Commercial Hotel
84 Main Street South, Seaforth, Ontario
( Year built: 1895 )
The lot on which the Commercial Hotel is built was held in trust, in the 1860s, for the Gouinlock children. The trust was overseen by Dr. William Chalk, their grandfather, and when he died in 1868, by James Crombie. So, it was Dr. Chalk with whom Thomas Knox negotiated the land sale. Knox and his wife had kept a hotel at Seebach’s on the Huron Road, and later, had Knox’s Hotel in Harpurhey. They were now planning to move their hotel business to Seaforth.
When Thomas Knox bought this lot in 1866, he built a large brick hotel. A vault was built into the north part and, in the fall of 1866, the Royal Canadian Bank, the first bank in Seaforth, opened for business. M.P. Hayes was the bank manager. By 1875, the bank had moved into the north part of the neighbouring Dominion Block. The bank in the hotel became a private bank in 1884, first operated by S.G. McCaughey and William Logan, then by J.C. Smith, and later, Robert Logan, until 1897.
Advertisement Left: From The Huron Expositor issue from August 27, 1869.
Richard L. Sharp was the hotel keeper in the late 1860s. He also ran the Commercial Livery and Stage office east of the hotel. Sharp’s Hall, a frame building, was built at the back of the hotel and served as a meeting hall and entertainment venue.
On November 1, 1872, The Huron Expositor reported a change of hotel ownership: “Thomas Knox of Knox’s Hotel has sold out to Mr. Davidson of Mitchell, and John Campbell of Seaforth.” On August 8, 1873 the public was informed that: “Messrs. Davidson & Campbell, of the Commercial Hotel, in company with Thos. Bell, have purchased from Armstrong of Brussels and Ross of Seaforth their stage business between Seaforth & Wroxeter.” The arrangement was short-lived; William Arm-strong was again the stage operator by 1874.
Davidson had showers and baths installed in the Sharp’s Hall in 1876, for use by guests and boarders at the hotel. A billiard room was added to the hotel and opened in early 1877.
In 1874, the Seaforth town council fixed the hotel license fee at $55. That same year, an over-night stay in the Commercial Hotel, with supper and breakfast included, cost $1. Single meals were 25¢ and farmers, with two horses to stable, paid 35¢ for hay and dinner. An advertisement in the July 30, 1874 Huron Expositor noted: “This house is the best in Seaforth for commercial travellers and farmers, as its accommodation is first class while the prices are as low as the cheapest hotels. The rooms are large, well furnished and perfectly clean, while the best attention is given to all who patronize the house. There is a large stabling in connection with the hotel and hostlers.”
The original Commercial Hotel was built by Thomas Knox in 1866. This photo was taken some time before 1893 when the barbershop at the left of the picture was torn down to make way for the town hall. Joseph Klinkhammer’s Palace Barber Shop may be the one pictured here. The hotel had a barbershop in it for many years.
Alexander Davidson owned the hotel for four decades. He and John M. Campbell shared hotel-keep duties throughout the 1870s and 1880s. In 1889, Richard Roche was hotel manager, James C. Leary was the bartender, and James McGuffey was the bookkeeper. William Bishop replaced Roche as hotelkeeper in 1894.
Fire destroyed the original hotel building on the night of April 17, 1895. Davidson immediately made arrangements to build the present cement block hotel at a cost of $7,450.00. On October 21, 1895, the doors of the new Commercial Hotel were again open to serve the public.
G.E. Henderson, who earlier had the hotel by the railway station, was the Commercial Hotel’s hotelkeeper, along with L.C. Delacey, from 1900 to 1907. Alex McLennan then joined Delacey and he went on to become the hotel’s owner by 1919.
Above Right Advertisement: By 1898, the north part of the hotel was used as a telegraph and express office. William Somerville was the operator for many years. In the winter of 1908, as later described in a London Free Press article:
It may have been overwork, it may have been an all-gone-to-pieces feeling, or it may have been something else, that caused [Somerville] one day to decide that a desirable addition to the one-man office staff would be something in the nature of a real live, young man, country-bred.… He wanted someone to meet trains, and handle express of all kinds, incoming and outgoing; wanted somone to collect from the different places all the express parcels, packages and bundles to be sent... The newcomer would be expected to deliver telegrams and other kinds of messages throughout the town. It would also be his duty to look after the caring for the horse and express wagon.… In short, the thing needed was something akin to a human colt always ready for action at first tightening of the reins.
The young man he hired was Malcolm McKellar. Mac took over the express part of the business in 1911 and all telegraph office duties in 1914. A bicycle replaced horse and wagon, and Mac McKellar kept things moving, into the 1950s.
Left Photo: The Commercial Hotel as pictured in A Souvenir of Seaforth published in 1900. You can clearly see the horizontal bands linking the window arches and sills of each storey. Pilasters mark off four sections vertically across the facade. Note that there are four separate entrances.
Advertisements Above: Appeared in The Huron Expositor, March 11, 1898. Below Right: Shown in the Seaforth Sun, June 8, 1883.
In 1921, Charles Dungey bought the hotel and was the hotelkeeper. Roy Dungey managed the hotel for a number of years starting in 1928. Sydney Dungey opened drycleaning business here in 1931 and Roy ran a restaurant in the hotel starting in 1946. In 1964, the Dungeys sold to John Chernes of Preston. Since then, ownership of the Commercial Hotel has changed, but the building has remained an important part of the town’s architectural heritage.
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