Before the days of the huge national bakeries, bread and confectionary were usually consumed the day they were baked, and they were sourced from a shop usually not more than a five- or 10-minute walk from the family home.
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The 1885 Soutar Directory lists no less than eight bakers and five more confectioners in Chatham’s core area, Market Square, and outlying streets.
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The standard price of a one-pound loaf of white bread was five cents – four cents if you bought it from the Richards Bakery at the northeast corner of King Street and the Market Square.
William Richards had a profit-sharing agreement with the TH Taylor mill which allowed him to buy flour at a lower price than his competition, thus creating a lower retail price.
That loaf of bread, however, had better weigh one pound as the constables were often checking weights and were commonly found on the Chatham Market Square keeping the vendors honest.
Were any merchant to “short weight” a commodity such as bread or butter, he would be summoned to court to be dealt with by the magistrate and would have his products seized and would be subjected to a fine.
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The confiscated food would be donated to the Home of the Friendless.
Among that era’s local bakeries was that of James B. Baxter who had a shop at 172 Queen St.
His street number was from the old, pre-1909 system, but I think his shop was located on the east side of Queen Street very close to where the CPR tracks now cross that thoroughfare, then known as “The Gravel Road.”
James B. Baxter was the son of the well-known William Baxter Sr., who was described in the 1869 Kent & Essex County Gazetteer as a “gentleman” and residing on King Street in Chatham.
A “gentleman” was one of two things. He was either a retired well-to-do person or an unemployed lout, most likely living off a woman.
Mr. Baxter was the former.
He was born at Lincolnshire, England in 1805 and married Mary Ann Hawkins, born at Epworth, Lincolnshire in 1811.
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I am not sure when the family came to Canada but judging from the birthplace and birth years of his eight children, I am speculating 1837 as a reasonable estimate, maybe earlier.
Eight children would be a huge family by today’s standards but in those times some clans might have had as many as sixteen children.
William Baxter died in 1877 and Mary Ann Hawkins died in 1888.
Both rest in a pretty part of Old Ward A, Maple Leaf Cemetery.
Their children were Thomas Hawkins Baxter (1827-1907), Euphemia Baxter (1834-1883), Elizabeth Baxter Charteris (1833-1916), Jane Ann Baxter-Smith (1837-1905), Harriet Baxter-Reed (1838-1922), James B. Baxter (1840-1922), William Reed Baxter (1841-1922) and Henry Hawkins Baxter (1844-1927).
The Baxters are one of those founding families that have contributed so much to the community in the nearly 200 years they have been here.
It is always a pleasure to write about such a family.
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