C. H. Cull Stores
51 Main Street South, Seaforth, Ontario
( Year built: 1872 )
The upper façade of this store is quite distinctive in its handsome and richly decorative design. White and red bricks were used to create patterned bands and segmental arches in the centre section and above the windows. Three sections or bays are marked off by pilasters with the centre section crowned by a decorative gable and topped by a finial. The arch of the gable is echoed in the segmentally headed windows. The storefront cornice with dentils and large end brackets is still intact.
As you can see in the photograph at right taken in 1900, the storefront has large plate glass windows either side of a double door. In 1881, A.G. McDougall & Co., the owners at the time, renovated the store and installed new windows. It was the first store in town to have this kind of window.
C.H. Cull owned the south part of this lot in 1863 and had a business there. He was a job printer and a telegraph agent. He published a newspaper in 1863, The Seaforth Express. But, as a former employee, G.H. Hale, recalled in a letter to the Huron Expositor in 1893: “Mr. Cull conducted the Express for one year, and then, failing to obtain what he regarded as sufficient guarantee of future support, he discontinued it. He continued to carry on a job printing business…” Hale remembered Mr. Cull as a “kind and indulgent employer.” Cull kept a shop at the front of the Express office where he sold stationery and had the telegraph business. A corner near the window was sublet to Thomas P. Bull, a watchmaker.
Above Left Photo: Part of McFaul’s Dry Goods store was in the C.H. Cull building from 1882 to 1910. His nephew, John McTavish, continued on in the business until 1935. The photograph was taken in 1900. Above Right: The gable and finial of the centre section is now missing, but the upper façade is still much as it once was.
Cull bought the north part of this lot in 1865, but did not build the brick store here until 1872. The white brick store on the south part of the lot was built in 1874 to match the Hickson Block to which it is joined.
Christopher Armitage had a book and stationery business here in the north store from 1872 to 1874. Strong & Fairley had a grocery store in part of the same building in 1873 and 1874. Then, William Allen ran a grocery here from 1875 to 1879. Rooms above were rented out in the late 1870s to Graham & Charters (later Curry & Graham), Grain Buyers, to a teacher, John W. Holland, and to Nathaniel Moore, a barber.
McFaul’s Dry Goods Company occupied the store for decades, starting in 1882, and continued as McTavish’s for many more years. Frank Kling, Electric Supplies & Plumbing, started business here in 1946 until 1990. Main Street Video had its home here for a few years until it was replaced by the present store, Pete’s Paper Clip.
This 2½-storey white brick store was a drug store for many years. Isaac V. Fear was the druggist here from 1886 to 1893. J.S. Roberts succeeded him in 1894 and was here until 1907.
Above Left Photo: The interior of J.S. Roberts drug store pictured in a Souvenir of Seaforth, 1900. Advertisements - Above Right: The Huron Expositor, February 9, 1877; Lower Left: Huron Expositor March 23, 1906; and Lower Right: a special advertising issue printed in 1936.
Advertisement Left: From The Huron Expositor November 5, 1886. John McTavish expanded part of his dry goods business into this store in 1915 and was here until some time in the late 1920s. By 1930, John Walker’s Furniture store had moved in and remained for a decade. C.E. Smith had a business here for almost 20 years from 1940 to 1959. Smyth’s Shoes moved in here in the 1960s and was followed by Eve-Mar, a ladies dress shop, in 1966. Bluewater Interiors is the most recent business to occupy this space.
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