Waterloo, Ontario, is a much different place now than it was when Joseph Seagram arrived in the 1860s, looking to make his fortune.

Back then, it was a recently incorporated village with a population of fewer than 1,500 inhabitants. Today, it’s a dynamic and fast-growing city, a significant part of one of Canada’s major metropolitan areas and the heart of a major technology hub. It’s the home of two well-regarded Canadian universities, countless thriving businesses and nearly 150,000 people.

And yet some things remain the same.

Right from its earliest days, Waterloo has opened up possibilities for visionary entrepreneurs who create transformative innovations in Canada and share them with the rest of the world.

Seagram was such an entrepreneur, not to mention a savvy businessman. He ended up not only making his fortune but also making his name and his products famous around the globe. Whether they know it or not, every entrepreneur from Waterloo since Joe Seagram has followed in his footsteps.

That’s because although no members of the Seagram family live in Waterloo today, their legacy lives on there in many ways. The family name and the city were long synonymous, so much so that the city’s official colors are black and gold, taken from the colors of the Seagram Stables, which brought thoroughbred racing glory to Waterloo starting in the 1890s.

The University of Waterloo adopted the same colours, so their sports teams are vivid representatives of the Seagram legacy. The same is true of the Waterloo Siskins, a historic Jr. B hockey team that also wears black and gold uniforms and plays in an arena situated on a property that the Seagram family owned for decades.

Seagram Drive is a one-kilometer stretch of road that helps to connect the main campuses of the University of Waterloo and its friendly rival, Wilfrid Laurier University – and, not coincidentally, gold is part of Laurier’s color scheme, too. And the Seagram Lofts, a prominent condominium complex, are two former barrel warehouses that are among the few remaining structures of the once-massive Seagram distillery that dominated the area of town that is now called Uptown Waterloo.

Roustan Sports Ltd. also carries on the legacy, because it was Joseph Seagram’s son, Edward Frowde Seagram, who used family money to amalgamate four separate hockey stick manufacturers into one conglomerate that went on to thrive for 40 years under Seagram ownership and direction.

We believe that Ed Seagram, who had previously pioneered the sport of hockey in his hometown, would be proud to know that the business he established lives on in Roustan Sports' facility on Spalding Drive in Brantford, Ontario. As it did then, the business manufactures wooden sticks – and it is the last remaining factory in Canada that does so.

The Seagram story begins with the founder of the Canadian branch of the family dynasty.

Joseph Emm Seagram, the son of English immigrants and a native of Waterloo County, was born in April 1841 near Fisher’s Mills, a now-abandoned settlement a short distance away from what became the town of Hespeler. His parents were Octavius Augustus Seagram – so named because he was the eighth child of his father, Dr. Edward Frowde Seagram – and the former Amelia Stiles. Octavius and Amelia hailed from Bratton, a parish village in Wiltshire, and their romance had been frowned upon by his wealthy father, so they left Bratton and arrived in Upper Canada in 1837, settling on a 100-acre farm near Fisher’s Mills. They later added another small piece of land in the hamlet, which included a small hotel that they operated.

Their first son, Joseph, was born in 1838 and died in March 1841, three weeks before the birth of his brother, who was given the same name. Another son, Edward Frowde, named after Octavius’ father, was born in 1842. Their lives were thrown into turmoil when Octavius died in 1848, at only 32 years of age. Amanda remarried, but she too passed away young, dying in 1852 at age 38. The orphaned Joseph and Edward were cared for by their stepfather and financially supported from afar by their father’s relatives back in England. The administrators of their trust fund sent them to a boarding school in nearby Galt, where they lived for the next several years.

Upon reaching adulthood, Joseph attended business school in Buffalo, after which he returned to Canada and began working as a bookkeeper. He also gained some experience in mills while employed in Galt and in Stratford, another nearby town. He also came to know the prominent Hespeler family, including brothers Jacob and William, two successful entrepreneurs in the area whom we’ve already met in previous chapters. In 1864, William Hespeler asked Seagram to come and work for him at Granite Mills and the Waterloo Distillery in the village of Waterloo.

