05/24/2026
Francis “Frank” Sandford: Fenelon Falls Waggon, Carriage, Cheese and Butter Maker
By Randall Speller
Francis Sandford was one of the most important manufacturers in Fenelon Falls at the turn of the century. According to the 1904 Souvenir, Sandford arrived in the village in 1870 and set up business on the north-east corner of Francis and May Streets. The 1871 census lists him as a 23 year-old, Ontario-born waggon maker.
His first appearance in the directories in July of 1871 would indicate that he had already formed a partnership with Blake Orr, but this partnership lasted only two years as Sandford was back on his own by July 1873. By October 1874 his "well established waggon-making business and quarter acre lot on Francis Street East, on which are a shop 24 by 50 feet, two stories high, and a small comfortable frame dwelling house ..." were up for sale. By 1875 his new blacksmith and wagon shop were "up" on Lindsay Street, just opposite the Royal Hotel.
The business continued to grow and by 1882 Sandford was selling agricultural implements, adding new machinery, planning a 35 by 90 foot three-storey factory, and employing eight hands. In 1883 he advertised cutters, market sleighs, waggons, buggies, ploughs, all kinds of planing and moulding, blacksmithing, and "grain crushing". A new carriage shop and cheese factory was built in 1887 on the island between the canal and the river, alongside a woolen mill owned by William H. Welsh.
In 1889 preparations were underway to convert part of the large factory at the north end of the iron bridge into a grist and chop mill. Other buildings were constructed and additions and improvements made to the existing factory and mills during the 1890's. In 1898, the Fenelon Falls Gazette wrote: "With his carriage shop, planing mill, cheese factory, roller and grist mill, grain elevator and churn and washing machine factory, Mr. Sandford certainly has his hands full and ought to be making money."
According to D+B the waggon shop lasted until 1903; and the grist mill until the end of 1904.
By 1902 Sandford began to consolidate and expand his business. The Gazette had announced “a short time ago” that Messrs. Sandford and H.A. McIntosh were to start a creamery, but it also marked the end of Sandford’s cheese factory.
… So the contents of the cheese factory were taken out, the building itself enlarged, the machines, etc., necessary for butter making purchased and installed, and the creamery was opened for business on Monday last. It contains an 8 h.p. engine and a 16 hp boiler, a cream separator, a Babcock tester, a pasteurizer, and immense rotary churn, which will turn 250 gallons of cream into about 500 pounds butter, a large receiving tank, two cream vats, each of which will hold 250 gallons, and other articles. A refrigerator 16 feet long and 6 feet wide is being built, and there is a room in which 1200 blocks of ice, 18 inches square, can be stored. The milk or cream is delivered by the patrons at the little door at the north end of the building, and after being weighed is emptied into the receiving vat … The creamery is run by Mr. Albert McIntosh, one of the proprietors, assisted by Mr. William Eyres, who has had two years’ experience at the business at Lindsay. The first lot of butter, a small one, was made on Tuesday, and looked and tasted all right. Part of the output of the creamery will be put up in pound packages for local consumption, but the bulk of it will be packed in spruce boxes, containing 56 pounds each, for export. Where it will go is not yet known, but Mr. Flavelle has made an offer for it which may or may not be accepted. The buttermilk, which is quite sweet, will be sold at a price at which it will find ready purchasers. Each farmer’s milk is tested twice each week, and of course, the price paid for it is governed by the quality. The creamer will be run until the end of December and the closed until about the 1st of April, when operations will be resumed, and probably continued throughout the remainder of the year. Everything in the butter factory is new, and the entire plant cost $1600. It was all bought from C. Richardson & Co., of St. Mary’s, but the engine and boiler were made by Black & Co. of Brockville. We hope Messrs. Sandford and McIntosh’s new enterprise may prove profitable to themselves and to the farmers at whose suggestion it was undertaken.
Later than month it was announced that the Creamery would in fact run “continuously”
It is turning out from 300 to 400 pounds of butter every alternate day, the number of patrons is steadily increasing and the present indications are that the creamery will be a decided success.
Sandford, however, had bigger plans for a large furniture factory. At first it was rumoured that Lindsay wanted him to build there and was prepared to offer a bonus, but it was soon evident that the factory would be built in Fenelon Falls if the village would provide its own financial bonus. Sandford wanted $25,000 and the Gazette was at the forefront of a campaign in support of the factory and the financial assistance of the village. A year-round factory operation providing employment to “large number of hands” was badly wanted. A by-law authorizing the purchase of $15,000 worth of stock in the Sandford Woodenware Co. Limited was passed the following March and the new company was organized in Toronto on March 12th. The village also purchased “the power and plant of McDougall, Brandon & Austin” and authorized a by-law to allow the acquisition, thereby giving the Sandford factory access to cheaper power. That bylaw passed in April. The incorporation act respecting the Sandford Woodenware Co. Limited (also called the Sandford Manufacturing Co.) was passed in May and the village by-law registered on June 1st. An organizational meeting of stock holders was held in August to elect a president, managing director, and other officers.
