Streetcars going electric? No, that ‘will not do’

Spurning of new power a rare mistake for street railway boss

When Jesse Joseph died at the age of 87, on Feb. 24, 1904, he was lauded as one of Montreal’s pre-eminent businessmen. Indeed, it was a distinction he had enjoyed for the better part of half a century.

Strange, then, that in 1891 he had made a decision that betrayed a singular lack of entrepreneurial acumen.

At that time, he was president of the Montreal Street Railway Co. Since 1861, the company had been operating a system of horse-drawn carriages, wheeled in temperate times and on runners in the winter. But at its annual meeting in November 1891, a shareholder named Robert Archer raised the question of converting from horse power to that newfangled energy source, electricity.

Other cities in Canada and the United States had begun to do so, including Ottawa earlier that same year, so it was not surprising that Joseph had already done some homework. It left him in no doubt.

First, he told shareholders, conversion would too expensive. Old carriages would have to be reconstructed or new ones bought, he said. The existing rails were inadequate and would have to be torn up and replaced with heavier new ones.

Second, he told them, electric cars could not run in winter anyway, despite what Ottawa intended. Percival St. George, Montreal’s municipal surveyor, maintained that the tram routes could be kept clear of snow, but Joseph was not convinced. Besides, Joseph said, for eight months of the year the company’s horses would presumably have to be unproductively pastured if alternate work could not be found for them. Electricity, he said, “will not do.” How wrong he was. Despite his apprehensions, the company introduced its first electric tram, the Rocket, the following September. Joseph duly resigned as president and, by 1894, the last of the company’s horse-drawn carriages was gone, as well. Streetcars, though increasingly complemented by gasoline-powered buses, remained in Montreal’s streets until 1959.

Joseph’s suspicion of electricity was a rare miscalculation. He was born in Berthier in 1817 and, though he studied law, was soon immersed in the world of business. He was an early investor in railroads, and acquired considerable real estate, as well. He opened the Théâtre Royale on Côté St. in 1852 and remained its owner until his death. A series of multipurpose commercial buildings he erected on Le Moyne St. and St-Paul St. in 1857-58 remains substantially intact to this day, though is now mostly converted to private residences. He was involved in banks and telegraph companies. Prior to running the Montreal Street Railway, he’d been president of the Montreal Gas Co.

For years, Joseph maintained extensive commercial links with Antwerp, and in 1850 was named Belgian consul in Montreal. In 1891, for his services to Belgium, he was honoured as a knight of that country’s Ordre de Léopold. But though given special dispensation by the British government, he modestly declined to use the accompanying title.

Historian Gerald Tulchinsky has described Joseph and his older brother, Jacob Henry, as “Montreal’s only Jewish tycoons of that era.” He was active in the affairs of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue as early as 1852 and was a notable, though most often anonymous, philanthropist.

Early in the 1860s, Joseph built a mansion at the northeast corner of McTavish and Sherbrooke streets. He named it Dilcoosha, the Hindustani word for “heart’s delight.” Though he never married, he was scarcely an unsociable man; at Dilcoosha he was the host of many a glittering party.

Five years after Joseph’s death, the property was acquired by McGill University and by 1921 Dilcoosha had become the first home of the McCord Museum. Three decades on, it had begun noticeably deteriorating; the McCord collection was moved; and in 1954 the building was torn down. Not until 1969 did a new structure open on the site, the university’s McLennan Research Library.