On
Wednesday evening, July 5th, Ashercroft, B.C.,
was swept by a great fire which consumed the
business section of the town.
Among the principal losers
was Mr. J. C. Smith,
whose shops with their contents were destroyed.
Mr. Smith's loss is
estimated at $50,000.
Pt. Rowan has an interest in
him because he was resident of this place away back in the eighties.
When a boy his father sent
him out from Scotland
to Norfolk, where he had relatives. His boyhood
chum was his cousin, Henderson Scott, who is now
a resident of Perth and county judge of Lanark.
When a lad J. C. Smith found
his way to Port Rowan and served his apprenticeship to the
blacksmithing trade with the late Thomas Gordon.
He married Miss Saunders of
Walsingham Centre,
a sister of Mrs. Jaques-Smith, and soon moved to British Columbia,
settling in Ashcroft, where
Miss Minnie Saunders joined them a few years ago.
Mr. Smith established
himself a shop in Ashcroft
and prospered greatly. He is one of the leading stockholders of the
Vancouver Port Factory, and a director of the Maggie Mining
Company.
He also owns two fine
ranches, which are worth
about ninety to a hundred thousdand dollars.
He is a staunch Conservative
and has several times been urged to contest the riding by the
local
executive of his party.
The friends of his boyhood
still left here and in the surrounding country will be pleased to
know that
his heavy loss by fire will not in anyway cripple
him financially nor interrupt his business
-- Port Rowan News
