| In 1877, Ottawa's Thomas Ahearn devised a rudimentary
telephone system based upon an article in Scientific American
about Alexander Graham Bell's pioneering efforts. Ahearn used
two homemade cigar boxes, magnets and wire and, using existing
telegraph lines, rigged up a routing from Pembroke to Ottawa.
This was Ottawa's first long-distance telephone call. Ahearn was
threatened with legal action for his unauthorized use of Bell's
patented technique, but instead was appointed manager of Bell
Telegraphone Company's first Ottawa office. (He sold the cigar
boxes to settle a $16 hotel bill).
The man who would come to be known as "the Edison of
Canada" was born on June 24, 1855, in Lebreton Flats.
Innately inventive, young Ahearn approached the Montreal
Telegraph Company branch office and offered to deliver messages
for nothing in exchange for a chance to learn the telegraph
instruments. Within six months, he was made an
operator-messenger for eight dollars a month.
Soon after, he went to New York to work at the headquarters of
Western Union.
He returned to Ottawa after a couple of years as an inspector for
the CPR Telegraph System. He served in the House of Commons
telegraph office, where he made friends with MPs and press
gallery members. He learned about the electrical aspects of
telegraphy and became the one to turn to when things needed
fixing, gaining the nickname "Electricity Ahearn."
Following his 1877 long-distance telephone call, Ahearn teamed
up with Warren Y. Soper to open a store at 66 Sparks Street in
1881.
The pair formed Ahearn and Soper, Electrical Contractors
(A&S), and became representatives of the Westinghouse
Company of Chicago.
Ahearn and Soper built long-distance lines to Pembroke,
Montreal and Quebec for the Bell Telephone Company. In 1882,
Ahearn and Soper established the Ottawa Electric Company,
which installed 165 arc street lamps introducing electric light to
Ottawa. They built a simple power station that allowed the service
to be expanded citywide.
For Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897, Ahearn and
Soper were contracted to illuminate the Parliament Buildings with
thousands of electric lights. On Christmas Eve, later that year, they
decorated a streetcar with electric lights and each took a shift,
dressed as Santa Claus, to throw candy, nuts, apples and oranges
to the crowds of children who followed the gaily-festooned car
throughout its route.
The electric streetcar, introduced in the United States in the late
1880s, was not seriously considered in Ottawa because of its
winter weather. Ahearn, with Soper, wanting to move public
transportation from the horse-drawn streetcar, set up the Ottawa
Electric Railway on Feb. 13, 1891. On June 29, the first tram cars
pulled out, with Ahearn aboard as motorman of the first car. The
first 10 cars in the service were made by a St. Catharines firm.
A&S formed the Ottawa Car Company to manufacture their own
cars, and the company later supplied them to cities all across the
country.
In winter, Ahearn warmed the cars by running electrically-heated
water under the floors, the first electrically-heated cars on the
continent; he invented a rotating brush cleaner to clear the tracks in
winter. He argued for controversial Sunday service; it was
established in 1900.
The Ottawa Car Company sold street cars all across Canada until
the late 1940s. It made airframes for the war effort, and would be
privately run until 1948, when it was bought by the city as the
genesis of OC Transpo.
Ahearn, on Aug. 29, 1892, was the first in the world to cook a
meal electrically, for a dinner at the Windsor Hotel at Metcalfe and
Queen streets. His workshop served as the kitchen for the
banquet, whose offerings ranged from "Saginaw Trout with Potato
Croquettes and Sauce Tartare" to "Strawberry Puffs." The Ottawa
Journal called it "cooking by the agency of chained lightning." In
1899, Ahearn was the first person to drive an electric automobile
in Ottawa. In 1927, Ahearn, with Prime Minister Mackenzie King
and Justice
Minister Ernest Lapointe, made the first transatlantic telephone call
to Britain. The prime minister appointed Ahearn chairman of the
Broadcasting Committee for the Diamond Jubilee of
Confederation to produce a coast-to-coast radio broadcast of the
festivities on Parliament Hill. Ahearn built the 32,000 kilometres
of wire needed to connect the country from east to west.
Governor-General Lord Willingdon said this "had done more to
create a national spirit in Canada than any other movement." The
prime minister named Ahearn to the Privy Council in 1928.
Meanwhile, he had been named chairman of the Federal District
Commission (FDC), forerunner of the National Capital
Commission. His achievements in this role were staggering. He is
responsible for developing much of the city's Parkway system.
Frustrated by bureaucratic heel-dragging, Ahearn personally
funded much of the cost of the Champlain Bridge. Ahearn once
said that his "one ambition was to see the Capital of Canada
become the greatest and most beautiful city on the continent."
Donald Blair, an engineer with the FDC, said in 1932 that
Ahearn's five-year tenure was "the most progressive and
constructive period in the history of that body."
Thomas Ahearn died in Ottawa on June 28, 1938. He had been
the president of nine major firms and utilities, the holder of six
directorships, chairman of two key public offices and
patent-holder of 11 Canadian inventions. He deserves to be
remembered everywhere, but especially here in Ottawa: every
time we turn on the light, the heat or the taps, use a stove or an
electric iron, lift the phone or take a bus, we are all beholden to
this man. |
