The year is 1901. You’re a resident of Bradford and you’re doing some handiwork around the home or farm. You need nails, paint, maybe a few other items. Where do you go? The Thompson Hardware store, located right at the town’s four corners.
Andrew Climie Thompson was born in Quebec (not Innisfil, as his obituary mistakenly writes) on Jan. 17, 1841, to John Thompson and Margaret Climie. While still a young child, the family headed east and put down roots in Innisfil, where Andrew was raised and grew into an intelligent, ambitious young man.
As a teen, Thompson apprenticed himself to George Mortimore, a Newmarket tinsmith. After mastering his craft, Thompson moved to Bradford and, in 1865, partnered with B.F. Kendall to open a hardware store. Thompson seems to have plied his trade from within the store between making sales.
Thriving in his business, it was now time to settle down. In 1873, he married a 28-year-old local girl, Mary Jane Williamson. Mary Jane was remarkable in her own right: Highly intelligent, she was a graduate of the Optical Institute of Canada in a day when there were few women doctors. Mary Jane hung up her shingle in Bradford and practised almost until her death.
Thompson, meanwhile, had a falling-out with Kendall and left the hardware store to start a tinsmithing business in a much smaller shop. He remained there for three decades. During this time, in 1886, he and Mary Jane welcomed their only child, Climie.
Thompson served the community as a school trustee and longtime councillor.
1901 was an eventful year for Thompson. James Driffill elected to sell his long-standing hardware store on the southwest corner of Holland Street and Simcoe Road. Thompson jumped at the opportunity and returned to retail, selling not just hardware items but also “silverware, stoves, furnaces, paint, and school supplies.” Mary Jane moved her business into the store as well.
The excitement of this professional development was tempered by the loss of Climie, aged only 15, after a long illness. Reportedly, his last feverish words were, “You’ll not be long after me, father.” Chilling stuff and, as it turned out, prophetic.
Only four years later, father joined son
“On Monday evening, June 19th, as the shade of night fell upon our town, a darker shadow fell upon the well-known home of one of Bradford’s oldest residents, as Mr. Andrew Thompson passed from this life to be no longer here,” recorded the Bradford Witness on June 22, 1905.
The cause of death was a heart attack. He was buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery.
