Petrolia blew up at least once.It was decided to move the nitro factories beyond the town’s boundaries to prevent nitro delivery wagons from using Petrolia’s bumpy streets as a shortcut to the oil fields.Soon there were newspapers in addition to several oil refineries and oil-related businesses. New laws forced builders to use fire resistant materials like brick and stone,and Petrolia became known for its beautiful Victorian brick architecture. Everything from mansions to churches to an opera house were constructed. Petrolia, within 50 years,became a place to enjoy life rather than simply a place to make a quick fortune.
In 1869, the village council decided to hire a town constable.
The most respected and feared town constable was Thomas Grey Jackson.
Mr. Jackson was born on May 19, 1843 in Northern Ireland and moved to Canada when he was 17 years old. He and his wife moved to
Petrolia in 1872. Two years later he was made the town constable and remained town constable until 1901. He was over 6 feet tall and 200 pounds. His strength was legendary and he was fearless when it came time to break up a brawl. After he retired he remained as
night watchman and County Magistrate.
Petrolia, originally called Petrolea, was little more than a stagecoach stop a few miles north of Oil Spring. Then Captain Bernard King struck a very large oil well in 1865 and soon Petrolia replaced Oil Springs as Canada’s oil
capital.
Oil prices were up to $10.00 a barrel (worth about $140.00 today), enough to make many Petrolians very wealthy.
The settlement grew quickly and was incorporated as a village in 1866. In the same year a group of oilmen raised the funds
to build a railway to Wyoming to ship the oil barrels faster. There were taverns, stables, hotels, stores, factories, rooming houses, slaughter houses and refineries built so close to each other with no building or fire codes. The streets were crowded with wooden wagons carrying crude oil and men
walking around in oil-soaked clothes. After two major fires in 1867, fire departments were built at opposite ends of the town. The firemen were paid by the fire so they often raced
to the fires and then fought to decide who got to handle the fire. By 1872 Petrolia was booming in more ways than one.
Nitroglycereine was used to “torpedo” the oil wells. Almost every nitroglycerine factory in
long for Jake and Charlotte to fall in love. Jake built her a beautiful home, named “Glenview”, and on December 29, 1891, they married. In 1908, Charlotte found herself pregnant after 17 years of marriage but she had contracted Tuberculosis, and on December 30,1908, Charlotte and their baby died. Charlotte was 45 years old. A couple of years after Charlotte’s death, Jake honored Charlotte’s wishes to leave their home and the golf course to the town of Petrolia. It was officially converted to the town’s hospital in her name in 1912. Jake passed away from a brain hemorrhage in April 1921. The couple were laid to rest together at Petrolia’s Hillsdale Cemetery.
Katherine “Kate” Newton was born in Petrolia in 1883. Katherine was a talented maker and seller of hats, also known as a Milliner.
She first became a Milliner in 1908. She opened The Newton Hat
Shop around 1919 in Sarnia, Ontario and had a hat shop in Petrolia.
Kate lived with her brother Roy, her sister Ethel and her mother.
Her father was an oil driller and died overseas and Kate played the role of caretaker in her family. Miss Newton was a pioneer for
businesswomen. After she passed away at age 85 in 1968, a stock of 500 hats was discovered in her attic.
A local historian, George L. Smith, purchased a collection of the hats, some even with the original price tags on them.
These were sold to the Canadian Museum of Civilization.
Charlotte Eleanor “Minnie” Thomson was born on October 27, 1863 in Adelaide, Ontario. At age 10 she moved to Petrolia to live with
her sister Isabella and her husband George Moncrief.
Jacob “Jake” Louis Englehart was born on November 2, 1847, in Cleveland, Ohio. At age 13 his family moved to New York and he
began his career as a merchant. By 1870 his interest was in refineries.
He moved to London, Ontario, and started his oil refinery business called J.L Englehart & Company. Jacob moved to Petrolia in the late 1870’s and started a new business called Silver
Star Refinery. In 1880 he was also one of the founders of
Imperial Oil.
Jake and Charlotte met many times and over many years at dinner
parties. He had entered into business ventures with Isabella’s husband, George. It didn’t take
On January 25, 1989 there was a fire at Victoria Hall that gutted the interior building and exterior wood trim. The bell was damaged in the fire but was saved and is now on display outside of the present day building.After the devastating fire, the community came together to rebuild the building. Today it is called the Victoria Playhouse Petrolia or VPP for short. The VPP contains municipal offices, council chambers, an events lobby and a beautiful theatre that seats 400 patrons.It is a national historic site and has also been designated as a heritage building.
Charles Fairbank was born July 21, 1858 in
Niagara Falls, Ontario. He moved to Oil Springs
with his father, J.H. Fairbank when he was 4.