Hockey's Oldest Business – Since 1847: Chapter 4 – Hespeler Just as the story of Roustan Sports Ltd. cannot be told without exploring the history of one of its predecessor companies, Hespeler St. Marys Wood Specialties, the story of Hespeler St. Marys Wood Specialties likewise cannot be told without some important background information about Hespeler, where hockey sticks were proudly Canadian-made under various banners for a full century.

Waterloo was founded by Abraham Erb, the brother of John Erb, who had founded Preston, several miles to the southeast. The Erb brothers were millers originally from Pennsylvania, and after they built their mills, a trail was cut through the wilderness to connect their operations. As settlement increased in what became Waterloo County, communities sprang up around the Erbs’ businesses and along that trail, which eventually became King Street. (1)

Waterloo’s growth attracted competition for the Union Mills established by Abraham Erb, and that’s where William Hespeler entered the picture.

Two things of consequence happened in 1857: Waterloo was incorporated as a village, and Hespeler co-founded Granite Mills and the Waterloo Distillery with a partner, George Randall. They established themselves at the corner of Erb and Caroline streets, using the water of Beaver (now Laurel) Creek.

The grist mill was the company’s main business, but it’s likely that Hespeler had the idea to add a distillery as a sideline, having previously worked for his brother’s operation in Preston. Many millers of the era knew that after grinding enough grain to produce the flour they needed, they didn’t have to throw away whatever was left over. They found they could crush the surplus grain and add hot water to it to create mash, converting the starch in the grain to sugar. Adding yeast to the mash helped the sugar to ferment over a period of a few days, creating an alcoholic liquid that could be separated, or distilled, from the mixture. Further heating, a second round of distillation, and the addition of water resulted in whisky that, after being aged in an oak barrel, could be consumed – and could be sold to the public.

The business was also known simply as Hespeler and Randall, and they had all the raw material they needed to operate a distillery because farmers who brought grain to them to be milled paid the proprietors 10 percent of their crop. Granite Mills and the Waterloo Distillery grew quickly, and by 1861, the business was reportedly producing 12,000 barrels of flour annually, along with 3,000 barrels of whisky. (2) Conveniently, the company had a retail store nearby on King Street, and jugs of liquor from the distillery were sold there. William Roos, Randall’s brother-in-law, joined the partnership in 1863 and took on responsibility for the store. In addition to the partners, Granite Mills employed 15 men.

But Hespeler soon needed help managing his portion of the business because he was planning a temporary return to his native Wurttemberg (now part of Germany). Hespeler already knew Joe Seagram and apparently liked and trusted him enough to ask him to look after Hespeler’s interests in his absence. It’s not known what either man had in mind for the long term, but the short version of the story is that Seagram became a partner in the business by buying out Hespeler’s share, either soon before or soon after marrying Hespeler’s niece, Stephanie Erbs, in 1869.  (3) (Stephanie’s mother, Marie, was the sister of William and Jacob Hespeler.)

Granite Mills became George Randall and Company, and this arrangement carried on successfully for a few years until Seagram bought Randall out. The business name was changed again to Seagram and Roos in 1881, and two years later Seagram bought out his last remaining partner and became the sole owner, eventually renaming the company after himself. He may have been aided in his purchasing efforts after he and his brother each inherited the enormous sum of $50,000 from what an 1879 newspaper article called “a rich bachelor uncle in England.” (4)

Seagram recognized that the distillery should be the focus of the operation and that the spirits produced by the distillery didn’t have to be sold only in his own store, or even only in Waterloo. Whisky could be distributed over long distances, and improved rail transportation facilitated this. The Ontario market at that time was dominated by two large distilleries – Gooderham and Worts in Toronto, and Hiram Walker in Windsor – but there was room for smaller operations to grow, such as Henry Corby in Belleville and J.P. Wiser in Prescott. Seagram was determined that he, too, would be a player in that market.

