Long-gone buildings leave historical echoes
Among exhibitors at the recent Discovering Heritage event at Waterloo Region Museum was the City of Cambridge Archives.
I noticed an unfamiliar book on the table and Dan Schmalz advised me that the archives had published it in 2017 for Canada 150. “Celebrating Cambridge: People, Place, Prosperity” is an album of historical scenes from around the big footprint that is now Cambridge. Two images caught my eye, so Flash from the Past heads downhill to Preston.
As a child in the family car, I always enjoyed the freewheeling coast down “Preston hill.” Much later, I found out that it wasn’t named Preston hill but rather “Shantz hill.”
On the Waterloo Region Generations website, which focuses on people in 19th-century Waterloo County, Shantz is the fifth most common surname So which of those 1,898 Shantzes is still remembered by this hill’s name?
Call him Peter … Peter Erb Shantz, born in 1849, to Samuel Y. and Esther (Erb) Shantz. Samuel farmed while Esther raised 13 children at a once-dreamt-of community called Shantz Station about halfway along Highway 7 between Berlin and Guelph.
In his early 20s, Peter was already manufacturing farm implements in Elmira with partner Abraham Z. Detweiler.
Meanwhile, Preston village council was eager to attract industries, so with a $5,000 bonus as the carrot, Shantz and Detweiler agreed to move south.
Backtracking to the early 1850s, Valentine Wahn, John Clare and Jacob Beck operated an iron foundry business on the main road connecting Preston and Berlin.
The frame factory was near the Speed River at the foot of a steep hill. Beck left in 1856, moving to Wilmot Township where he founded Baden. Clare too backed out, so Wahn took over, specializing in making cast-iron stoves.
In 1875, with part of the bonus money, Shantz and Detweiler purchased Wahn’s building and established Preston Agricultural Works.
Fire struck in 1883 and Detweiler sold out.
As sole owner, Peter Shantz constructed a solid brick and stone building on the same site and for the next 50 years he produced top-of-the-line farm machinery, warm air furnaces, sleighs and warehouse trucks.
Peter’s civic involvement went beyond manufacturing.
He was a councillor and deputy-reeve in Preston, sat on the school board, and was the driving force behind erecting Preston’s town hall in 1887.
Peter Shantz died in 1928 but the company lasted another four decades. In 1969, it shut down and the property was sold to a Toronto developer who hoped to put up a 12-storey apartment. In 2018, the exact site of his factory is part of the widened intersection at the bottom of Preston, er, Shantz hill.
Driving past the red-roofed Preston Springs building, turning right onto King Street then making a left after 10 blocks or so at Dolph (formerly Guelph Street), we stop at the railway tracks. In 1910, where there is now a parking lot, stood Preston’s train station.
Most Preston railway history centres on the electric train system but long before the electrics, Preston was a hub for steampowered trains.
Lines ran to Hespeler, Galt and Berlin connecting with major east-west routes. The Great Western Railway erected a two-storey passenger/freight/ticket office in 1858. GWR merged with the Grand Trunk Railway in 1882: in turn, GTR became part of Canadian National in the 1920s.
For a century-plus, passengers and freight left central Preston for destinations within the county or around the world. Passenger service ended in 1959 and by the mid-1960s this long-serving railway station was demolished.
“People, Place, Prosperity” is available at the City of Cambridge Archives, 46 Dickson St., Cambridge. Thanks to Dan Schmalz, George Roth and Ray Ruddy for details this week.