Stobie

James Stobie, James Cyril Stobie, Violet Stobie

Three personalities and more......

Who was James Stobie ?

James Stobie - miner - dies in mining accident in 1935 - buried in Murton. James Stobie - another one dies in 1875 - buried in Murton

Murton ( aka East Morton ) is a village in Durham County, England. In 1830 there were only 50 residents in the village. A coal deposit was being explored in 1838 by a Colonel Thomas Braddyll's who owned South Hetton Coal Company. Braddyll ( sounds like Bradley and if Morton is Murton then likely Braddyll is Bradley ??? ). Braddyll was also the name behind South Hetton Railway. This line connected Dalton New Winning ( that is how they initially called the East Morton exploration pit ) to the port town of Seaham Harbor. Bradyll lost his shirt and was bankrupt by 1846.

That story is more complicated than what can be told in a few lines.

The coal mines seem to have been a success for other investors. However the operators were from the beginning challenged by the laboring miners who would go on strike on several different occasions to improve their lot. In 1889 the mine got electricity. In 1910 the miners went on strike over an eight hour workday - the pea heap strike . ( interesting note - in Ontario, Canada, in 1881 the Knights of Labor were actively fighting for the same issue with guys like Enoch P Morgan and others as leaders for the Tory-minded activist/reformists - in 1896 coal exploration was on in Balfour Township when another ? James Stobie was in the area - so was Fred Bradley and Treadwell Yukon ).  

James Stobie, the one in Chelmsford and Sudbury was a pioneering prospector. Others like him included Tom Frood, Judge McNaughton, Sam Ritchie, Ollier and many others. Initially James Stobie prospected near Ollier along the Whitson Creek/River that ran across the newly built CPR station at Chelmsford. That Whitson Creek drains a few miles downstream into the lower Vermillion river which flows passed the Gordon and Emma creeks. Stobie found minerals and those deposits were mined and shipped ( up the CP Rail I think !!! ) to a property James Stobie had bought on the North Channel of Georgian Bay near St Joseph Island. That place began as Stobie but was later renamed Portlock. Stobie stockpiled his ore there and waited for a ship to come by so it could be sent to Cleveland Ohio to be refined. Above the mouth of the Whitson Creek at Vermillion river there was a water fall. That water fall was named Stobie Falls. When a dam was built there that dam was called Stobie Dam.

If I am right, Stobie Dam was built to raise the waters of the Vermillion Lake. This was necessary to move wood down the river. I am guessing a bit here but I think another dam was later built downstream at the mouth of the Emma Creek and that damn served for hydro electric purposes.

James Stobie's name is also associated to the Frood Stobie mine because Stobie went on to prospect that area. Then Mond came along and the story goes on and on.....

Enough of James Stobie for now.

 

Who was Violet Stobie ?

Conspiracy can be a fun topic...and basically this section delves into the potential, and I repeat, potential, for a conspiracy theory that might involve Violet Stobie. If this story were to hold true then it wouldn't necessarily be a conspiracy as much as simple human nature that drove the events. Such a story would only be the result of an economic game where wealth and resources and labor are only factors of the endgame.


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Who was it who once said, " The term "land" in political economy means the natural or passive factor , on which and by or through which labor produces, and can alone produce.

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Violet Stobie is not often mentioned in history.  He was a "factor" or post master working in a California Railway town. He worked there from 1897 to 1903 and was the first postmaster of that town which took on his name; Stobie, California.  A "factor" is responsible for dispensing land for a lord or for the crown or government or for a company. That is only one of the factors duties. I don't know that Violet Stobie ever distributed land but I know that he was able to communicate with people thru the use of a telegraph, or even the telephone. In the 1890's the telegraph and the telephone industries were merging. AT&T ( American Telephone and Telegraph ) was at the forefront of this game. Bell was another player.

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"What had God Wrought?" were the first words in Morse code that went across the telegraph in 1844. That message was sent by the inventor Samuel Morse and travelled from Washington DC to the B&O Railroad Station in Maryland. You may have seen the B&O Railroad if you ever played the game Monopoly.

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 Was Violet Stobie in any way connected to James Stobie ?

I don't know but it seems possible that while types like Fred W Bradley is building a minor railroad from his Treadwell Yukon project near Stobie Falls to connect to the main line of CPR developed by types like James Hill and that Kennedy guy ( no connection I am sure to Elizabeth Kennedy who marries Charles Sanders who lives next door to the village of Bradley ), it seems possible that there is a bigger game similar to a game of Monopoly going on in the background.

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Who was James Cyril Stobie ?

The Stobie pole was invented by James Cyril Stobie while he was working for the Adelaide Electrical Company. James Cyril Stobie was born in 1895 when James Stobie and Violet Stobie were already adult professionals.

James Cyril's father was also named James Stobie and he was a humble grocer. James Cyril was a brilliant kid and won a scholarship to attend the South Australian School of Mines and Industries. The Stobie pole was invented in Australia where timber to build hydro poles is scarce. Stobie's concept for an hydro pole consisted of two I beams held together with tie bolts. Cement was then poured inside and there you had a Stobie pole. He later took an old Sterling Coal truck and converted it to a hoist or boom.

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Stobie poles are an Australian thing. Any telegraph and telephone signals that reached James Stobie in Chelmsford or Larchwood or that reached Violet Stobie in California were carried on lines attached to softwood timber poles. That timber came from the ample supply of douglas pine, cedar, or yellow pine, found in the north American forests. Who knows maybe the rail line that once ran through Bradley's Treadwill Yukon town in Balfour Township had a power line attached to it. Maybe they ran larch wood up and down the cow trail that ran from Creighton Gold mine thru the 1896 coal mine which was just a few miles from Larchwood Station on the CPR.