Construction on the factory complex began thereafter; by November five buildings were “practically completed”. Built on stone foundations, they were “iron clad” on the outside and the roofs covered with “mica felt”. Three [railway] car loads of machinery were “on their way”, and new patterns for chairs were already in design. Electrical poles were being installed along Lindsay Street for the transmission of power to the Sanford and Church factories. By Christmas there was nothing much to report, the factory was not in operation and some of the machinery had arrived; nonetheless the Gazette enthused
…. It is a splendid building, as nearly fire proof as it could be made, and from its roof, which has but very little slope and is covered with mica felt, a fine view of the village can be had… the whole outfit must have cost something more than the estimated $20,000.
By the end of January 1904 everything was almost ready; the building was “simply immense” and was “blazing away” with its two hundred electric lights. The fifty machines were in place and just a few generators had yet to arrive. The big generator arrived in March and the factory must soon have been in operation as accidents involving workers began to appear in the Gazette. Even Sandford’s son had his hand “mangled.”
While working at the rip saw in the Sandford factory, about 5 o’clock on Saturday evening, Mr. Will Sandford … [had 3rd and 4th fingers cut off on his left hand, and the others badly mangled… ]… Accidents with the saws are continually occurring and there appears to be no way of preventing them.
A further expansion of the factory was announced in September with the construction of a 102 by 24 foot, three floor high store room. The gazette stated:
There are now between fifty and sixty employees in the factory, which is turning out large numbers of chairs, washing machines, doors and window sash, and the manufacture of coffins is soon to be commenced.
That October (31st) Sandford’s wife, Mary V. Inkster (1848-1904) died after a long illness and was buried in the village cemetery. Apart from this personal setback, and the number of mill accidents, factory operations were no longer newsworthy. Beautiful new glass counters with polished ash frames and sliding doors “at ten dollars a running foot” were installed by Mr. James Walton of the Sandford Factory in April 1905 in Burgoyne’s Dry goods store.
The in July 1905, Sandford remarried, just eight months after his wife’s death.
MARRIED -- SANDFORD-FLETCHER
On Monday July 3rd, in Holy Trinity Church, Toronto, by the Rev. John Pearce, M.A., Rector, Mr. Francis Sandford of FF, to Mrs. Orpha Barbara Fletcher, of “Cherry Valley”, Ivy, Ont.
The couple were soon back from their “wedding tour” but their residence in FF only lasted until December when the couple, along with Reginald Sandford left for Florida.
Ominously there was an alarm of fire in August 1904 and May 1905. In March 1905, Dr. Gould resigned as the corporation director at the Sandford Company. While perhaps meaningless in itself, the following “Correspondence” appeared the following December
… It having been brought my attention that certain persons are busily circulating actionable statements concerning this industry; I desire to caution them that if continued, it will cause prompt and salutary action to be taken against them for slander. The warning is peremptory and final. Will you finally publish same? Yours etc., Sandford Furniture & Woodenware Limited. Per. F.H. Kidd, Sec.
Whatever their concerns, the business appeared to be prospering; the FF Star reported that “Mr. A. Lawrence, of Toronto, has joined the finishing staff at the Sandford factory. The Sandford F. & W. Co. are working overtime this week. A rush carload for the eastern coast is responsible for this. May they have many more of them. The Gazette assured readers that the company had paid out $36,000 in wages in 1905, “a good thing for the town”. In January 1906 there was a move to change the company name. The company advertised itself as SANDFORD FURNITURE & WOODENWARE Ltd.; the following week the name appears to have changed as the same ad was published under the FENELON FALLS FURNITURE COMPANY, Ltd.
Less than two months later it was all over:
BLAZE AT THE FALLS | SANDFORD FURNITURE FACTORY DESTROYED BY FIRE | EIGHTY-FIVE EMPOYEES IDLE – LOSS BETWEEN $80,000 AND $90,000 (Special to the Post)
Fenelon Falls. March 13, 2 pm. This village suffered a serious loss last evening in the destruction of the Sandford Furniture Factory – our leading industry—by fire. The blaze was discerned by some parties at the Grand Trunk Station about ten minutes after the closing of the factory at 6 o’clock, and the alarm was at once sent up to the village, but there being no efficient fire-fighting appliances, and the large frame building being filled with inflammable[s], the villagers realized that they were summoned merely to gaze upon a fearsome and costly exhibition of pyrotechnics. The fire which is supposed to have originated in the paint room in the top flat, spread through the huge building with lightning rapidity, and in the course of an hour, everything had been licked up, including the dwelling owned by a citizen names McClory. The G.T.R. warehouse close by was on fire several times, but was saved by hard work.
