Please join me in a stroll down memory lane. If you or your parents or your relatives lived in Moncton New Brunswick or Dieppe or Lewisville or Coverdale in 1947,then let's go back in time. How many of these businesses do you remember? I do remember some of them, I shall post what I do remember .These ads were in a book I have from a long time ago. I hope they bring back many good memories for you.Many of the photos were from The Monctonians,History of Moncton and the Transcript

I have a drinking glass with New Method on it, givem to me by my mother.

My late husband worked for Abbey Landry, he told me that he helped do the wiring at the Saint Paul de Kent Nun's Convent

Did they ever make good ice cream, I was dissappointed when they closed in Moncton.

My father worked for the grey bus line for many years.

I thought I remembered the Bore View restaurant,but I was thinking of the n Blue Circle ,it was situated across from the Bore Park (which back then was a great tourist attraction).I used to eat poutines at the restaurant.I remember when I was newly married a bunch of us ladies would go to a double bingo on Saturday or Sunday, I forget which day, but anyway we would make the first bingo ,then before we went to the second bingo we stopped for poutines.

The New Brunswick Wire Fence was on the corner of King and Main, Mom just told me that one evening my Dad, her and my oldest sister who was in a carriage were on their way home, and when they got to the NB Wire Fence building a gang of young men, one was an ODell had planned that they would get the first man that came along so they jumped out and attacked my Dad, they beat him up pretty bad, so the next day my Dad went out and gave them a good beating one by one in return.

Ah Zellers, I remember it being situated at the Subway Block,the corner of Lutes Street and Main.Next door to Zellers was Woolworths, I remember Mom used to call it the five and ten.But when I remember these places we were in the early 1960s.Today we have two Zellers ,one towards Magnetic Hill and one in Dieppe.

The Palace Grill was located in the Subway Block across from Zellers, I remember the Palace Grill and I went and ate there,I believe there was a theater next to it at one time called the Imperial theater. Anyway the Palace Grill was there until the late 1960s for sure.

I wonder if that is the same fish market that is across from the Moncton Cathedrale today? If if is, my late husband used to love fish and lobsters ,quahawgs and oysters and we went there many times.And the lobsters were de-li-cious. mmm

Now we are talking about the movie theaters, I remember the Capital and Empress theatre very well, I remember walking from Parkton and we had two storms dumped on us one after another, the snowbanks were really high and I remember my brother and I walking down Mountain Road ,to Weldon,to Main to go to the movies. Back then the movies were not expensive. Now I don't remember the Kent theatre, i do know it was on St.George St. and when it caught fire my brother was there.Then came the Paramount theater which was on the opposite site of the Capital and Empress but that theater came later.

Moncton Family Outfitter, I remember them very well, I used to work down on Lutes Street and when I got married ,that is where I bought my going away outfit.I remember the dress well, it was the color of a potato sack, that colour brown, and it went down below my knees.But I liked it and at that time, we had lay aways, so it meant I could pay it off when I could afford it. Ah those were the days.

Record Foundry and Machine Company, this is where my grandfather David Williams worked.

Ah yes Boudreau Radio,I remember him very well, I went to school with his son.My late husband thought a lot of Mr Boudreau, he used to go to his shop quite often, and when we got married we made a stop to see him ,I was in my wedding dress. Ah I remember it well.

I remember that the ICE Pond was located at what we used to say "fond du ruisseau",bottom of the brook towards the end of Cedar Street, and one of my uncles worked there, they used to cut the ice in square blocks and sell the ice .Back then we had an old fridge that used big square blocks of ice in the top part,to keep the bottom part cold. Things sure have changed for the better don't you think so?

The Willett Fruit Company of St.John opened a branch in Moncton in 1921 on Lutes Street,when I worked there I remember a railroad track besides the building. When I worked there the manager was E.A.P.Healy, before him, the manager was his father R.E.Healey. I was sixteen when I worked there,my aunt Amanda Williams was the supervisor, I had cousins working there at one time or another. That is where I tasted my first eel, each day one of us workers would bring some meat or fish and we would cook it there and cook some of the broken vegetables,such as carrots, spotted potatoes,(food that was not good enough for the grocery stores.) One day I hadnt asked what kind of fish we were having, I took one bite and noticed the fish was moving in the frying pan, I said what am I eating? My aunt replied EELs. Well that was the first and last time I ate it.

