| Notes |
- Page One:
. Whittemore, E.F. - 624. Photograph colored size 4 X 5 inches, Head & shoulders. President of Consumers' Gas Co.
Ref: Landmarks of Canada, What art has done for Canadian history: A guide to the J Ross Robertson Historical Collection, Toronto Public Reference Library, Volume 1. 1917.
. 1840 Member of Temperance Reformation Society, First a partnership with Thos. Rigney, Retail merchant, progressed into private banking house & Consumer Gas Co., Toronto Gas & Lighting Co., & Toronto Stock Exchange. Toronto Alderman 1858.
. 1842 Census Upper Canada, Toronto, St. Andrews Ward
E.F. Whittemore, from Church Wards, Owner, Clerk, 1 room.
. Checked Store King St.,Toronto, housed Globe & Mail Newspaper, Established Toronto Stock Exchange. Ref: Globe & Mail Newspaper.
. Toronto: WHITTEMORE, RUTHERFORD & CO., wholesale merchants & general dealers in dry goods, groceries & hardware, King st. east, See card, page 445. Ref: 1851 Canada Directory.
. 1846 Organized first telegraph company in Toronto.
1846 Brown's Toronto City & Home District Directory, E E Whittemore, Toronto, wholesale merchant.
. In 1846 Whittemore tore down the old checkered store & erected in its place the structured demolished 2 years ago. [1886] ...business partners were Thos. Rigney, Rutherford, Elswood Chaffey, Edmund Morris. It was a private bank, eventually becoming the Toronto Stock Exchange. Mr. Whittemore died 1859. About 1860 rear portion of building was divined into shops with an entrance on Toronto St.: A Bacas bookseller & news dealer, postage stamps... Wm. Lyon Mackenzie frequented...lawyer's offices, Mayor Sheard was the architect & G. Brown the builder.
. 1851 WHITTEMORE, RUTHERFORD & CO., wholesale merchants & general dealers in dray goods, groceries & hardware, King st. east, See card, page 445. Ref: 1851 Canada Directory & The Globe & Mail for a multitude of advertisements.
Toronto Assessments Rolls, 1853 owned by E F Whittemore, Merchant: Addresses
26 - 27 King St., North Side Occupant: Rutherford & Whittemore Co.
1230 Wellesley St., Vacant Lot
377 Bay St. Occupant: R J Smith, Surgeon St. George's Ward
760 Bay St. Homeowner: E F Whittemore
Toronto Street Occupant: E F Whittemore.
. 1847, Mar 10, Tues. Robt. Murray, A Bankrupt. Court House, in the City of Toronto, on Sat. 31 Jul, a lot of land & premises in the Village of Streetsville, Assignee E F Whittemore.
. 1847 Mar 10, Toronto - Public Notice, in the matter of Robt. Murray. Bankrupt, Court House, City of Toronto on Sat. 31 Jul next, 12 o'clock, A lot of land & premise in the Village of Streetsville, 5 Con. W of Hurontario St., Twp. of Toronto, Home District. E F Whittemore, Assignee.
Ref: The Gazette Canada. Many repeat issues.
. 1848, Mar 27. Letter to Toronto Mayor & Common Council complaining of the unnecessary destruction of property at recent fires by excited & uncontrolled mobs. Ask that measures be taken to prevent such. Signed, Ed G O'Brien & E F Whittemore, Agents, Aetna & Hartford Insurance Companies.
Ref: Fonds 200 Former City of Toronto, Series 1081 Toronto Council Communications from the 19th Century, at Spadina Records Centre, Box 143263.
. 1849 Apr 2, Letter to Chas. Tendering his resignation as Common Councilman for St. Geo.'s Ward.
Ref: Spadina Records Centre, Box 143264. City of Toronto
. 1849 Jun 18 Petition of Whittemore, Rutherford & Co. & Robt Beekman, requesting the use of the Phoenix Engine & House until a permanent organization of the Fire Department takes place. Box 43264. Ref: Spadiana Records Centre.
. 1851 Toronto Directory - Whittemore, Rutherford &Co., wholesale merchants & general deals in dry godos, groceries & hardware, King St., East;
HartfordFire Assurance Co., Whittemore, Rutherford & Co., agents, King St. East.
. 1853 Apr 9 - SHERIFF'S SALE OF LANDS.
