“Nor is the story, important as it is in its material aspects, without its human interest; for behind the money are the toilers who have made it, and within the institutions, factories, and warehouses are the forces of brain and muscle that make for its activities.”1
– G. Mercer Adam, 1891.
G. Mercer Adam wrote the quote above in Toronto, Old and New, a volume that celebrated Toronto’s centennial year (1891) and its historical growth as an industrial city. The volume has a heavy focus on the businessmen that brought economic revenue and industrial growth to the city. Among those businessmen are the coal and wood dealers that influenced and shaped the coal industry within Toronto. Coal dealers of the late nineteenth century held power and influence among Toronto’s elite class of citizens. Not mentioned, however, is the important work of coal workers such as coal company labourers, clerical staff, and teamsters.
Coal merchants and dealers are easy enough to find in the historical record because their names and faces are often tied directly to the name of their company. It is much more difficult to identify the employees and labourers that worked for coal dealers. The first mention of the number of employees that worked for major coal companies is in Toronto Illustrated (1891). According to the authors, the Ontario Coal Company owned four large barges, employed forty to fifty hands, and owned around sixty teams of horses and carts in 1891.2 P. Burns & Co, the oldest coal company in Toronto, employed fifty men and a large number of horses and carts.3 The seven companies listed in Toronto Illustrated employed anywhere from 230 to 355 labourers and around 171 teams.4 Realistically, it is impossible to tell how many people worked in the coal trade in Toronto during the nineteenth century due to the lack of historical records. Historical actors such as the coal dealers have plenty of information left behind to study due to being identified at the time as important actors. Labourers, teamsters, and clerical staff have very few historical records left behind.
Finding evidence of the types of labour, payment records, and employee insight is really difficult. Short anecdotal letters or articles written by coal dealers about the business are often all there is to find. In a letter to the editor published in The Globe and Mail in August of 1880 Elias Rogers wrote that, “The harbour dues are 5c. per ton; it costs 12c. to take the coal out of the vessel and dump it in the carts; it costs about 8c. to cart it into the sheds and trim it… the screening costs, between the labour and loss, at least 20c.; and an average delivery costs 35c.”5 This evidence tells us a lot about the labour and potential jobs people would be assigned to working in the coal trade on the docks. On August 5th 1880, Elias Rogers shipped 906 tons of coal into Toronto.6 After harbour dues, it would cost Rogers $181.20 to get the 906 tons of coal from the ship, trimmed, screened, and stored. Overall, this information tells us Rogers had to pay labourers to handle the coal for the ship to the sheds and then pay them to trim and screen the coal. But this small slice of information leaves many more questions than answers about coal labourers. Were shiphands and coal labourers both unloading the ship? Was Rogers paying the shiphands to move the coal into sheds and paying employees to prep the coal? Was the pay per ton for the employees or hourly?
In 1886, the Board of Trade created the Coal Section, a committee of elite coal merchants that controlled the trade of coal within the city.7 Coal was a tricky material to obtain in Toronto without connections to mines in the United States. Coal merchants, dealers that imported coal, often had business partners, shares, or owned coal mines in Pennsylvania. Elias Rogers, a member of the Coal Section and known as Canada’s “Coal Magnate,” was accused of running a coal ring during his 1887 campaign for mayor of Toronto.8 The “coal ring” allegation had a major impact on national antitrust legislation in 1889 and highlighted Torontonians fears of fuel scarcity.9 The Coal Section’s short history ( it stops showing up in the Board’s annual reports a few years after the allegations) highlights the political and social power held by elite coal merchants within the city.
Hard (anthracite) coal was located in very few locations in North America. During the nineteenth century, a majority of the hard coal was found in Pennsylvania. Eastern U.S. hard coal was ideal for domestic use and sought after by many homes in Toronto. Coal merchants that had access to hard coal had a competitive edge in the trade. Elias Rogers had connections with an America hard coal dealer, F.C. Dininny, which gave Rogers power and control over other coal dealers in Toronto.10 Ralph Gibson, treasurer of the coal section and president of the Conger Coal Company, dealt with Pittston and Scranton hard coal from Pennsylvania. The exclusive nature of hard coal meant that very few merchants and dealers controlled the trade with American coal mines. The hierarchy in the coal trade created an elite class of coal merchants that had a lot of political power in the city.
The controversy that plagued the coal section did not impact the reputation of coal merchants in the city. The unnamed authors of the 1891 volume of Toronto Illustrated praised and celebrated many coal merchants and dealers.11 The Ontario Coal Company established by John R. Bailey, who was an executive member of the Coal Section, and his associates was highly praised as, “They are all responsible and respected businessmen who exercise a sound progressive policy in all that concerns the coal trade.”12 Curiously, Elias Rogers is not mentioned in this volume, but his name appears in later editions.
Prominent historical actors such as businessmen and politicians have left visible and definable histories in the written record. That much is obvious in Toronto, Old and New, which states that, “The design has been to make the book an important and pleasing exposition of the principal phases of Toronto’s commercial and industrial as well as social and intellectual life, and, if possible, a worthy tribute to the genius and nation-building qualities of her toiling sons.”13 The historical actors that laboured and delivered coal are yet to be fully discovered. Labourers, clerical staff, and teamsters are all important connections within the coal network. Discovering the labour history of the coal network can help historians to better understand the coal trade and the power it grants.
Notes
1. G. Mercer Adam, Toronto, Old and New: a memorial volume, historical, descriptive and pictorial, designed to mark the hundredth anniversary of the passing of the constitutional act of 1791, which set apart the province of Upper Canada and gave birth to York (now Toronto), (Toronto: Mail Print Co, 1891). Preface. Accessed Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/torontooldnewmem00adam_0/page/n6/mode/1up
2. Adam, Toronto, Old and New, 82.
3. Adam, Toronto, Old and New, 70.
4. Illustrated Toronto, the queen city of Canada, its past, present and future, its growth, its resources, its commerce, its manufactures, its financial interests, its public institutions, and its prospects, (Toronto: ACME Publishing and Engraving Company, 1890). 70, 82, 87, 153, 157-158, 165. Accessed Digital Archive Ontario. https://digitalarchiveontario.ca/objects/355542/illustrated-toronto-the-queen-city-of-canada-its-past-pre
5. Elias Rogers, “Letter to the Editor,” (The Globe and Mail: August 5, 1880). 5.
6. Manifest books, account of harbour dues collected at the Port of Toronto, 1849–1937,” RG 2/5, Office of the Harbour Master fonds, PortsToronto Archives.
7. “Toronto Board of Trade,” (The Globe and Mail: January 10, 1887), 4.
8. n-a, “Profile: Elias Rogers, Canada’s “King Coal” (1913)”, (Toronto Star Weekly, September 20, 1913), Accessed bill gladstone genealogy. https://www.billgladstone.ca/profile-elias-rogers-canadas-king-coal-1913/
9. Daniel P Harper, “In the Shadow of Antitrust Competition Policy and the Coal Trade of Toronto and Chicago, 1888-1940,” (Order No. 3604248, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2013), 61.
10. Adam, Toronto, Old and New, 168.
11. Illustrated Toronto, 82.
12. Illustrated Toronto, 82.
13. Adam, Toronto, Old and New, Preface.
Feature image: Josiah Bruce. “Toronto Harbour, looking east along Esplanade E., Princess St. in foreground.” Toronto: Mail, 1894. Accessed on Digital Archive Ontario.
Hannah Willness