WEST CARLETON – Today we are launching a new feature in West Carleton Online. With the second lockdown due to the COVID-19 local news coverage is more difficult than ever. But we know our readers love West Carleton history as much as they love local, community news, so with this extra time on our hands, we will take a look back, way back, and visit previous issues of the weekly publication The Carp Review and Carleton County Advertiser to take a peek at what was going on in the community more than 100 years ago.

The Carp Review, Jan. 4, 1906

A strange time to hold elections, but Vol. II, No. 46 of The Carp Review published municipal election results under the headline, Not Much Change in Personnel of the Huntley Council Board. Back then headlines were more like titles with full capitalization and written in sentence form. We find that odd. The lede reads: ‘That the work of the members of the 1905 council in Huntley Township was apparently satisfactory to the ratepayers was evidenced by their return to office on Monday without much change in its make-up.’

Reeve G.A, Hodgins was acclaimed. Councillors included Robert Cox, J.R. Johnston, W.G. Lowry, P.J. Lynchke, Roland Magee, E.S. Wilson and J.J. Wilson.

“The returns were received at the Cornwall House in the evening where a large number of the electors had congregated, and after the result was definitely known, most of the candidates treated those present to cigars.

In March Township: Reeve S.L. Gilchrist, D.E. Younghusband, John Boucher, S.J. Scissons and Hugh Gainsforth.

In Fitzroy Township: Reeve Samuel McClure, W.J. McBride, John Greene, John Stevenson and Edward Wilson.

In Torbolton Township: Reeve James Armitage, James Wilson, John Delahunt, Peter Grierson and Wilham Major.

A lot of familiar surnames in that list of West Carleton area politicians from 1906.

Also published in the edition was an expenditure related to a school concert.

“The following is a statement of the receipts and expenditure in connection with the Carp public school concert held Dec. 22, 1905,” The Review reports.

The total of the receipts was $18 and included posters, tickets, lumber, glass for tableaux, hall, carpenter, cloth, twine and tacks. The lumber cost 60 cents while posters and the hall were the biggest expense coming in at $2 each.

In local news, “Mr. John Argue was in Ottawa yesterday assisting in the audit of criminal accounts. Mr. James Birch, who has been working in Kinburn lately, returned to town yesterday. Mr. J.A. Ellis was, for a third term, elected Mayor of Ottawa by a majority of 238 votes over Mr. Fallton. Mr. and Mrs. G.A. Moore returned home Tuesday after spending the holidays with friends at Perth and Fitzroy. Mr. and Mrs. Albert Hooper of Chelsea, and daughter, Miss Hooper of City View, were guests at the home of Mr. David Wilson a couple of days recently. Miss Hooper has been engaged as teacher for the Kilmaurs school. The marriage took place on New Year’s Day in St, Philip’s Church, Toronto, by the Rev. Canon Sweeney, Archdeacon of York, of Mr. George Carruthers, a prominent farmer of this section, and Miss Elizabeth Emily Lancaster, youngest daughter of the late T.W. Lancaster of Toronto and formerly teacher of the 5th Line school. The Review extends congratulations.”

In health news, “Mr. John McMurchy, of 60 James St., Ottawa, engineer on the G.T.R., when nearing Carp on Tuesday night at 11:30 took hemorrhage of the lungs. On arriving here Dr, Groves was sent for and removed the sick man to his office where he was attended to. He left for home yesterday morning on the 10:30 train still feeling very ill, but the hemorrhage had ceased. The station agent, Mr. Morrison wired to Ottawa for an engineer and soon the train was on its way to Madawaska.”

In Dunrobin, St. Paul’s church was “filled to the doors on Christmas at the 6:30 p.m. service. Rev. G.E. Weagant delivered an able and instructive sermon, taking for his text Isaiah 9th, Verse Two. The choir rendered special music, and the church was beautifully decorated.”

There was “poor sleighing” in South March.

In Kilmaurs, “Mr. William Graham, who had the misfortune to fall and break his collar bone on Saturday evening, is improving under the care of Dr. G.H. Groves of Carp.”

In world news, The Review reports there is “Bitter fighting at Moscow. Rebels and troops keep up a disastrous warfare. Mortuaries choked with corpses and hospitals crowded. Strike said to be collapsing at St. Petersburg.”

The lede reads “A St. Petersburg cable says: A brief semi-official telegram from Moscow states that in the fighting on Saturday and Sunday the troops were victorious in every conflict. The insurgents’ casualties were very numerous. The rebels are still fighting with the same desperate courage the Russian soldiers have so often shown on the battlefield. The troops continue faithful, but the comparative smallness of their numbers makes their work exhausting.”

One final story from the Thursday, Jan. 4, 1906 edition of The Review rings true to West Carleton Online, and that is the creation of revenue streams.

“Newspapers exist because there is a universal demand for news. Advertising exists for a like reason. Aside from the question of income, a newspaper could no more get along without advertising than it could without report of current events. To cut out the sporting news or the telegraphic news, or event the local news, would make no more serious inroads on a paper’s circulation than to cut our advertising. Consumers want to know what’s on the market, and they read the newspaper to find out. Merchants who refuse to enlighten them get little of their trade.”