United Counties of Lincoln & Welland, t ~ Fieri Facias, issued of Her Majesty's Court, Queen's Bench & to me directed, against the lands & tenements of MOSES, Andrew Vanderburgh, at the suit of THOMA S RIGNEY, Ezekiel F. Whittemore & Edward If. Rutherford, I have seized & taken in execution the following property, viz: the north halves of lots 16 & 17, in the 8 Con of Twp. of Pelham in Co. of Welland, one of the above named counties; all of which lands, together with the buildings & erections thereon, I will offer for sale at my Office in the Court House, in the town of Niagara, on SATURDAY, the 9th day of APRIL,1853 at the hour of TWELVE o'clock noon. W. Kingsmill, Sheriff U.C.L.&W., Sheriff's Office, Niagara, 30th December, 1852. [First published 8th January, 1833.]
. 1853 Feb 1 - Sheriff's Sales, in the common pleas, Ezekiel F Whittemore, Elwood Chaffy & Edmund Morris, Plantiffs Vs. Wm. Lines, Geo S Wilkes & Fred T Wilkes Defendants, Town of Brantford.
. 1853 May 14, Toronto, CANADIAN TEMPERANCE LEAGUE, According to announcement, a meeting of the friends of Temperance was convened in the Temperance Hall on Wednesday evening last. …re forming liquor laws.
Mr. Whittemore was of opinion that the proper time for legal restriction to the sale of intoxicating liquors had arrived. He depreciated the opposition raised by some temperance men against a prohibitory liquor law & conclude by expressing a desire that those who had entertained conscientious scruple in reference to secret societies, would lend their co-operation to the object of the league.
Appointed, York County until 1st July next: E R Whittemore, Esq., President; Committee of Management: Peter Lawrence, Seur, York Mills.
Note1: E F Whittemore was married to his Peter's cousin Margaret Lawrence Johnston.
Ref: The Globe Newspaper, Toronto.
. 1853 Sept 10, Quebec. His Excellency the Administrator of the Gov. has been please to make the following appointments: Ezekiel F Whittemore & Brewer or Toronto, Visiting Commissioner of the Prov. Lunatic Asylum at Toronto.
* Upper Canada Journal of Medical Surgical & Physical Science created a narrative based on reports culled from various "city papers" (378). In their account two merchants, Whittemore & Brewer, visited Potter's Field in November 1851 & noticed that a coffin, which they knew had been sent from the Lunatic Asylum, seemed unnaturally light. ... In November the sexton investigating the lightness of the coffin of a deceased patient on its way to burial in potter's field, discovered that someone had removed an arm, a leg, & the head for "anatomical purposes". ...The coroner's jury subsequently discovered that Dr. Scott had performed a postmortem on the body after Mr. Coroner Duggan's own examination. Dr. King decided not to pursue the matter, but the Board of commissioners of the Lunatic Asylum censured Scott for '"indiscretion & a want of judgment.'"
While respectful toward the public's sensitivities to human dissection, they insist that it was of utmost importance to medical science. Moreover the public's sensitivities would not have been so offended, had Scott & other officers at the Asylum merely taken the precaution of securing the coffin before sending it to Potter's Field. Then the public would have been as ignorant (& uncaring) whether the body of Andrews, a pauper lunatic. The principal objects of editorial censure are not the doctors but Whittemore & Brewer, who, according to the editors, would not have broadcast their discovery had they really been motivated by human sympathy. The editors desired to know why the pair investigated the coffin in the first place. They suggested that it had something to do with "the furtherance of private views or the display of political partisanship" Thus they turn the tables on, as well as "shoot" the messenger.
. 1848 Oct 20 - The Commissioners also censured the Dr. Park for the mistake of parading in carriages, the inmates of the Asylum at the same time as the 12th of July Orangeman's Parade.
Ref: Tropping the Asylum, by John Thomas Rowland, 1999.
. SHERIFF'S SALE OF LANDS., Co. of Northumberland & Durham - on Sat. 24 Dec. 12, 1853, noon in town of Cobourg. In the County Court.' Thomas Rigney, Ezekiel Francis Whittemore & Edward Henderson Rutherford, plaintiff; vs. Benjamin Weller, defendant: Lot 23 3 Con Twp. Cramahe, Crandall Rd. 1800 A. Ref: 24 Sept 1853 888-6. & Sheriff's Sale of Lands, Co. Prince Edward, sold by Auction, Court House, Town of Picton, Sat 31 Dec, next 1853., lands & tenements of Benjamin Weller, several Writs of Fieri Facias, Rigney, Whittemore & Rutherford, plaintiffs, VS. Benjamin Weller, defendant.
