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The Alligator is Hatched!
A Better Way!
Around 1878, Mr. James Peachey and Mr. John C.
West formed partnership and began the West and Peachey Company of Simcoe.
A very productive foundry, it provided the local farmers with good quality
farm implements and the logging industry with saw mill equipment. One of
their most noted products was a range of various sized boilers, some used
in canning factories, and others for steam engines used by yachters.
As the plant grew, it moved to a site where the
modern Federal Building/Post Office stands overlooking today’s Lynn
River parks system.
In 1887, Mr. Joseph Jackson, a one-time MP for Norfolk County approached
Mr. West with a problem. His logging company in the north country was finding
the job of getting timber to the mills in the South more and more difficult
as the the timber crews had to go so far north.
By 1889,West and Peachey came up with a prototype for a newly invented
“Better Way” to solve the problem.
The Town of Simcoe was a blur of excitement. Businesses were closed, schools
were let out for the afternoon, reporters and tourists were everywhere.
A hush went over the crowd as they took in the sight of this ungainly,
awkward-looking scow-shaped boat that Mr. West and Mr. Peachey claimed could
move along land as well as water!
The huge chimney began to belch out smoke, the whistle screamed and wailed,
and the cable was secured to a “dead head” anchoring point several
hundred yards away on the opposite side of the Lynn River.
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