Creators of the Classic City: John Whyte

The founder of the Whyte Packing Co., John Whyte Sr. was born in 1822 in Ardlui, a tiny hamlet at the north end of Scotland’s famous Loch Lomond.

He grew to be a strapping big fellow of six foot five. Family lore has it that in his late teens he left Ardlui and walked to Glasgow, where he apprenticed to become a stone cutter and mason.

He immigrated to Canada in 1849. He came first and then Margaret, his wife, followed with their two children and her mother in 1850. They settled on a farm in Hibbert Township where they lived in a single-storey log house. In the next 14 years, the family grew by six more children.

Farming was difficult in those years, but John was able to supplement the family’s income by taking commissions for stone cutting and masonry work. He was particularly in demand for stonework on bridges throughout the county and beyond. On one commission, he worked in Stratford on the construction of the Huron Street bridge.

Taking advantage of favourable agricultural prices in the global market, John Sr. succeeded well enough to diversify into the barrelled pork business. In 1859, this business was a one-man operation. He ran it in a log building from his farm near Cromarty, in Hibbert Township. He salted the pork, packed it in brine in wooden barrels and transported it to remote logging camps by horse and wagon or horse and sleigh. In 1870, the Whytes moved their family business to Mitchell. There he built a larger operation where there were rail connections and easier access to growing markets.

John Jr. managed the business while his father travelled by train and boat to logging camps and sawmills in the Gravenhurst-Muskoka area, which he supplied with his pork products.

In the late 1890s, the Whyte Packing Co. was one of the largest such companies in Canada. After John Jr. went to England and established a network for their products there, he convinced his father to move their operations to Stratford, which had better and more diversified rail links. In Stratford, they hired some of the best architects and engineers from Chicago, the hog processing capital of the United States, to design and build the largest and most modern processing plant in Canada. It was located on a six-and-a-half-acre site on Linden Street, just west of Erie Street; the plant opened on July 1, 1900. The Whytes also built a plant in Brockville and established retail stores in Toronto, Montreal, Mitchell, St. Marys and two in Stratford – one at 42 Downie St., the other at 174 Queen St., to serve the expanding east end of the city.

Facing bankruptcy, the company was sold in 1966. When the plant was demolished in the 1970s, the property was purchased by the City of Stratford. The last vestige of the Whyte Packing Co. in Stratford is the building that once housed its butcher shop, at 174 Queen St.

Linden Street was changed to Whyte Avenue in honour of the historic company and its namesakes.

This article is taken from Creators of the Classic City: www.streetsofstratford.ca.

“Creators of the Classic City” is an ongoing Times series written by Paul Wilker, co-author of the e-book of the same name by him and Gord Conroy. Interested readers can find the free book online at https://online.fliphtml5.com/ypken/pqiv/.