WHITBY FREE PRESS, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1976, PAGE 5 Brian Winter's H istori Whitby cal HATCH BUILDING This brick building, on Brock Street, north of the Bank of Commerce, has been vacated for some five years, but in the 19th and early 20th century it played an important part in the life ofWhitby. R% lmbý It's probably too late now but I was thinking that perhaps an ad in the lost and found section of the paper just might get some results. Stili, at this point, it's somewhat like promptly closing the barn door after the horse has escaped. Anyway I would word the ad something like this: "Lost - one perfectly good summer, lost in the general vicinity of Ontario in Canada. Last seen in the latter part of 1975 and briefly made an appearance inthe Spring of 1976 but not seen since then. Reward for the return of said sunyner - the undying gratitude of millions of residents in the province of Ontario. If found, please immediately contact Queen's Park in the city of Toronto". The reason I would have the finder contact Queen's Park is because I feel the weather or, in this case, the loss of it is a government responsibility. If the truth were known we'd probably discover it was the government that lost summer in the first place. Everybody knows the weather started turnirig funny when they started testing all those atomic bombs and it looks like things have hit a new low this year with the loss of summer. During the interval summer did make a brief appearance GREENWOOD NURSERY SCHOOL Greenwood Connunity Centre Greenwood 9 a.m. I 1:30 a.ni. 2 years - 5 year PHONE MRS. KING 683-8564 Starting in November JEANETTE 119 Gre~Wh St. 668,9262 early this year, I figured we were going to get nice weather all summer and, as I was rather busy at the time, put off planting my garden for a few weeks, figuring what with having a nice long summer the garden would sprout up in no time anyway. Well sprout up it did but that's about as far as my garden has gotten. My carrots are only four inches high and I think I have developed a new strain of tiny tom beets. My potatoes are the size of golf balls and most of my trilliums didn't flower this vear. As near as I can see the only solution is to have the weather absolutely controlled. Your dog can't run away if he's tied up and maybe summer wouldn't have gotten away if we'd taken steps to keep it here and control·it. What with Bell telephone coming under fire as heing a monopoly l'm sure if the weather should be controlled by one private company or by the government. A private company is too open to bribes and the government is too well known for botching things so the choice isn't easy. However, the task of controlling the weather is by far the most formidable. The biggest problem is determining what weather falls on what days. Supposing there was a central number you called for a weather request. You are planning a family reunion picnic and you want a nice sunny day. You place a call to the weather bureau and leave your request and go ahead and plan your picnic. Sure enough, in the middle of the picnic, the rain just pours down and spoils everything. Next day, still made and wet, you phone the bureau to find out what happened to your sunny weather and you are told a visiting dignitary from Britain was in your area and, as a courtesy to make him feel at home, the weather bureau had it rain. So your picnic got bumped out by a visiting peer. A I MORTGAGES S I M T E .D 1st £ 2nd Arronged Bought and Sold at Prime Rotes col Peter Kade 668-1.556 ANUBIS INVESTMENTS Ltd. 149 Brock St. N., Whitby I DUE TO OUR EXPANDING PROGRAMME I WE HAVE MOVED DURHAM REGION LUNG ASSOCIATION (Christmas Seal Organization) Rooms 464, 5, 6 Oshawa General Hospital 24 Alma Street, Oshawa L1G 2B9 Telephone 723-3151 Public are invited to information related to which are providedi SERVICE Coming events - Asthma Week Physicul Conditioning Course Smoking Withdrawal Course t visit us or telephone for diseases of the lung ail of as a CHRISTMAS SEAL October 3 - 9 October 16 - Dec. 4 Jan. 77 Anybody who deals with the public will tell you how fickle they are and how hard they are to please. The weather bureau would be faced with an enormous task in trying to give everybody the weather they want. If the mayor asked for a windy day so he could go sailing and you wanted a calm day so you could spray paint your house who would win out? If the weatherman tried to please both you Might wind up getting the job half done when the wind came up or the mayor might wind up with his boat