His grandfather, Alexander, erected in 1801, a mill at Jacques
Cartier, near Quebec, where was ground the first flour under
British rule that was ever exported to Europe. This old mill was
really the foundation of the immense business that was built up
by W. W. Ogilvie. In 1860 he entered into partnership with his
brothers, Alexander and John, grain merchants and proprietors
of a mill at Lachine Rapids. The growth of the business was
soon responsible for the building of the Glenora Flour Mills
on the Lachine canal. The business continued to grow, and the
Ogilvies erected mills at Goderich and Seaforth, Ontario and
Winnipeg, Manitoba; and later, the Royal Mills at Montreal. The
three brothers operated together until 1874, when the elder
brother retired, and on the death of his brother, John, in
1888 the entire business management devolved upon William W.
Ogilvie, whose well developed powers were entirely adequate to
the demands made upon him in the further control and management
of this extensive enterprise, of which he became the head. In
addition to the properties mentioned, Mr. W. W. Ogilvie afterward
purchased the City Mills, Montreal, and at the time of his death
had accepted plans for a very large mill at Fort William. Some
years previous to his demise to facilitate the administration of
his western business, the Ogilvie Milling Company of Winnipeg was
formed in which Mr. Ogilvie was the dominant factor. The Ogilvie
Flour Mills Company, of the present, was organized in 1903 and
is practically the successor of the Ogilvie Milling Company and
various other interests in this line, belonging to Mr. Ogilvie’s
estate.
[Illustration: WILLIAM W. OGILVIE]
Mr. Ogilvie and his brother John were the pioneer wheat buyers in
Manitoba. He had traveled through Canada’s present wheat fields
years before they were cultivated and many times afterwards. From
the first small shipment of five hundred bushels from Manitoba in
1876, the shipments, in Mr. Ogilvie’s lifetime, to his own mills
increased until they reached the enormous total of eight million
bushels of No. 1 hard wheat, all purchased by his own expert
buyers from the farmers, at his seventy elevators, extending all
over the wheat section of Ontario and the northwest.
In the manufacture of flour Mr. Ogilvie spent a lifetime and
spared neither time, labor or expense in bringing his product to
the very acme of perfection. By steady industry and indomitable
energy and most of all the superior quality of his products,
upheld at all cost, the business grew until it not only became
the largest of its kind in the Dominion, but the most extensive
flour business in the world controlled by one man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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