One of the original wooden telephones.
When A Party Line Didn’t Mean A Line Dance
By Dan Bourgeois
In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell developed the first telephone.
Within a few years telephone companies sprang up across Canada, largely in the larger cities and towns, mainly owned by the Bell Telephone Company. However, “Ma Bell” felt that setting up services in the rural hinterland wasn’t profitable enough to bother with, sort of like internet services more recently.
It fell to folks living in these small communities to set up their own phone services. By 1921,there were 629 small independent and mostly rural telephone companies across Ontario. Many of these small companies were started by physicians who recognized the importance of rapid communication with their patients out on the surrounding farms. In our area the phone companies in Millbrook, Garden Hill, Baillieboro and Orono were started by local doctors, all around the turn of the 20thcentury.
Many will remember fondly the 4thLine Theatre play “Crow Hill: The Telephone Play” which is based largely on the life of Ona Gardner, switchboard operator for the Beatty Telephone system, started by Dr Beatty of Garden Hillin 1895.
Dr Henry A. Turner of Millbrook was a remarkable person who in 1898 started the Turner Telephone Company out of his pharmacy on King St East. Cecil Sutton was his first employee, acting as clerk for the drugstore, nighttime operator and daytime spare operator.
Out in the concessions, the Fallis Line Telephone Company was founded in 1904. Although not founded by a physician, Nathaniel Belch, one of the co-founders, had planned to attend medical school. These hopes were cut short by the death of his father Thomas and Nattie stayed home to run the farm. However, his three sons Lindsay, Willoughby (Bill) and Thomas all became doctors. Bill Belch was a much loved and respected surgeon in Peterborough for nearly 50 years, while also running his Buffalo Farm in North Monaghan.
Further north, The Cavan Rural Phone Company and North Cavan Rural Phone Company built phone lines north of Cavanville, around Ida and Mount Pleasant.
The phone lines along the concession roads were built and maintained by the subscribers. Thirty to forty poles to the mile had to be erected and the line strung along them. Often, one or two of the subscribers would end up being the main lineman doing routine maintenance but, after a big storm, everyone would pitch in to repair fallen lines and poles.
While in Millbrook many businesses and some homes had private lines, elsewhere everyone was on a party line of ten to twenty subscribers. To make a call, one would ring in to the operator using a hand crank on the phone and give the name or number of the person you wished to reach. The operator would then make the connection. Each phone would ring with a specific sequence of rings. For example, when calling Norman McBain’s farm along the 12th Line his phone would sound one long and four short rings. However, every phone on the party line delivered the same set of rings when someone called Norman’s farm. Since the local operator was involved in every call coming through, they were often the go-to person about local goings on.
Marion Guthrie was an operator in Millbrook and in an interview said “I enjoyed working the switchboard…I liked talking to the people. Sometimes you got a lot of gossip too.” She did admit regarding listening in on calls, that “it might have happened a time or two.” While listening in on someone else’s call was considered impolite, it was certainly common. Bertha Elliott grew up on the 7thLine and remembered “We used it most to phone our neighbours, friends and relatives, but we didn’t do business, it was a no-no. You couldn’t do confidential or private business because there was a lot of listening in.” Sometimes though, listening in could be helpful. Harry McCamus of the 12th Line recalled “One time Joy (his wife) was in the hospital and they phoned me wanting me to come in. One of my neighbours was listening in and by the time I got changed and ready to go, he was down in my barnyard doing my chores”.
Over the years the small rural phone lines couldn’t keep going in the face of escalating costs and evolving technology. Locally, Dr Turner’s company was folded into Docon Telephones and gradually the surrounding small lines were bought out. In 1963, the Fallis Line Company was the last to sell, the final bank balance of $480.60 being divided among the remaining shareholders.
The party lines gradually gave way to single connections. In 1963, the now Durham Telephones Ltd went over to a direct dial service. Marion Guthrie, who had first worked as an operator in1941 at age 16 was on the last shift at the switchboard in Millbrook. “That was the last night for the switchboard operators and it was kind of a sad night. None of the other operators had anything more to do with the company once the switchboard went. ”Marion went on to work on the supply side of the company, retiring in 1993.
The Durham Telephones Ltd is now Nexicom Systems Inc. It is one of 17 independent telecom companies in Ontario, most of them in southwest of the province.