History of the press in Uxbridge; telling the story of Uxbridge one issue at a time

Some of the earliest stories from the Uxbridge Valley paint a drastically different town than the one we know and love today. The railroad finally coming to town, a typhoid fever outbreak and the town being incorporated are some of the core stories of the time. They paint a young pioneer town struggling with the growing pains of going from a small hamlet to a bustling town. The newspaper gives us a window into the past to see what life was like for people through their stories. The story of Uxbridge’s paper is dramatic as well as inspiring and without it the story of Uxbridge would be incomplete.

The first edition of the Uxbridge Journal rolled off the press in June of 1869 and while it wasn’t Uxbridge’s first paper, it was the first to be truly successful. Despite early ownership troubles, with three different owners in the span of two years, the newspaper soon found stable ownership under Francis Keller. Nevertheless, the Journal would not be the only newspaper in town for long. In 1874, William Pemberton, a foreman with the Uxbridge Journal, sneakily tried to purchase the mortgage for the Journal when Francis Keller was bed ridden with an illness. Unfortunately for Pemberton, he was blocked by town reeve George Wheeler.

Pemberton soon after founded his own rival paper the Uxbridge Guardian which constantly bashed businessmen, local politicians and was particularly harsh on George Wheeler. The Journal and Guardian would take different sides in every issue with the Journal supporting the Liberals and the Guardian supporting the Conservatives. The two papers would be bitter rivals for the better part of the next 60 years.

The Uxbridge Journal office on the corner of Brock and Church street. Courtesy of the Uxbridge Historical Centre. Permanent collection, P593.

Soon after its founding, Pemberton sold the Guardian due to financial issues but remained the editor of the paper. The Guardian had a string of bad luck in 1883 when its office burned down followed by its brand-new office burning down a few months later. The Guardian then decided to build its next office right beside the fire hall; presumably to prevent any more fires. The duopoly of papers ended in 1887 when the North Ontario Times burst onto the scene as Uxbridge’s third paper. Despite being a town of only 2000 people, Uxbridge had three newspapers in operation. This ended in 1890 when the Guardian purchased the Times, but interestingly decided to adopt the North Ontario Times name.

The North Ontario Times printshop. Courtesy of the Uxbridge Historical Centre. Permanent collection, P322.2.

The Journal was run first by Francis Keller and later by his son WH until the early 1920s when it was sold to Arthur De Carle. As for the Guardian/Times, Pemberton left in 1889 and the paper was sold soon after to Samuel Smith. Several different people owned the Times over the following years with the most infamous being military leader and politician, Sam Sharpe. The Times soon found a new long-time owner when Harold Cave purchased the paper in 1916. Cave ran the Times for 14 years before acquiring the Uxbridge Journal in 1930; merging the two to create the Uxbridge Times Journal. The competition between the Journal and Times had finally came to an end. Harold Cave would run the Times-Journal successfully until 1951 when he sold it to Per and Leila Hvidsten.

The Uxbridge Printing and Publishing Company was established in 1889 to print the North Ontario Times and was the first printing company in Uxbridge. Printing in those days would have been done using linotype which uses small, tiny letters placed together in a strip to make words and sentences. Then the letters were dabbed in ink and stamped to produce the paper. In the early days the letters were arranged by hand, which was time consuming, but eventually automated in the early 1920s. In fact, electricity wouldn’t be used for printing until 1923. Linotype would remain the way Uxbridge printed newspapers well into the 1960s when it was replaced by offset printing. In 1960 the Hvidstens wanted to focus exclusively on the paper, so they sold the printing aspect of the business to employees Harry Stemp and Bill Kyzers. The partners started buying several local papers and even ended up buying the entire Times-Journal publishing business in 1974. By 1982 they owned a total of 7 local papers.

Much of the printing presses in the printshop at the UHC were donated by Harry Stemp, Bill Kyzers and the Uxbridge Printing Company.

In 1989 Harry got an opportunity at the Ontario Community Newspaper Association so, him and Bill decided to sell the business to Laurentian Publishing. For the first time in Uxbridge’s history, the paper was not owned by a member of the community. Laurentian got into financial troubles soon after and was taken over by TD Bank. TD eventually sold it to Metroland publishing (a subsidiary of the Toronto Star) who continued to operate it until September 15th 2023 when they filed for bankruptcy protection and ceased production of all weekly community newspapers, moving to an online-only model. Several local newspapers would spring up over the years such as the Uxbridge Star and the currently operational, Uxbridge Cosmos.

Sources:

uxbridgefirst100.pdf (scugogheritage.com)

thepress.pdf (scugogheritage.com)

McGillivray, Allan. “Tales from the Uxbridge Valley.” The Uxbridge Millennium Committee, 2000. Pg. 90-94.