becalmed in the middle of the lake just after lunch. . The skiers would want 10 months of snow and the water skiers would want iostly sunshine and calm, hot days. Campers would want sunny skies and the owners of the thousands of acres of forests would want rain to make their trees grow. Wrecking crews would probably ask for tornadoes to save them from having to wreck structures they had contracted to tear down. After the tornado they would only have to cart away the flattened materials. Lawsuits would literally take over the courts as thousands of people complained they didn't get the weather they asked for and paid for. Just trying to decide if the weather controllers would be paid as government employees or privately by the contract would be a nightmare. Obviously, controlling the weather could be one big headache that 1, for one, would not get involved in but all this still hasn't answered my original question. Who's responsible for losing summer this year??????? Newhouses, Hilts Chartered Accountants J. C. Newhouses C.A. G. A. Hilts B.A. C.A. 187 King St. E. Oshawa, Ont. 728-9448 will be working Tuesday aftemoons for your added convenience LA CONTESSA .BEAUTY LOUNGE. It was built in 1874 for Samuel and Richard Hatch who operated a hardware store known as "Hatch and Brother". The building, under various ownerships, was a hardware store for about 80 years. Samuel and Richard Hatch were born in Darlington Township and moved to Whitby in the mid 1860s. By 1865 they were operating a hardware store and tinsmithing business on Brock Street. The business was later taken over by Samuel Hatch's sons, Frank and Fred. The building we see today has been stripped of much of its former grandeur. It had great plate glass windows on the ground floor, and the date "1874" printed on a board at the roof level. The salesroom and front shop in 1874 extended back 55 feet and contained glass cases and drawers of goods from the floor to the height of the 13-foot ceiling. The room was lighted by four bronze chandeliers. In the back part of the first floor was the warehouse, iron room and the office. The second floor was devoted to storage, as was the back portion of the third floor. The front part of the third floor was the tinware manufacturing section where items as stove pipes were made. Our present fire chief would probably be horrified to know that in 1874 the basement of the Hatch hardware store was occupied by oil tanks, and in the 1920s it was common for gasoline tanks to be located in front of hardware stores. The Hatch's previous store, probably a wooden building, had one large tank which contained from six to eight barrels of coal oil, and there were 10 other tanks filled with about 65 gallonsof different kinds of oiland turpentine. The new brick store was very modern for its day, having two hoists for conveying goods to the ipper floors, and the Hatches imported as much as 60 tons of iron at a time for their shop foundry. In 1889, Frank Hatch retired from the hardware business and started to work for the Martin Manufacturing Company (better known in recent years as the Buckl1 Factory). His brother, Fred, continued the store until 1904 when he sold it to George Rice and W. Barnes, and purchased the Martin Manufacturing Company. George Rice continued in'the hardware business until the late 1930s and was succeeded by Arthur Glover. It was only about 20 to 25 years ago that the building ceased to be a hardware store. The Masons of Whitby figured in the history of the Hatch hardware building, for one of the upper floors was the meeting place of three lodges from 1910 to 1926. St. John the Almoner Preceptory owned the lodge room and rented it at $50 a year to the Composite Lodge and Keystone Chapter, Royal Arch Masons. Fred Hatch was Master 'of the Composite Lodge in 1900. After purchasing the buckle factory, he moved into the large house at Byron and Dunlop Streets, now called the Hatch House Restaurant. He greatly expanded the old factory from 1904 to 1912, building massive brick additions, and was one of the founders and first cottagers of Heydenshore Park in 1900. Mr. Hatch was an expert cricket, lacrosse and baseball player, and was prominent in track and field in his youth. He was interested in horses and gardening also. Mr. Hatch died on June 27, 1929 at the age of 67 and the factory closed for a half a day as a mark of respect to him. The old Hatch hardware store was divided into two stores in 1967, sandblasted and renovated, but has seen little use in recent years. 119 Greçà St. 668.9262