Under his control, the mill eventually stopped producing flour, and everything was converted to focus on the production of spirits. His popular early brands were White Wheat, Old Times and Seagram’s 83, a rye whisky that Seagram created to commemorate the year he took over full control of the company. First sold in 1887, after having been aged for four years – a rarity in that era – Seagram’s 83 quickly became his top-selling brand, not only in Canada but also in the United States.

Joe Seagram, it was said, “possesses an establishment unsurpassed in the country and covering such a large acreage with buildings and small manufactories that it is a small town in itself.” By the early 1890s, he was producing, selling and exporting so much booze that four officers of the Department of Inland Revenue (a forerunner of the Canada Revenue Agency) worked full-time on site at the distillery, in an office Seagram had built for that purpose. (5) He had also brought his son, Edward Frowde Seagram – named after his uncle, or his great-grandfather, or both – into the business after Ed completed his education. The oldest of Joe’s four sons, Ed was groomed to eventually take over, and his responsibilities increased as Joe became involved in other interests that took up significant amounts of his time.

Long active in local affairs, Seagram served on Waterloo’s town council for several years. His loyalty to Waterloo was so strong that when he bought 14 acres of land along the town’s municipal boundary with Berlin (now Kitchener), intending to build a home, he refused to go ahead with his plans when he discovered the property was actually on the Berlin side of the boundary. But rather than sell the land, he donated it in 1894 with the stipulation that it be used for a hospital site to serve both towns; the Kitchener-Waterloo campus of Grand River Hospital continues to occupy that site today along King Street and will remain there until at least 2034 while a new, larger hospital is built on the grounds of the University of Waterloo. Seagram remained in his existing 30-room mansion, Bratton House, which he had built and named after his father’s birthplace, the family manor back in Wiltshire.

His loyalty to Waterloo was matched by his determination to fight for what he believed in. A good example occurred when the Preston and Berlin Railway (a forerunner of the Grand River Railway, operated by the Canadian Pacific) built an electric rail line through Waterloo, past Seagram’s distillery along Caroline Street. It then sought to extend the line across Erb Street near where the rival Grand Trunk Railway already had a line and a crossing. Seagram supported the project and, as the story goes, had a corner of his warehouse cleaved off to make room for the new line between his property and the GTR line.

The Grand Trunk responded by moving its line over just far enough to nullify the space that Seagram had created. Undaunted, he had another piece of his warehouse torn down to accommodate the new line – and this time, he was ready for the GTR to try the blocking tactic again. The town’s fire department showed up with two hoses and doused the GTR crew when they arrived, holding them at bay long enough for the Preston and Berlin Railway work to be finished. (6) (His action was certainly aided by the fact that Ed Seagram was by this time the mayor of Waterloo.)

In 1896, Joe Seagram ran for and won a seat in Canada’s Parliament, representing the riding of Waterloo North in the House of Commons for 12 consecutive years. Concurrently, he was heavily active in the breeding and racing of horses, building the most successful stable in the history of Canadian thoroughbred racing. Seagram’s horses, foaled at his 200-acre farm on Bridgeport Road in Waterloo, won the Queen’s/King’s Plate 10 times in 11 years between 1891 and 1901, the first eight wins happening consecutively. All told, his horses won the event 15 times, with his sons taking over the stable and adding five more wins after his death.

It’s unclear how Seagram settled on black and gold as his stable’s colors – old newspaper articles also refer to them as black and yellow – but his unprecedented success made the colors synonymous with Waterloo itself, which remains the case to this day. Seagram’s horses won every major stakes race in Canada and also captured numerous victories in the U.S. In his later years, he was seen more often at racetracks than he was at the distillery. Proud of having won the Queen’s and King’s Plate so many times, he enjoyed when people noted his resemblance to Britain’s King Edward VII.

But as much as he enjoyed success at the track, Seagram didn’t want to dominate thoroughbred racing; he knew that the sport had to be competitive and, more importantly, respectable if it was going to survive.

