eastward along the north shore of Lake Ontario until he arrived in Darlington, where he hastily erected a log dwelling on his 1,200 acres before the winter set in. Four years later he brought his family from the United States to settle on this property. To invest the $5,000 in gold he had brought with him, he engaged in the fur trade. He had three flat-bottomed, broad-beamed Durham boats built in Montreal, which he promptly filled with blankets, traps, knives, guns, flints, ammunition, and beads to trade with the Natives for furs. He quickly accumulated a considerable fortune, which he invested in holdings of land along the north shore of Lake Ontario.
Conant, obviously a colourful character, once remarked that the salmon were so plentiful in those days that while he was paddling his canoe, the salmon raised his canoe up in the water. Conant went into the packing business and shipped some of those plentiful salmon by the barrel to the United States, at an excellent price. From the proceeds of one of these ventures, he bought yet another 150-acre farm on the shore of Lake Ontario. In 1811 he left his log cabin to build a frame house near the Oshawa harbour. Little did he know that his home would play a part in the War of 1812, just one year later.
When General Hull surrendered his whole command of 2,500 men at Detroit, on August 15, 1812, a serious question arose: what would the British do with so many prisoners? The redcoats decided to send the American prisoners to Quebec. Unable to furnish enough boats, many prisoners were forced to walk along the shore of Lake Ontario. The prisoners and guards alike were fed at various places along the route. When they arrived at Roger Conant’s home without warning, the family quickly set a large pot of potatoes on the fire to boil. A churning of butter had been done that day and a ham had been boiled the preceding day. The guards were outnumbered two to one, but no one escaped while feasting at this house.
A few days before Roger Conant died in 1821, he did a very odd thing. Conant decided to bury his gold in a large iron bake kettle on the bank of the Oshawa Creek. When it was noticed that the kettle was missing, a search began but failed to reveal its whereabouts. Many have attempted to find this buried treasure, but, alas, without success.
Around 1800, William and Moody Farewell and Jabez Lynde arrived in the area. Moody Farewell built a saw and gristmill on Harmony Creek and a tavern on Dundas Street. When regular stage traffic travelled this route, the Farewell tavern became a popular resting place. Jabez Lynde was the first pioneer to own property in what later became the village of Oshawa.
During this time several small communities were scattered about the area, clustered around the mills at the edges of the many creeks. On Dundas Street Edward Skae operated a store, and the settlement that grew around it became known as Skae’s Corners. Other early settlers of Oshawa included the Annis, Henry, Ritson, Ross, and McGill families.
In 1840 the settlers of Skae’s Corners petitioned the government to establish a post office. At a meeting Sydenham was the name chosen by the citizens, until Moody Farewell arrived with two Native companions. The two Natives were asked to suggest a name and they offered Oshawa, the translation of which is said to be “crossing between the waters” or “where the canoe is exchanged for the trail.”
Oshawa received official village status in 1850, with a population of about 1,000. Three years later Oshawa became a customs port. In 1856 the Grand Trunk Railway was completed from Toronto to Montreal, passing to the south of Oshawa.
The new rail and harbour facilities helped to promote industrial growth in the area. A.S. Whiting had the distinction of being the first industrialist in Oshawa, establishing the Oshawa Manufacturing Company, producing agricultural implements in 1852. Whiting originally started out as a clock salesman in 1842. His methods of operation, as he related them himself, are on record. He would bring 100 clocks, from the factory in New England, by boat to Port Hope. There he would buy a team of horses and a spring wagon, and with the clocks on board, start out on a selling tour in the surrounding district. At a farm house, he would set up a clock in the kitchen. He would then depart, leaving the clock, which he said he would collect later on his return trip. It was quite a successful technique: he very seldom had to take a clock back!
George H. Pedlar established the next plant, a tin and sheet metal business, in 1861. The new rail and harbour facilities attracted many businessmen to Oshawa, including Robert McLaughlin. The McLaughlin family was to have a profound influence on the development of the community.
Robert McLaughlin manufactured carriages in the hamlet of Enniskillen, northeast of Oshawa. In 1876 he bought a lot in Oshawa and there he erected a modest three-storey building with a separate blacksmith shop constructed of brick. He sold the balance of the lot to the town, where a jail was built and later the city hall.
In 1879 Oshawa was incorporated as a town. By 1894 the town had an electric street railway with nine miles of main track and three miles of second track. On December 7, 1899, the McLaughlin Carriage Company buildings burned to the ground. Robert’s son, Robert S. McLaughlin, who was by then a partner in the company, was reported to have said, “We could only stand and watch our life’s work go up in flames, not only we McLaughlins, but the 600 men who depended for a living on the carriage works.”
The town of Oshawa felt a loyalty to the McLaughlin family and offered a loan of $50,000 to be repaid as was convenient. It was a good thing, too, because the city of Belleville had contacted the McLaughlins, while the ruins were still smouldering, to offer them a bond issue and a big cash bonus if they would rebuild their factories in Belleville. The McLaughlins chose to remain in Oshawa.
By 1900 the McLaughlin Carriage Company was back in business. In the United States, in 1905, the automobile emerged from the horseless-carriage stage and became an industry. The Buick Motor Company, now two years old, had just been taken over by a carriage builder named William C. Durant.
R.S. McLaughlin was determined to persuade his brother George that automobiles had a place in the world. He travelled to the United States to learn more about what was being done in the automobile field. There he met with Durant, then returned to Toronto, purchased a Model F two-cyclinder Buick, and drove it home to Oshawa. Before he was halfway there, he knew that this was the car he wanted to make in Canada. R.S. sat down and talked to his family. He waited for his father to contemplate this new idea, wondering if the response would be to continue to build carriages. Instead, his father told him to go ahead, if he thought he could make it work. That was all he needed to hear, and before the dust could settle, the McLaughlins were busy designing their first car, right down to the beautiful brass McLaughlin radiator. Those were the beginnings of the car company that was to become General Motors of Canada.
Oshawa, 1941. When gasoline was rationed, Sam McLaughlin set a gas-saving example by returning to the hay-fuelled McLaughlin carriage.
Author’s collection
The McLaughlins had obtained the rights to manufacture Chevrolet cars and formed the Chevrolet Motor Car Company of Canada in 1915. In 1918 the McLaughlin Motor Car Company of Canada was purchased by General Motors and incorporated as General Motors of Canada Limited, with R.S. McLaughlin as president.
Oshawa annexed part of East Whitby Township in 1922 and became an incorporated city two years later. A further annexation of part of the township took place in 1951. Two World Wars stimulated the expansion of Oshawa’s industries, and although the depression of the 1930s cancelled some of the growth, recovery was rapid.
It was during the Second World War that Oshawa became the site of a secret intelligence organization. In 1940 Sir William Stephenson, the founder of British Security Co-ordination, was sent to the United States by the British prime minister, Winston Churchill, to establish an intelligence network that would eventually encompass all of the western hemisphere. One of the initial Canadian projects was to purchase land in Oshawa and supervise