He became a lieutenant in the Royal
Canadian Military College in Kingston.
Charles received a medical degree in 1891
at New York. He is called "The Little
Doctor" (because he wasn't tall, only
5 feet 6 ½ inches.) Charles took over his father's oil business in 1912 just before his dad became ill
and died. He lived in Petrolia with his wife,
Clara Mabel, and 4 sons: John Henry,
Charles Oliver, Henry Churchill and
Robert Theodore. Charles died in 1925.
Victoria Hall was built by leading Canadian architect, George F. Durand, in 1889 in the middle of the oil boom in Petrolia. The buff brick town hall was built in both the Queen Anne style and vernacular style. It was a challenge to make the design because there was a fire hall, police station, court room and municipal offices on the first floor. The Town insisted that a 1000-seat opera house be built on the second floor. At the top was a wooden gazebo that held the fire alarm bell, and above that four dormers held the facesof the town clock.
With the oil boom Petrolia became the home of many rich and influential families. It was common for much of the community to get together for “Assemblies” where they
would hold dress balls four times a year. These Assemblies would be held at the Oil Exchange Hall but with the opening of the new town Hall the Assemblies were moved to the Victoria Opera House.
Flossy said that she would stay on the town council for as long as the people wanted her, but died shortly after making that statement due to a heart attack. Her love for harness racing was also well known with many of the horses being trained and raced in her name. She often worked a colt herself. In this book’s setting, Flossy would have been fifteen years old.
Florence “Flossy” Stone was, to say the least, an inspiration. She was born in Petrolia on March 7, 1892. Being a life-long resident in Petrolia and a general do-gooder, Flossy decided to run for a position on the town council, because she was noticing the lack
of connection between the town and the town’s chairmen, and she only wanted the best for Petrolia and its residents.
However, it was difficult for her to get a position, because women were still considered unfit to hold a municipal spot. Before her
victory in 1937, she was defeated nine times, but still managed to become the first woman in Western Ontario to hold a position on
a town council. Flossy was re-elected six times during her municipal career.
She did many good deeds for the community, including opening one of the first retirement homes in her own house, and being
very enthusiastic towards Petrolia’s well-fare committee.
The Jackson family were the first
recorded family of colour to settle
in Petrolia. They originally settled
in Petrolia seeking business
opportunities, and they succeeded.
Four generations of the Jackson
family operated a landmark called
“Jackson Pool Room” that was a
barber shop, a shoe shine parlor,
and later a pool hall. The Jackson
Pool Room, a frame structure, was
located in Petrolia’s main street,
which was then called the tenth line,
next to the former Van Tuyl &
Fairbank building.
formed the Canada Oil Association of Oil Springs.In 1865, he purchased land in Petrolia and built a white frame house. J.H.Fairbank, and his partner, Benjamin Van Tuyl opened a grocery and liquor store in 1865, which later became the largest hardware store west of Toronto,Ontario. In 1869 he and Leonard Vaughn opened Petrolia’s first bank known as The Little Red Bank. Before his death in February of 1914, J. H. Fairbank was also heavily involved in politics, including being elected three times to counsel, serving as reeve,and being elected as the Federal Liberal Member of Parliament in 1882.
John Henry Fairbank came to Lambton County in the late 1850’s as a surveyor. Within the next thirty years he became a very successful oilman and businessman in Petrolia. While most of that time he lived modestly
in a white frame house, it wasn’t long before he began construction of his mansion. Construction of Sunnyside
Mansion began in 1889. It would take two years to complete. The mansion, located on five acres of land, overlooked Bear Creek. The three story Victorian Queen Anne style home with Ohio red clay bricks, boasted 22 rooms including 6 bedrooms, 6 baths,
and 6 fireplaces. It also had a third floor
ballroom for high society balls which were held
by the Fairbank family.
Four generations of the Fairbank family have been producing oil longer than anyone in the world. The family line of oilers starts at
John Henry Fairbank (1831-1914) and continues right up to Charles Oliver Fairbank, the 3rd. Oil is the second largestquantity of fluid in the world. Oil has been such a big industry across the world that it is truly remarkable that it
all started with John Henry Fairbank.
In 1858, John Henry Fairbank was living with his wife, Edna, and six children on a Niagara farm, working as a land surveyor for the Great Western Railway Company, when he was approached to survey an oil patch in
Lambton County. This was the beginning of his love for the oil industry.
J.H. Fairbank built a shack in Oil Springs where he began to dig for oil. He would travel between London and St. Thomas selling machine lubricating oil.
He also came up with the idea to use the river to transport his barrels of oil
for export. In 1862, he and 300 other oilmen