(27 Dec. 1850-29 July 1916), manufacturer. (J.T. Schell) Born in East Oxford Township, Oxford County, Ont. Parents: Jacob Schell and his wife Catherine Smith. Jacob Schell, born in York County, Ont., in 1800 to a post-Loyalist or late Loyalist family, was of American-German descent. Catherine Smith was born in Scotland, on the Island of Islay in the Hebrides. Their son J.T. Schell was educated at Woodstock, Ont., in the local primary and secondary schools. His date of arrival in Alexandria is recorded as 31 Oct. 1882, and a few months later, on 10 Jan. 1883, he married Sarah McIntyre. (one child)
J.T. Schell was a partner with D. M. Macpherson the Cheese King in the operation of the Alexandria firm of Macpherson and Schell, which made cheese boxes and occupied itself with a range of other sawmill activities. Schell was a full partner in the firm from 1883 or 1884. For a time (see below), though the arrangement may have proved short-lived, Schell’s brother-in-law J. McIntyre seems also to have been a partner in the firm. The Glengarry News in 1903, when McIntyre was evidently no longer involved, defined the relationship of the two partners, Schell and Macpherson, with the statement that since 1884 Schell was “the manager, and the one with whom the public has had all the dealings of the firm, while Mr. Macpherson devoted all his time to his own dairy business.” (GN supplement 1903) From about 1901, Macpherson’s son, D.J. Macpherson, was also involved in the firm. By about 1905, however, the Macphersons had dropped out, and Schell was on his own. Beyond this point, the firm was generally known as the J.T. Schell Co.
There is almost certainly no way now the ownership structure of Schell’s many and various business enterprises during his Alexandria years can be traced in detail. It is quite possible, also, that the contemporary press sometimes used the term J. T. Schell Co. in a metaphorical sense to cover Schell business ventures that were not, strictly speaking, part of the firm’s undertaking.
Over the years, whether during the association with the Macphersons or afterwards, besides manufacturing cheese boxes, Schell made butter boxes, operated a sash and door business, built and equipped sawmills and creameries, did machine shop and foundry work, made furniture and interior fittings, conducted a planing mill, and operated veneer mills (also called veneering mills) at Alexandria, Monkland, Williamstown and perhaps elsewhere (veneer mills processed elm logs to make the curved sides of cheese boxes). Schell was also involved personally or through his firm in building houses, schools and places of business. Thus a newspaper reported, “The erection of the Alexandria public school is being rapidly pushed by the contractor, Mr. J. T. Schell.” (Vankleek Hill Review 20 Sept. 1895) In 1905 he was preparing to build a house for J.A. Macdonell (Jack Greenfield). (Glengarry News 22 Sept. 1905) Work crews were also employed in the bush to cut timber for the firm. He became involved in railway contracting in the years before the First World War. In 1906, he got a contract with the Canadian Northern Railway to construct a 55-mile branch from Hawkesbury to Ottawa, and in 1910, Schell, described at this time as having been an active railway contractor now for several years, had his tender accepted for the construction of the greater part of a Waterloo and Woodstock railway line. (GN 13 July 1906, 29 July 1910) In 1911 the J. T. Schell Co. installed the interior fixtures of the Victoria Memorial Museum in Ottawa. (GN 29 Sept. 1911) In the same year also the firm had the contract to install the interior fittings in the new main post offices in Winnipeg and Toronto. (GN 17 Nov. 1911) In 1912, as the firm neared what proved to be its end, it undertook a huge expansion of its plant in Alexandria. (GN 3 May & 25 Oct. 1912) At this time, one of the enterprises of the firm was the making of railway dump cars. (GN 24 May 1912) During the World War, it added still another new enterprise, that of making shell boxes. (GN 2 July 1915)
Along with his involvement in Macpherson and Schell, Schell operated a saw and shingle mill from 1884 in partnership with a prominent Alexandrian, Duncan A. (Curly) Macdonald. Situated first at Dornie, a few miles outside Alexandria, the mill was relocated to the station area of Alexandria about 1898.
J.T. Schell ran as a Liberal in the federal election of 5 March 1891 for the GC seat, but he was defeated by R.R. (Big Rory) McLennan the Conservative candidate. In 1892 Schell was one of the founders of the Glengarry News, intended to be a Liberal organ to counter McLennan’s Glengarrian. Schell did not run in the 1896 GC federal election, where there was no Liberal candidate and McLennan proved to be the victor over his only opponent, the Patrons of Industry candidate, J. Lockie Wilson. In the federal election of 7 Nov. 1900, Schell was elected as the Liberal MP for GC, defeating McLennan who was again the Conservative candidate. As Schell’s first parliamentary session began, a Conservative loyalist observed, not over generously, that Schell was forced to occupy an ignominiously located seat in the House of Commons, in contrast to the well-located seat formerly occupied by Big Rory McLennan. (Cornwall Standard 15 Feb. 1901) In the federal election of 3 Nov. 1904, Schell was again elected for GC, defeating his Conservative opponent D.R. Mcdonald, the railway contractor. Schell did not run in the 1908 federal election, which the Liberals again won in GC. As an MP, Schell was credited with having secured for Alexandria its fine new post office building. His brother Malcolm Smith Schell (1855-1926), a farmer and lumber merchant at Woodstock, Ont., was Liberal MP for Oxford South from 1904 to 1911; thus for one term of some four years, both brothers were in the House of Commons.