In 1884 George McSweeney bought the King Hotel when it was at the corner of Main and Highfield and serving the railroad.This later became the Weldon House which Mr, McSweeney enlarged and renovated,building two fron wings in 1885 so that it could accomodate 200 guests.It was the first in Moncton to have electric lights,and it had hot water furnaces. McSweeney changed the name to BRUNSWICK HOTEL and promoted it as the finest east of Montreal.(The Monctonians).

The Electricity and gas company was controlled by American Companies up until 1939.In 1934 the name was changed to Moncton Electricity and Gas Company Ltd.(formerly Moncton Tramsway Electricity and Gas Company Ltd>)The street railway had ceased to operate in 1931 so the Tramways phase no longer existed.In 1939 the control of the company was acquired by Eastern Utilities Ltd.transferring for the American control.(history of Moncton)

I could not add the following ads since they were hard to read.
The first was EATON's store, I am sure many of you remember the old Eaton building on Commercial Street. In 1920 when the building opened there were 752 employees.The T.Eaton Company has been an important unit in the Moncton economy. From the beginning there was a limited display of items to be sold over the counter .From this early beginning in Moncton there grew the large retail business that Eaton did in Moncton for so long.The first order shipment from Eatons in Moncton was a parcel to Bathurst in 1920.(history of Moncton). I remember later had a bargain basement which I used to go to once in a while ,of course I would get good bargains. Then Eatons moved to the Highfield Square and later closed its doors .

There was also Swift Meat Packers where my husband once worked.

Here are a few old photos

This photo was taken in from of the old city hospital on mountain road,this is where one of my grandfathers died.It is interesting to see an ambulance of long ago. (history of Moncton)

This photo was the old Times (newspaper)building located on Bostford Street in Moncton.

This photo was the old CN Station located on Main Street in Moncton.The photo was taken before 1943.

This photo was of the Intercolonial Railway yards,located between Albert Street and Main.(history of Moncton)

This photo was taken of Main Street from west Bonaccord.Did you notice the tracks? This was during the times of the tramways and much earlier than the 1940s.

source Monctonians

source Monctonians

source Moncton Times 1990

The above photo is of the Sugar Refinery in Moncton.Here is an article that was also in the Times along with the photo.
SUGAR REFINERY ONCE DOMINATED THE WATERFRONT
The Moncton Sugar Refinery Company was incorporated on January 27 1879. John L Harris, Moncton's principal entrepreneur for the period, and his brother, Christopher, worked hard to establish and promote the new company. John L. would serve as president and Christopher as secretary of the refinery's executive for many years. The refinery was located near Hall's Creek, on a large lot which extended over the area near Thornes and the Real Atlantic Superstore. The complex dominated the water front. The refinery's 86 feet high filter ouse and the boiler's towering 120 foot chimney must have been visible for quite a distance. Other smaller buildings housed different aspects of the refining process included the melting house, kiln house,boiler house ,coal house, warehouse and coopering shops. Much of the equipment used to refine sugar was purchased from New York. The main engine was made by Harris and Company of Saint John,while two other engines were supplied by Weir's Machine Shop of Moncton. Most of the bricks for the buildings were made at the local kilns in Moncton and vicinity. Work on the buildings progressed at a very quick pace. Construction started in March 1880 and on December 7 of the same year, the first four casks of raw sugar were poured into the boiler and the business of refining sugar began. A load of raw sugar was purchased at Halifax, and eight or ten Germans from New York came to Moncton to teach local men the art of refining. On May 9 1881 the Germans began barque Atlantic arrived at Saint John with 800 tons of Java Crystals, destined for the Moncton operation. This was reported to be the first cargo of raw sugar ever imported from the East Indies to New Brunswick. Soon large cargos of sugar would make the journey from the sugar islands to feed the refineries at Saint John, Halifax and Moncton, and return with fish, lumber and finished goods.Moncton's sugar usually landed at Halifax or Saint John and was shipped by train on the Intercolonial Railway. Eventually large shipments of over 1500 tons would be transferred by rail to be processed in Moncton. Maintaining a steady supply or raw sugar was a problem both management and workers were forced to contend with. On August 6 1889 the Moncton Daily Transcript informed its readers that the Moncton Sugar refinery had lost a large cargo of sugar due to the sinking of the Spanish barque Victoria on the Murr Ledges, Grand Manan. Her cargo is insured ,stated the Transcript, but its loss will be rather keenly felt as the refinery has been shut down waiting for sugar. According to one report, employees generally lost about three months work each year due to plant closures. Little is known about the people who worked at the refinery, or the conditions under which they labored. When the raw materials were available, the refinery operated around the clock to produce the finished product. The very high temperature required to melt the sugar meant that some rooms were extremely hot. There, men worked without any clothing and the heat made them weak. Reports indicate that most men in the refinery worked over ten hours a day and that 16 hour shifts wer common. Salaries varied depending on occupation. Barnabas White, a packer, earned 90 cents a day, and did not receive any augmentations for overtime. Silas White, an engineer with the company, was paid nine cents per hour and worked 12 to 15 hours per day. All employees were paid once a month. Men could purchase their fire wood from the barrel factory and the the costs removed from their salaries. While the Moncton Sugar Refinery Company had some initial success, the overdevelopment of this industry resulted in a glutted market and a drop in prices in the early 1880s. The company struggled along for four to five years and was saved from bankruptcy through the financial support of the stockholders. In 1893 a group of Scottish financiers set up a reginal combine that brought together all three of the region's refineries under one company. On August 1 of that year, the stockholders of the Moncton Sugar Refinery voted to amalgamate with the new Halifax based Atlantic Sugar Refineries. The new order worked well and helped to stabilize the market and reduce costs. However,Monctonians had lost control over a valuable industry. The cost of this action was only apparent after the refinery was destroyed by fire in 1896. Atlantic refused to rebuild the Moncton refinery and shifted the work load to its other operations. Atlantic did however maintain and expand the barrel factory, which operated until the 1930s.The top photo shows Moncton sugar refinery during its hey day in the 1880s. The buildings dominated the Moncton Waterfront at the time, situated in the Halls Creek area, near where Thornes and the Atlantic Superstore are now located. The bottom photo shows the rubble remaining of the once huge operation following the fateful fire of 1896. The owners decided not to rebuild the refinery after the blaze.