The Sandford Furniture Factory was established in January 1904, in a large three-storey frame building, sheeted with iron, having been erected near the Grand Trunk Station about half a mile south of the post office. Later on, a number of additions were made. Local capital was at the back of the enterprise, the principal shareholders being Messrs. John Austin, F. McDougall, J. Twomey, Thos. Robson, Geo. Martin, John Howie, F. Sandford, and F.A. McDiarmid. In addition the citizens of the village held $15,000 worth of stock as a municipal venture. The buildings, machinery, stock on hand and in the process of manufacture, etc., represented a total value of between $80,000 and $90,000, and the insurance is about $40,000. Eighty-five hands had been constantly employed all winter, and had been working time and a quarter, the orders ahead being many. At the outset the promoters of the industry had to endure some setbacks owing to the difficulty ties and losses met with in gaining a footing with the retail trade of the Province, but of late it has been smooth sailing, and the outlook for the present year was a rosy one. Under the circumstances the people of the village feel that the loss is a personal misfortune.
In 1983, Bill Brokenshire recalled: "One thing happened years ago I've never forgot, I was watching out the upstairs window at the burning of the Sandford Furniture factory. The largest fire I ever saw. It lit the whole sky. That factory stood at the back of the Co-op and Esso tanks... "
Although there was hope that Sandford would rebuild, it was soon obvious this would not happen. It is unclear if Sandford even returned to the village immediately after the fire. Sandford employees were soon observed leaving the village
AS TRAVELLERS COME AND GO
… Messrs. Geo Calder, W. Brooks, and A.G. Gray, who had been employed at the Sandford Furniture factory passed through Tuesday to the city to take situations
And metal from the ruins of the factory was being sold as scrap iron … The Sylvester Manufacturing purchased all the scrap iron in the ruins of the Sandford Furniture Factory at FF, destroyed by fire some months ago.
Sandford, himself, was observed in Lindsay “on business” but it is unclear if he ever visited the Falls, or if he ever returned to the village. His life was now in the United States, as was the life of some of his children.
The afterlife of the Sandford factory continued for some years. The Bank of Montreal appears to have taken out an injunction against H.A. McIntosh and Francis Sandford in November 1906. The court dissolved the injunction but Sandford and McIntosh were to pay money into the court (or to Mrs. Sandford). McIntosh also appears to have been dismissed from the action. “Who shall ultimately bear those costs to be determined by further order.”
An economic slowdown and general malaise was also a result of the fire.
On first impression one would say that FF is a very progressive centre, and that the village has a busy air; when one lands in the village and sees the high falls and the large grist mill and planing factory, etc., the idea naturally forms in their mind. And again, when on passes the locks and the bridge, enters the main street and sees the goodly row of business blocks, banks, hotels, etc., the idea becomes deeper rooted. Yet nine out of ten persons will tell you that things are not what they seem, and that the burning down of the Sandford factory has been a great setback for the village. Although power is being offered to outsiders at $10 per horse power as an inducement to locate and build in FF, no definite results have materialized. Even a large majority of the boys of the village have left their childhood home.
A main concern was the loss of the village’s investment in the Sandford factory, as well as to those who had purchased shares. Apparently the directors of the Factory never gave an account of “their stewardship”. James Dickson wrote a series of lengthy letters in 1908 outlining his concerns and urging the directors, and former members of village council to account for their decisions and actions concerning the insurance money paid out after the fire. He wanted to know who benefited and who did not.
The only response was from the sitting reeve, Dr. Mason, urging Dickson, if he believed there was wrongdoing, to submit an official affidavit requesting a review of the audits and applying to the Dominion Parliament for an investigation. “Has Mr. Dickson ever made the requisite affidavit? He has not … .” Any other concerned parties remained silent and Dickson’s challenge fell on deaf ears. These letters reveal the bitterness that remained long after the factor site was cleared.
Sandford’s only response and his last word was the following:
The following letter from our former townsman will be read with interest from his friends at the Falls:
We received your paper a few days later than usual, and wondered what could be the matter, until we read about the great storms, and blockades of railways, etc., which had visited old Ontario a week or so ago [he makes no mention of Dickson’s letters]. We would miss your valuable paper as it has been a weekly visitor in my home ever since the Gazette was first printed…
He ends by writing about the perfect weather in Florida, and concludes
Yours truly, F. Sandford, Winter Haven Florida, Feb 16th, 1908.
