Recalling the days of the Burnt River Telephone Company
While just about everybody is connected to their family, friends and colleagues 24/7 these days, it’s vastly different from the localized lives of rural residents of the 19th century.
Back then, people knew practically every one of their neighbours intimately and typically their families were their lives.
The telegraph reached the Kawarthas before the telephone. It sent Morse-coded messages over cables, typically with one central office for a town or village.
Since many messages needed to be sent to operate railways, the village telegrapher often worked out of the train station.
Telegraphs were frequently used for business communications, occasionally for personal messages. These were kept short as sending a telegraph was costlier than mailing a letter. Virtually every community had a post office, and receiving a letter from a distant friend or relative was a special occasion.
In the second half of the 19th century, the telephone and electricity became practical technologies. Many inventors made specific advances that culminated in the ability to transmit voices across electric wires, but the invention of the telephone is often credited to Brantford’s Alexander Graham Bell.
In 1876, he patented his device and transmitted the sentence, “Mr. Watson, come here! I want to see you.” Later that year, he made what was declared to be the world’s first long-distance call, from Brantford to Paris; 13 kilometres via a telegraph line.
In January 1891, Mr. Scott, an agent for the Bell Telephone Company of Hamilton, travelled to Fenelon Falls. He met with residents in a parlour at the McArthur House with a proposal to have them contribute enough telephone poles to carry the lines halfway to Lindsay.
Samuel Swanton, a local farmer, who also dealt in telegraph poles, was the first to pledge enough for one mile. The hotel’s owner, Joseph McArthur, made a similar offer. Others agreed to give enough for a half or quarter mile.
By the next day, the request was met and a contract with Bell to bring the telephone to the community was enacted.
McArthur and Martin were hired to install the 750 poles at $1 each. A group of 16 men installed the line, hauling their gear with horses and camping in tents as they went. The initial installation linked Lindsay, Fenelon Falls and Bobcaygeon.
At first, telephone was an expensive luxury out of reach of individual families. At $20 per year — in an era when $1 per day was a common wage — most of the initial subscribers were businesses and wealthy individuals. For many years, Fenelon Falls Central was located in the back of William Ellis’s drugstore, later McArthur Drugs.
In 1907, a series of public meetings in Fenelon Falls discussed the possibility of bringing telephone service to rural homes in Somerville Township and vicinity. A private telephone company was formed.
The service was incorporated as the Burnt River Telephone Company Ltd. on Nov. 27 after raising $5,000, selling 500 shares at $10 each.
The head office was established in Burnt River early in 1908, and by the end of the year communications had been established with Fenelon Falls and Kinmount. The following year, the company installed a switchboard operated by Sam Suddaby.
In the years that followed, the company expanded the region that it served. It also welcomed competition via the T Somerville Municipal System (1926 to 1942) and the Rumney Settlement Telephone Company Ltd. (1919 to 1939).
Often, the telephone came long before hydro, which reached many rural neighbourhoods in the 1940s and 1950s. The telephone was marvellous for many of the families who subscribed.
Homes were organized into party lines, where each neighbourhood shared a telephone line. A caller wanting to talk to one of their neighbours would turn the crank to make a combination of long and short rings, which would be unique for each neighbour.
Everyone learned to recognize their own ring. If they wanted to talk to someone on a different line, they would make one long ring, to summon Burnt River Central.
In the days before television, many rural residents were very interested in what was happening in their community. Many would talk to their neighbours on the telephone several times a week.
Of course, one would never say anything on the telephone that you did not want everyone in the neighbourhood to hear, because there was a good chance that someone else was listening.
Truly, what many families used the phone for was to keep in touch with their neighbours and friends. Many families in this service area remained on party lines into the 1990s.
The Great Depression and the Second World War were a difficult time for the Burnt River Telephone Company. During the economic downturn, many families struggled to afford a telephone.
Then, on April 29, 1942, the Great Fire of Kinmount consumed much of the downtown. It would be four years before telephone service would be restored there.
Two years later, Burnt River had its own conflagration, destroying much of its downtown, including Suddaby’s former home, once the company headquarters.
After the Second World War, the company substantially expanded, with Verlie Chalmers as its wellknown operator. For a few years, Burnt River Central was located in her home, which was across from the Anglican Church.
In 1956, it moved to the home of Mrs. Jack Mark, where it would remain. By 1970, it operated 516 telephones in Somerville, Verulam, Galway, Snowdon and Lutterworth townships.
But as telephones were becoming universal, the technology improved and Bell telephone was becoming able to serve practically every community in Ontario. At the same time, many of the smaller companies were struggling to convert from manual exchanges to direct dial service.
Bell bought out many local telephone companies, including the Burnt River Telephone Company which, although purchased in 1967, continued to operate the system until 1970.
By the time it passed into history, the Burnt River Telephone Company had become one of the largest in the region. It had been a telephone company that brought together the neighbours who shared party lines.
GLENN WALKER IS A LOCAL HISTORIAN AND MEMBER OF THE MARYBORO LODGE MUSEUM, A COMMUNITY CULTURAL CENTRE LOCATED ON CAMERON LAKE IN FENELON FALLS. CHECK OUT WWW.MARYBORO.CA FOR MORE UNIQUE, ENTERTAINING — AND OFTEN UNKNOWN — HISTORICAL FACETS OF THE KAWARTHAS.