source Moncton Times 1990

The above photo is of the Gunningsville Bridge, this bridge was recently torn down, and replaced by a new bridge. I travelled on this bridge, and it was a very narrow bridge, I am sure many of you remember going across from Moncton, to either go to the Fundy Park, or to Hopewell Rocks, or Salisbury or Riverview. The following is the article in the newspaper in 1990 along with the above photo.

MONCTON ALMOST BECAME A MAJOR PORT

One of Moncton's early dreams that didn't come true was the full development of its harbor facilities. Moncton, despite its inland location, had grown on shipbuilding. And three-masters plying the Petitcodiac were a common sight when Moncton first became a city. There was one difficulty, however. Ships arriving at the harbor with the full tide had to float out in the channel because the banks of the river at the wharfside became bare, when the tide went out. It was in the early 1890s. that John Edington, the city's first engineer devised a plan to convert Moncton into a port that would take almost any vessel of the day without any trouble, give it a good berth which would be undisturbed by the rise and fall of the river waters. When the Petitcodiac was much wider and deeper, thousand ton schooners were built in Lewisville in the early days of that community and floated down to the river. When Lewisville was a shipbuilding centre, the ships were launched sideways into the creek. Teams of oxen towed them along the winding channel and brought them to the river. Edington's plan for a floating harbor would provide a lock 250 feet by 45 feet and 28 feet deep sufficient for most craft of the day. An arrangement of dam would have blocked off several branches of the creek to provide an adequate system of berths.

The following photos were given to me by a friend of mine Yolanda to share with all of you, they are awesome photos of Moncton taken in 1950 from a Mr. Cooke from the Moncton Transcript .Below each photo is a list of some of the buildings.Thank you Yolanda . The Pilot who flew the plane was RJE Cunningham.

The photo above is of Moncton 1902 from the Etoile newspaper

The above photo is a Zellers Christmas party held 1946 or 1947, Theresa LeClerc (maiden name) is just behind the 1st couple on the left we only see part of her face. I see Maria DesRoches, on the right is Blair Bourgeois and Jerry Richard his wife now..other I hope someone can help out..courtesy of Yollanda LeClair.

How many of you remember the old Stadium on Saint George Street? I remember going there to the Sportsman Show where they had booths set up and let us sample some tasty foods. And I remember going there skating. Ah memories are great.

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