Bricker Block enters its 160th summer
FLASH FROM THE PAST
Most Waterlooites are celebrating 150 in 2017 along with the rest of Canada. However, for a few of us diehards, 160 is just as important. Ten years before Canada’s Confederation, Waterloo received Queen Victoria’s signature on its village “Incorporation.” Since then, Waterloo has regularly celebrated that event.
The 1957 Centennial Jubilee featured a band tattoo, carnival, rodeo, military displays, parades, sports, fireworks, an Ed McCurdy concert and dancing to Mart Kenney’s Orchestra. More recently, the city’s 150thwas celebrated with numerous events and two excellent history books. So, don’t be surprised if you hear a few Waterlooites shouting 160 instead of 150 in 2017.
What was Waterloo like in that 1857 to 1867 decade when things changed so much locally and nationally?
Kick-starting Waterloo on an upward path, the new village council began issuing prohibitory bylaws outlawing: ringing bells, blowing horns and shouting in public spaces; offensive privies, pig sties or slaughterhouses; bathing in public waters between sunrise and sunset; and driving any conveyance faster than a trotting pace.
Commercially, two 19th-century sketches provide a glimpse into the first 25 years and offer a link to the present. The same view today, minus some unfortunate architectural adaptations and a few modern trappings, wouldn’t look much different. It’s an architectural continuum of 16 decades that few cities can boast.
This is both the oldest and the most consistently-occupied building block in Waterloo’s downtown — four shops on the east side of King Street South with offices and apartments above. Erected by foundry proprietor Jacob Bricker in 1857, the Commercial Block also celebrates160 this summer. It proved to be the essential anchor around which King Street expanded southwards. Waterloo’s earlier stores, mostly along King North, had been in less substantial frame-and-brick, single-storey shops.
Halfway between Incorporation and Confederation, as George Tremaine was compiling his massive map of Waterloo County, over 1,100 people lived in the village. Tremaine’s resultant 1861 map is a treasure trove of information and its many illustrations are snapshots of history on the eve of Canada’s founding. His sketch of Waterloo’s Commercial Block is the first of today’s illustrations.
The second captures the block in 1881. The names above the shops in these two etchings are like a Waterloo mercantile hall of fame and suggest that early businessmen had more diverse backgrounds than is presumed today.
Wilhelm Hespeler was raised a Lutheran in Baden, Germany, and during two decades in Waterloo served on council, ran a grocery shop and helped found the distillery that Joseph Seagram made famous. John McDougall came from Scotland with his Presbyterian faith. He was one of the first hardware merchants and served as Waterloo County clerk for decades. The shop with no sign was Hoffman and Weaver’s general store. John Hoffman, founder of the county’s Evangelical movement, had a wide-ranging career after arriving from Pennsylvania. He was also reeve/mayor of both Waterloo and Berlin. Isaac Weaver, Hoffman’s son-in-law, was a Mennonite from Pennsylvania who arrived in 1844. John Shuh, born and raised a Mennonite near Breslau, served on Waterloo council and became vice-president of Mercantile Insurance. General store merchant Theodore Bellinger from Hessen, Germany, followed Emanuel Swedenborg’s teachings. His designated home still stands at 73 George St. Simon Snyder from Bloomingdale was a Mennonite with wide-ranging interests — druggist, a founder of Dominion Life and a councillor, reeve and mayor. Locally-born Anglican Joseph Emm Seagram served on council and as Member of Parliament. With several others he founded, then took over, the famous distillery. Seagram’s final partner, William Roos, a Lutheran/Presbyterian from Preston who lived in Berlin, was bought out in 1883, causing Joseph Emm to celebrate by producing the famous Seagram’s 83 Whisky.
The first 30 years of this enduring business block saw many changes but more were to come, including numbering the properties. Next week, Flash from the Past enters the 20th century tracing Waterloo’s 2,4, 6, 8, 10 King South.