. 1853 Sept 21, Toronto. C.W. Dissolution of Copartnership of the firm of Whittmore Rutherford & Co., by mutual consent, Edward H Rutherford, Esq., retiring therefrom.
. 1859 May 23 - Sheriff's Sales of Lands Peterborough & Victoria Co., Ezekiel Whittemore, Plaintiff, vs. P M Grover, defendant, Lot 16- 20, 9 Con Twp. Asphodel, Peterborough.
. NOTICE is hereby given, that the undersigned will apply to Parliament at its next Session, for an Act to incorporate a Company, with authority to construct a Railway from London to Amherstburg, or to such other point on the Detroit River as may be deemed most advantageous. E. F. WHITTEMORE,. H. HOLTON. Ref: 10 Dec 1853.
. Appointments, EZEKIEL WHITTEMORE, Esquire, reappointed Commissioners for visiting the Provincial Lunatic Asylum at Toronto, under the Act 16, Vict. ch. 188. Ref: 23 Sept. 1854 & again Appointments, Secretary's Office, Toronto 29th Dec 1855, His Excellency the Governor General has been pleased to make the following appointments, viz: Ezekiel F Whittemore to be Commissioners of the Provincial Lunatic Asylum at Toronto.
. 1856 Nov 13. Grand Truck Railway Co. of Canada: At the 3 Annual Meeting of Shareholders, held in Toronto: Messrs. Crawford, McGill & Whittemore, re-elected as Directors of the Co.
. 1857 Nov 2, Accounts of Trinity House of Montreal, Paid W & E F Whittemore & Co. Sperm Oil, Vchr. 29, £1 12s 3p.
Ref: Journals of the Legislative Assembly of Prov. of Ontario.
. 1858 Dec 31 - Northern Railway, A deputation from the Board of Trade, consisting of EFW +5, printed a petition to Parliament, Northern Railroad has been the means of developing the resources of country to a great extent than any other road … Ref: York Commonwealth Newspaper, Richmond Hill, ON. - . - [1, 2]
- Page Two:
. On December 28, 1846, a public meeting had been convened by the Board of Trade for the purpose of hearing a proposal from Captain Archibald Taylor for the establishment of a line of freight propellers between Toronto & Oswego. EF Whittemore, a merchant, told the meeting that the line was necessary because Toronto businessmen in the previous year had year had experienced inconvenience because of delays in transference of their goods from Oswego. He assured potential investors that the line would turn a profit & that one or more of the propellers could be diverted to carrying grain & other produce to Montreal & Quebec City in slack periods in the Oswego trade. Whittemore's reference to the St. Lawrence route fired Globe publisher Geo. Brown to counsel businessmen to undertake great national effort with their brother merchants int he cities & towns of Canada West to crush the stranglehold of the Laurentian forwarding firms by establishing a broad stock company to operate freight & passengers boats from Toronto to Quebec City direct. In subsequent meetings that winter, it was agreed to establish the Canada Steam Navigation Company.
Ref: Changing Patterns of Great Lakes Vessel Ownership As a Factor in the Economic
Development of Toronto, 1850-1860.
. Obituary1: 1859 Feb 23 - At Toronto, on Saturday last, Ezekiel Frances Whittemore, Esq., aged 41years. The illness of Mr Whittemore was very brief. the Toronto Globe Says: Mr. Whittemore was one of our most public spirited, enterprising merchants, zealous in eve good work, open to the calls of charity & of every duty which devolved upon him as t a member of society. As an Alderman of the city, as a member of the Board of Trade & director of many public companies, he was always ready both with his purse & his time to forward any worthy object. In business he was upright & faithful. Once entirely independent in his means, the recent criss had injured him severely & he had just got over his troubles & appears to be recommencing his career of prosperity & usefulness, when he was struck down by the fell destroyer. He leaves a widow & 5 children to lament the kindest of husbands & fathers.
Ref: New York commercial Advertiser, NY.
. Obituary2: Death & burial of Mr EF Whittemore, Abridged from the Globe.