Schell was also on the Alexandria council over several years. The writer of his Glengarry News obituary noted appreciatively, as if implying that there was cause and effect, and that Schell’s management powers deserved the credit, that it was during Schell’s time on council that Alexandria had got its waterworks and electric light systems. During the war, the J.T. Schell Co. contributed the costs of buying a machine gun. (Glengarry News 23 July 1915) Mrs Schell did work for the Red Cross. (GN 5 Nov. 1915)
Schell died at his home in Alexandria. His illness had begun about a year before and for the final quarter-year of his life he had been confined to his home. Burial was at Woodstock, Ont. He was a Methodist, but while he was in Alexandria he attended the Presbyterian Church. (There was no Methodist church in Alexandria, and indeed Methodists were few in number in GC.) Before the end of the year, his widow left Alexandria to reside at Tillsonburg, Ont. (Glengarry News 17 Nov. 1916)
After Schell’s death, the remarkably varied– one might almost say, the strangely varied– complex of industrial and related activities of which he had been the head rapidly disintegrated, with the last reference to the J.T. Schell firm as actually still in operation being apparently in 1923. A mere decade earlier, at the beginning of 1914, the J.T. Schell Co. had 125 employees in its machine shop and foundry at Alexandria, which was just one of its components. The Schell enterprises and the Munro and McIntosh carriage firm dominated Alexandria’s one great age of industrial prosperity. This period of remarkable achievement– and of promise which turned out to be sadly delusive–lasted roughly from the mid-1880s till the end of the First World War. With the decline and disappearance of these businesses, the once thriving town of Alexandria went into the harsh Depression of the 1930s with virtually no industrial resources left to sustain its workforce.
Schell’s enterprises depended heavily on the timber resources of GC, and of the area around it. In 1897, for example, it was reported that in Sept. and Oct. Schell had “bought from the farmers of Glengarry over $12,000 worth of elm timber for piling on the Soulanges Canal, and nearly all of which has been shipped out, averaging six cars a day for some weeks past.” (Cornwall Freeholder 12 Nov. 1897) At the human level, these enterprises drew on the Glengarrians’ enterprise in the forest trades, and on the desire of GC farmers to supplement their agricultural incomes by selling timber. The history of J.T. Schell in GC is a part–and not one of the least important parts–of the much larger story (so often touched upon in the present dictionary) of Glengarrians’ deep and long-term involvement in the forest trades. In fact, Schell’s interest in the forest trades extended beyond GC. In the spring of 1890, it was noticed that J. McIntyre, the brother of Mrs Schell, had become a partner in Schell & Macpherson (presumably the same as Macpherson & Schell), “and takes charge of the extensive timber limits owned by the firm in Rimouski. During the past season some 50, 000 logs have been cut there, and during the coming summer this enterprising firm intends erecting an additional saw-mill, and go into even more extensive operations than at present.” (Glengarrian 18 April 1890)
As someone of German name, Schell was an anomaly among the Highlanders and French Canadians who made up most of the GC population, though there was a small number of people of U E Loyalist descent in SDG who had German names (such as Snyder and Shaver). In a letter Big Rory McLennan wrote to Alexander Fraser, the future archivist, during the 1900 election campaign, he noted that “My opponent’s name is Schell; he is a German. There are very few Germans in the County. I do not think there are half a dozen in the whole County.”
For men associated with Schell, see also Duncan Gray, John J. MacIntosh.
Glengarry News 4 Aug. 1916 * Harkness 273 (portrait), 300-303 * MacGillivray & Ross 486-497 (for a detailed history of his business operations in GC), 196, 460, 462, 486 (portrait), 616 * Johnson (1968) 521 (for J.T. Schell and his brother Malcolm Smith Schell) * GN supplement 1903: article “Macpherson & Schell” (history, portrait, photo of factory) * obituary GN 19 Jan. 1934 of Donald Lothian (born at Breadalbane, 1844), employee of Macpherson & Schell and afterwards a member of the J.T. Schell Co., and Alexandria resident for over half a century * article on founders of GN, in GN 100th Anniversary Edition of 8 July 1992 * historical note on Schell in GHS Newsletter, Nov. 1994 * Rayside: index * Archives of Ontario-Fraser, letter 17 Oct. 1900 * MacMaster 356 * veneer mill at Williamstown: GN 16 Dec. 1904, 24 Feb., 7 April & 2 June1905 * editorials Toronto Globe, 22 & 28 Dec. 1900, on “Race Cry,” faked election literature, in recent Schell-McLennan election in GC * son narrowly escapes drowning in sailboating accident on Alexandria’s Mill Pond, GN 9 May 1902 * whey measuring machine demonstrated by Macpherson & Schell firm at Ottawa Fair, GN 22 Aug. 1902 * Macpherson & Schell firm adds foundry to its existing factory and machine shop, GN 9 Oct. & 6 Nov. 1903