1878 Emma Williams Point and a lot of the timber from the Redman Bigelow married W. H. McCaw. - property was brought to Port Perry to be cut and planed The wedding took place in the and then shipped back to Williams Point where he built a magnificent home that the number of cottages." Bigelows had built the previous Bill moved into the Bigelow house in 1925. He recalls: year on Cochrane Street in Port "The McCaws started going to Florida for the winter in 1916 and the house was left to deteriorate over the winter months. In 1925 we moved into the big house. There was an enormous amount of work to be done in bringing it back to a really livable state. Laura and I enjoyed the challenge but nobody has any idea how hundred or so guests. Emma and W. H. ;had eight stunningly beautiful daughters. Bigelow and his wife were finding that the house was too big for them alone so they invited their daughter and her husband to live with them and to share in the time and effort needed to keep the immense house in order. At some- time in the 1880's the McCaws moved into the Bigelow house on Cochrane Street and raised their eight daughters there. Eligible bachelors from miles around came to Port Perry to try to gain an opportunity to meet with a McCaw girl. They were the most sought-after young ladies in town, grand-daughters of the wealthy Joseph Bigelow and daughters of the highly successful jeweller, W. H. McCaw. These factors evoked the prospects of a comfortable dowry. Although the Bigelows and McCaws would provide for the girls, it had to be realized that there were eight girls among whom that dowry was to be divided. For the more realistic among the suitors, beauty alone would be the lure. On Sundays, eligible young men would be seen strutting in their Sunday best, peacock-like along Cochrane Street in the hopes of attracting the attention of a McCaw girl. But the most acceptable way of meeting a McCaw girl was to attend the Baptist Church , much time and effort was needed to maintain the proper- at the north-east corner of Queen and Rosa Streets. ty. When I retired, the upkeep was just too much for us, so Attendance rose astronomically while the McCaw girls reluctantly, we sold it." were in their prime. More details of our conversations will appear in Many a young man having passed the hurdles of future articles. meeting and courting would then have the daunting Next Month: back to the infamous Port Whitby challenge of sitting in the Cochrane Street front parlour and Port Perry Railway. a Photo taken in front of James Carnegie's Union Mills on Water Street. This photograph is taken looking in a south easterly direction. In the centre of the group, with a bowler hat and a moustache is Jim Hortop, the miller, with his young son in front of him. Immediately to his right is Art Camegie, Bill's father. Second from right is Charles Camegie. --