To that end, he helped establish the Ontario Jockey Club and the Canadian Racing Association, serving as president of both governing bodies for various lengths of time after retiring from the House of Commons. When he died at age 72 in August 1919 after a long illness, nationwide newspaper coverage of his death and funeral noted his success as a distiller and philanthropist but also highlighted his involvement with horse racing and breeding. He retained a strong legacy in the sport decades later.

“Joseph Seagram did more than anyone else to bring respectability and prestige to the sport in the 1890s and early 20th century,” sportswriter and historian Louis Cauz wrote 60 years after Seagram’s passing. “Seagram rarely kept fewer than 100 thoroughbreds in his stable, racing with success in New York and Illinois as well as in Canada. He was the first Canadian horseman to spend vast sums securing bloodstock from England and the U.S., and he offered his horses at modest prices to other Canadian breeders at public auction.” (7)

Horse racing was hardly the only sport Seagram and his family took an interest in.

They are known to have been active in badminton, baseball, cricket, curling, football, golf, lacrosse, lawn bowling, tennis, and hockey, which eldest son Ed is credited with having introduced to Waterloo and Berlin.

Joe indulged his sons’ sporting interests and served in an honorary capacity as president of the Waterloo Hockey Club. In doing so, he fostered a competitive environment that eventually saw multiple generations of Seagrams eagerly participate in athletic events against each other at family gatherings, awarding themselves small trophies for bragging rights. Many of these trophies are now at the City of Waterloo Museum, where they attest to the drive and determination that kept the Seagrams in business in that city for more than a century.

Karen VandenBrink is the manager of the City of Waterloo Museum and has worked with the Seagram family over the years to record and honour their contributions to the city. She agrees that although whisky made the family famous, there was much more to them than that. She cited Joe’s donation of the land for a hospital and noted that his family home, Bratton House, later became an orphanage. In retrospect, this might have served as a coincidental tribute to Joe, who of course had been orphaned at age 11.

“The legacy that the family did leave here in Waterloo, philanthropy was first and foremost here,” VandenBrink said in an interview. “It wasn’t just about being successful industrialists, but it was also to make a better community and leave behind a better community here in Waterloo Region – Waterloo the city, specifically.”

The family has moved on from Waterloo, but they are well-remembered, and Roustan Sports Ltd. is glad to be able to help celebrate their legacy. As far as hockey is concerned, someone else would eventually have brought the sport to Waterloo and Kitchener if Ed Seagram hadn’t done it, but the evidence indicates that he did do it. And that was just the beginning for a man who would later bring professional hockey to Waterloo and then make the manufacturing of hockey sticks a local family enterprise that lasted for more than 40 years and brought Canadian ingenuity to the world. The next chapter will detail how he did just that.

Jonathon Jackson is a hockey historian based in Guelph, Ontario.

Follow along as we post new chapters of Hockey's Oldest Business – Since 1847 on TheHockeyNews.com.

Read the previous chapter:  Chapter 5 – The Muellers and Canbar

Read the next chapter: Chapter 7 – The Seagrams, Part 2

(1) Ernie Ronnenberg, “Erb brothers founded two Waterloo county communities,” Kitchener-Waterloo Record, January 23, 1975; Elizabeth Bloomfield, Waterloo Township Through Two Centuries, 1995.

(2) Barry Ries, “Waterloo and whisky: They grew up together,” Kitchener-Waterloo Record, October 20, 1990.

(3) Stephanie Erbs, born in Alsace, France, was unrelated to the Erb brothers who founded Waterloo and Preston; their family was from Pennsylvania and, before that, Switzerland.

(4) “Lucky,” Brantford Daily Expositor, March 13, 1879.

(5) “Mr. J.E. Seagram’s Distillery,” Berlin Daily Record, June 15, 1895.

(6) “Fought ‘War’ To Complete Trolley Line,” Kitchener-Waterloo Record, June 22, 1954.

(7) Louis Cauz, “A racing tradition won’t die,” Toronto Star, December 4, 1979.