It is with feelings of the deepest regret that we announced the death of E F Whittemore, which took place at his house onBay Street, at 10 o'clock Saturday night. He was taken ill about a week ago of inflammation of the kidneys & notwithstanding the exertions of numbers medical med, continued to grow worse until he was attacked t=with typhus & death speedily put a stop to his sufferings. The funeral took place on Tuesday afternoon from his late residence & a very large number who attended to pay the last sad mark of respect to his remains, justly showed the high estimation in which he was held by all classes of the community. The stores on King, Yonge & her stress were all closed as the mournful procession passed along on its way to the cemetery. The cortege was upwards of 20 minutes in passing a given xx & was composed of over 400 persons on foot & about 70 carriages.
Ref: York Commonwealth Newspaper
. Obituary3: Mr. E F Whittemore, Saturday night in his house on Bay Street, leaving a wife, & 5 children. Mr. Whittemore was an Alderman, Member of the Board of Trade. 2 Mar. 1859, Ref: Globe Newspaper, Toronto.
Ezekiel Francis Whittemore began his commercial career in Montreal in the 1830s but his first modest ventures ended in bankruptcy by 1840. Making a new start, he moved to Toronto to work as a clerk for the mercantile firm of Thomas Rigney & Company. The business prospered greatly in the commercial boom of the 1850s in Toronto & Whittemore was said to have achieved financial independence. Even financial difficulties in the panic of 1857 forced him to sell land & other assets & his firm failed. ...Widely respected for his integrity & business acumen, Whittemore was a leading participant in several of the financial & commercial institutions which had emerged in Toronto. A founding member in 1844 of the Toronto Board of Trade. Whittemore participated in organizing Toronto's first telegraph company. He was also a founder, treasurer, & director of the Toronto Exchange (organized in 1854-55 as a focus for the grain trade), a founder (1847) & president (1856–59) of the Consumers' Gas Company of Toronto. A Congregationalist, he worked with strong conviction in a number of temperance, mission & sabbath observance organizations. Ezekiel Francis Whittemore was one of the outstanding figures in Toronto's dynamic business community of the 1840s & the 1850s. His comprehensive career, despite its brevity, reflects exceptionally well the city's business & political history in his time.
Ref: Excerpts from Dictionary of Cdn. Biography Online, Archives of Canada.
. Dissolutions of Partnerships: Whittemore, E F & Co., 345. Ref: Canada Gazette, Annual Index, 1859, page 5 & NOTICE: - The Co-partnership heretofore existing between the subscribers under the name & firm of WHITTEMORE RUTHERFORD & Co. has been dissolved by mutual consent, Edward. Rutherford, Esquire, retiring therefrom. The business will be continued by Thos. Rigney & E F Whittemore under the same name & firm, who will liquidate & receive all debts due by or to the late firm. Toronto, C . W., 21st September, 1853.
Ref: Vol12, No. 49, 10 December 1853, page 50.
. 1859 Feb 24 (Publishing date) - Died: On 19 February, at Toronto, Ezekiel Francis WHITTEMORE, age 41 years. Ref: Markham Economist.
. 1859, Mar 25, Necropolis Cemetery, EFW, Aged 41years, born Montreal, died Toronto. VAULT Plot O43.50. COD: Inflammation of Kidneys. Plot O 43.50. Property of Wm. Whittemore. 'INTERRED 25 MAR 1859' Placed in vault Feb 19, Burial service March 25th, by Rev. Mc Marling.
Note2: Perhaps this refers to a official funeral, due to withholding telling his pregnant wife, Margaret, of his death - PJA.
...the firm of Whittemore, Rutherford & Company. In 1855 the partnership was dissolved & Mr. Whittemore started a general banking & brokerage business which, owing to the collapse of the boom of 1857, was not a financial success. The business of these firms was conducted in a four-story building at the north-west corner of King & Toronto Streets, owned & erected by Mr. Whittemore, & which later on was torn down & the building occupied until recently by the Quebec Bank was erected in its place. Mr. Whittemore died at the early age of 41 years, on February 19th, 1859. He was a man universally esteemed & his funeral was one of the largest that had ever taken place in the city & was attended by nearly all of Toronto's prominent citizens.
Ref: Recollections & Records of Toronto of Old. - Pub. 1914. [2]
- Page Three: York County Estate Files
. Whittemore, Ezekiel Francis, 1859 Feb 19,
Fifty-five pages of legal banter, oaths etc. E F Whittemore [ EFW ] died intestate, perhaps implying a sudden death, or was he ailing or depressed? His last year he failed to post a statement & his books were in disorder. No mention is given of the results or is there even a signature of Margaret Lawrence Whittemore or family. Here are a few summaries of the salient documents.