Sandford makes his lack of interest in the controversy more than evident. He was never coming back to Fenelon Falls, although his family continued to live in the village. H.A. McIntosh was married to Sandford’s daughter, Elizabeth, and her sister Mabel was in the area.
Francis Sandford died in Winter Haven, Florida, on September 28th, 1926, “after a lingering illness” and was buried there.
Sandford’s son, Earnest Reginald Sandford, died in Toronto on April 28th 1953. He spent his early years in the village, and was active in local sports, being a member of one of the winning hockey teams at the time. A WW I veteran who served in the 21st Battalion in France and Belgium, he remembered his FF roots, and was buried in the FF Cemetery beside his mother.
EMPLOYEES and ACCIDENTS:
The Gazette, while supporting Sandford’s operations and the municipality’s financial investment in his factory, was careful to record the many accidents to workers. Between the summer of 1903 and March 1906 the Gazette reported at least 16 injuries at “Sandford’s” factory. Worker’s hands and fingers were frequently caught in the saws. One of the reasons why we can list so many workers’ names at the Sandford factory was due to injuries sustained there. Only one example is necessary to illustrate the situation:
SERIOUS ACCIDENT
… a serious and painful accident happened to Mr. John T. Thompson Jr., while working at the buzz planer in the Sandford factory … left hand… second third and fourth fingers were cut off close to the knuckles. The first joint of the forefinger of the same hand was taken off by one of the saws in the factory a few months ago…. Mr. Thompson who has lived here nearly all his life, is one of the best known and most popular young men in the village…… generally and sincerely regretted.
From newspaper accounts we can identify the following employees:
Miss Campbell, bookkeeper [FFG 17 Oct 1902; 4
Mr. William Eyres, Creamery [FFG 7 Nov 1902]
Miss Jones, bookkeeper and stenographer [FFG 3 April 1903; 4]
Mr. McKinnon, president of the Sandford Woodenware Factory [FFG 24 April 1903; 4]
Mr. Herbert Sandford [office] [FFG 24 July 1903; 5], Secretary of the Sandford Woodenware Co. [FFG 11 March 1904; 5]
Peter Deyman, foreman, Sandford Factory [24 July 1903; 5] – employees also mentioned are Fred S. Cullon, Harry Littleton, Chas. H. Deyman, John T. Thompson, Jr. [1902]
Ernest Littleton [FFG 28 Aug 1903; 5]
Will Sandford [FFG 11 Sept 1903; 4-5]
Harry Walton [FFG 11 Sept 1903; 4-5]
J.A. Leggatt, foreman, Sandford Woodenware Factory [FFG 13 November 1903; 4] – he resigned [FFG 3 June 1904; 5]
Richard Byrnell, agent for Sandford Factory & Woodenware Factory [FFG 15 Jan 1904; 5]
N. Reginald Fletcher, accountant, Sandford Factory, [FFG 29 July 1904; 4]; left the company [FFG19 Aug 1904; 4]
John LeGrow [FFG 2 Sept 1904; 4]
John T. Thompson, Jr., fingers lost in the saws [FFG 2 Sept 1904; 4] – steps on nail [FFG 29 Dec 1905; 4]
Peter Brokenshire, Sandford Factory, [FFG 6 May 1904; 4]
Chas. Pinkham [FFG 13 May 1904; 4]
John Fountain [FFG 20 May 1904; 4]
Orville Church [FFG 27 May 1904; 4]
John R. Graham, Travels for Sandford Co. [i.e. salesman] [FFG 9 Dec 1904; 4]
Will Sandford [FFG 23 Dec 1904; 4]
Ernest Boyce [FFG 10 March 1905; 4]
Wm. Devitt [FFG 31 March 1905; 4]
James Walton, foreman, Sandford Factory [FFG21 April 1905; 4]
Robert Sproats [FFG 5 May 1905; 4]
William Bawks [FFG 19 May 1905; 4]
A Lawrence, finishing staff, [FFS 3 Aug 1905; 5]
Miss Barkley, Sandford Wooden works [FFG 27 Oct 1905; 4]
Arthur Boyce [FFG 16 Dec 1905; 4]
Charles Deyman [FFG 16 Dec 1905; 4]
F.N. Kidd, secretary [FFG 15 Dec 1905; 5]
Bertha McKenzie, bookkeeper [LWP 5 Jan 1906; 11]
John Fielding, bookkeeper [FFG 5 Jan 1906; 4]
J.R. Graham, traveller [LWP 15 Feb 1906; 11]
Geo. Calder [LWP 23 March 1906; 13]
W. Brooks [LWP 23 March 1906; 13
A.G. Gray [LWP 23 March 1906; 13