1. To York Surrogate Court. EFW died wholly intestate, largely indebted & insolvent ...numerous creditors... -partnership is owned about $40,000 ..it will take careful & prudent care to benefit the creditors... Administration should not be granted to the widow or next of kin, but by the Court, under Statute 22 Victoria. Signed Edward Chafferty, Attorney, 19 May, 1859.
2. York Surrogate Court, Petition of Herbert Mason, Accountant of those whose subscribed creditors of the Estate of EZF who died 19 Feb. 1859, Toronto, leaving a widow & several children under the age of 21 years. He died much involved in debt & unable to met its liabilities. William Brown Philips should be appointed administrator. EFW 's personal estate is about $16,000. Signed, 7th day of July, 1859. W. Mason, Ross Mitchell, John Gladtone Holy, Their Attorney, E L Inis, Thomas Rigney {i.e. the other partner}.
[Evidently Mr. Philips didn't become the administrator, as Mr. Mason took the position -PJA].
3. Herbert Mason report to the York Surrogate Court:
Your petitioner was urgently requested by a number of the Creditors of the late EFW to undertake the administration of estate. He was required to post a bond of $28,000 at some inconvenience & loss to himself, thereby placing himself under obligation friends, although he had nothing to gain himself.
Mason was obliged among other things to take proceedings to protect the household furniture belonging to the estate which was under seizure from the Canada Life Assurance Co. to the amount of 2 Policies on the life of Mr. Whittemore. The Chancery Court compelled Mason take the steps of renewal of Insurance on the life of A B. Townley which had nearly lapsed. Inducing Mr. Townley to go to Fort Erie from Buffalo where he resided to undergo a medical examination & now a considerable sum can now be realized on said Policy.
The creditors also filed with the York Chancery Court who also compelled Mason to give an account of balance & expenses of the EFW Estate. The creditors demanded an account of the funeral expenses for E F Whittemore: Undertaker's bill by John Ross was £8 15 schilling & 0 pence.
EFW in his lifetime was largely engage in business transactions of different kinds, wholesale Hardware merchant & grocery business, a banker, an exchange broker & an agent of several insurance companies.
By reason of numerous & varied transactions was complicated & greatly increased by the loose & careless manner in which the books were kept. Before his death they had not been posted for more than one year. They were voluminous extending to many thousand folios. Funds amounted to $10,784 received ... causing him to attend to much correspondence ... thus necessary to employ a solicitor & an accountant. Herbert Mason's bill for approval is $447.45 for expenses incurred.
The Court considered a reasonable compensation to be $1000 & including $339 to be paid the accountant. Signed, 30 August, 1861, Surrogate Court.
4. Page 5 of five pages of extracted INVENTORY: E H Rutherford said to be settled £388.4.6; A H Tisdale total acct. said to be doubtful £ 43. 5.4; Streetsville Plank Rd. Co.; Erie & Ont. Rail Rd. stock; Toronto Guelph Rd. Co., Ont. & Simcoe Rail Rd. stock; Peterboro & Pt. Hope RR stock; Pt. Credit & Hurontario Plank Rd., Scarboro Markham Plankroad Rd. were all said to be doubtful. £468; ROBERT JOHNSTON [a relative] £32.10.2; Consumers Gas Co. Stock $1000. a Cash installment $60. GRAND TOTAL: £15, 715. 4. 6
Note3: The use of both pounds & dollars in 1861. - PJA.
. WHITTEMORE'S STORE, King Street East at Toronto Street, for Edward H. Rutherford, 1846; demol. 1886 (Telegram [Toronto], 15 May 1886, 5; J.R. Robertson, Landmarks of Toronto, i, 1894, 81-3, illus. & descrip.)
CONSUMER'S GAS CO., Toronto Street, office block with dwelling for the Manager, 1852 (Daily Patriot [Toronto], 15 June 1852, 2)
Ref: Joseph Sheard, 1813-1883, Architects in Canada.
. Reference note: A slightly fuller version with photocopies is printed in my book. Otherwise please see the Estate File at the Archives of Ontario for the complete legal miscellanea. - P J Ahlberg, Toronto. 2009 - - - [3]
|
1818 - 1859 (41 years)